A BarCamp is a participatory “un-conference” event, organized by attendees, for attendees. Barcamp attendees, or campers, are asked to not just attend, but to participate. Everyone is an expert, share that experience with others. Together we have great knowledge.

I will be speaking on one pre-defined session and possibly more as time and demand allows.

Bringing Pay-Per-Click In-House
In my Barcamp Memphis session, I will be discussing the benefits of DIY PPC.
Why should you bring it “in-house”, when there are great agencies that can do it for you? When is the time to use an agency, and when do you do it yourself?

Please let me know if you are attending, and if you have any specific questions. I would love to have some good feedback going into the session.

SEO / Landing Page Site Clinic
I am also willing to participate in a Site Clinic, if others are interested. This interactive session will take volunteers from the audience and examine their web sites live. We will provide general feedback on improving the sites to gain more traffic from search engines, improve conversion, and enhance user experience. This session works the best when audience members participate. Everyone has an opinion. Now is a chance to tell others what you think about their site.

See you in Memphis!

Has the flu hit your household yet?

Check out Google’s Flu Trends to see where the flu is in your area. Google uses search activity to determine trends in specific geographic location.

According to Google:

“We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries are added together. We compared our query counts with traditional flu surveillance systems and found that many search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world.” Source: http://www.google.org/flutrends/about/how.html

Explore Google.org’s Flu Trends and let me know your thoughts.

Microsoft’s announcement is found on their search blog:

“…today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now). “

Google’s announcement was published several hours later on The Official Google Blog:

“ … we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. “

Currently, there are more questions then answers:

• What if you don’t want real time results? For example, biographical or historical data. Can you exclude Twitter?
• How will Tweets be ranked? Do more followers mean more weight?
• How and when will spammers abuse these new avenues?
• Will there be an adult or censored option?
• Does this mean Facebook Status messages are not far behind?

As I learn more I will keep you posted

Start with a low CPC – Cost will quickly rise with content ads. It’s important to dip your foot into the pool slowly and test the waters, before jumping in. After testing and tweaking, then increase the cost-per-click on well performing AdGroups.

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This one is crucial. Google now provides performance data on which sites content ads are on. That data allows you to see content sites that perform well and most importantly which ones are performing poorly. For example, for me content ads on MySpace bring in a lot of traffic, thus a lot of cost. However, the conversion is terrible if any at all. Therefore, I exclude my ads from MySpace. Obviously, that will vary per industry. This is why it s extremely important to run AdWords’ Placement Reports.

Although the content ads may perform well, the CPC and budgets will be different the search network. It is important to be able to adjust one without affecting performance of the other. Separating content from search is a necessity in measuring performance. Content Network campaigns should always be separated from standard search campaigns.

Don’t get swooned by big brands. Google publicizes their content network by noting that ads will show on big sites such as About.com, NYTimes.com, FoodNetwork.com, and many other big branded sites. Although, these sites are impressive in their own industry, the ultimate result may be high cost and low conversion.

Often the better performing sites are the unknown, but very specific sites. Give the smaller guys a try. ]]> http://www.JohnWEllis.com/2009/09/tips-for-a-successful-google-content-network-campaign/feed/ http://www.JohnWEllis.com/2009/08/august-09-nashville-geeks/ http://www.JohnWEllis.com/2009/08/august-09-nashville-geeks/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:56:28 +0000 John W Ellis http://www.JohnWEllis.com/?p=552 Web Analytics Wednesday
     Wednesday, August 26, RSVP

Social Media Club Nashville: Transforming Health Care Through Social Media
     Wednesday, August 26, , 6-8pm RSVP

Nashville Geek Breakfast
     Thursday, August 27, 7:30 and 8:30, RSVP

Centre{Source} August Interactive Mixer
     Thursday, August 27 , 5-8pm, RSVP

Hendersonville Geek Breakfast
     Friday, August 28, 7:30, RSVP

Within larger corporations search marketing, or any type of online marketing, is sometimes not given the credibility that it needs. A specific skill set is needed to deal with corporate politics and the often uneducated.

