WebProNews - SES

Can SEO Help Save the Publishing Industry?

Chris Crum — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:25:43 +0000

At the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, WebProNews attended the session on how SEO can help save the publishing industry, a quite interesting topic, considering the controversy the industry has been experiencing of late. Do you think SEO can help publishers save their businesses? Share your thoughts here.

The session looked at challenges, tactics, and opportunities unique to online publishers. It covered solutions for technical obstacles, duplicate content and CMS issues, writing keyword rich headlines, training the editorial staff and updating the publishing culture from print to online. Essentially, the session was designed to educate participants on how to save jobs by leveraging SEO, driving traffic, and putting ad dollars back in publishers' pockets, as described by SES.

Liesel Kipp, VP Global Head of Product Management at Thomas Reuters shared four tips:

1. Show the value of SEO
2. Data is the key to your success
3. Set goals and show how you will beat them.
4. Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize.

Kipp says Reuters was able to increase its visitors by 500% in 5 years, and that you have to constantly talk about search and SEO. According to Kipp, relationship building is critical, and you should talk about your successes and failures.

BusinessWeek Search Marketing Manager Ulli Muenker offered some more tips on the subject:

1. Spread the SEO Excitement in Editorial.

- Get the high level buy in
- Find SEO champions in the editorial team
- Create peer relationships to overcome skepticism

How:

- Show projected traffic increase
- Show competitor's search traffic results
- Demonstrate the before and after effect of page increase

2. Conduct Regular Training

What:

- Run regular individual and small group training sessions
- Train the trainer for new hires
- Engage external SEO editorial consultant

How:

- Limit group training to 10-12
- Create a relaxed environment with cookies, lunch and learning
- Give them what they need to learn

3. Make Editorial Part of the Success

- Create SEO friendly article headlines. Online headlines are different than print headlines. Write straightforward headlines. No puns, sarcasm or jokes online. It just doesn't work! Just bring in keywords so that people understand the message.

- Write sub-headlines under the headline. Write keyword rich sub headlines. Include keywords, synonyms and derivatives.

- Use keyword-rich link text. Use keywords when linking to other internal pages. Check connecting landing page's keywords.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution SEO Manager Allison Fabella offered these tips:

- Location, location, location. In your section's front load your title tags with Location such as "Cobb count News / ajc.com. The same goes for meta descriptions, url's, and headlines and sub-headlines. Also, use H1 and H2 tags.

- It is so critical that your CMS is setup to be able to implement these tips. This is key to your success. There are a lot of CMS's out there... make sure your SEO team approves. Once you purchase your CMS, make sure you stay involved. This may make you unpopular. Also, make sure your sitemaps are part of your requirements.

- Sitemaps are your newspaper's best friend. Site maps help get along structural road blocks built into bad site architecture. Use both web sitemaps and news sitemaps (Google News). Group your sitemap into different sections. In each sitemap include no more than 50,000 stories. Also, follow sitemap protocols. They make a less than perfect sitemap more perfect!

Tribune SEO Director Brent Payne talked about Twitter for media companies. He said there are 4 account types that publishers should set up. They are:

- RSS feed -- Do not follow people back from this account, follow your own accounts.

- Get your celebrities involved. Make it a job requirement to have a Twitter profile. Most of our broadcast personalities are required to make 4-5 social connections per day.

- Let employees Tweet. "I am an example of that. I have the second highest Twitter account of employees at the Tribune." Talk to them about legal issues and ground rules but encourage them to do that. Understand that mistakes happen from time to time. But do not officially endorse these twitter accounts as official voices of the company.

- Building a persona. Tribune created the colonelTribune, which is actually tweets from 4 or 5 of us. Create a character that your audience can connect with personally. Spend time to create a decent avatar. This is our best twitter account with 300,000 followers!

Payne says you then need to promote your Twitter profiles. One way to do this, that the Chicago Tribune did, is to recreate your masthead with the Twitter names of writers instead of the actual reporters. He also says to use the Twitter directories, and to use big ones like Twellow and Wefollow.

Engaging the locals, he says (Twellow's feature TwellowHood is a great way to find the btw - my words, not his ). He suggests having a Tweetup and inviting top journalists or TV personalities and top referrers and bloggers. He also recommends taking a lot of pictures for "longer promotional shelf-life". "Don't buy the alcohol," he warns though. Trouble could arise.

Finally, Marshall Simmonds of the New York Times and Define Search Strategies says to define "the almighty tag." He says they ask their editors to "enhance" titles for SEO. They want to see links off the domain in order to become a resource and an authority. He also said journalists didn't have linking in their head, and that it's ok to link out.

A couple more interesting items Simmonds shared include:

- "We pushed back our registration wall to 8 clicks and crawlers to 5 clicks. Google quit crawling the New York Times in 2005. Yahoo crawled our registration page 5 million times. They literally kept crawling it."

- "If you are not keeping in constant communication with your IT Department they are going to screw it up. It is a constant issue. There is also the problem with template roll-backs. We put a lot of check lists in front with the IT Department. This goes for marketing as well. The Ad Department is eventually going to try to sell an advertisement that is going to hurt search traffic as well."

That about does it for that session. Some very interesting tips on SEO education for publishers. Stay tuned to WebProNews for further coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference.

Is lack of strong SEO tactics a big contributor to online publishing woes? We'd love to know what you think.

7 Steps for Creating a Web Analytics Culture

Chris Crum — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:08:53 +0000

You may recall Feras Alhlou, who chatted with WebProNews earlier this year after contributing a guest post to Google's Analytics Blog about using advanced segments in Google Analytics. Alhlou is the president of E-Nor, and he presented at an analytics session at SES this week.

Alhlou says there is a quote from Albert Einstein that C-level executives, marketing managers and analysts should keep in mind when it comes to establishing and nurturing a web analytics culture in their organizations. That quote is:

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and, not everything that counts can be counted."

With that in mind, Alhlou provides the following seven practical tips:

1. One size fits none

You need to understand and identify what is important to the organization. Time, money, and resources are limited, so you must use them wisely.

2.Know your audience

Don’t try to impress your boss with a radar map or a 5-dimentional motion chart. The following is an example of what not to start off with, unless your management is very "visually inclined."

3. Help your audience understand

Try to help your audience understand the basics. Start off with some common web metrics, and then move into task completion/conversion concepts.

4. Plan to integrate cost data

This refers to click spend, banner ad costs, etc. Have a model for ROI (return-on-investment) calculations.

5. Don't forget non-web Leads

Your site visitors are not all the same. Some of would buy online or submit a form online, while some just like to call and speak with someone. Bring phone data into the mix.

6. A CRM system

For lead generation sites, a CRM system is must. Classify your leads into categories (high quality leads, junk leads, etc.) and bring this insight back into your campaign conversion and ROI calculations. It's one thing to get 10 leads @ $1000 from campaign A, it is a totally different picture when 7 of these leads are junk!

7. Tie it all together

Tie it all together into business metrics that C-levels and business owners/managers can relate to. At the end of the day, it is not about visits, pageviews, conversions! It is about revenue and net profits!

I would like to thank Feras Alhlou for sharing these tips with WebProNews readers. There's no question that analytics can make a great impact on marketing, and if you work in a company that isn't doing all it should be in this department, these are some good tips to help change that.

Rank in Image Searches and Get Valuable, Untapped Traffic

Chris Crum — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:06:28 +0000

One aspect of search that doesn't get discussed often enough is image search. It's such a huge part of search and the daily habits of web surfers all over the world, it's amazing how little attention is actually paid to it when it comes to marketing and optimization. Have tips for optimizing for image search? Share them here.

Some Image Search Stats to Chew On

Google Director of Product Management R.J. Pittman dropped some facts at SES. 300 million digital photos are taken every day. 100 billion images are taken per year. There were half a trillion images in circulation by 2009. That's the past up to the present. Do you think it's going to slow down? Pittman says there were 800 million camera phones sold last year, and there may be more images online than web pages.

On Google there are hundreds of millions of image searches every day. Eric Enge, President of Stone Temple Consulting says that image search makes up about 5.7% of all Google searches. "We estimate that up to 15% of all search is image related," he says.

Why Image Search is So Important

If the above information wasn't enough to convince you of the importance of image search, consider this. When images appear in blended search results (such as Google's universal search), the images affect what is clicked on the results page. Enge says an eye tracking study proved this, but it makes perfect sense if you think about it. The image is obviously going to catch your eye, regardless if it's the top result or the 5th.

