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eMetrics: Accelerated Darwinism Online & the Evolution of Web Metrics

2009-10-20T08:12:58-07:00

I've gotten the opportunity to attend the eMetrics conference in the Washington, DC area this year and already the first two presentations have really impressed me. The first was Jim Sterne's which I'll be blogging about a bit later over on Social Conversations, but the one I wanted to tell SMG readers about was the presentation given by Foresee Results.

It was all about the evolution of web metrics in comparison to what customers are doing online. How did we really get here? So much data, but yet so little true meaning for a lot of companies. So little actionable data because of the data overload web managers are stuck under.

Larry Freed of ForSee Results gave a great presentation. He started off with defining "Darwinism" and how its change over time that makes only the strong survive. We see it in humans, we have seen it in animals and now we even see it with online businesses.

With online shopping the evolution started with pre-technology, back when you had to travel to the store by foot or horse, or cart to purchase your wears. Retailers relied on manual ways of stocking, restocking and accounting for sales. Eventually technology came into play giving us real time inventory. Then came the internet which allowed even the smallest mom and pop store to reach a global audience. Now we have mobile where with a few touches of a screen and a minute amount of time you can have something you want delivered to your doorstep.

Along with this evolutionary change, there's another one going on it's one where we're moving from a push message to a pull message. Where the customer is in control, rather than the business. The internet has enable so many things, the cost of "Switching" has gone down, the barriers to entry have nearly gone to zero, and customer are now more informed than ever.

Only a few years ago our economy on the internet was basically "build it and they will come". That no longer holds true with these new changes. It's now becoming a lot more like the traditional business environment where only the strong will survive. The results of this evolution is that we are now in one of the most ultra competitive environments, ever.

But how does this impact web metrics?

It makes us a lot more accountable for the changes that need to be made to improve and keep the business alive. You cannot manage your company if you don't measure, and measuring is what you need to do if you want to improve the bottom line.

Customer satisfaction at the end of the day is a huge piece of the measuring puzzle but it's really tough to accurately measure. Very few plans or measurement strategies that tie in measuring customer satisfaction tie that measurement to the bottom dollar. The American Customer Satisfaction Index is likely the most reliable source to look at when looking to measure sanctification.

Metrics Must Have: Accuracy & Precision, Validity, Sensitivity, Realiabitiy, & Credibility

Freed goes on to explain the "Ecosystem of Metrics"

Measure What Happens - key performance indication - behavioral data (looking backwards) - clickstream, financial, tasks
Satisfaction - predicts what will happen
Observation - tells us how it happens
At the center is the customer

At the end of the day, it's the customer satisfaction that rules. Satisfaction = What you get + What you Expect (what did you think they were going to do compared to what they really did). If your customers aren't satisfied, then your business is not going to survive.

Freed leaves us with 10 tips:

You cannot manage what you cannot measure
What you measure will determine what you do
Measure what matters most - your customers
Knowledge is power - the customer is now in charge
Turn data into information and information into intelligence
Satisfaction will drive conversion, loyalty, retention and word of mouth
It only takes two things to survice, satisfying your customers and be fiscally responsble
Measurement is hard, don't fall for gimmicks
Integration of web metrics magnifies the value
You are in the fight of your life, if you satisfy your customers you'll be around to fight the fight!

Online Marketing Tips Video: Twitter Tips - URL Shorteners, Blogging & ReTweeting

2009-09-08T09:57:51-07:00

This week for our Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing Video, I'm discussing some Twitter Tool that you can integrate into your strategy to get a better handle on what's happening with all those URL's you are tweeting out.

Full Twitter Tips Video Transcript after the jump....

Twitter Tips - URL Shorteners, Blogging & ReTweeting - Video Transcript

Hi and welcome back to Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm Li Evans of Serengeti Communications and Search Marketing Gurus. I'm back today with some more Twitter Tool Tips! Yes, Twitter, you know everyone is using it, Oprah, Shaq, everybody, so why not use it in a way that you can understand whether its working for you or not. So lets get to it.

Three tips. I've got a URL Shortener and two tools that can work with that URL shortener to give you a better idea about what's going on with the URLs that you are putting out into your Tweetstream. So lets take a look at it.

Utilizing URL Shorteners that Measure Your Engagement

First is the URL Shortener and that's Cligs - www.CLI.gs, and what Cligs is, is again a URL Shortener. So if you have a really long URL that's more than 140 character or almost is 140 characters long you can put that URL into CLIGS and it will shorten it down to maybe about 15 to 20 characters. Then you have more room to put some information into your tweet to go along with that link.

