Laura Alter

Link Building Ideas and Slides from the Austin SEM Meetup

Laura — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:11:41 +0000

The monthly Austin SEM meetup was last night and we had a blast! Austin has the most fantabulous search marketers and business owners - it’s always a pleasure to see everyone.

Here are some of our favorite link building ideas. These aren’t all ninja-like - these are just great basic ways to get yourself out there to get some links. (Link to the slides is that the end of this post.)

Submit your website to directories. Consider topical directories and regular web directories. Get as specific to your topic as possible and make sure there’s no crap around you on the page.
*Ask* for links from related website. Remember how you can’t be afraid to ask for someone’s business? Don’t be afraid to ask for links, too. (Be authentic and specific in your communication.)
Put your website in your email signature. You never know when an email conversation can lead to a blog post about your business!
If you have a product, choose the top X number of bloggers/reporters in your niche and send them one (digital or otherwise). You can ask for it back, but don’t expect it. If it impresses them, you may get a post. If not, you probably need to get back to the drawing board for your product. A post by an a-lister can lead to other posts and trackbacks to them by others.
If you don’t have a product, create a free .pdf ‘report’ that’s relevant to your industry and distribute that. Create a twist on long-held ideas. Shake things up a bit and back it up with real data. If it’s good, they’ll write about it because it would likely benefit everyone in the industry/niche (and we are ALL looking for good content!).
Review products or services of others on your blog. Be fair and accurate. Once it’s up, let them know that you have reviewed them - they may link back to you as a testimonial on their product page. You can also send the good parts of your review in snippets to other sites that sell the product. They may want to add that to their product page (hopefully, with a link to you!).
Create a competition within your niche. Make it fair and fun and others will link to it. You have to be careful to create a legit, fair contest, but it can bring great link love if you do it right. (One of the entry requirements can be that they write a post and link back to you.)
Ask your suppliers and partners to link to you. Seems basic, but most don’t do it.
Comment on relevant blogs – some still have do-follow links (but even if they don’t, do it anyway). Make SURE your comment is helpful, relevant, and adds to the conversation. Set up a Google alert for your fave blogs or on your topic so you are alerted when new posts are made/content is added.
Press releases! Google how to do it right, and then create them whenever you have a worthy bit of news. If you do this correctly, you will focus each one on a specific page of your site related to that topic – deep links are best. The REAL value here happens when other sites/blogs pick up your way cool story and write about it. Those are the content links that rock.
Upload pictures from your website or relevant to your niche on Flickr. Deep link back to yourself in the description. Make sure you add some value!
Spend some time on Yahoo! Answers. Search for question you are qualified to answer and answer them well. Add a link to a relevant page on your site. (No anchor text, and nofollow, but still do it.)
Write something uber controversial on your site or blog. When you go against the grain, you get noticed. Getting noticed usually sends links your way. Be careful with this because you don’t want to do it wrong – you have to back up what you say and stay away from personal attacks.
Send some link love yourself. On your company blog (hopefully at yourURL.com/keyword-blog), create a post where you link out to your fave bloggers in your niche. Say why you love each of them, and then send each of them the link. I bet more than half will then send links your way.
Make sure every blog post you make links back to your site. You can easily add a snippet about you to the bottom of each post and link any text in that to your site. RSS feeds are easy to take, but if someone scrapes your feed, that site they post it on will then be linking back to you with your desired anchor text.
Create testimonial smippets for companies and bloggers in your niche. Offer them with no strings attached, but often if they post them, they will link back to you. (Plus, this creates good karma!) Make sure your snippets say something specific and authentic! This is so important or you will look like a dope.