Todd Schwartz, Group Product Manager for Bing says that engagement is quite high when it comes to image search. Consumers looking for images also end up visiting a lot of web pages. In many cases, images can simply speed up the decision process on the consumer's part. You can see why this would be effective in eCommerce. "When users are expecting images in a search session it actually increases the speed of a searchers task," says Schwartz. "Images simply speed decision making." He would know. Bing <i>is</i> the "decision engine."

Tips for ranking in Image Search

In a post about ranking in "five other Google engines," I cited some tips from Search Engine Journal's Dev Basu, who recommended the following for image SEO:

- Add images to your Google Local Business profile
- Enable Google Image Labeler in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
- Add images to local business citation sources.
- Add images to blog posts or news articles for syndication in Google news.

Here is some additional info from Google:

Schwartz says for Bing, you should name the images properly and upload product categories for eCommerce images.

Enge suggested some even more basic tried and true SEO tactics that should still be applied. Include alt attributes in <img source> tags. Name files appropriately, and consider the nearby text, overall page context, links, title tags, etc. This stuff is all good, but you should know that the way search engines are handling images is evolving.

How the Search Engines Handle Images

Pittman says it's no longer just about looking at tags and stuff, at least at Google. "We now use computer vision and search to find similar images, object recognition, and facial recognition," he says. "We look at everything such as exposure data to help determine the quality of an image. If your image quality is low your photos will not rank as high. If you make only a thumbnail of an image it won't rank as well as a larger image of the same subject." (Emphasis added.)

Back in June, Google released a fascinating research paper that looked at building a web-scale landmark-recognition engine. The goal is to get computers to recognize landmarks (for example, the Eiffel Tower, the Lincoln Memorial, or the example Google shares - the Acropolis). This is no easy task when the engine has to rely on images of the landmarks, which are incredibly varied by angle, lighting, photo quality, etc.

This was just a research paper, and not a Google product, but one can only imagine where this research will lead with regards to how Google handles image searches.

The image filters that search engines use are worth paying attention to. If you're trying to sell products especially, it could help to consider where you want your images to rank. Google lets users search images by size, type (face, photo, clip art, line drawing), and color (full color, black and white, specific color).

Bing lets users browse results by size, layout, color, style, and people. That is in addition to the query-specific options you get.

As far as regular web searches, Bing and Google both present a number of options for users to refine their searches. Bing of course has the explore window, which for many queries, provides multiple categories. Google has its search options. Images are included in that.

Just like with any content, there is always concern that stolen material will rank higher than the original source. Pitman was asked about this at SES with regards to images. He said that image search ranking is largely dependant on how often that image is clicked on for the search query being done. He says Google is trying to combat "hotlink spam."

Social Media and Images

Social media accounts for a huge amount of the pictures on the web. Not only do you have sites like Flickr and Picasa, but there are so many people uploading so many photos to Facebook and MySpace, not to mention apps like TwitPic for Twitter.

Believe it or not, real-time search plays a vital role in image search, just as in regular search. People want up-to-the-minute information, and that often comes in the form of images. Some real-time search engines are expanding how they handle media like images and video.

Perhaps the more significant part of this equation is the reputation management factor. Real-time search helps in this regard, when you're trying to protect your reputation, but good old-fashioned Google searches are vital too.

"Think about the pictures that your employees are putting up on social sites," says Liana Evans, Director of Social Media at Serengeti Communications. "Images can hurt your business reputation."

Social media has a direct relationship with search rankings too. Read up on that here .

Conclusion

There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to images on the web. A couple other things that we didn't really touch on are SafeSearch filters and Creative Commons licensing. These are things you should explore further if you think they will affect you. There is plenty of info out there about both.

One other thing I'd like to mention is that Google's Insights for Search analytical tool now includes image search data. This could be a very useful tool for anyone looking to improve their performance in image search.

As a searcher, how often do you use image search? How often do you click through? Tell us.

Social is Only Going to Become More Important to Search

Chris Crum — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:44:49 +0000

Are you ready for the future of search marketing? It's going to creep up on you if you are not. In fact, it's already creeping. How long have you spent worrying about keywords? Is that all you worry about? Hopefully not, because there's a lot more to successful online marketing than that, even search marketing.

This is the basic plot of a keynote speech delivered by Charlene Li, co-author of the book Groundswell, and Founder of Altimeter Group, at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose.

The big picture is largely about social media and interaction. This is nothing new right? You've had social media marketing talk rammed down your throat for a while now, but that's separate from search engine marketing right? Well, yes and no. Social media may play a bigger role in search engine rankings that you realize, and that could even become truer in the future, and probably will.

Here's the thing. Searchers want relevant results. It's all about relevancy. That's all the search engines strive for, and that's what users want. As Li says, "There is a new type of relevance called engagement." People must be at the center of your search strategy. Not keywords.

There's a reason that real-time search is such a hot topic. Some think it's just a buzzword, but it's more than that. It's an ever-growing element into what people want to know.

Now we're not talking about real-time search taking over traditional search. Right now is not always more relevant than something from three years ago. In many cases, it is more relevant though. User intent might be considered the holy grail.

There's a reason Google is working toward updating its algorithm to incorporate a faster indexing speed. People want freshness. That's why Twitter has become such a hot source of buzz that seemingly all radio and television programs cling to these days. It's up to the minute info about what people are saying.

Facebook is doing it now too, and Li mentioned the importance of this in her keynote as well. One very important thing to keep in mind is that outside search engines aren't indexing the information that can be found in Facebook updates. Facebook is huge now, by the way - way bigger than Twitter. We're talking up there in Googleland in terms of users.

Social is an important element of search. We still have to look at it as a thing of the future though, because we are still so early in the evolution of the social web. The major search engines are still trying to make sense of it all. Li noted that the real time web presents many challenges to search engines, because how do you place value on things like retweets, @replies, short URLs, etc? There are a lot of new elements to consider.

Now think about search engine advertising. Li asked, "What if search engines augmented my search ads based on knowing who I am?" Think about data like influence, and number of friends. The number of influential friends could influence search results and search engine ad targeting.

The web has largely become a very social environment, and will continue to become even more so. This is why marketers should focus on people rather than keywords. If you want an example of how this plays directly into Google results already, Li mentioned how the YouTube video called " United Breaks Guitars " ranks number 4 in Google when you search for "united". United doesn't own that keyword anymore, because people have lifted this video up.

The synopsis of Li's book reads, "Right now, your customers are writing about you products on blogs and recutting you commercials on YouTube. They're defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you on social networking sites like Facebook. These are the elements of a social phenomenon."

Well, it's the truth. You've got to engage out there. There are watchers, sharers, commenters, content producers, and curators. Focus on the sharers and the watchers. Focus on people and relationships, and listen to customers.

Li says you should also get you back end data in order. By this, she means having a single place where people can sign in to your site, and integrate off-site behavior and data. Figure out the value of specific visitors. Integrating social into your site is a good way to do this.

"Prepare to tap into 'chain of intent,'" she says. "Google now combines chains of searches to determine intent." (Emphasis added.)

Know that customers can take their social networks anywhere with them at this point. Thanks to all kinds of tools from the networks themselves, as well as browser plug-ins, etc. people always have their social functions a click away. You're going to have to accept this and realize that you have less control over your brand than ever. That's why you need to deepen relationships and get engaged. It's even important than ever for search.

A Closer Look at That Bing Toolbox

Chris Crum — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:02:52 +0000

Back in June, Microsoft launched the Bing Toolbox. This is pretty much what you might consider a one-stop shop for Bing webmaster, developer, and advertiser resources. Microsoft described the Toolbox as an organized set of tools for the entire Bing community, and a one-stop portal to all of the services you need to drive traffic and increase engagement with your site and applications.

At the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, there was a Bing Toolbox workshop that went through various tools offered in the Toolbox.

The "toolbox" section of the Toolbox features:

- Add a Site
- Submit Your Sitemap
- Get an AppID
- New Silverlight Tools

The Add a Site feature lets you submit your domain URL directly to Bing. The sitemap feature lets you submit a sitemap file via Bing's Webmaster tools. The Get an AppID lets you get started with the Bing API, and the new Silverlight tools section takes you to where you can download the Silverlight software developer kit and manipulate search results with the click of a button.

Also in the Toolbox area are snippets from the Webmaster Blog and the Developer blog.

