You can download a copy of my presentation here:
Knowing What to Test

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

PubCon Conversion Presentation

As I’m reading through Always Be Testing by Bryan Eisenberg a second time, the cornerstone and key to success of any conversion test is jumping off the page: hypothesizing. Bryan calls this out in his amazing book, and in his book he goes into great detail about hypothesizing (in case you can’t tell, I’m encouraging you to buy his book and read it…like now). I think this critical element is too often overlooked, and thus our first key ingredient to our cocktail.

Looking at your conversion rate, you know there is always something to test (unless, of course, your conversion rate is 100%). Figuring out exactly what to test is where people immediately get lost. This is where hypothesizing mixed in with patience and educated guessing comes into play.

Open up the page you want to test. Analyze what your critical conversion points are. Now its time to get into the mind of the user: what could you do to better call out your conversion point? Would changing the location of your “Contact Us” form improve conversions? How about adding or changing the color of the submit button? These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself.

From your list of questions, form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations. Continuing with the example above, your hypothesis might be: If I move my contact form above the fold, more people will fill it out. The reason this ingredient is so critical to the conversion cocktail is that if you don’t have a theory behind a test, you won’t be able to learn from it.

Sure you can get a rough idea of how to improve your conversion rate by blindly testing anything. But if you can provide theory behind the reason for your test, you’ll be able to get a better grasp on the way your client/customer thinks. Once you’ve tested your hypothesis, it will lead to more questions and more questions after that.

When it comes to conversion you can’t just surf the web to see what other people are doing to improve their conversion rates. Some theories spill over, but for the most part their customer/client-base is completely different from yours. An engineer will think completely different than a Doctor or a Teacher.

Still struggling to form your hypothesis? The best way to get into the mind of your users is to ask them! Setup user tests with current clients/customers or even potential clients and customers. Learn from their struggles, comments and their thought process to develop your hypothesis. Refer to my previous post about the keys to successful user testing for more details on setting these tests up.

The hypothesis you create will become the cornerstone of your conversion test.

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

The Conversion Cocktail: Hypothesizing

I’ve been itching to get back into the blogging world, and I’ve decided it was time to revamp my blog, and ultimately change my blog name. It was time for me to shake Gonzo SEO and go with something even more…awesome.

My tagline suggests why I chose the name Awesome SEO (because anything less would not be awesome!). I plan on blogging regularly again (for me that means about two posts per week), and I’ll be focusing on SEO, conversion, analytics, and of course, client management. 

I hope you all are as excited as I am about Awesome SEO, and I hope you’ll subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date with what is going on here. If you’re interested in guest posting, fill out my contact form, I’d love to have you. Within the next 24 hours my first “real post” will go live on Awesome SEO. Until then, you can catch me on Twitter.

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

Goodbye Gonzo, Hello Awesome SEO!

Pubcon is my favorite conference to go to each and every year. There is such a large turn out and there is always something to do (it is Vegas after all!) Many people, including myself, have been keeping an eye and ear open for the best events to attend. Fear not, my faithful readers, there are great resources at your finger tips to figure out where you want to be each and every night.

Kate Morris posted her Pubcon itinerary for the week.

Joseph Morin is keeping us all up to date via his Twitter feed. Make sure you subscribe!

Pubconr is an aggregate of all the Pubcon talk on Twitter. You can also use Twitter Search.

Purpose Inc. is holding some awesome networking events. Including the Poker Tournament (I finished 10th last year), HighRoller meetup, and a FightClub.

Dan Perry is also putting together an in-house marketers meetup. It sounds like a blast!

SEOmoz will be holding their 2nd annual werewolf…thing. It was a lot of fun last year.

Search Bash will be taking place Thursday night, as well. I’m looking forward to attending it for the first time.

I’ll be arriving in Vegas early Monday evening, so if you’d like to get together for drinks at TI, let me know. I’d love to get together with as many people as possible, so leave me a comment or shoot me an email < pratt dot taylor at gmail dot com> if you want to meetup.

Also, I’ll try and keep this post updated, so if you see any events I’ve missed please let me know in the comments. See you there!