So how it is different than any other URL shortener is that 1) It doesn't hijack your URL like a Digg or an OWLY will. Those two will actually put bars up when it redirects the URL to your site. The person who is looking at that URL will click that URL but not see your URL, they will see the Digg URL or the OWly URL and a lot of times they don't even recognize that is even happening when they are bookmarking they are bookmarking the Owly or Digg URL. Cligs doesn't do that. When it redirects you to the site that the URL is suppose to go to , people see your URL. So its not high-jacking your URL.

The other great thing CLIgs does is that it filters out the human clicks from the bot clicks. A lot of URL shorteners don't do that so you aren't going to get a true grasp on who's really, real people, clicking on your URL.

It also gives you some great information about where in the world these people are clicking from and also what types of social sites are they clicking from such as FirendFeed or Facebook or Twitter. It will give you that information all about who's clicking those shortened URLs from Cligs.

The other thing that allows it to integrate with these other two tools is that Cligs gives you an API key, which is great because you can use that Cligs key to integrate with cligs account through TweetMeme and through TwitterFeed which are the next two tools I'm going to talk about.

Utilizing TwitterFeed & Cligs to Get Data On Your Blog Posts

So let's take a look at TwitterFeed. I've talked about TwitterFeed before. TwitterFeed is great. It allows you to hook your blog up to your tweetstream. Any time you put out a new blog post it will be automatically posted to your tweetstream. Because Cligs offers an API, and TwitterFeed allows you to use that API you can integrate the two. This way you are getting a lot more data about who's clicking to see your blog posts.

It gives you a little bit more information that might not be carried over if people are clicking from applications such as TweetDeck of Seismic Desktop. A lot of times that information isn't coming over in a URL but you can actually see that information that it's coming from Twitter in the Cligs environment. Sot that's the great thing you can use with TwitterFeed and Cligs.

Integrating TweetMeme & Cligs to Promote Your Online Content

Third tip I have for you is to use TweetMeme. TweetMeme is a site that will let you know what are the most popular tweets that are going out there, what things are being tweeted over and over again. Basically to encourage that to happen with your blog posts or your content, videos, pictures things that you have out there that you can control, you put a little widget on your blog or on your website.

Its a little piece of code that puts this TweetMeme widget on your content and it allows people to just click that little widget and it retweets out the URL that you've programmed into the TweetMeme. And that's how things can start to get viral and popular and more people can see it. The great thing again is that TweetMeme allows you to integrate with Cligs, through the Cligs API.

So those are your three tips for Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus and Serengeti Communications. As always you can find a transcript of this video at SearchMarketingGurus.com. We'll see you next time.

Women of Internet Marketing: An Interview with Ayima's Jane Copland

2009-09-01T19:14:09-07:00

Q: In the unlikely event that anyone reading this doesn't know who you are, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you're currently doing, workwise?

A: The short version is that I'm a twenty-five year old SEO consultant, relatively fresh off the boat from the United States, living in London. I began my career in SEO at SEOmoz in Seattle and I now work for Ayima Search Marketing here in the UK. I'm 100% organic-SEO focused (PPC sounds like something people take at the club around the corner from my flat) and I'd far rather chase down a stellar link profile than attempt to converse with people and engage in the "conversation". The technical aspects of SEO interest me far more than the social, which is odd since the social side was what I first worked on.

Q: Your entry into the world of SEOmoz is a fascinating story. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to work at Ayima?

A: My road to working at SEOmoz was literally the result of replying to a job listing on Craigslist that wanted a junior SEO, experience not a factor. I almost didn't click on the ad: it was about midnight and I'd been replying to job ads for hours. The title of the ad, however, was "Do you use your powers for good or for awesome", a Homestar Runner reference, and I couldn't really go past that, even though I wanted to go to sleep. I read the job description and decided it sounded like something I could do. I was always meticulous with cover letters and resumes, so I was up for another few hours making sure the application was right. Three interviews, a public blogging contest and a lot of hoping later, I had the job.

I came to work at Ayima after deciding to leave Seattle in the winter of 2008. It was time for a lot of changes, and Rob Kerry and I basically came to the conclusion that me moving to work at Ayima might work. It turned out that Rob's partners at Ayima weren't adverse to the idea either. It took me exactly a month from deciding to move to leaving Seattle. I've actually been in the UK for seven months today.

Q: What is your role at Ayima?