The "Developers" section of the Toolbox features:

- A whitepaper
- Access to the Bing Software developer Kit
- Bing Product Guidelines
- Libraries and apps for getting started with the API, the Bing Maps developer center, and Bing Translator
- Related resources for Silverlight SDK for Bing, PowerToys, and the Code for Green Contest
- Bing API Terms of Use

The "Webmasters" section of the Toolbox features:

- Bing product guidelines
- Site submission
- Sitemap submission
- Bing API Web Page Error Toolkit
- Malware detection
- SEO toolkit
- Related resources like the Bing whitepaper, Channel Bing video, and Webmaster help guidelines

The "Ads & Campaign Tools" section of the Toolbox features:

- Access to register for the Ads Pilot Program
- Access to adCenter
- Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tools
- Search advertising tools
- adCEnter adExcellence program
- Resource for all ad tools

Beyond these four main sections there are also navigational tabs for support and community, which can be used to connect with Bing and other Bing users. Community provides access to blogs, forums, media, and events, while support gives you access to FAQs, webmaster help, developer help, and Bing API documentation.

"Today search has become an integral part of our life. Search has become a platform," said Bing Principal Group Program Manager Rajesh Srivastava. "Bing Toolbox is a tool that helps you connect with search. What is Bing's strategy? What are our goals for Bing? We have to deliver the best, most comprehensive experience for users. Bing is about delivering great results. We are also looking at organizing the results to enhance the search experience. If you are doing a search you have a decision making process in mind. Bing is all about making the user get to their decisions quicker!"

This was a sponsored session, in case you couldn't gather that from such a quote, but Bing is still new to the search block, and webmasters still have questions. This is all the more reason to pay attention to what Microsoft's doing, and the features they're offering in this Toolbox.

On a related note, Bing says they have a "treasure trove" of data and are working to get that info to developers via the Bing API 2.0. They say they're adding more and more pieces of data to the API that users can extract.

Fanning the Flames of the Viral Marketing Fire

Chris Crum — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:54:11 +0000

Social news is the largest source for igniting campaigns, according to Greg Finn, Director of Internet Marketing at 10e20. This was discussed in a session called Igniting Viral Campaigns: Leveraging Consumer-Generated Content at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose.

Social news can come from any social network really. It's all about who's using it, when they're using it, and what they're talking about. You never know when somebody's update will really become news and go viral. That is what is so attractive about social media to marketers.

Finn says social news should be as non-corporate as possible, and you should make sure you are part of the community before trying to participate. He also says Digg is not just for video games and gadgets, StumbleUpon is a possibility for all viral content if you use proper categories, and with Reddit you should use subreddits for the best percentage.

With Twitter, you should make it easy to tweet your content, allow for easy retweets, and promote during peak hours. You should also leverage non-corporate Facebook pages according to Finn.

It's more than just Twitter and Facebook though. It's about "fanning the viral fire." It's about execution. Provide alternate ways to share. It's a no-brainer.

Matthew Liu, YouTube Product Manager also spoke at this session. He says viral videos "just happen" sometimes. Some videos take off in the wild with no marketing involved. The original uploader probably did not think the video would go viral.

He says it's a good idea to use subtle branding and stealth marketing efforts in guerilla marketing. Seed to news sites and blogs. Use YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to fan the flames. With explicit marketing, you should communicate directly with the YouTube community and use video responses, subscriptions, and comments to engage in dialogue.

Liu also discussed "putting gasoline on the fire" with viral videos through paid marketing. He says to use YouTube promoted videos to seed discovery, home page ads for massive reach, and other ad platforms to drive traffic to YouTube watch pages. Organic traffic often exceeds paid traffic after the initial burst though, he says.

As far as YouTube SEO basics, Liu says titles should be accurate and descriptive. Use keyword tags and avoid keyword stuffing. Community opinion, embeds, and YouTube Insight should all be utilized.

Successful Social Media Implementation Comes with Motivations

Chris Crum — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:58:05 +0000

It's interesting to look at how the web has evolved and continues to do so. Social media (at least in its current incarnation) is still relatively young, yet we have seen a lot of evolution just within this aspect of the web itself. This is highlighted today especially, as we see competition in the real-time search arena really stat to heat up.

Some members of the WebProNews team are out in San Jose at the Search Engine Strategies Conference. This event kicked off with a keynote from Clay Shirky, a writer and educator discussed how communication media has changed over the years, and why and how social media is effective.

Basically what it boils down to according to Shirky, is that "Successful tools today are about channeling existing motivations."

Clay says that in some cases, paying people to do things kills desire. Things that motivate people in social media are feeling autonomous, feeling competent, and feeling connected. Paying people might kill these motivations, he says.

Clay talked about how we're living in the middle of "the largest expansion of expression capability in history." This couldn't be any truer. People are sharing more and more about themselves at an incredible rate, which is why real-time search is such an important part of the equation today.

Things evolve.

Clay talked about how we didn't always have the "many to many" medium. "Back in the 90's there were all kinds of stories that email was for the young not the Grandparents.. Then it was found that old people did use email. Now young people think email is just for the old! Once email became normal that's when significant social changes happened."

He says we're living in a period of "mass amateurization," and professionals think amateurs are just trying to be mini versions of them.

"The sociology of the users' motivation is the thing that makes social media tools work, not the tools themselves."

To drive home his point about how successful tools are all about channeling existing motivations, Clay points to the first email messages the founders of Linux and Wikipedia sent to their friends. They went something like:

"Linux" I'm doing a (free operation system (just a hobby) I'd like to know what features most people world want."

"Wikipeida" "Humor me . Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes."

Twitter's first message went something like:

"I want to have a dispatch service that connects on our phones using text."

These tools channeled existing motivations. That's what it takes to achieve success through social media. Don't use Twitter or Facebook just to use Twitter or Facebook. Use them to serve the purposes your business requires. That's where the successful implementation will come in.

The web has evolved, and it has given us cutting edge tools to get the job done. But a tool is still just a tool. Without the users, the tools are meaningless, and the user must have specific motivations to use the tools effectively.

You Can Probably Fit Online Video Into Your Budget

Chris Crum — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:00:05 +0000

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're no doubt aware that online video has grown significantly in popularity over the last year or two. Many business owners are still skeptical about its benefits and ROI, while others are rushing into it just to keep up.

Rushing through something that will have an impact on how you business is seen is probably not the wisest idea, but in terms of ROI, there is a general misconception that video production has to be costly. This is not the case. This is something SEO-PR's Greg Jarboe and Mike McDonald of WebProNews recently discussed at Search Engine Strategies New York:

More WebProNews Videos

Doug Mack on Adobe's Scene7 Blog highlights

some suggestions Sucharita Mulpuru from Forrester Research recently made in an Adobe Webinar for getting started quickly with videos:

- Easy, short talking points

    – Brief, impactful video (i.e. 1-2 minutes maximum) is all you need

- Use your own employees or vendors

- Leverage inexpensive technology

    – iMac, digital camcorders

    – Need not be executed in a professional studio

- Costs are primarily editing labor and server capacity for most basic executions

Video is not just something people are seeking out. It's something people are sharing with each other, which is a key thing to remember. Yahoo is even embedding video in its SERPs, and Gmail is offering a feature that allows users to view YouTube videos in their email messages. And of course they can be embedded all over the web and shared across social networks.

Like Jarboe says, videos don't always have to be viral to serve a purpose, but with so many ways for them to be shared, the opportunities for something to break viral are seemingly endless.

There are more tools than ever before available for marketing with video. Take YouTube Insight, which an analytics tool that gives you all kinds of analytical data regarding your videos. They just recently added more features to show you how people are engaging with your videos, and there is plenty of useful data to be gleaned from the tool. I suggest reading my interview with YouTube Product Manager Tracy Chan who discusses not only the tool, but many other ways businesses can use YouTube to their advantage.

If you're looking to break into online video, don't rush it. Do some research and use the tools that are available to you. You may find that you can spend a lot less than you think and find new ways to market your business that you didn't realize you had in you.

Tips for Getting Serious About Mobile Marketing

Chris Crum — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:07:54 +0000

The Mobile Marketing Strategies session at Search Engine Strategies New York focused on mobile SEO, while also touching on driving traffic and conversions with mobile applications, text messaging and mobile email. The session’s goal was to help people understand how mobile marketing fits into the traditional and online marketing mix and determine what mobile marketing strategy is most appropriate for their business.

Stay tuned to WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog for continued coverage of the Search Engine Strategies New York event.

Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile talked about making your existing website work for mobile. Why is mobile important? According to Krum:

- Mass mobile convergence - Cell phones can do a lot more than just make calls: Games, search, web, etc.

- Most personal marketing mediu - You always have it with you

- More interactive marketing opportunities - more potential for varied responses

How is mobile different? Krum notes:

- Mobile bots - Mobile algorithms are different

- simplified rendering

- smaller screen

- more sophisticated users - changes the demographic

- more specific searches = mobile users aren't browsing, they are generally searching with a specific intent

Why Now?