Are you an e-commerce site? Does your website send transactional emails of any kind? If you send automated emails to customers/members, you can always discreetly ask them to link to you. Don’t be pushy and ask nicely and some just might do it!
Create a widget or badge that people can grab the code for those ties into current events. If it’s timely and clever, it may catch on. And since you’re so crafty, that widgety thing will have a link back to you built in. (PS. You can do this with ‘calculators’ as well. You would be surprised how affordable it can be to have something like this done for you. Make sure the calculator relates to you industry. The topics are endless here.)
Create a list. Any kind of list, but make it useful. Lists that have already been done include: Top 20 Farming Videos of All Time, Top 100 Celebrity Feet, etc. Okay, so maybe these haven’t been done, but I bet there’s an audience out there that would care! Create any kind of list you can that’s interesting and relevant (Favorites, oldest, most expensive, top myths, etc.). I bet some people will love it and some people will argue – both are great and both send new links!
Sponsor something – anything. You can sponsor a site, and event, a fundraiser, or more. It doesn’t have to be expensive. If you are in the parenting niche, you can easily find a smallish site and donate some money to help with hosting in exchange for a sponsorship link. (This could also be donating – you can donate to any cause, but the bigger the cause, the less likely you will get a link.)
Guest post. I am sure that you are an expert at *something.* Contribute to the conversation on a blog in your niche, and then put out the offer to write for them on a monthly basis (or write up that post that’s been in your head for a month and send it along to them). If it’s good (and if they accept guest posts), they will likely use it and link back to you. Just make SURE you only send fresh, unique content. (Don’t send the same post to 5 blogs telling them it’s unique content.)
Get links from professional organizations. The Chamber of Commerce, Local Chapter of Fishing Captains, Local Volunteer Organization, etc. You are probably missing some opportunities by not asking for links from groups that you are a part of.
Write articles for distribution. This is fairly old school, but it still works (in some niches more than others). You can use article submission tools to get the article out there like www.ezinearticles.com. Make sure you deep link and make sure your anchor text matches the destination page.
Craft a survey for your customers/readers. Once finished, package up the results in a shiny .pdf and share it with relevant news outlets and bloggers. Everyone is clamoring for fresh new content, so be the one that provides it to them. They will thank you for it.
Create offline relationships at local events. Once you have those offline connections, bring them online by writing about them and linking to their site. The favor will often be returned.
Interview a colleague, friend or enemy. Interviews can be boring, so ask challenging questions related to your niche. You can interview by email by sending a list of questions, or you can do it over the phone. It’s likely that the interviewee will link to you, but so will others in the industry (if you had something good to say!).
Interview idea #2. Collect 4-5 of your favorite bloggers and craft a list of questions for each of them. Collect the answers and create one big blog post with all the answers. If you have done your job correctly, not only will the interviewees link to you, but plenty of others in your industry.
Have your site redesigned in clean CSS. A great CCS design by a great designer will get links on its own from CSS galleries and others in the industry.
Review products and services anywhere you can. Amazon, ePinions, manufacturer sites, Wal*Mart, etc. These won’t provide direct links, but it gets your name and brand out there and can send new links coming.
Get local links. We all have local organizations at our disposal. Local directories/resources, libraries, local non-profits. These are great for reinforcing your location, so if you want to rank for local terms, you need local links.
Create an industry award. You have to make sure this is legit and fair, but there’s no reason why you can’t award the best needlepoint resource blog (and 2nd best, 3rd best, etc.). Give them a pretty each badge to display and there’s a link. (Not to mention the traffic and interest is sends.) Voila!
Find very popular blogs in your niche and offer to be an ‘expert’ at the disposal of their readers once a month. (Once you have an offer, decline others. Stay exclusive.) Readers can submit questions that will be answered in a monthly post. This establishes your status, but sends great consistent links!