A: I'm a search marketing consultant, meaning that I work almost exclusively on client-facing projects, managing / completing both on and off site work. We focus on traditional organic SEO. I love this. There is so much less bullshit in SEO than there is in this buzzy world of back-patting called social media. I can't even stand the term anymore. It makes me wince, it's such a fluffy catch-phrase.

Q: Describe a typical day for you. Leave out the part about living near my favorite pub please. No one likes a braggart.

A: I get up at 4:50am and run six miles. I do this at this time because I like to run in an area of London that is packed with morning commuters come 6:30 or 7am. If I get this done before the day really begins, I also get to take another nap before work. I live very close to Ayima's Clerkenwell office: it takes me less than five minutes to walk to work. I unfortunately have to sit next to Dean all day, which results in a constant battle as to whose computer / keys / mobile phone / glass of water is on whose section of the desk. It's making for an incredibly hostile work environment ;)

As oppposed to when I worked in Seattle, all of my clients are based in the London area, so I travel across town for meetings far more now than I did in Seattle. However, it's still pretty much your standard nine-to-five day. After fighting off requests to go to the pub after work (unless it's Friday, at which point it's game on), I go swimming after work at a pool five minutes in the other direction from where I live. I'll be there for a couple of hours, go home, eat dinner, maybe do some contract work and go to bed. It sounds like a lot of activity and not much downtown, but it makes me happy and I have learned in the last seven months that it's very necessary to do things that make you happy, even if they involve constant activity.

Q: You've done a lot over the past few months... moved from Seattle to London, moved from working at SEOmoz to working at Ayima, etc. How have all these changes affected your perception of the industry? Have you seen that there are any notable differences between the US and the UK?

A: I do notice the difference in culture between having consultants and companies spread over a huge country, and having a lot of them in a select few towns. If there is competition for a contract, you likely know the other companies pitching for it. You likely know the people who worked with a client before you did, and you likely know who's doing the SEO for your clients' competitors. This presented the UK industry with the option to become very nasty and childish, or for its members to develop a mature level of mutual respect for each other. Due to the calibre of people we have working over here, the vast majority chose the second option. Business is business and a LondonSEO piss-up, a birthday party, a dinner date with industry friends or whatever, is just that. That isn't to say that nastiness doesn't occur, but it appears to be less of a problem than it can be elsewhere.

The practice of SEO isn't terribly much different, although of course you need to put yourself through a crash course in a country's culture when you arrive in it to practice marketing. Imagine walking into a meeting about getting some entertainment-niche website ranking, but never having seen the magazine or television show or pop group that they're most interested in at that time. I had to learn a lot fast about a myriad of small cultural nuances of British society. You don't know what you know about a place until you're required to use it in everyday marketing decision making. On the flip side, I come in handy when United States culture needs to be referenced, as I lived there for seven years.

Q: In addition to all of this, you're also an amazing swimmer and you've recently gotten back into it on a fairly big level it seems. That seems to be a very competitive sport. Notice any similarities between it and the SEO industry?

A: There are certainly some, but the differences are becoming more interesting. In SEO, all of our work relies on a third party--usually Google--agreeing that that work was worthwhile. In swimming, standards are made a lot clearer than they are in search. If you have a qualifying time you must meet, you know what that time is before you attempt to achieve it. Rarely (although it does happen) does someone decide after the fact whether your work or performance was good enough. I like the differences more than the similarities, in fact. SEO is a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where we're always trying to be one step ahead of a third party. That's fun. In swimming, the responsibility for a positive outcome is far more within my control, especially now that my attitude towards it is so different to what it was when I was younger. I used to swim for a range of reasons: to get out of my town in New Zealand and to the US, to pay for college, and sometimes because I didn't value myself terribly much if it wasn't backed up by some achievement in a pool. Now, I truly do it because I want to. There is no other motivation, and that has been very freeing.

Q: You and I have talked privately about the current trend of bully blogging. What are your thoughts on that? Is it becoming fashionable to establish yourself in the industry by being mouthy? Sometimes I think some people never got out of high school when I see the fights on Twitter.

A: There is currently a false perception in this industry that it's okay to badmouth people directly, and that if you do not agree with the loudest bloggers, they could end you in one way or another. This perception has been created entirely by the bloggers themselves. A few of them actually find it acceptable to call people whores, fat, ugly, and a range of insults on Twitter and on their websites. The worst (best?) example of this is someone who literally went on a mission to destroy the reputation of a woman he'd apparently never met. It stuns me that collectively, we don't turn around and say "You are acting in an objectionable, horrible way. We don't tolerate that sort of behaviour, let alone celebrate those who engage in it." And these same people are asked to speak at conferences and are heralded as industry leaders.