Real mobile web browsing - Krum says the iphone has set the bar and now carriers know that it's not ok to have a crappy mobile browsing experience. 75% of mobile search is done on iphones. "In the next 2 years we're going to have a mass entrance of people on mobile search" due to more companies having more browser friendly phones.

Flat rate data pricing - As Krum notes, it's cheaper. There isn't the fear of data overages. Download speeds are going up. Processor speeds are increasing.

"We are on a tipping point for mobile search," says Krum. The mobile web is not a fad. It's here to stay, she says. There's a need and an opportunity to master the medium before your competitors.

Road Map

There are hurdles in mobile marketing. There are too many browsers that render things differently. "In terms of browsers, the mobile web is like the regular web 10 years ago," says Krum. "Some sites look fine in some browsers, and not so good in others." This is improving and standardizing, but right now it still has to be taken into account.

Handsets - Different handsets have different screen sizes, processor capacities, etc. So similar to browsers, the devices can affect the appearance of your site.

Download speeds - 3G is not widespread enough, Krum says. Speeds and coverage are spotty. This will improve with time, but for now, streamlining your message for mobile is essential.

Mobile Search - 3 Considerations

On-Deck Search

On deck search is also called carrier search. This is a walled or semi-walled garden from the carrier - kind of like AOL in the old days. It typically consists of monetized content and downloads. Carriers have huge targeting power, Krum says. This type of search is preferred 38% of the time because users feel like it's more convenient, but a lot of times this is because carriers make off-deck search more difficult to find and use. She says off-deck is gong to diminish over time for the same reasons the old AOL evolved - people want to access and search the whole web.

Off-Deck Search

This is is like regular web search - not controlled by the carriers. Handsets and browsers can impact results. Off-deck search is not location aware (yet), Krum says, but is preferred 68% of the time. Yahoo has a larger percentage of off deck mobile search in the US than in other countries. This is because Yahoo has deals with several carriers to offer their logo for search.

Basic Demographics

Krum says the highest demographic is 20-29 years old. The second highest is 30-39. The highest has an income of 75k+. Males outsearch females by about 10-12%, but more recent studies suggest this gap is shrinking.

What is Being Looked For? In order of search frequency:

- Maps, directories
- Weather
- Local info
- News
- Entertainment
- Sports
- Finance

Apps
Major search applications in your niche (like urbanspoon) can be heavy drivers of traffic - in excess of search engines in some cases, Krum says. Mobile search apps have to be looked at on an individual basis. Find out where they get their data and make sure you're listed in their datasources.

Mobile SEO

Krum says mobile SEO as an industry is still in its infancy. Many of the best practices for mobile are the same as traditional SEO though:

- There are different crawlers and bots - The result pages are very different

- Slow download speeds and connectivity issues can be an issue if your site is slow to download and your bounce rates are very high as a result.

Creating sites and pages that are device independent is key, she says. Ideally, you want a page that loads and performs equally well in mobile as well as regular web browsing. With mobile SEO, the click thru is not always necessary. Often the information the user is looking for will show up right in the result (addresses phone numbers, hours of operation etc.). Avoid these:

- embedded images
- flash
- scripts
- frames
- flash
- mouse over events
- objects
- pop up windows

Coding

Krum says traditional browsers are more forgiving than mobile browsers. Clean code is far more important in mobile. She says to code in XHTML because it has rigid accessibility standards, which make it better for mobile. External CSS is ideal for mobile. It separates content from design, maximizes code, and decreases download time. She says to develop a handheld stylesheet as well as a screen stylesheet=1 set of content with 2 display variants. This way there are no duplicate content issues (screen.css and handheld css). Use 'display none' to selectively hide elements in either rendering.

Reasons not to use .mobi

- .mobi not preferred in mobile search

- not universally accepted

- cumbersome development standards

- no unique assets or features

- limited useful life

- bad for seo --- duplicated content

- confusing for customers

Krum says the best option for most webmasters is probably the mobile/traditional hybrid pages (like the multi css example).

Mike McDonald Contributed to this report. If you have any more thoughts on mobile marketing, please share them with WebPronews readers. Check out Krum's lists of mobile search engine submission pages and Mobile Web Directories.

Integrating Search into the Offline World

Chris Crum — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:13:40 +0000

The State of Integration session at Search Engine Strategies Chicago promised to be an interesting one. Speakers included executives from iProspect, Resolution Media, Constant Contact, and TMP Directional Marketing.

Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.

"Search does not exist in a vacuum," says the official teaser text for the session on the SES site. "In fact, research shows that offline channels drive users to search to the tune of 67%. Obviously search marketers have a huge opportunity to leverage offline channels to drive search. But are search marketers finally catching on? Are they even aware of the relationship between other marketing channels and their own? Are they actually coordinating or integrating their search efforts with their other channels, and if so, which ones? For that matter, what integration techniques are they using? And more importantly, if they aren't integrating, why not?"

Unfortunately, our reporters were not able to make the entire session, but were able to come away with some interesting discussion nonetheless.

You've got to take search offline, but post-search activity is the most important part. "Local search seems to be really close to that purchase point," one of the speakers said. Mobile computing is aiding the measurement of this.

Search isn't in a vacuum, but we need to ask what media is driving this activity and how we get there.

Some discussion about this took place, and the following points were made:

- Use direct targeting through local

- People do understand cross points and attribution, so they aren't panicking. Rather, focusing on true understanding.

- Integration strategies for different age groups (ex. baby boomers who have lost during this economy)

- More influenced by TV and radio than new media

- People take broadband for granted too, because it is not universal.

- Search personalization integration?? better targeted for specific generations

- People can capitalize on paid since not everyone knows what paid and organic is.

- In Radio advertising, Emphasize point of purchase

The Future of Semantic Search, and Measuring Success in a 2.0 world sessions were also interesting, and provide more insight into the evolving world of Internet marketing.

Dr. Larry Cornett on Universal & Blended Search

Manoj Jasra — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:06:28 +0000

One of the most interesting sessions at this upcoming Search Engine Strategies in Chicago is going to be Universal & Blended Search. Dr. Larry Cornett, VP, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search is one of the top experts in the world on this subject and is also a panelist at this session in SES Chicago. Last week I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Cornett to get his insight on blended search and to get a better understanding of Yahoo's future in this area.

[Manoj]: As with textual search, Universal search will continue to improve amongst the search engines. Are there specific things Yahoo wants to address in regards to the user experience with its search offering?

[Larry Cornett]: Yahoo! is committed to providing the best search experience to our users. We are constantly looking at new ways of incorporating different types of content into our search results. A great example is Yahoo! SearchMonkey, which lets any publisher enhance their search results. This technology can be implemented by multimedia publishers who wish to have specifically stylized search results, which showcase the Yahoo! Search engine results page.

In addition to SearchMonkey, Yahoo! Search has also introduced multimedia integration including video, audio and photos (see below) directly into the search results, allowing consumers to get their answer -- whether it's a Web link, photo, video or music clip -- without leaving the page.

[Manoj]: Do users interact with one type of blended search element (i.e: images or video or text or news) better than others, if so why?

[Larry Cornett]: We have already seen good user interaction with our SearchMonkey enhanced listings. Our tests uncovered that users found this blending of structured data to be useful. In fact, in some cases, we saw a lift in click-through rate of as high as 15 percent. We believe that this enriched search experience helps users get directly to the answer they're seeking.

[Manoj]: What did you think of Ask.com's search interface before they changed it back to more of a common search results pages. We thought the uniqueness might help attract more searches.

[Larry Cornett]: I don’t want to comment specifically on what our competitors are doing, but what I will say is that we are entering a period of massive change to enable search engines to handle more complex content on the Web as content continues to grow, change, diversify and fragment. At the same time, users are performing increasingly sophisticated and open-ended tasks online, connecting broadly to content and services across the Web. Given these changes, all search engines are becoming more sophisticated and the simple search result page of ten blue text links is evolving to help address these complex tasks. At Yahoo! our aim is to define the intent of the consumer when they are in search.

From a SERP interface perspective we are doing this through Yahoo! SearchMonkey, as I described earlier, which lets publishers creates more useful and visually appealing Yahoo! Search results which will drive more relevant traffic to their sites. For a user’s perspective instead of just seeing a Wikipedia link and a snippet, you could call back to Wikipedia and show a photo, get more context about the article, maybe even present some of the external links or the edit history, whatever the publisher wants to do to enhance the result. A Yahoo! Local business listing could put structured information about itself as part of the result, like a photo of the store front and its main line number. Yahoo! SearchMonkey empowers publishers to customize the search experience to help user find what they want easily and the increased relevance of the result can drive traffic to publishers sites.