And here is the link to the slides from last night.

Link Building

See everyone next month!

PS. A really amazing Austin company is looking for a senior-level PPC manager. If anyone knows someone who might be qualified, please contact me! @lauraa on Twitter or through here.

Need your vote! SXSW Panel Submission Needs Some Love

Laura — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:28:23 +0000

It’s that time of the year again…

SXSWi, at which I had an awesome time last year, received 1200+ submissions for around 100 panel spots at the 2009 event. For the uninitiated, they use a panel voting system to determine interest in specific topics. It counts for about 30% of the decision, then the SXSW team has about 30% of the vote, and an advisory panel has the rest. So really, this is just one part - but it’s the only one we have some control over! I, and two other adorable and smart women, have proposed a panel on video marketing and we need some love!

I know that not everyone can make it to the event next spring in happy Austin, Texas, but you can certainly express your interest in what you would want to see!

Rock Your Video Marketing Like a P*rn Star (But With More Clothes On)

Porn stars use online video to manage their ‘business’ reputation, sell their goods, get fans and get subscribers. While you might not be a porn star, you can learn a lot from them about how to use online video to rock your marketing and get real results, and this all-girl panel will show you all of it.

All we need you to do is VOTE! Show your love with 5 stars. You do need to register, but it’s FAST and you can gave some fun voting on others, too.

If you have a panel, please post a comment so we can all vote for you! THANK YOU!

Video SEO and Video Marketing - Austin SEM Meetup

Laura — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:58:40 +0000

Yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month, which means it was Austin SEM Meetup time! This month we talked a bit about video SEO and video marketing basics.

To say that we had some technical challenges would be an understatement! My laptop wireless became all hosed up by the time we started to play the videos embedded into the presentation. After much fumbling, Adam pulled up the slides on this laptop and we switched to that. His played them much better, but not perfectly.

Then we shot a little video to edit with the free Windows Movie Maker (to show that it’s really not hard to do), and Adam’s MM kept crashing. Over and over. So we switched BACK to my laptop, but the internet was still hosed, so I couldn’t upload the video. It was a bloody mess! HA!

We met at the Milwood Library, which seats 50 people, instead of Texpresso (where we were always cramped), but the rows of seats definitely made it less social. (Plus, I wanted some coffee!) We had some new faces comes - which was awesome - plus some veterans who have been to every meeting! (Love you guys!)

All in all it went well, but I wish we had more time to cover more things. I hate thinking that some people might have left missing some info.

As usual, here’s the slide deck. Non-YouTube videos wouldn’t embed, so just click the links. They are text-heavy so they make sense without the actual presentation. I would love any feedback on how to make this better!

Landing Pages are Just Effective Web Design

Laura — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:09:53 +0000

Ahhh, landing pages. This stuff is FUN. Seriously, I love this.

And when I say ‘landing page,’ I don’t mean a one page site where I might promote an affiliate offer. I mean the page that a visitor hits first when entering your site. In reality, every page on your site is a landing page. Every page is a doorway, so really we are just talking effective web design. Any page that gets any kind of traffic is a landing page. Any page you send PPC traffic to is a landing page. And page that is linked to from an email or a refer-a-friend form is a landing page.

Any page on your site could be the first page that a new visitor sees. Every page is a landing page.

I may not now from WHERE a visitor is coming when they arrive at my site (okay, well I can know that, but that’s another post), but I DO know what I want them to do when they arrive. (Yes, people: know, love, and USE your analytics, but I am speaking real-time.) That desired activity is different for every site, but each site has one or a few desired actions, and we must design pages that encourage that activity to nurture our visitors to do what we want them to do (without them knowing :D).

If you are an e-commerce site, you want the visitor to buy something and/or find related products and/or sign up for deal alerts.

If you are a content site, you want visitors to subscribe to your feed, read, and stumble through related posts on the topic.

If you are doing lead gen, you want them to submit their information.

If you are a content site you are encouraging sign ups and subscriptions to content.

You get the idea. Landing pages get your visitors moving, but you better make sure that the process after that page is easy peasy or your landing page won’t matter a fig.

When a visitor lands on your site, questions immediately pop into their head subconsciously:

Is this site for real?

Does this site have what I am looking for?

Will this site be easy for me to use?

What do I do now? Where do I click?

Should I leave now or look around?

You have a few seconds seconds to answer each of these questions or you lose the chance.

So what’s a girl to do? In my book, there are some core principles that are not rocket science:

Keep it Simple. Don’t Muck it UP!

You must know *exactly* what YOUR desired conversions are. Forget the other stuff that visitors could do on your site and focus on what you want them to do.

Let’s take a real life example. If I want to go to the movies with friends, but I don’t want to decide for the group, how might I end up getting the result that *I* want - a trip to the movies?

Let’s apply a common web approach: throw a bunch of crap at the wall and hope something sticks (ie. hope the visitor ends up clicking somewhere). So in the real world, that would go something like this:

“Hey guys, let’s go out tonight. We could go to the mall, go to the zoo, go out drinking, go hang out a friends house, go fly a kite, go make new friends, go to the pound, go find gold out west, go to the library, or maybe to the movies…

Whaaaaat? See what I mean?