1. Education
Teaching is an important part of in-house search marketing. Often, many departments and executives want to help, but the execution can be misguided. There is a ton of bad information on SEO throughout the blogosphere. It becomes extremely important to be pro-active in the corporate education. Having an executive approach you about something he’s read goes a lot better when you have already educated the company about this topic.

By educating co-workers on the right and wrong way to help with SEO, you gain an unofficial staff. Giving each a small nugget to run with, such as link building, will take some of the load off your efforts. Plus, as small as it may seem to you, they will have a sense of contribution to the overall goal.

2. Presentation
Along with using the skills to educate, as discussed above, presentation skills are need to produce findings to the company. Like with all companies, executives like to know that your services are worth your salary. Often a constant reminder of how great you are is needed. By presenting often, it allows you to show improvement in search rankings or the ROI on paid search.

That’s internal presentations. It is also becomes a strong advantage to present outside the company. By delivering messages to marketing conferences, it tags you as an expert in your field and industry. When the industry recognizes you as an expert, you become more valuable to the company. Being a rock star goes a long way.

3. Analytics
Let’s face it, above all, your number 1 goal today is: Don’t get fired.

Everything else is centered on that goal. Not getting fired means you have to be worth more to the company then they are paying you.

How does that happen? The numbers speak for themselves. Frankly, without a good analytics application you are risking a job. The company wants to know the bottom line, how much money are you making for the company. You should have those numbers often and use your presentation skills (mentioned above) to show them. If you can not prove your worth through numbers, then you better be exceptional with the education and presentation skills mentioned above.

4. Knowledge
All of the above means nothing without a strong knowledge of search marketing. You can only bull-shit your way through corporate politics for so long. Ultimately, you have to know what you are doing. That requires constant reading and implementation.

It also requires pushing the boundaries, by seeing how far you can take things. Balancing on that gray line requires nerves, but the pay-off is tremendous. Learning what works and what doesn’t work, especially before the competition does, is great asset to have for job security. Sitting back and waiting will keep you behind everyone else.

Educating yourself through constant reading and writing is a great way to stay involved in the latest advances in search engine marketing.

(It’s important to note, whenever I write about in-house search marketing. I often get questions about my current status. I am very lucky now; I work for a great company that really “gets” search marketing. I am constantly pushed and challenged with new ideas, but that’s what’s needed. I never want to be too comfortable in a job. Admit it, we are all replaceable. That’s why it becomes important to make yourself a rock star through the tips above)

Site map

Tim Ash is the President and CEO of SiteTuners.com . He is also the author of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions . Ash always has great sessions and this was no exception.

In this session, Landing Page Testing and Tuning , Tim Ash discussed the problems with many landing pages. I have included Tim’s list below

7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design :

1. Unclear Call To Action – Many pages are just confusing. The user is not sure what to do.
2. Too Many Choices – Too many choices leads to decision paralysis.
3. Asking for Too Much Info – Ask for the minimal and let them move forward.
4. Too Much Text – Tim gave CanyonTours.net as an example of way too much info
5. Not Keeping Your Promises – Promising one thing in an ad, but sending the user to an unfulfilled promise only creates a frustrated customer.
6. Visual Distractions – want to be distracted check out NewYorkBarbells.com
7. Lack of Trust – Users like to know they are dealing with a reputable company. Placing trusted partnerships and recognition on a site is imperative. However, the placement of these is also important. For example, smartbargains.com has a list at the bottom of the site that includes BizRate, Verisign, and Better Business Bureau. All great things to have, but unfortunately the user will never see it.

Of course as these examples were mentioned we all laughed, but the truth is we are all sinners. It’s easy to point a finger at the extreme cases, but as we look at our sites we know we do these things too.

In this session, Tim Ash helped us all look into our sinful souls.

This session discusses the various tools available for search engine optimization management. The session was moderated by PJ Fusco, Natural Search Director for NetConcepts.