In addition Yahoo! is differentiating our search experience by providing a safe search experience for our users with SearchScan. The SearchScan feature from Yahoo! Search provides a seamless way for users to search the web with confidence by reducing the risk of visiting dangerous sites on the Web with no download or fee required. It works by filtering out or alerts users to sites with possible spyware downloads, hacking risks, or sites that generate email spam.

[Manoj]: According to comScore, Google has continued to get stronger in search market share in the last year. What do the other engines have to do in order to maintain and grow their own markets?

[Larry Cornett]: Yahoo! is committed to providing an open, relevant search experience that understands the users’ intent. That said, we have recently launched a service called Yahoo! Search BOSS – an open Web services platform that offers developers and companies the chance to create and launch Web-scale search products by utilizing the same infrastructure, technology and index that powers Yahoo! Search. BOSS fosters search innovation by enabling developers and companies to disrupt the search landscape by building their own world-class search experiences.

Yahoo! is looking to fragment the search market, create an equal opportunity for all players, and expand the Y! Search advertising network through unprecedented access to our search infrastructure. By creating this new ecosystem for search, we may see changes in our market share, but largely at our competitors’ expense.

With BOSS, you can build your own search engine – one that recognizes the difference between blogs, user reviews, news and shopping sites, and clusters results accordingly. Developers and companies can use BOSS to create a more social search engine, in which rankings are determined by a users’ social graph and combined with newsfeed results, or conduct a visual search to present thumbnails of the Web pages instead of links, making it more user-friendly for non-savvy searchers. Essentially, BOSS will enable a range of fundamentally different search experiences for companies big and small.

[Manoj]: How is the search experience at Yahoo different than Google?

[Larry Cornett]: Yahoo! has spent a lot of time and research creating a new search experience for our users. One of the things we know from our research is that our users struggle when they are searching on an unfamiliar topic. They often don’t even know how to start their search. So in October 2007, we launched a significant new feature roll-out, which includes Yahoo! Search Assist and enhanced Yahoo! Shortcuts.

Search Assist (see below) essentially helps users overcome one of their key pain points, which is how to craft an effective query. As they begin to type their query or their keyword into the box, it suggests other keywords that might be related to what they’re typing. It also provides them the correct spelling of those keywords. And after they’ve conducted their initial search, Search Assist actually suggests related concepts based on their query to help them follow the right path to get the job done.

We know from our research that another pain point for users is that search engines often don’t provide the ultimate answer. They only help them down the path of finding the answer. And what we want to do at Yahoo! is actually start to begin to deliver what they really need within the search experience. So we’re not just focused on the process of searching but really on the act of finding. And to that end, we have also introduced enhanced Yahoo! Shortcuts (see below) that actually deliver the most relevant information that our users are seeking for particular types of searches.

So for example, if you type in the name of a movie at the very top of the search results page you get a link to a video trailer. You get local show times in your area, a link to a deeper description of that movie as well as reviews from critics and other Yahoo! users, right there at the top of the search results page. We’re trying to deliver the most relevant information to our users immediately following their search to help make their job easier.

We know that this is resonating with users, as Yahoo! was voted No. 1 in Search Assistance & Suggestions, according to a Dec. 2007 Keynote Systems study, “Keynote Customer Experience Rankings: Search”.

=========================================================

Dr. Larry Cornett is the vice president of the Yahoo! Search consumer products division. In this capacity, he is primarily responsible for the Yahoo! web search experience and heads up a multinational team of product managers, designers, and developers focused on creating a world-class search experience.

Comments

Getting More Out Of Marketing Conferences

Lee Odden — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:29:38 +0000

Now, more than ever, marketing companies and consultants need to get competitive for client dollars and what better way than advancing your knowledge and your network?

There are many options for companies and agencies to train digital marketing teams and to keep tenured employees up to date including conferences such as: this week's WebmasterWorld Pubcon, Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, numerous regional and niche events and an increasing number of web based offerings including SEMPO Institute and the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification program. I would be remiss not to mention the upcoming "Social Media Smarts" workshop in NYC covering all aspects of social media marketing including a strategy exercise and tips on building a business case for a social media effort in your organization.

Attending conferences is not cheap when you factor the increasing price of travel and hotels as well as pre/post and conference training fees, meals and taxi. Attendees and their companies are paying $2500 - $5000 per person per conference as well as the cost of time away from the office performing billable work. It's easy to see why webinars are on the increase and why those who are fortunate to attend these events need to get the most out of them.

The most important thing that conference attendees can do to get the most out of their time at events is to set goals. Managers sending individuals to conferences should be clear about expectations. Company staff should be sure to talk with others within the organization or team that have attended the same or similar events to gain their insight.

Depending on the purpose for attending a conference, goals may vary. Here are some common goals based on the various reasons for attending any kind of marketing conference:

Knowledge - How many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information? Notes, photos, video (where allowed) When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes with other attendees, it's a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you'll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes.

Networking - How many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates will you meeting? Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up.

Content - how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation? Set goals for how many youâ€™ll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what's happening in the industry. At TopRank, our staff are required to publish at least 3 blog posts for each day of conference attended. Set goals for how many blog posts, articles or other types of content will be created each day of the conference. It doesn't have to be all text, you can take photos of people, and presentation slides. Take videos where allowed.

Knowledge transfer - How will you pass on the information youâ've acquired to the rest of the team? At TopRank Online Marketing, our staff take the highlights and any specific tactics of use and create presentations which they share with the rest of the TopRank team. Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining with the team back at the office helps focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of the new information.

Socialize - Where there's a conference, there's a party. After hours events are exceptional opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. Make a point to relax and have fun, but be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are at hoc events that occur as a result of like minded individuals wanting to continue the day's discussion.

As you can see, there are many more opportunities to get value from marketing conference participation than keeping up to date with an industry. Pre conference goal setting and planning, well defined processes as well as follow up and post event knowledge sharing can all multiple the value organizations realize by sending employees to educational events.

Not all organizations are positioned to take full advantage of these insights, but through simple analysis, it can become clear pretty quickly how much is being left on the table or to competitors who are sending the same numbers of people and incurring the same costs.

Understand the conference offerings, set goals and make the time to pre-plan conference involvement. Leverage content creation, networking, recruiting, competitive intelligence as well as prospecting opportunities and industry conferences can move pretty quickly from an expense with an uncertain effect to an investment with multiples of return.

Comments

Life Without Google

Dave Davies — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:27:32 +0000

Alright, maybe not life entirely without Google but let's face facts (and I'm sure even the folks over at Google would agree) there are lots of great minds out there and not all of them work at the Googleplex (shocking I know). I've recently been giving quite a bit of thought to all the different ways I search for things and decided to finally cover a couple of my favorite “Google Alternatives” in a blog post. The purpose is not to get you to stop using Google which would be:

a. pointless, and

b. hypocritical. I use Google as my primary engine but there is a time and a place for other choices.

So let's get to it and hopefully you'll end this article with a few new ways to search for information and perhaps even pass back a few of your own tips. :)

Genie Knows

When I first heard about the launch of GenieKnows soon-to-be-announced map embedding for webmasters back at SES San Jose it flooded back to me how great innovations are occurring among many of the lesser-known engines and unfortunately a lot of these great features are lost to all but those “in the know” (read: immersed enough in the Internet community to even hear about alternative and vertical search engines). Jim Hedger wrote a great piece on the new product launch by Genie Knows over on the Metamend blog so I won't cover that here. What I will cover is the usefulness and innovation of this engine.

I suppose I should note, it's their map functionality that completely won me over. If you haven't checked it out yet I highly recommend doing so. Here's an example of how I've used a non-Google function from another engines to make my life dramatically easier:

I go to a lot of conferences. The fact of the matter is, I spend VERY little time at the hotel and thus, can rarely justify the cost of staying at a hotel like the Hilton. Now I'm not a cheap person but seriously – If I can save $100/night that's an extra $100 I have to either leave in the company or spend while I'm at the conference on more entertaining or useful endeavors. So the predicament becomes, how do I find a hotel that's less expensive and yet still within an easy walking distance of the conference?