I used to blog fairly often, but I do not believe I engaged in the nasty bullying that passes for 'snark' and wit right now. If I did, I have definitely learned a lot about respect and humility and I would never be as downright rude, either directly or indirectly, in writing anymore. Can we please finally stand up and say "no, it's not all right to take a snotty, snide tone and be celebrated as clever. It's not okay to bash people you don't like in posts or comments or tweets. You can keep doing it; that's your prerogative. But we will no longer squeal "Great post!" when it's nothing short of bullying."

I know that I'm far from alone in thinking this. Many people recently emailed me and told me that they fully agree. All it would take for this trend to no longer pass as acceptable and popular is for all of us who find it objectionable to say so when we see it in action. Because inaction is what currently allows it to continue, and it only makes all of us look as childish as some of us.

Q: There is always the argument about what background best prepares one for doing SEO. You and I have the much-maligned English degrees, yet I can say for myself that it's served me very well so far. Based on what you've learned so far, what type of skills do you think people need to be successful in this industry?

A: I think too much effort goes into analysing who has what degree, or who has no degree, and talking the abovementioned smack about it. Two of the most successful, brilliant people I know in search didn't finish university. I have a degree in English, as do you. I could have used some more computer science knowledge when I began, but most of the really important skills I've learned, I couldn't have been taught in a classroom. I could have spent those four years learning what I've learned on the job as an adult, but then again, there are many things I learned in college, in and out of the classroom that help me daily.

To do well here, you have to be willing to accept that what you knew to be true a short time ago isn't true anymore. That can be more difficult than it sounds. You have to love learning, but be prepared to learn things over and over again as they present themselves in different ways. And I believe you have to love the technical side of SEO because if you don't understand it, or aren't willing to learn everything you can about it, you're at a severe disadvantage.

Q: Since this is the Women in Marketing series, I need to ask a girl question here. How do you think women are viewed in the industry overall? Any really good or really bad personal experiences?

A: Well, aside from the usual comments about being young and female and working in tech, I have certainly not found it to be a disadvantage or an advantage, save for the fact that women writers in this field get more attention than their male counterparts overall. That's an advantage.

There are one or two gross problems in SEO that revolve around gender and sex, but this isn't the time or place to get into them. That's a battle for a different day.

Now the fun ones:

Q: How do you tolerate working with Rob Kerry every day?

A: Sound canceling headphones ;) (inserted Li comment her - Jane -- I do have a karaoke video of Rob singing the Spice Girls somewhere!)

(I adore Rob.)

Q: If you could get snowed in at the Fox and Anchor with any 5 SEOs, who would they be and what drinks would they all be having? Since I am the interviewer, make sure you mention me here please.

A: Ugh, I'm going to end up NOT naming people I love in this industry if I'm reduced to five!

Ciaran Norris, who'd be drinking Guinness and still looking posh about it.
Lisa and Jon Myers. Lisa would've bought a bottle of wine becasue there's no way we'd not get through it, and Jon would be drinking Peroni.
Rob Kerry and Mike Nott who'd be drinking London Pride
Dean Chew, who'd be drinking what we tell him is Foster's, but is in fact just some regular, awful lager.
Kate Morris and Kalena Jordan, who'd be drinking Sauvignon Blanc.
Stephen Pavlovich and Michael Motherwell, who'd be drunk and asleep in the corner.
Rand Fishkin, who'd be talking too much to drink.
You, Julie Joyce, and you'd be having a Bakewell Tart martini from the bar next door.

Q: Favorite ridiculous conference anecdotes?

A: 1) Walking back to Liverpool Street station during SMX London last year, while I still lived in Seattle and had no thoughts of leaving, right past the building I now live in, the supermarket I now shop at and the pool at which I now swim.

2) Trying desperately to hold in laughter on stage during SMX Sydney last year as Rand and Geraldine abused the text-in-a-question feature, asking Ciaran "Is that a tie or did a monkey die on your shirt?"

3) Being dragged to an establishment in Vegas by you, Julie Joyce, whom I had only really just met, called "Slots A Fun". They had 99c hotdogs and similarly-priced margaritas. The carpet was appalling. The bartender appeared to know you all very well, and his name was Blaze. The lights were too bright and I was scared. Where have these nutty North Carolinians taken us? Ciaran and I made our way back to the plush comfort of the Wynn before something terrible could happen.