Site map

Bruce Clay started off the session with a general overview of tools and analytics. Clay mentioned there is a “big difference between data and wisdom”, meaning that the greatest tools in the world are not going to help, if you don’t have someone available to make sense of all the data that’s collected. Training and people are still the best tools for search engine optimization analysis.

Horst Joepen, of SearchMetrics, spoke next. Joepen discussed the continuing growth of universal search. He mentioned that it’s important to make sure your ranking tools are measuring all aspects of rankings, not just traditional listings, such as videos and business listings.

Aaron Wall gave a good overview of the tools he offers at SEO Book. Much more details about those various tools can be found out http://www.seobook.com/

Michael Gray, owner of Atlas Web Service, gave many great resources for search marketers. Below is a list worth checking out:

• Quarkbase.com
• ChangeDetection.com
• CrazyEgg.com
• BackType.com
• TwitterHawk.com
• Google Alerts

The session also included Rajesh Srivastava of Bing and David Roth of Yahoo. Although it’s always great to have representatives from the search engines present, historically, it doesn’t result in note-worthy content. This sessions was no exception to that rule.

This year is no different. There is another tough time slot with some great scheduled sessions. That spot is Day 3, 12:45pm. Below are the sessions:

News Search SEO
This topic, as part of the Organic Track, discusses something that I have become very familiar with over the past several years: the power of press releases in organic results. However, many of the press releases don’t have the same impact on search results that they did two years ago. I am hoping this session will bring me back in and help me with some of the latest tips that I may have missed.

The New Search ROI: Measuring More than Conversion
This session covers advanced pay-per-click topics. As the session description reads, it “will focus on best practices and practical techniques that marketers can use to get started with multi-conversion measurement”. Although, I have to say the speakers worry me. Usually, I am not a fan of sessions that have representatives from the major search engines. Those often consist of too much fluff and not enough substance, but we will see.

Brand, Trademark & Reputation Management
As a paid search marketer, this one really intrigues me. With Google allowing more trademarked terms in ads now, I am curious what the effect will be. I have noticed it as a problem let, but it’s only inevitable. Plus, as more and more blogs and tweets contain name brands, what are the legal steps to take, if any. This session features Michael Fertik, of ReputationDefender, Inc, who always has interesting posts on ReputationDefenderBlog.com

Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps
As an iPhone addict and a marketer I am always interested in the latest tools that are available. More importantly, what’s ahead in the mobile app world? Is it going to be essential for every business to create their app? If so, then how do you get noticed?

Extreme Makeover: Live Twitter & Blogging Clinic
As a live clinic, I am very curious about this session. I have been to many SEO site clinics, but none that take it from the social media angle. This could go either really good or really bad, but either way I want to witness it. This site features Jennifer Slegg, with JenSense.com, and Liana Evans of Serengeti Communications. Both of which I read often in the blogosphere, at www.jensense.com and www.endlessplain.com.

As you can see, it’s quite an interesting set of sessions at the 12:45 time period on Day 3. Look for me in the hallway, out of breath, lost, and ultimately missing all of them.

On Day 2, Wednesday, I will be attending “Four Paths to Success in a Tough Travel Economy”. As the session description says:

“Travel marketers discuss the challenges of smart search marketing in tough economic times, when leisure travelers are hard to come by and businesses slash budgets. Experts in four key areas of travel search marketing - Organic, Paid, Social and Local/Mobile - share successful strategies and creative campaign ideas to attract and increase traffic, proving that it is possible to generate positive ROI with limited resources.”

The site is moderated by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Adventures in Search. With everyone cutting costs over the past 12 months, specifically in the travel industry, I am looking to learn about great marketing opportunities on a tight budget.

Social Media as a “free” tool is very appealing. Of course, we know it’s never free, but it does have limited expenses other than time. Carrie Hill, of Blizzard Internet Marketing, will specifically discuss using social media with minimal spending.

The session also features:
Benu Aggarwal, Milestone Internet Marketing, Michelle Stern, iProspect, and Roger Wong, Product Manager for Bing Travel

If you can’t find me in San Jose, you will definitely find me in this session. See you there.