Once upon a time I would use Google maps and Expedia. I'd look up the various hotels on Expedia and map them out with directions on Google maps and one-by-one enter them in and see what I could get and for how much. And then I discovered GenieKnows. The joy of this engine is I enter a phrase such as “seattle hotel” and it shows me a map with a grid. In the middle of each cell is a number – that is the number of hotels in that area so all I have to do is find the conference area on the map and click that square and now I know the location of all the nearest hotels and can much more easily look them up without having to lookup hotels only to find out they're 15 miles from where I need to be. A huge time saver every time I travel and it's not restricted to hotels, it works for restaurants, etc. I can't recommend enough testing it out next time you're traveling or looking for something when location is an issue (and when isn't it?) If you'll take my advice you can head over to GenieKnows.com. You won't regret it.

Yahoo! Answers

I know I know – from one major engine to another. The point of listing Yahoo! Answers though isn't specifically to tout this feature of Yahoo! though it is a good one. Rather, it's to point out that within the major engines there are specific search capabilities and sources of information that you likely don't know about.

I'm sure many of you, the readers here, have used Yahoo! Answers at some time or another or at the very least, a similar service – but most people haven't. I have found answers in the search results on Google and I've even taken the time to answer a few questions but it was when I saw my 10-year-old boy looking up game clues and tips for Pokemon version 18-billion Red (in case you don't know – this isn't an actual game of Pokemon but with the number coming out, it probably will be soon) that it really hit home how useful this was for the average searcher. He got frustrated looking for information on Google and found that he could ask questions or often find others who had and get the answers quickly on Yahoo! Answers. The message was clear, when your query is really a question that requires an expert answer (even if that expert is just some kid who plays too many video games) then Google may well not be the first place to go for a fast and accurate answer.

As another plus (and this is as a parent) – if you've ever seen the ads on the gaming sites you too will be happy to find your son on Yahoo! Answers.

Take this as advice to check out the specific offerings of your favorite engine(s). Blog search, news search, advanced search options and MUCH MUCH more await and once you explore them you'll find searching a far faster, more accurate and enjoyable experience. Even if it is on Google but you'll have to forget I wrote that or the title loses some of it's life. ;)

Cuil

Alright, I had to show that I do have a sense of humor. I'm not even going to make this one a link as it's not worth it. Cuil had a lot of promise with ex-Googlers on the dev team and money behind it but it didn't live up to even half of what it attempted to be. Google-killer? Heck, it's not even a Dogpile killer.

And A Few Good Lists

In the end what I'm hoping you'll take from this is a solid belief that there is more out there than just Google or whatever your favorite engine is. Each job has the right tool and different engines offer different opportunities.

I can't possibly list off all the great engines out there and what they do but here are a few useful lists of some of the better alternative engines out there so you don't have to weed through the horrible ones to get to the good:

Spock.com – Top Vertical Search Engines

SmashingApps.com – 13 Most Unusual Search Engines You Should Remember

Vertical Search – A search engine of vertical search sites. A good place to go if you don't know where you're going.

In Short

In short and I think I've made it pretty clear, while about 95% of all my searching is done on Google – there's a place and a time for alternatives. Knowing those alternatives can make your online experience infinitely more enjoyable. Explore, investigate and enjoy. There's probably a lot more out there than you think, or at least - easier ways to find it.

Comments

SES San Jose - Getting Started With SEO

Thomas McMahon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:34:39 +0000

This sponsored session was an entry level overview of what websites should be doing on their website to get visibility and rankings in search engines.

Here are the 7 Proven Ways to get Your Website on Page 1 Organically & then Convert as stated by the presenter Shawn Moore.

Content is King
What your content says, what your images and video show not only give users a first impression, but those items are also important to how a search engine is going to interpret your website.
Navigation and Architecture
Looking into the way that your menus and internal linking structure are important. Can the web crawlers see and index your navigation? Or is it in JavaScript or Flash that may not be as search friendly?
Blogs
Using a blog is just another way to generate more content for the search engines to index and use to rank your website.
Quality and Keyword Rich Inbound Links
The number of links you have is important, but the quality of those links is more important. Get links from relevant sites and ensure that those links are using keyword phrases and not just your website address or business name.
Database
Shawn said that choosing the right database for your site is important. Some are not search engine friendly and that choosing the wrong one will cause lots of issues down the line.
Electron Press Releases or Optimized Releases
These releases give your site more exposure in search engines and the keyword rich links in the content can help increase your rankings.
Domain Name Strategy
It was recommended that, if you can, choose a domain name with keyword phrases in it as it’ll give an added boost in search engines. You can also purchase additional domain names and forward them onto your website. Try thinking about what a user may type into the address bar of their browser and then register that domain for easy access.

Some of the tips are well known, others were a bit questionable to me. I’m still trying to figure out how a certain type of database can hurt a site as it’s all about how the content is displayed on that page and the URLs used that is the part to be concerned with.

Overall, the session was a good one for those just starting out in the industry.

Comments

SES San Jose - Understanding Web Analytics

Thomas McMahon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:29:32 +0000

What is it about web analytics that that intrigues and yet scares companies at the same time? Everyone want to understand analytics, yet once one starts digging in, it can get complicated. In Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers, they gave tips on what you should be looking at and what you should be paying attention to.

Here are a few of the tips & thoughts that were shared:

Craig Danuloff

Invisibility; what can’t we see?
Every search is a question, every ad is an answer. Keywords simply connectors.
ROAS is a ‘feel good’ metric. don’t take it seriously.
Deception - Can you trust what you see?
Accuracy - What’s the margin of error. Is there statistical significance?
Banish brand terms as they throw everything off.
Unlimited power from huge data volumes. Lots of campaigns lots of data and a fluid business environment.
A change is not a test. Test design, test tracking, scoring test results.
Apply math and statistics.
Make a record of changes made to the site.

Brian Cosgrove

Implementation - Everyone needs to ensure analytics are configured correctly.
Filtering - Filter out internal traffic or those that come to the site as part of their job.
Process should be: report, analyze, optimize, measure, repeat.
How many pages are actually landing pages, how many are not getting visitors?
Connect landing pages and keywords as a search engine doesn’t always drive traffic to what you think is the best page.

Heather Dougherty

Use competitive intelligence to identify and analyze sem opportunities.
Identify trends and seasonality.
Analyze competitors strategy.
Act upon opportunities.
Get the calendar ready and stay ahead of seasonal trends.
Understand paid vs organic search in specific industry.
Look at competitors. Paid vs organic. Click thoroughs.
What is the user intent? Example: Purchase an item or news/research.
Can use analytics for reputation management.

Michael Stebbins

What’s in your data? Most analytics have bounce rates, average time, page views, but does yours have conversion rate and cost of revenue per visit?
The Grim Reaper: Find which 10% of ads are not performing and kill them.
Find ads with high cost, bad ROI, low engagement, low conversion and those will help find the 10%
They can either be cut or replaced.
Don’t keep them hoping they’ll get better.
Free Research Tool: Microsoft’s Commercial Intent
Free Research Tool: Google Adwords Keyword too. With this you can even check age range and sex to help target your ad content
Free Research Tool: Google Ad Planner

Brett Crosby

Came from Urchin and helped grow Google Analytics
Wanted to make it easier for non-geeks to dive in and explore. Aka: The shallow end.
Always setup goals and funnels.
Customize dashboard for your needs.
Customize email reports for different rolls in the company.
Setup goal value. This will help you see values per keyword
If you can hook up to eCommerce data, it’s even better

The session had great speakers from the technical side of things to the beginner side of analytics. It was a lot of information in a short time, but still very good overall.

Comments

SES San Jose Day Two Summary

Lee Odden — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:22:27 +0000

A full featured and information packed day is how many SES attendees would describe day two of the conference in San Jose. I know the TopRank Blogging team would agree with 13 new posts today!

Advanced B2B Search Marketing - Jessica
Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers - Thomas
What’s New with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer? - Ashley
Global Search for the B2B SEM - Jessica
5 Things No One Will Tell You About SEM - Dana
Search Advertising 101 - Dana
7 Proven Ways to Get Your Website on Page 1 Organically & Then Convert - Thomas
Landing Page Testing & Tuning - Ashley
Keynote with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella - Jessica
SES San Jose Expo Hall Photos - Dana
Measuring Success in a 2.0 World - Dana
Internet Marketing Conference Tips: Danny Sullivan Third Door Media Lee
Internet Marketing Conference Tips: Robert Scoble FastCompany.TV - Lee

Watch for even more in depth session coverage tomorrow on day 3 of SES San Jose. It’s so good, it’s like you’re here in person! Except you’re not.

Next up is the Google Dance!