Online Marketing Tips Video: Free Blogging Tools

2009-09-01T13:36:23-07:00

It's been a few weeks without a Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing Video so I pulled one that I hadn't yet posted to SMG. This week its all about tools, free tools for Bloggers and their blogs. Google's got three really great tools that any blogger can integrate into their blog to take it to the next level.

In today's video we'll discuss Google's Feedburner, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer. It's quick and to the point, and maybe it'll help you to decide to install one of these free tools to help improve your blog.

Free Blogging Tool Tips Video Transcript after the jump....

Free Blogging Tools - Video Transcript

Hi and welcome back to Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus and Serengeti Communications. This week I've got tips for you, actually this week I've got tools for you, free tools. And they are great for bloggers. So lets get right to it.

Feedburner Helps You Keep Track of Subscribers & Promote Your Blog

Our first tip, our first free tool is Feedburner. Actually all of these tools are owned by Google now. Feedburner used to be owned by themselves and then they were acquired by Google, so they are now a Google property. Feedburner helps you keep track of who your subscribers are, how many subscribers you have, and what kind of feed readers are they using. Are different news services coming out and looking at your feed and then also it has a great little tool that allows you to see that your feed is right, that it is proper and that you have no bad code in there that will render your feed not readable. It also allows you to create little headline animators that you could put at the bottom of your emails or somewhere on your website to help promote the blog posts that you are putting in your blog.

Google Analytics Gives You Web Metrics Insight Into Your Blog Traffic

The next tip I have for you, the next free tool is Google Analytics. This one use to be owned by Urchin. Urhcin of course was bought by Google and now we have Google Analytics and its free. You can apply this to your website and you'll be able to see what kind of keywords are driving traffic, what paths are your people coming into your site taking, and what pages are producing the highest bounce rates. All of this is free information that you can have by just applying Google Analytics to your blog.

Google's Website Optimizer Helps You Create the Best Usability for Your Audience

Third and final free tool that I have for you this week is Google Website Optimizer. So rather than guessing whether or not your audience really likes this blue button or this green button, you can actually test whether the blue button gets you more or the green button gets you more. Google Website Optimizer allows you to optimize entire pages or just pieces of your pages. It's a really nice little tool that you can play with and you can tweak your site to the best possible user experience you think you have through this optimizing tool.

So those are your three tips, your three free tools if you are a blogger, for this week in Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing. I'm Li Evans of Serengeti Communications and Search Marketing Gurus. As always you can find a transcript of this video at SearchMarketingGurus.com. We'll see you next time.

Don’t Gamble with Your PPC Campaigns! Save It For The Casinos.

2009-08-17T13:37:26-07:00

In the lyrics of one of my favorite songs by Kenny Roger’s “the Gambler” which states that “you gotta know when to hold em…., Know when to fold em… No when to walk away…… Know when to run…. And it is those lyrics which reminded me of how easy it is to gamble with your PPC Campaigns, when "rash" decisions can really screw-up your bottom-line. (BTW - What the hell happened to Kenny Roger's Face? It looks like he gambled and lost with his plastic surgeon - See photo below) In this post, I will discuss why it’s important to “know when hold certain keywords and also “when to fold ‘em” or pause them. Just because a keyword may be under-performing, does not mean it’s a bad keyword. It just may bring attention to other areas of the PPC optimization experience (Landing Page, website usability or even the Text Ad). Let’s discuss

Not all keywords are the same for everyone. In my experience, I have seen other PPC Marketers and even myself at times, be guilty of not giving keyword a 2nd chance at life it deserves and it's very much like gambling with real money where the only difference is that your not bidding with Chips, your gambling with your business.

In my humble opinion, the best approach to managing keywords in the PPC Campaigns is to create a small group of 10-20 “tightly” relevant Head Terms and Long Tail Phrases about that specific product or service. Depending on your analytics package, it is sometimes a good idea to identify a few head terms and leave them in either Broad or Phrase Match and let the user find the long-tail work for you. Once you have that setup, I would then monitor them closely a few times a day for a week at a time just to see the behavior.

A Few Behaviors would be:

Click Thru Rate (CTR%)
Avg Position Fluctuation
Competitive saturation
Eventually CPL/CPA.