UPDATE: dk pointed me in the direction to the Pubcon schedule he put together. It is an excellent resource and you should all bookmark it! Thanks dk!

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

Going to Pubcon?

According to the Google Adwords rep I spoke to on the phone yesterday, “Beer, wine and champagne may now be promoted from ad text and may be the focus of your site. We consider beer, wine and champagne to be products intended for the sale and consumption of adults. Therefore, ads promoting beer, wine and champagne will be given a ‘Non-Family Safe’ status. For information on how the family status of an ad may affect how it is served, please see Google Adwords Support.”

What about hard liquor? Nope. Still can’t bid on those terms. According to Google, “Hard alcohol and liqueurs are considered Restricted Products and therefore cannot be promoted in ad text or be the purpose of your site (occupying a significant portion of your site).”

Happy bidding!

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

Google Opens Up Bidding on Beer and Champagne

Kate Morris asked me if I registered (since I’m new to Texas and all), and my response is, “hell yeah!” Let’s make a difference this year. Don’t let your voice go unheard, speak up for what you believe in. I’m not going to tell you who you should vote for, I just want you to care enough to vote. Can’t you see that now is the time to act?

Now let me ask you guys:

Karl Ribas
Shana Albert
Brian Chappell
Pamela Lund
Anne Haynes

Are you registered? Are you going to vote?

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

Vote Dammit!

Instead of trying to lead the SEO industry back to the great community it once was, I’ve decided to quit bogging myself down with the drama and pretty much stay out of the conversation period. I should be using my “talents” to do something that makes me money.

I’m sure I’ll post things in the future based on what I’ve learned from the new sites I start up, but I’m not going to feel the obligation and give in to the time commitment it takes to run a great blog. I highly recommend that my subscribers look at the Gonzo SEO’s that I endorse on my blogroll. They offer great tips and advice.

I’m a very active twitter user if you miss me!

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

Why I Don’t Blog Anymore

About two weeks ago I wrote a heartfelt plea to the Internet marketing world to knock off the recent drama and nonsense that has been plaguing this industry. I had been meaning to write that post for some time, but I was worried that if I posted it here on my blog it might fall on deaf ears. I eagerly awaited Andy Beal’s scholarship contest where I knew it would gain exposure. Unfortunately, I feel as though it faired the same result.

The Internet marketing world has become nothing more than a tabloid. Post after post we are seeing personal attacks and outcries. I find myself double checking what blogs I am reading because they are sounding more and more like Star Magazine cover stories. Why is it that we only focus on Search Marketing ethics now? And why can’t we stay focused on those debates without getting personal? I’m all for constructive criticism, but I’m begging you all to please start writing about Internet marketing tactics and strategies again. Please!

I couldn’t agree more with what Lisa Barone said on Twitter today with regards to Mystery Guest’s SEOmoz post:

“I don’t mean this offensively and I love MG, but, yes, there’s sexism on the Web. So what? Pointing it out does nothing. Be the change.”

I couldn’t have said it any better. I’ve read one too many posts complaining about X, Y and Z. Nothing is going to change unless you make it change. Yes you can argue that it helps to start the conversation, but don’t we have enough of those going already? We’re all in this industry together. We are like one giant team. Sure, we are competitors in a sense, but this industry was founded on coopetition.

Put on your white hat or black hat and get back to marketing! If you don’t like the way something is, be the leader and take the steps to fight back. It’s going to be hard, and it would be a lot easier to just write about it – but nothing is going to change unless you make it change.

Save the hypocrite comments. You won’t hear another peep about this from me, I’m making the change.

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

What The SEO World Needs is a Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action

About two months ago I signed up for SEOmoz’s pro membership. I decided it would be very valuable to sign up for the membership for a couple of reasons:

• I was looking for a way to bounce new ideas that I had and see how I could improve on them. I find that having someone to play devil’s advocate is very valuable to getting the most out of a new SEO strategy.

• I was looking for new ideas. I’ve been in the industry for a couple of years now, and every day I’m eager to come up with a new strategy that will help my clients get more conversions. I’m only one man though, so I knew that I would be able to get the motors running by getting advice from a very knowledgeable SEOmoz staff.

