Does the world need a search engine marketing magazine? Pandia has the answer.

Being Apple Macintosh users the Pandia editors have a weakness for Macintosh magazines, especially UK publications like MacFormat and MacUser.

Someone asked us why we buy them, as we can get all the information for free on the Internet. Moreover, the Internet sites and blogs are updated, they argued, while the magazine news sections are one to two months old.

Who needs paper anyway?

There are four main reasons for us still buying magazines like this:

1. Magazines may present recent developments in a coherent manner. If you want to track down the same information online, you have to search a large number of sites and blogs.

2. Website articles have to be short and to the point. It is hard to read on a screen, which leaves less room for in-depth feature articles.

3. Magazines are physical. You can read them on the bus, on the beach or on the sofa without any difficulty.

4. Magazines give more room for the visual aspect: a well designed spread, good illustrations, more space.

So, when the summer edition of the Search Marketing Standard arrived in the mail, we took it along to the park.

Too thin?

The first impression was that it is a bit thin. Surely, it would have been possible to produce more than 36 pages, given that large sections of the magazine are allotted to ads?

It is unfair to compare this publications to magazines like MacUser and MacWorld, however. Those magazines can count on a much larger number of ads and a significantly larger circulation.

The Search Marketing Standard is closer to publications issued by industry branch organisations, non governmental organisations and various professional associations, and in that respect this is a substantial publication.

All about search engines

In the Search Engine Marketing Standard’s own words, the magazine is “devoted completely to the world of search marketing. It covers pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, web analytics, click fraud, local and contextual search, and other search-related topics.”

Indeed it does. Moreover, it tries to bridge the gap between the search engine marketing professional and the marketing generalist, including both general basic introductions to various topics, as well as more in depth, specialized analysis.

Bored or bewildered

There is always the danger that the specialist will get bored by the general introductions (”no news here”), while the “amateur” will get lost in the in depth feature articles (”Cloaking? Robots.txt? Huh???”), but this is something magazines like the Standard has to live with. The trick is to present enough material to keep bot groups happy.

To the “beginners” the summer issue presents articles on measuring SEO success with web analytics, and the feature article “15 of the biggest myths of search marketing exposed!”, while the experts will enjoy the review of the Dynamic Bid Maximizer, and the interview with search engine marketing consultant Perry Marshall.

However, we believe the magazine would benefit from adding a special feature article for the experts as well, because this is where the Standard can make a big difference. This is exactly the kind of text that is less suitable for web sites.

We know that the SEO scene would read well written and loooong articles on topics like “Big Daddy”, black hat seo, cloaking, Google’s anti-spam techniques, the use of blogs and so on with great interest.

Other ideas that could be tested are:

• Help column based on questions answered at the magazine website or blog.
• A tech column that goes beyond SEO, but is of relevance to such webmasters (how to treat graphisc to reduce download times, your favorite browser, useful online tools etc.)
• SEO conference reports
• Popular presentation of search engine patents and what they may entail
• A SEO expert’s personal take on the search engine marketing community (this one is a bit over in the celebrity corner, but these things sell, you know! )

Promotion

The Search Marketing Standard has already forged an alliance with such an influential player as the WebmasterWorld Pub Conference, and has been covered by several search engine blogs.

The periodical seems to be well known in the American SEO community. This magazine should be equally useful for non-Americans, however, given the dominance of US search engine technology world wide. Still, some coverage of the European and Asian scenes would be much welcome.

The Standard will publish four issues per year, and a subscription costs 10 USD. It is well worth the price!

See also The Search Marketing Standard Blog and Kim Krause Berg on the The Glossy New Search Marketing Standard