Disclosure: This is a paid review. That being said I am not contractually obligated to provide a positive review of the company - I will review the company objectively and fairly.

Long story short Apogee Search is a internet marketing agency. At first glance I assumed it was simply a search marketing agency (as the name would indicate), but they also offer services such as pay per call management and affiliate program management. So rather than classify them merely as an SEO or SEM company I would call them a full-service internet marketing agency.

They advertise on their homepage the fact that they are an Adwords Qualified Company - most of the people I know who are “Adwords Qualified” aren’t impressive so that doesn’t mean much to me. I am slightly more impressed, however, by their membership in SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization). Not because I really think SEMPO is anything special or anything but I know it’s not cheap to join - an indication that Apogee isn’t just some fly-by-night company run out of a guy’s basement.

When I consult with friends who are choosing a marketing agency I always recommend they avoid anybody in Las Vegas - it is just too hard to determine whether you are dealing with Traffic Power (under a different name) - these guys are from Austin, Texas so they definitely pass the smell test on location.

Also reading their site Apogee doesn’t sound at all like a bunch of brand new SEO’s trying to make money bilking people out of adspend - they highlight on their homepage:

• Specific number of completed lead forms
• Precise conversion rates
• Actual cost per lead, cost per sale
• Comparison of sales against search marketing investments
• Total revenues generated per day, week, month, quarter and year

That is exactly what an internet marketing agency should be focused on. Too many agencies out there are going after “brand marketers” because they typically spend money without any accountability for results. If you are interested in direct marketing (ie, you want to see ROI within days instead of years on adspend), you should check out Apogee and at least get a quote. I don’t know how expensive they are, but if the price is comparable with other agencies out there they are definitely worth a second look.

If there is one thing I hate more than anything else about blogging it is dealing with comment spam. I have taken a few tips and tried out Spam Karma 2, but until consulting for a small website recently I did not realize how bad blog spam can be for the company doing it.

Here is the scenario - we got a new client who had an SEO previously who did a bunch of comment spam. Interestingly enough it seemed to help them a bit in msn and yahoo, but their listings are nowhere to be found in google. So I talked to Matt Cutts at a recent tradeshow and he verified that they did have an algorithmic penalty due to some “questionable backlinks.”

I did more investigation to figure out how to overcome this penalty (I’ve never dealt with this issue before because I never spam) and I basically found out I had 2 options:

1) Go ask all of the bloggers who have been spammed to remove the spammy links (not realistic)

2) Build a bunch more clean links and essentially overpower the spam links (still a lot more work but much more realistic)

It has been quite a good learning experience for me - I’m not sure whether it makes sense to keeping working on this client’s account or not but I did learn just how detrimental push-button SEO can be.

Disclosure: This is a paid review.

Are you trying to get your marketing message out into the blogosphere? One of the problems that many marketers face is that they don’t look “organic” enough - you definitely don’t want your marketing message to seem contrived or manufactured if you’re trying to appeal to bloggers or their readers.

SuperExpansion helps you overcome that with MySpace Bulletins, a way to take Social Media Optimization (SMO) to a whole new level. Basically they have created tons of “account holders” with thousands (or millions) of friends.

The concept of using an artificial network to appear “real” to users or search engines will definitely not appeal to everybody - I would definitely have my reservations about using such a service. But the proof is in the pudding - if their service is effective and produces a positive ROI than the service is relatively cheap (plans start at $19).

They also have a service that will comment on craigslist and other communities to get your ad message out. These services start at $.50/message.

When you boil it down Super Expansion is a guerilla marketing firm offering to take some of the hassle and leg-work out of a full-blown internet marketing campaign. I would test the service with a site that you wouldn’t mind losing in case the algorithms pick up that you’re trying to game the system, but if you see positive results you could try it on higher-profile sites. Always move with caution on these types of things - they can be risky but, as always, high risk equals a high potential return.

Apparently Broadway set a record year in 2006 even though it’s not even over…crazy.