Limit choices! If there is something that you want visitors to do (ie. the things that make you or your company money), don’t give them a million options. Keep it simple.

Make it totally obvious.

This ties in with above, but it deserves it’s own special mention because you can really muck this part up. Everything must be obvious - don’t try to be cute at the expense of your visitors.

Can you see the navigation here?

If you make me hesitate, I will leave. Period.

Put things where people will expect them. Nav at the top, logo links to home, etc. If you need to change your navigation design so it’s available, but it doesn’t distract, DO IT. It pays off.

Only Ask for the Minimum

This one varies tremendously by industry, but the basics are the same: Ask for the MINIMUM information that you need for EVERYTHING. If you are doing any kind of lead capturing (which you should be), ask for the least amount of information possible. Don’t ask for information that you can gather yourself. For example, if a visitors submits their email on a product page to get alerts for deals on that product, don’t ask me what I am interested in! Send me an email later that let’s me tell you what else I might be interested so you can segment your list further, but make it fast and easy or I won’t complete it.

If you have a long process for some sort of qualification (think insurance leads or something similar), make it a process that let’s the user drop out anywhere, but hopefully don’t want to - the longer they stay in, the better the lead, but you can still work it with less information. It’s a trail and the key is to keep them on the trail as long as possible. Make sure that the information that you ask them is obviously relevant to satisfying their needs and for-the-love-of-everything, use effective error handling and help messages.

Fix my Pain and Fix it FAST

I don’t want to know how great your company is and how pretty your staff is - I came to you because I have a pain large enough that I searched Google for a solution and found you and I want you to show me that you can fix it in the first 1 second that I am on your site. (See my stomping my feet?) Fix my pain and I will stay.

But what about the testing?

We have all heard this time and again, but it bears repeating (and deserves its own post): TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST. Seriously, never guess about what will work - you just have to try. If you can’t do this yourself, find someone who can help you, but your gut knows nothing about what works for your visitors. I won’t say any more now except that none of the above applies without testing.

Resources for those who want to rock their landing pages:

LukeW is the king o’ forms and sign ups. His work is amazing and fascinating. Go read and read and read. Makes the heart all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?

Need some inspiration? Check out the top 100 sites where forms should matter. DISCLAIMER: Just because they *should* be awesome, that doesn’t mean they do everything right. But there’s a lot to be learned by observing and using these sites as a visitor and not developer.

Jonathan Mendez writes a GREAT blog called Optimize and Propheize. Check it and read every page.

SEOmoz ran a landing page contest last year that’s a good read to see landing page examples that battled it out for the “best” design. As you will see, pretty does not always = effective.

A couple of examples of effective landing pages:

Mortgage Lead Example

Medicare Supplement Lead Example

Online Marketing Lead Example (though I would have liked to see an email entered on step 1 to “email the report.” I bailed on the process - they wanted too much info on step 2.)

Free Medicine Lead Gen Example

Does anyone else have an examples to share to make this post an even better resource?

Why no love for Austin? (at SEMforSMB right now…)

Laura — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:49:58 +0000

I seriously wonder why there aren’t more search marketing conference in Austin, Texas. What gives? Anyone know?

SEMforSMB has proven there’s a local market here. Chris Justice and his team have proven that, even in the specific niche of marketing for SMBs, people are HUNGRY. I am sitting in the Leveraging Social Media panel and people are camping on the floor and lining the perimeter because there aren’t enough seats. There’s huge interest. Most people here are local, too.

And tonight, there’s the monthly Austin Social Media Club meeting. Adam and I are excited to finally get to go, but I have been following them for months and they are a great, consistent group.

Plus our Austin SEM/SEO Meetup is busting at the seams. Our next meetup on July 6th is on video SEO and video marketing and the response has been amazing. We just posted the meetup and already 26 spots are taken. And this is with really no promotion beyond people talking about it. (And what a great group of people!) I realize that this isn’t the same as filling a conference, but the point is that people want it and Austin rocks, so it’s a no-brainer.

So where are all the search/social media/search marketing/web biz dev conferences? (and NOT MLM crap)

And if you are screaming SXSWi!! at your screen, yes, I know, but that doesn’t count! That event has it’s own place in the history of the world. But what about SMX or SES?