Comments

SES San Jose 08 - Satya Nadella Keynote

Chris Smith — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:07:39 +0000

Satya Nadella (Microsoft’s Senior Vice President of the Search, Portal & Advertising Platform Group) spoke at this morning’s keynote at the Search Engine Strategies Conference.

Nadella spoke on how Microsoft approaches search and how the company intends to shape trends in search development and how they intend to exploit them.

Comments

SES San Jose - Google Dance Photos

Andy Beal — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:01:52 +0000

Didn’t make the Google Dance? Never fear, live the experience with the photos I just uploaded. A selection below.

Comments

SES - Lee Siegal Keynote Pics

Chris Smith — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:33:51 +0000

On opening night at the Search Engine Strategies Conference this week in San Jose, Kevin Ryan () spoke with Lee Siegal about his book, “Against the Machine”, and the ideas in it.

Kevin Ryan Interviews Lee Siegal, SES Keynote

Siegal proposes that the internet culture is perhaps damaging our attention span and he points out the benefits of having intentionality about what we do. Interesting!

Lee Siegal, author of “Against the Machine”

Comments

Photos From SES San Jose

Andy Beal — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:04:57 +0000

Unfortunately, I didn’t arrive in San Jose until after 6pm–so I missed all of day one. However, I did make it to the Internet Marketer’s Charity Party, which was a huge success.

I’ve posted a few photos from the event to my Flickr account. Here are a sample:

I’ll have more photos from Day 2, later today.

If you’re looking for a re-cap of day one’s panels, then I suggest you take a look here and here.

Comments

How Do You Think Twitter Can Make Money?

Andy Beal — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:14:24 +0000

There’s a new Viewpoint column about Twitter, over at BusinessWeek. Before I go on, it’s important to note that Viewpoint’s are guest columns, not written by normal BusinessWeek staffers.

Anyway, "The Trouble with Twitter" takes an in-depth look at the money woes at Twitter, in particular its lack of business model. Now, when I say "in-depth," I mean it. In fact, you can safely skip the entire first page–unless you enjoy a little fluff with your morning coffee.

The second page gets to the meat, and has a pretty good analysis of the different types of monetization models Twitter could consider. I’ll summarize the suggested business models:

Twitter could ask users to pay
Twitter could get messages to pay
Twitter could extract money from user data
Twitter could sell ads

From what I can tell, selling ads is the best lifeline that could be thrown to Twitter at this point. Certainly, it’s likely the option that Twitter users would be least resistant to. Unfortunately, number crunching reveals that Twitter might not be able to make enough money from ads alone:

Advertisers would find Twitter ads generate $28.2 million in profits. So the maximum they logically would spend on such ads is $28.2 million.

Thus Twitter has a real value of $12.26 per user. Compare that with Facebook, which has a perceived value of $300 a user—or at least it did last year, when Microsoft purchased its 1.6% stake for $240 million and the site had 50 million users.

And, that’s assuming some pretty generous CTR and conversion rates.

I’m a huge fan of Twitter–you can catch me discussing Twitter at SES San Jose this week–so I’m hoping it can figure this out before it runs out of money.

So, this is where you come in. What suggestions do you have for revenue model for Twitter? Leave a comment below and we’ll make sure we pass them on to the Twitter team.

Comments

What Do You Value From SEO Conferences

Stoney deGeyter — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:49:06 +0000

Sunday I’ll be taking off to San Jose for a week at Search Engine Strategies. Earlier this year I spoke at SES New York, but in San Jose I’ll be going as press. Which means I get a free pass and I’m expected to write about my experience. That’s a decent trade-off!

Four weeks after that I’ll be headed to Ohio for the much smaller, but far more intimate Small Business Marketing Unleashed. Here I will be speaking in two sessions, the first on website architecture and the second will be an SEO workshop.

With that in mind, I wanted to pose a few questions: What value do you get out of going to these big conferences? Are they any better or worse than smaller, more intimate conferences? Which do you prefer, and what do you come home with of value (other than quality schwag)?

Please opine.

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What To Look For At SES San Jose

Thomas McMahon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:14:32 +0000

You’ve probably picked up that this week is about SES San Jose from Dana and Ashley’s “15 Things Not to Miss at SES San Jose” followed by Jessica’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” post. I am also headed out to sunny California next month. There’s plenty to take in on a trip to the Golden State including the beautiful weather, celebrities, good wine, and, of course the Search Engine Strategies Conference.

Here are a few of the sessions I’m planning on covering:

More Customers, Fewer Costs - Why Marketing to the ‘Long Tail’ Makes Sense
Who doesn’t want more customers and fewer costs? Isn’t that a business’ dream? This session will be interesting as there have been recent stories on how the long tail is not as effective as we once thought. I still believe in the long tail though.

Semantic Search: How Will It Change Our Lives?
What? Change my life? That’s a pretty big promise. However, that’s what search does. It works to give the best results, which continually improve based on users needs. Just think back over the past few years; there has been blog search, universal search and local search all up and coming. Sounds like semantic search is next. Wouldn’t you agree?

Storyteller Marketing: How the Art of Storytelling Matches Up With the Business of Marketing
Ahh, story time. Everyone enjoys a good story, but where does that fall into play with SEO and online marketing? I can tell you a story about most anything, but throw in some package testing and spigot lingo and it’s a bit more difficult.

7 Proven Ways To Get Your Website On Page 1 Organically Then Convert
If it was only that easy right? I’m a bit skeptical here. If there are 7 proven ways, then as soon as they tell us, everyone will use them and, well, you can only have 10 on page 1. I hope this isn’t to high level and just about content, links and the stuff we already know.

Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers
Analytics is huge to a site’s success. How your visitors get to, and interact with, your site is extremely important and the stats hold all the secrets. But finding all the bits of gold that is buried in analytics can be tough to find. Hopefully they’ll show some secrets and insight into the best places to be looking. A little sad though that analytics based on Star Trek doesn’t appear on the schedule.

Google Dance
After a few refreshments Thomas will also be getting his groove on at the Google dance; even if he doesn’t know how to groove well.

Getting Vertical Search Right
Yes, it’s the world wide web, but you don’t have to compete with everyone. Being the best in your vertical is all a site needs to do. But how does one target some, but not everyone?

SEO Rehab & Intervention
Let me grab by celebrity attitude and I’ll be ready to go. I know none of my site’s have issues, but I’ll be sure to find issues in your sites.

Advanced Paid Search Techniques
PayPerClick is like the black sheep in SEO. It’s not organic or social, but it is a proven method for generating traffic and conversions. These paid links are OK! Just be careful not to blow your entire marketing budget in a few days or get a bunch of unqualified traffic. There has to be a happy medium.

SearchBash
More groovin and movin and networkin’ with ya’ll!

With all those sessions, the California palm trees and happy cows may not get enough attention. However, with all the knowledge poring in and great networking, there will be more than enough to keep busy.

If you’re going to SES San Jose next month, what sessions are you planning on attending? If you’re not sure, check out the full conference schedule.

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SES NY: Good Public Relations Can Influence Search Rank

Sally Falkow — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:28:58 +0000

I spoke today at a session at Search Engine Strategies in New York City. Even though we were the second-to-last session on the last day of the show our session was very well attended.

I talked about HerRoom.com and their sports bra BounceTest videos. The videos show women running on a treadmill wearing a sports bra so that you can see whether that make of bra does in fact reduce the movement of the breasts.

We looked for a news hook to get more coverage and build links to these videos and found that Dr. Joanna Scurr, a bio-mechanics professor in the UK, had done some research into breast movement and damage to breast tissue caused by exercising without proper support. Dr. Scurr's research had received a fair amount of attention from mainstream media - such as USAToday and MSNBC.

HerRoom hosted a podcast interview with Dr Scurr and put out a search optimized press release about this research and the Bounce Test videos.

A search on Google shows that this press release has been published on sites like Reuters and WSJ.com

Bloggers wrote about the podcast and the videos.

A month ago this page on HerRoom was not in the first 100 results. With some on page optimization and a news angle that created links to the page it is now on page two at #14.

Stay tuned - with a few more high profile authoritative links we should make it to page one. Online media relations is an undervalued SEO technique. But it does take an understanding of news and good PR skills.

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SES New York: Satisfying Usability And SEO

Doug Caverly — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:38:10 +0000

Satisfying both human users and search engines' standards is time-consuming and not exactly simple. The good news, though, is that these two tasks shouldn't always tug you in opposite directions.

(Coverage of the SES New York conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

A session titled "Usability & SEO: 2 Wins For The Price Of 1" addressed the related issues. Matthew Bailey, the president of SiteLogic, began by highlighting the connection: SEO is about getting people to your site, and usability is about having them follow clear paths once there.

