Good morning search marketers, happy start to the week.
These days, it's common for people to move around between in-house positions, agency roles and everywhere in between. Listening to Mel Carson talk about his transition from working at Microsoft (on the team that helped launch Microsoft AdCenter, as it was first named) to being laid off by Microsoft to then being hired as a consultant by Microsoft is an excellent reminder that relationships matter, and how we handle transitions can be pivotal for our businesses and careers.
Mel, who now runs PR firm Delightful Communications and remains intimately involved in the search industry, spoke with Barry Schwartz about that transition (and much more). Barry asked how it felt to be hired by Microsoft shortly after being laid off. "It was great," said Mel. "I mean, I knew that that would be an option. That's why I didn't burn any bridges when I left." Microsoft remains a client seven years later. Watch the full interview with Mel Carson here.
Client transitions are going to be a topic of discussion at SMX East in November, as part of our track dedicated to agency operations. Mel provides a great example of why the way we handle transitions — incoming and outgoing — can have long term consequences. Check out the full SMX East agenda.
If you're working in local search, a new free tool might be of interest. Local SEO platform BrightLocal launched a Google local algorithm tracking tool called Local RankFlux last week. The tool offers tracking for 26 verticals with roughly 560 keywords tracked per industry in 20 cities, plotting the ranking position of each business within the top 20 search results. The tool is free and could be a useful way for you "to reality check against broader industry benchmarks, to confirm whether there was indeed a local algorithm update," reports Greg Sterling.
Read on for a Soapbox on Google and subdomain leasing and more.
Ginny Marvin,
Editor-in-Chief