There is no question that Austin is just oozing with web geeks who love events, and Austin has great venues, amazing food, and the nightlife isn’t bad either (so I’m told :p). So what else do we need?

LonghornKate and I need to start a grassroots group to petition to get search marketing conference organizers to come to Austin to see what we have to offer and how fantastic the people are here.

Who is with us?

Austin SEM Meetup - Local Search

Laura — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:24:28 +0000

Oh, hello blog, where ya been?

First, you can follow me on Twitter (wait, what did I say?) and FriendFeed here:

http://www.twitter.com/lauraa
http://www.friendfeed.com/lauraa

About 4 months ago Adam and I decided to start a SEM meetup group in Austin. We couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t one already, so we decided to do it. We had our third monthly meeting last night and it keeps getting better. Great people, great discussions, and of course, we love the topic. We have over 100 members now and get about 30 people at each meeting (max for the venue - we need a bigger one!).

Here are the slides from the presentation: Local SEO: How to Totally Own in Google.

I also put some notes and URLs on the Austin SEM meetup message board.

My fave local SEO sites/blogs:

http://blog.kelseygroup.com/
http://www.localseoguide.com/
http://www.localpoint.com/
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/
http://blumenthals.com/blog
http://stephenespinosa.com/
http://gesterling.wordpress.com/
http://www.convertoffline.com/

Next month, Video SEO! Adam and I will be presenting again, but I have a few people who I will beg to share their expertise. This is a *Really* great group… Here is what some people have said about it:

This is an extremely valuable source of knowledge, and the collaboration of the group added richness of combined knowledge and experience which helped everyone learn more about the topic. I would Highly suggest if you own a small business, and have a website, you need to attend this meet up.

Another thorough and lively discussion organized by Laura & Adam. I’m sure everybody who attended learned something new that they can apply to their unique situation. Great stuff!

Laura and Adam have put together something great. I learn so much every time!

A great group of people. All professionals, but fun, and out there to give and receive useful information for SEO/ GREAT GROUP!

If you want to learn or get plugged in or even hire a good SEO firm then get plugged in to this group.

Cool, huh?

Edit: Some great write-ups about the event!

Our favorite blog coach - the Tracksuit CEO covers a bunch of points that I didn’t even mention. So glad you keep coming back, Daniel!

And another veteran of the group, Judd (who owns Austin interactive marketing company Trif3cta), made a great post covering even more stuff that I didn’t mention.

Go check out those posts - they are worth the trip!

The Future of SEO/SEM - SXSWi Panel Notes

Laura — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:59:48 +0000

These are notes that I took during a panel at SXSWi 2008 presented by William Leake of Apogee Search. I have seen William speak a few times now, have talked with him at a few local AustinIMA meetings, and Apogee tends to exhibit at most relevant conferences that I attend. He’s a very nice guy who is clearly passionate about what he does. He loves his ‘product’ and has an easy way about him in his ever-present jeans and cowboy boots.

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Please note: Some of this is from the presentation and some are my thoughts on the issues on which he presented.

SEO 3.0: Optimizing Search & Social for 2008 and Beyond

Local is hotness.

Right now local SEO is easy peasy. (well, comparatively) So where are the companies/people specializing in local search placement? Is this a matter local businesses not understanding the power/value of being found? A quick search on Austin’s craigslist shows there are some offerings, but are they speaking the language that these local businesses are using? Some examples:

Social Marketing, Search Engine Ranking Placement, and web development

Free Search Engine Optimization Proposal, SEO Consulting Services

#1 Google Ranking Wanted ? SEO Consultant Available | Top 10 Ranking

Okay, so call me crazy, but if I own the little flower shop on Main Street, what are the odds that I am going to know what any of those words mean?! “Ranking Placement?” “SEO?” Is using the word “consultant(ing) supposed to make you sound professional? Or scary to the mom and pop shops all over town. Seriously, people. There are literally thousands of businesses in Austin that would benefit from just a few hours of work yet these ads are sure to scare most of them away. I imagine most small businesses take the position, “I know I want more people on my website, but I have no idea how to get that done.” Am I wrong? They don’t care what you can do. They care what you can do for THEM. Why not try something like these:

“Get found online by Austin customers. I can make sure your website is where they are looking!”