To satisfy both needs, Bailey recommended using a combination of images, alt text, and captions. Also, call products what they are; he used the (surprisingly successful) Boudreaux's Butt Paste as an example of something that doesn't make its true use (as a diaper rash treatment) clear.

Kathleen Fealy, the president of KF Multimedia & Web, Inc., later continued the conversation by emphasizing SEO and usability overlaps like site maps, strong navigation, and clean calls to action. She also echoed the paste example by stressing that, for the best results in both worlds, people should use the same words real customers would.

Finally, Fealy pointed out that optimizing SEO and usability is an ongoing process, so you should formulate a plan of action and specific goals before getting in too deep.

SES NY: Starting Up In-House Search Marketing

Lee Odden — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:22:27 +0000

The New Face o In-House Search included Ron Belanger as the moderator and Bill Hunt from Global Strategies International, Olivier Lemaignen from Intuit, Marshall D. Simmonds from New York Times, Bill Macaitis from Fox Interactive Media and Brendan Hart from National Geographic Digital Media.

First up is Bill Hunt to talk about what perspective companies should take when considering bringing search marketing in-house.

What are the best options?

Outsource - Give everything to the agency
InSource - Do everything in house. Few companies are actually doing this
Hybrid - A mix

The hard questions start with: What are the objectives? Can we meet the objectives with this new approach? What level of management support do we have? Can we measure a program to show benefit? What is our bench strength? Can the program scale? Many in-house programs fail to scale.

What is the total cost for each approach? Will the company commit and follow through?

SES NY: Do's And Dont's Of Media And Blogger Relations

Lee Odden — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:34:55 +0000

On Thursday I’ll be presenting on a panel, “Beyond Linkbat: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online” with Chris Boggs and Sally Falkow. Sage Lewis will be moderating. I think this type of session is very timely as search engines begin to put more and more emphasis on higher quality and editorial link sources and less on sources that are easier to manipulate. Increasing competition online also means online branding and influence increase in their importance.

Online PR is a perfect solution for a topic that shines less light on tactics du jour, althought linkbaiting still works well, and more on leveraging the media and centers of influence online. I’ve written about how SEO and Online PR can work together in the past, but in this presentation I’ll be focusing on the Do’s and Don’ts of media relations and blogger relations.

Here’s a highlight to give you a taste of what I’ll be talking about and may be helpful as an outline for any bloggers that might be covering the session.

When working with online public relations programs, we typically distinguish PR activities into “push” tactics, which are methods of reaching out such as by sending out press released through a wire service, pitching journalists and bloggers via email and phone, distributing news information through RSS and a few clever uses of PPC. Alternatively, “pull” tactics are centered around optimizing content so it is easy for journalists and bloggers doing research to find.

The fundamentals that make blogger relations and media relations efforts successful center on relevance and relationships. One of the biggest complaints both journalists and bloggers have in regard to news stories that are pitched to them is that the stories are simply not relevant. More on how to fix that in a bit.

The other fundamental, relationships, is very key because credible, trustworthy and sound-bite savvy expers and resources are good/difficult to come by. Too many SEOs trying to pitch blogs or even mainstream media approach it like typical link building - a one time event. The reality is, that publication or blog would love to find a great resource they can cite and link to over and over again. While the SEO value of links from the same domain name diminishes with frequency, they are still traffic driving opportunities.

Here is a summary of the DO’s:

Do your homework
Be relevant
Understand the difference: journalists vs bloggers
Make it easy
Publicize your publicity

And here are the DON’Ts:

Don’t be sloppy or spammy
Don’t be a one trick pony
Don’t be arrogant
Don’t ignore multiple promotion channels
Don’t forget to say thank you

There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for companies to develop win-win-win relationships with the media and bloggers. The readership of those web sites get useful content. Bloggers and journalists develop a relationship with a credible source that will help them write better stories and blog posts. The company wins by being mentioned authoritatively on a regular basis.

Key points: Do your homework, be personal and relevant in your pitching. Make it easy for the journalist or blogger to use you as an expert or content source and by all means, develop a relationship that results in a win for everyone involved.

The “Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online” session is this Thursday 3/20 at the NY Hilton, Sutton South room at 11:15 am. The panel and I hope to see you there!

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SES New York: Design And Search Engines

Doug Caverly — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:00:47 +0000

Ever look at different doctors' bookshelves? There are usually at least two or three books in common, regardless of the professionals' fields or age. This happens because the basics are important, and a session at SES New York returned to the basics of site design.

(Coverage of the SES New York conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Depending on how familiar you are with these matters, Eric Papczun, the director of natural search at Performics, recommended starting out by reading Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Next, concentrate on creating friendly URLs - make sure they're unique, and keep keywords in them. Site maps are great, too.

Papczun then discussed the issue of using Flash, JavaScript, and Ajax. While these things can look nice, he recommends a judicious approach, with a much more liberal use of CSS.

Next, Matt Bailey, the president of SiteLogic, picked up on the topic of accessibility. The problems Target's site pose for the visually impaired have actually gotten the company sued. Since search engines are blind, as well, using alt attributes is important for all sorts of reasons. "Your site should be available to anyone, anywhere, anytime on anything," stated Bailey.

As a couple of added points: Bailey suggested using favicons and not allowing URLs to grow outside the address bar.

Craig Hordlow, the chief search strategist at Red Bricks Media, wrapped things up by once again addressing the issue of Flash and CSS use. He suggested using tabs on a flash page as a way of letting search engines see content, but not throwing the stuff at users until they click for it.

SES New York: Live Search "Tips And Tricks"

Doug Caverly — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:05:46 +0000

Although people sometimes forget this fact, there are search engines outside of Google. At SES New York, two Microsoft managers walked an audience through ways to do well with Live Search.

(Coverage of the SES New York conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

The sponsored session titled (deep breath here) "Tips and tricks for delivering great results and campaigns with Live Search" was led by Jorie Waterman, the lead program manager of the adCenter Keyword Research Platform, and Ani Babaian, the senior product manager of the Live Search Webmaster Center.

The pair outlined three steps to successful search marketing. The first stage - planning and research - involves content prioritization and understanding what keywords are important in both organic and paid search. The second stage - building - requires submitting sitemaps and site content, and optimizing backlinks based on keyword volume analysis.

Thirdly, ongoing optimization should be based on seasonality and competitive research, according to the two women.

Waterman and Babaian went on to highlight the benefits of using the new adCenter Excel Add-in. It can help you prioritize targeted keywords while being free and simple to use. There is an allotment of 20,000 queries per day per adCenter username, and it delivers absolute numbers on exact search query traffic data.

Also, Waterman and Babaian stated that the adCenter Excel Add-in should become available outside the U.S.

SES New York: Convincing Visitors To Buy

Doug Caverly — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:28:44 +0000

Suppose you've achieved undeniable search engine success - Google's throwing as much traffic your way as the servers can handle. A normal business still requires more than sightseers, and a session at SES New York concentrated on converting visitors into buyers.

(Coverage of the SES New York conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Mike Moran, a distinguished engineer at IBM, emphasized a sort of trial and error approach to getting results, and not just good looks. So that you know what's going on, he suggested using Google Analytics as a way of counting Web conversions, and offering things like coupons as a way of tracking customers offline.

Then the experimentation can begin. Continuously change things, including product offerings, prices, content, policies, and even the shopping cart's location, if you want to adopt Moran's method. He posed the question: "Are you really listening to which things work and which things don't?"

Nigel Ravenhill, a program manager at McAfee, was up next. He made the solid point that a lot of people simply won't buy from you on their first visit. You can still manage things like site design, pricing, and shipping costs in order to increase the odds of a purchase upon their return, though.

Then came Mike Sack, the director of SEM technology & Development at Idearc Media. He talked about scientifically "orchestrating the experience" in a manner that was reminiscent of Moran's testing procedures. Yet generally speaking, Sack felt homepages have become terrible, with far too much information and way too many links.

He compared the average homepage experience to walking into a store and seeing all the products displayed on a big shelf. To avoid this information overkill, Sack believed people should connect specific searches to specific landing pages, expand keywords into the tail, and again, test and adjust as they go.

Finally, Howard Kaplan, the COO of Future Now, finished things up with some specific tips. Provide unusual product images - angles, zoom, and video. Test headlines using fractions or percentages, and ask questions. As a key point: make things load faster.

Kaplan also said, "The secret to conversion online is not about you. It's your customers, deciding to click or not to click. Understand who your visitors are and give them what they came looking for . . . In order to achieve your goals, your visitors must achieve theirs first."