What I love about the SEOmoz membership

I think my favorite thing is the Q&A. You get to ask any question to the SEOmoz staff and they’ll give you advice and tricks that you almost certainly haven’t thought of to help solve your problem. You can either ask it privately or publicly (meaning that other Pro members can see their responses). In questions that I’ve asked, I’ve received multiple responses from different Mozzers, and the advice couldn’t have been better. They answer your question with confidence, and usually give you more than one method to solve your problem.

I’m also a very big fan of their SEO Tips section. A couple of times a month the SEOmoz staff will reveal one of their secrets to promoting sites. I must admit, I had my doubts at first, but they definitely impressed me. Rand once said at a conference that you can learn about 90% of everything there is to know about SEO online, but there is also that 10% which everyone holds on to. Your SEOmoz pro membership will give you access to that 10% of information that bloggers hold onto. The information is invaluable and I found myself starting to think outside the box and come up with a few secrets of my own because of it.

The SEO toolbox. For the last year or so, I’ve tried to compile all the tools I use in an easy to access manner. It was always a struggle for me to do that, and I yearned for a one-stop toolbox that could speed up my process. The SEOmoz Toolbox is exactly what I’d been looking for. The tools are very reliable (in terms of functionality and the results they return), and there is a number of tools that you can’t find free elsewhere. I’ve noticed a large boost in critical information that I need in order to get my websites the high-results I need.

I could go on and on about the great information you get at your fingertips (thorough guides on various aspects of your SEO strategy, access to strong link building resources, great SEO analytics, etc.). The SEOmoz pro membership is like the Willy Wonka factory of SEO – offering all the advice you have been dreaming of in one central location. I would strongly recommend that you get your golden ticket and catch up on what you’ve been missing.

What features I’d like to see in the future

Although the SEOmoz staff is already churning out numerous blog posts, I think it would be really neat to have a membership-only side of the blog. I wouldn’t expect anywhere near the amount of posts they already put out, but I think that 3-4 premium content posts a month would be very valuable.

I’d also love to have access to more guides like their free SEO cheat sheets. I know there is a lot more they could add to them to give them a premium feel, and it would be great to have additional “did we do this?” checklists for my accounts and even for training purposes.

Final thoughts

Overall, I think this is a great service. I was skeptical when they first offered the membership, but they have really exceeded my expectations. Bravo Mozzers.

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

SEO Tools Review: SEOmoz Pro Membership

Ask a Question on LinkedIn or Yahoo! Answers

This is one of the best ways to get in touch with potential customers and to get a first hand view of what they are searching for. Ask them an open ended question that will encourage them to leave you a detailed response. Word your question carefully so that you don’t put words in their mouth, and within 24 hours you’ll have a large number of responses. Pull out any keyword possibilities and use your conventional keyword research tools to decide whether or not they are worth going after.

Interview Your Client’s Secretary, Receptionist, or Anyone that Answers the Phone

These people are dealing with the customer every single day, and can provide great insight as to what language the customer is speaking. I usually come up with a 5-10 questionnaire that is filled with open-ended questions to get them to give me a long, detailed answer. Ask them what the typical customer asks for when they call in, and what words they are using to describe their product/service. You’ll be amazed at the insight they have. This is one of my most reliable resources.

Ask Their Customers

More than likely your client has a list of preferred clients that they wouldn’t mind you speaking with. Have your client send out a personalized email requesting their help. Let them know that you’ll only need about 15 minutes of their time, and you can even send them a thank you gift at the end (it will be worth it!). You should also create another 5-10 questionnaire that gets their client talking. For example, ask them how they would describe your product/service to a coworker or friend. There are a number of great questions you can come up with to try and get them to spit out a handful of keywords.

You should never assume you know what the customer wants. More than likely, they are on a completely different wave length than you are. The best way to figure out what language the customer is using is to ask them directly. What unconventional tools are you using for keyword research?

This is a post from Taylor Pratt's blog: Awesome SEO

3 Unconventional Keyword Research Tools to Improve Conversions