“Want more Austinites to find your website but you aren’t sure how? I can do that for a one-time fee.”

William suggested a one-time fee of $500 to get a local company ranked where necessary. Spend $100 on labor and the rest is profit. There are lots of places to do this from the most obvious - like Google local - to paid services - like an upgraded placement on CitySearch.com. So many opportunities. So few people doing it right.

IMO, the local SEO space is very, very cool. In the past the web has been all about how big the world is and how we can find something across the globe with just a few clicks. While that’s great, I think the local space has tremendous value that isn’t being tapped fully yet. (I will write more about this later.)

(Note: being that this is local, this topic varies widely. Understand *your*market - they are all different!)

Google results are getting more blended.

Have you noticed lately how much the goog is integrating other types of results within the standard web page returns? I am sure you *have* noticed this, but have you been using it to get better rankings? For whatever you want to rank for, you need to *at least* be producing video content and properly tagging it across all the video sites that you use regularly. This certainly has benefits of its own, but wouldn’t you like an extra opportunity to snag another top spot with a different kind of media?

William’s example was ‘I have a dream‘. If you click on that you see standard natural results, a paid ad, plus a google books result, plus You Tube videos (with thumbnails). Add to that possible news results and images and you have the full spectrum. If you want to be found you need to be everywhere that you can. This has never been more important than now.

Hype for 08.

Virtual worlds
Pay per call (search engines didn’t jump on board with this for lots of reasons)
Mobile (he doesn’t believe this is the year for mobile to go mainstream)

Hot in 08.

More and more video media
Social media optimization (this is really just word of mouth marketing, but there are always new was to facilitate it)
More convergence and cross-channel marketing (ie. a video campaign plays into a tv commercial campaign)

Ad agency frustration.

William expressed clear and palpable frustration with traditional ad agencies and their (and he was generalizing here) inability to adapt to new ways of working their craft. His example was taking two approaches to running a large print campaign in CFO Magazine. The traditional media approach would be to create ads, do ‘focus groups’, and determine which ad should get the huge ad spend.

OR, his approach. Have the ad agency do what they do best and create a bunch of different ads. Then take all those beautiful creatives and run them at CFO.com to test their effectiveness. The best man wins, and the winner will become obvious with the proper metrics. Boom, you have your ad and you know it worked.

I have to agree - this should be standard thinking, but I also admit that I have limited experience with ad agencies. My limited experience tells me that the ones that I have dealt with for NBF can be clueless about how to *actually* reach their consumers. It baffles me.

Video Optimization.

An audience members asked about proper video optimization. William said that the best that we can do now is produce good, linkable video content and properly tag it. Don’t stuff keywords. I would add to that also that there are a TON of video sites out there. Make sure you aren’t missing a niche video site for whatever you are promoting.

I think it will be very cool when search engines can actually read the internal content of the videos. I know there are a bunch of companies scrambling to perfect this, and when they do it’ll be hot.

Natural SEO.

I think this came out of an audience question. William suggested something that I think should be standard practice. If you are setting out to optimize a site, start with a 1 month PPC campaign with a ton of words in it. As many as you can possibly reach for in your niche. Run it and carefully track what words are converting. At the end of the month, analyze your list and you have your terms for SEO. Don’t waste time on words you think you can get rank for if they won’t convert (and you would likely rank for them anyway if they are easy). Likewise, put some effort into words that are a reach because of the competition, but they convert like crazy. It’s amazing how many companies have no clue what their best converting phrases are. Scary, actually.

I think that’s most of it. He said more things, but they were more common sense SEO than anything, so I didn’t jot them down. I know this isn’t rocket science, but I think he really added value - and the audience seemed to concur. I think that even today there is just a ton of mystery around this stuff. It’s fascinating because it feels like, after all this time, that it’s been around forever.

Nice job, William! See you at the next AustinIMA event.

SXSWi rawked.

Laura — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:00:52 +0000

Can I just post today like I never took a break from this site? Or would that be weird? :p

I spent the last few days at SXSWi and it was a BLAST. I get to go to a few web/marketing/geeky conferences a year (thanks Hubby!), but I haven’t yet been to the one big one right in my backyard in the three years that we have lived here. It was almost *too* easy to get up each day and drive down there. I have been working for a company here in Austin for a about a year and my boss got me a badge. I faithfully went each day, all day.