Once you have a good idea of the winners and “non winners” – (Notice I did not say “LOSERS” because the under-performers may just have the wrong “intent” factor which is perfectly ok), segment them and start working on the ones that need a little more attention. The beauty of Paid Search is the ability for the search marketer to try all types of "last resorts" and test new things. Moreover, finding the ultimate “gold-mine” keywords are not always instant. It could take months to truly get a handle on how to continue the ROAS Success. So in comparing PPC to Gambling at the Casino, you are in effect,

Looking at your cards
Looking at the others players
Looking at the dealer’s cards
Deciding to FOLD'em or HOLD'em

The benefit of PPC is that you do not have to fold right away, you can try different tactics to truly determine if it’s a lost cause and/or stop the bleeding before the credit card company knocks on your door.

So what are some examples of Rehabilitation Tactics?
Certainly, there are many tools to utilize when you are forced to give these keywords a second and third chance at life in your campaigns.

Step #1: Look at all of the RAW search queries (through analytics) and see if there is a gap in the long tail searches. An example maybe adding a FEW MORE negative keywords to filter out unqualified visitors to keep the cost down and improve CTR to get your ROAS at the level it needs to be.
Step #2: Look at the keywords position. Perhaps the “quality score” effect is just not there, so you may want to drop a few cents of the maximum CPC.
Step #3: Look at your Landing Page and Website and looking for problems in your Conversion process. This could also be an issue with price, lack of information, shipping costs (if applicable) as well as anything else which may be affecting your ROAS.
Step #4: If on the Content or Site Placement Networks, run a referring sites report and add those sites that are driving up add spend and not converting to the Site Exclusion section within Google Adwords.

In Conclusion:
The bottom-line of this post is to highlight on the fact that PPC does not have to be a game of High Stakes BlackJack. The PPC Marketer has many options on the table and just needs to be conscious of the surroundings of the user experience to make a better decision. Many great PPC experts in the industry have also been evangelizing on these similar tactics, techniques and strategies mentioned in this post. However, this SemGeek’s thought process is using all of these best practices and simply relating them to other types of behavior, whether you are gambling at the Casinos, or Fishing (That’s another analogy to write about) it’s all relative.

PPC marketing is dynamic in that sometimes you can “win by Knockout" in the first 30 seconds, but if you get knocked down more that 3 times in the same round, as a PPC Marketer you can still continue to analyze your opponent (client) and fight your way back to a successful campaign.

Search Engine Strategies - San Jose 2009 Wrap up

2009-08-17T10:00:00-07:00

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 wrapped up last Thursday, and I was in attendance for the last 2 of the 3 days of the conference. Originally I'd thought about live blogging the sessions I attended, but instead I decided that I'd just do a wrap up post and fill it chock full of tidbits from a selection of sessions.

In the Duplicate content and multiple site issues session:

Shari Thurow (Omni Marketing Interactive)

When indexing, spiders will strip common elements (masthead, navigation, footer) to determine how close the content is from one page to another
Make sure to use the page with the greatest conversion rate as the canonical form

Marty Weintraub (AimClear)

Redirect unnecessary HTTPS pages to HTTP

Sasi Parthasarathy (Bing)

Bing likes clean URLs (the less parameters the better)
The canonical tag is not being used correctly by 50% of webmasters
Don't use canonical tags across domains (it won't work)

Ivan Davtchev (Yahoo!)

About 1/3 of all pages crawled by slurp (Yahoo's crawler) are duplicates

Keynote

Charlene Li (Altimeter Group)

Prepare to tap into the Chain of Intent, targeting based on prior searches
Focus on relationships not technologies
User intent becomes clearer with geographic, time and social context
People must be at center of your search strategy, not keywords
In a few years social networks will be like air"

Image Search Session

Todd Schwartz (Bing)

There are 60 million users of image search
Image search is 2nd only to web search
Bing is concentrating on integrating images into 4 key areas - Shopping, Travel, Health and Entertainment
Results with images are "a key driver of delight"

Li Evans (Serengeti Communications)

Yahoo loves Flickr (do an image search, the majority of results will be from Flickr)
Lots of retail opportunity - people do image search looking for products
Make sure to brand your Flickr account
Remember to give viewers a way to your site, put URLs in the description of the image

R J Pittman (Google)

300 million digital photos taken every day
in 2006 360 million image searches per month, now hundreds of millions per day
Google is implementing facial recognition and object recognition technology
Add your images to your XML sitemaps

In-HouseSession

Melanie Mitchell (Digitas)

You cannot succeed in in-house SEO unless your organization is aligned behind winning in search
6 step in-house process

Create your core search team
Set priorities, goals and incentives
Training / Certification programs
Set internal standards
Provide Tools
Measure and track

Laura Lippay (Yahoo!)