I had such a great time. The vibe was really, really different from, say, Affiliate Summit - which is also filled with geeky people. Not necessarily better, just different. The crowd seemed more web geeky, more mature. Unfortunately, Austin skies unleashed rain like we haven’t seen in some time for most of it, but I heard so many good things from attendees about my purdy city. I met a ton of people and even got a see a friend from more than 10 years ago. (Hey Ryan and Jenny!)

I took notes at most of the panels that I attended and I will post them over the next week or so to share the love. I wish I could have spent a month there. I could seriously sit around and think and ponder new media and culture and trends and how we are changing the way we live because of all of it. Seeing so many people embracing everything that is shiny and new in marketing (*new* marketing) is really inspiring. Never seen so many iPhones in my freakin life.

Of course, I am left swirling with ideas, but that’s the fun part. I just love smart people and there were so many there… Ah, to keep the high going…

Using Psychology to Create a Killer Sticky Website

Laura — Mon, 28 May 2007 20:42:50 +0000

In thinking about current and future projects, I have done my best to be as conscious as possible about the reasons for doing things a certain way, rather than doing things a certain way because that seems like a good idea. That is, I want every feature and option to have a darn good purpose. I realize this could seem a bit obvious, but it’s so easy to just stick something here or there or add a “cool” feature just because you can.

So I set out recently to understand what makes some web apps irresistibly sticky and why others can’t seem to gain traction. It didn’t take me long to get totally obsessed with understanding this stuff because the deeper I got, the most interesting it all became.

I kept finding this great material from people who had the same thoughts I had (of course - you know there are ALWAYS people who have already had whatever question you currently have, and chances are that they have already blogged about it). Here is some of what I found.

“…the service automatically gets better the more people use it.” (O’Reilly)

First of all, if you want to build something that really sticks, you need to understand what motivates us. In reality, it all comes down to not only making something fun, but understanding what we think is fun and why.

I suppose it’s not hard to make the leap that game developers are the kings and queens of sticky, but that’s not something I had really wrapped my head around until now. Amy Jo Kim is pretty much THE source for this discussion, and she’s been at it for quite a while.

She lays out 5 components that aid creating sticky app or game - and she argues that the most sticky sites make use of all of them well. (Ebay being a prime example.) The idea is that you can actually shape the behavior of your users (a better way to say this is to say that you can get them to do what you want them to do to further the goals of the site and improve user experience). By developing concepts around these 5 components, you can shape the way your site/app is used.

Collecting things.
Earning Points.
Getting/giving feedback.
Exchanges/Gifting.
User Customization.

How many sites do you know that incorporate these features? The ones that do are pretty darn sticky. Ebay, MySpace, Facebook, etc. That’s not to say that any app with these 5 things will work - it’s far more complex than that - but it does mean that these features matter.

If you want to learn more about what each of these means so that you can start incorporating them into your own sites, here are some great resources:

Jay Gould of Bolt.com adds a few more to the list:

Syndication.
Competition.
Tipping Point.

Make sure to check out the full post for his interesting thoughts.

“…users pursuing their own “selfish” interests build collective value as an automatic byproduct.” (O’Reilly)

If you want to build a web app that’s totally irresistible and undeniably sticky, you have to follow these golden rules:

Your app needs a goal - some ultimate achievement - and that has to be obvious the moment that you hit the page. But once you figure that you, you need to forget about how cool that goal is because that’s not enough to create a site that sticks. You must focus on all of the steps to achieve that goal and make them FUN, EASY, and ENJOYABLE. Remember: it’s not about the goal, it’s about the PROCESS to get to the goal.
Feedback makes even the most basic tasks fun. Allow people to leave one way message AND back and forth conversations. Think Ebay feedback, think MySpace messages, think blog comments, think forum private messages. Think about how people communicate and make those kinds of communications available to your users. Allow for ‘gifting’ between members. Gifts create a sense of reciprocity and people generally want to outdo the giver. “Gift economies” are very interesting, and I think we will see a lot more of this in the future - beyond Hot or Not, Facebook, et al.
Customization abilities create a sense of ownership and belonging. Being able to make something represent who we are at the core makes us more likely to share it (perhaps that’s an all black page with gray text, or a pink page with sunflowers), and ostensibly makes it harder to abandon because it’s really a part of who we are. MySpace is fugly, but it works.
Take customization a step further by customizing data and suggestions for each person. If you know someone loves Metallica because their (now required on all UGC sites) says so, why not suggest other Metallica fans to them as friends, or groups that talk about Metallica? If you aren’t talking about a more social networking site, you can still make suggestions based on what we know for sure about a user and all other users. If a you are always giving users the next click, that click will be far more useful if it’s actually relevant to their stated tastes (or surfing habits). Study Amazon’s ability to suggest… Have you clicked before? Were you interested in why or how they might know you so well?
Everything is ranked and sorted and everything has a number attached. If you attach a number to someone, we are naturally inclined to want to see that number rise. Depending on the site, it could be the number of friends I have, or it could be the number of photos I have submitted, or it could be the number of posts I have made. It instinctively feels good to see “our” number increasing. Anything that’s important to the quality of your site should have a number. (Hint: Don’t make it about friends.) Perhaps there is also a general experience number that ties in all sorts of aspects that be called Experience or Karma. this number could be affected by submitting content, adding comments, community moderation, etc. Once you have numbers, everything is ranked and those ranking are public. Just watch how people suddenly start increasing their activity levels…
Give your users a reason to keep returning every day. If your users don’t have a reason to visit daily, give them one! Give daily log-ons weight in your overall points system. Have a robust user notification system that nudges them about how many new posts/reviews/friends/etc. have been added to the site since they last visited. Depending your site, this will be different, but do what you can to give a REASON to come back.
Sit down and figure out your EXACT goals and then build around them. If you are a review site, you want reviews. Every single game component should be built around that one goal. Don’t let your mind wander and don’t start adding things that aren’t a part of that one goal. Add features that encourage THAT behavior.

Much of user-generated content is crap. I love UCG, but the reality is that a lot of it isn’t that great. That’s okay, though, because your incredibly brilliant app will be able to bring the cream to the top with very little user interaction. You know what people are clicking on, what people are commenting on, what people are sharing, etc. You will do this well because you know that it’s your job to locate the best content, while also letting users dig as deeply they want into the site. Have analytical tools in place that bring the good stuff to the forefront for your users. Never make them look for it unless they want to.
You are not creating the content, you are creating ways to USE and DISPLAY the content. That’s your job. Focus on ways to use the data that you have that will improve on user experience. Make your data available to outside developers through an API. Don’t horde it! If you have data, it can get used by someone. Think about it: Google’s charm has nothing to do with the actual sites they index, but it has everything to do with the DATA they collect to create their rankings and how they manipulate that data. That’s what creates the listing of websites in their results pages. Never forget - it’s not so much about what you collect as what you DO with what you collect.

Let me leave you with this:

The uniting theme in all of this is that you need to understand what makes people act and react in order to develop something that they want to use again and again. This is about creating interfaces that understand the way we consume and create content. To me, the future of social applications on the web is fully understanding how we can better use data to create userfulness and relevancy. For some apps it’s about how people are connected, for others it’s about how things are connected… I think we have barely scratched the surface of intelligent, evolved, niche social networks and applications.

Happy Birthday, Anika! My baby turns three.

Laura — Sun, 27 May 2007 01:52:44 +0000

Anika Rose Alter was born at home three years ago in the wee hours of the morning… The last three years have been generally fun, sometimes painful, and always crazy. Adding a third child wasn’t in the plans (so soon, or maybe at all), but she was determined to arrive.

Here’s a really short clip of her getting her cake today. Not too exciting, but Adam took it with my itty bitty digital camera that I keep in my purse, and I haven’t tried to upload video from it before. It’s me and all three kids blowing out candles. Anika is in my lap. (I know it looks crappy, but what do you expect! :D)

I will be back later with a short and sweet pictorial of my sweet girl’s life.

EDIT: Her life in (some) pictures…

And from her birthday today:

Happy Birthday, Anika! We love you!