Build an SEO Research Document

Competitor insights
Linking insights
Partnerships & ad sales planning
Social media status
Specific priorities for SEO ROI

Sample Yahoo document can be found at: bit.ly/18PqqX

Site Review Clinic

Matt Cutts (Google)

Let the PageRank flow around your site. Don't bother with nofollow on internal links

As usual the show was very well run, very well attended, and was a great opportunity to meet and network with old and new friends. Were there some sessions that weren't as good? I don't know that I'd say that, but there were one or two speakers that either didn't appear to have put the effort in that they should have done. That's where the evaluation forms come in, and I know that the SES staff pore over those to ensure that they improve each and every time.

There is some bad news - this was the last Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, however the good news is that it's being replaced by Search Engine Strategies San Francisco, which means a new venue and more direct flights next year!

The Power of a Twitter Suggestion, Product Reviews & Video Sharing

2009-08-16T18:15:28-07:00

Earlier this afternoon I was getting a little disheartened by some .... pardon the expression,.... lame ass marketers touting that everyone needs a Blog .. type promoting social media marketing. You know the type, they think they know social media because they have a blog and a twitter account. A friend of mine asked me to check out some links from some webinars that .. well frankly, some schmuck put together who thinks social media is about links from a blog directory. Pardon my candidness - but schmuck is about the best way to describe who presented the information.

For the record, like my respected pal Mike Grehan, I hate the term Social Media ... there's got to be a better term to explain this form of conversation/promotion/marketing.

With that all said, I set off then this evening to find a shredder. Yes, something as plain Jane and utilitarian as a shredder. See I got new checks, but the bank made an error and put the wrong number in the account area - so they sent me the correct ones. I also have a bunch of CDs I need to shred. Thus started my quest.

I went to Twitter and asked:

Low and behold a local pal Shawn Collins of Afflilate Summit tweeted me back:

Of course I thanked him!

But .... me being me not only did I watch his review:

I did a search.

Look closely at what I have highlighted in red boxes (click image for larger view), it's all Shawn. Shawn's review ranks highly from the website I visited, not only that his YouTube VIDEO ranks highly. Followed by the OfficeDepot.com listing (highlighted by blue box). Funny thing - Shawn's link links right to the Office Depot product.

Now, If I wasn't such an in-depth internet user that I am, and as loyal to Staple as I am, I wouldn't have done a search on the Ativa™ DQ120D Diamond-Cut Shredder in Google to find alternate sources for this product. However neither Staples nor Amazon carry this product.

Point is, I trust Shawn - he's one of my followers on Twitter who actually holds conversations, I've met him in person, and he even runs a respected conference called Affiliate Summit. He's got authority in my book, a trusted authority. Add to the fact that he's ranking in Google for all this, I'm buying the Ativa™ DQ120D Diamond-Cut Shredder from Office Depot.

That's not just the power of Twitter, it's the power of a blog post review and video sharing - Social Media Marketing (by an Affiliate Marketer) in action.

Mike Grehan Joins SEW, ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies (SES) - Interview

2009-08-06T08:28:03-07:00

It's with a lot of smiling this morning that I get to be the first place that has an interview with Mike Grehan about his new position with Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and Seach Engine Strategies (SES). (official announcement) Mike's taken on a whole new role leading some exciting changes for the next coming year as well as helping to shape the direction of the industry as one of the top minds on where not just search marketing is going, but the whole online marketing industry as a whole.

So lets hop right to it...(this is a two part interview that continues on Take It In-House)

Tell us about your new role with Incisive Media, SES, SEW, ClickZ

Mike Grehan: I’ll be carrying Matt McGowan’s suitcase while he’s traveling as well as acting as his bodyguard to keep him safe from his adoring fans at conferences…

And apart from that… Effectively I’m working with the content team to help shape us up for the future. These three powerhouse brands have been around for a while and have a great reputation. But as the industry changes, we must change with it. And not just react to changes but anticipate it and facilitate the online conversation.

Of course, I’ll be playing a much larger role with the conference on the speaking front, as well as regularly writing and blogging across all three brands. And then there’s the webcasts and the…

How has the search industry changed in the last three years?

Mike Grehan:I think the biggest changes revolve around less dependency on technical solutions in the way we had to provide for clients. Now it’s much more important to have a strong marketing strategy as well as some tech savvy.

How important has social media become?

Mike Grehan: Interesting that so many people in search are drawn towards this, so called “social media” when it requires an entirely different skill set. People like yourself who have a PR and marketing background (as well as being an excellent coder :) ) are more likely to succeed. As to how important it has become, go and ask the 250 million people at Facebook, they’ll tell you :)

This interview continues on Take It In-House.

Want to Meet Charlene Li & Have Dinner?

2009-08-04T12:48:03-07:00

As Director of Social Media for Serengeti Communications, I'm really excited about announcing this contest that we're holding through our Take it InHouse brand. The contest is really simple and you have the opportunity to join us for a private dinner with Charlene Li in San Jose during Search Engine Strategies this year. Charlene Li is Thursday's keynote speaker and she's also co-author of the awesome book Groundswell.

We're giving away 2 seats to the dinner and here's how you can win.

Take it InHouse is looking for two companies who manage the most vendors to help them get their online marketing strategies accomplished.

What does that mean?

So say you have one company to do your PPC, another for SEO, someone else to handle your online PR and yet another company to do Social Media or Analytics, we want to hear from you!

The form is really simple to fill out, we just want to know how many vendors you work with and for what (not who they are). We’re curious as to the average number of vendors that one company has to deal with to handle their online marketing initiatives.

The two companies with the most vendors will be our winners. If there are several companies who have the same number, we’ll put them into a fishbowl and have a drawing. We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday August 7th, so spread the word! If you are coming to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies or even live in the area and run your business from around San Jose, let us know about how you manage your online marketing strategies!

Win A Seat at a Private Dinner Featuring Charlene Li

Dear Zappos - Please Put Up Info on the Amazon Merger

2009-07-30T09:43:27-07:00

Complete Disclosure* - I'm an AVID Zapos fan.

I love Zappos.

But I'm afraid!

Zappos has such an open embrace of social media, I point to them time and time again to clients as to how they should model their interaction in social media with their customer after. If you are looking for someone to model how you deal with a community with - its' Zappos.

I've read their culture book which i got at Pubcon 2008. I have read article after article after Tony Hsieh, one of the most recent coming this past May there was this article about him, it really made me think! It made me love Zappos even more. I changed my shopping habits for shoes to go there first, that's how much I have come to respect Zappos.

Last week, Amazon bought Zappos. I found myself a little saddened. Much like this whole Yahoo / Microsoft deal. I feel like this little... awesome ... company who truly understands the use of social media is being swallowed up into a larger entity who has no clue about social media. These huge companies see social media not as a way to engage customer like Zapos does, but more as another place to drive traffic from.

Amazon's team is really noted for watching that "buy" button. They have an entire team dedicated to watching how you, me and anyone else interacts with the "buy now" button. What's sad is that they dont' really see what happens several times before someone hits that buy button.... or what happens AFTER!

Zappos worked hard on their "unboxing" promotion.. pushing it hard at this past year's SxsW conference in Austin, TX. Add that into their contest for winning a trip to Las Vegas and their headquarters which was won by a Philly local - Gloria Bell of Red Stapler Consulting - they were doing some pretty awesome social media initiatives.

Unfortunately I've become a bit concerned, mostly because already there's a small sign of the corporation taking over. Just like any other startup that's been bought buy a huge company, I'm afraid Zappos is going to loose their customer centric focus and loose what makes them fun because now they have to deal with the big corporation "machine".

No where do I see on their site's main page, any information about their merger with Amazon. Zappos has always been very open and upfront about this kind of stuff in the past. However now, I'm relegated to blog post and news pieces about the acquisition via a search on Google. No Where .... nada... is there information on Zappos.com information about this merger. For a company dedicated to customer service.. this is just really surprising.

For a company that's so upfront about what's going on, Zappos.com not having a big link graphic about the acquisition on their main page leading to the blog post about and how it will affect customers (it likely won't, but still reassure the folks not on twitter or gettin emails from Zappos employees!) is a big worry for me. There's nothing... not a small blurb, not a big graphic... nothing on the main page. Take a look at the screen shot below.

Dear Zappos ... I love your company, I love your philosophy for customer service.... please for the love of social media, search, and all of your current customers online - please post something easily accessible about this Amazon acquisition prominently on your website not just on your blog! Perhaps post something on your front page linking to that blog post? At least give us some hope you won't loose what makes you some fun to deal with!

*More Disclosure - I'm on a social media panel with Brian Kalma of Zappos at SES San Jose in August.