Yes! Dana Lookadoo is speaking at SMX West to be held in San Jose from February 28 to March 1, 2012. OK, forget the formal third-person tense of addressing me, myself, and I. Forget the press release… I’m just plain EXCITED to have the opportunity to join a stellar lineup of 130 seasoned speakers seasoned at the conference! Our 5-person panel will focus on SEO and CMS migration. Speakers include myself plus:

• Jessica Bowman of SEOinhouse.com
• Rhea Drysdale of Outspoken Media
• Ryan Jones of Team Detroit
• Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing

• My portion of the session on SEO and website mgration will cover real-life lessons and tactical steps for planning, implementing, and dealing with possible fallout. I’ll present a big-picture overview of the key points and pitfalls with primary focus on the importance of SEO. The CMS doesn’t matter. Whether one is moving to Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, or SharePoint, the principles to be shared are the same.
• Jessica will address team and communication issues with tips for getting everyone on board, setting the plan/schedule.
• Rhea will give heady insights into link-related concerns, especially external link IDs, prioritization, and reclamation.
• Ryan and Shari will share some case studies and real-life versions of how all this CMS migration stuff works.

Be there!

Why is  Search Marketing Expo a big deal?

That’s all I have to say about it for now. Hurry! SMX West Early-Bird rates expire Saturday, 1/28/2012. Register. Save. Be there!

Do make sure to join our session for tons of insights about what many dread – website migration. We’ll show you how to keep it SEO-friendly!

Lookadoo is Speaking at SMX West 2012 on SEO CMS Migration by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

Lyena Solomon has joined team Yo! Yo! SEO as Web Optimization Analyst. That’s right! We’re shouting out a loud Yo!

Lyena is in da house!

It’s official. She even has business cards, so that makes it double official!

Lyena Solomon - Web Optimization Analyst, Yo! Yo! SEO

Dana Lookadoo, Founder of Yo! Yo! SEO, exclaimed:

I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with Lyena Solomon. Not only do we work well together and have a ton of fun, but her attention to detail and focus on data-driven decision making is a total value add!

The addition of Lyena Solomon to the team is a result of an ongoing effort to provide clients with the best hands-on service possible.  Lyena has expertise in Web development, analytics, usability, and conversion, on top of SEO and PPC. She will be a key asset in helping clients understand how to integrate and prioritize online marketing strategies while focusing on avenues that have the highest potential for revenue.

Dana coerced Lyena to make a statement about coming on board:

“I am extremely excited to join Yo! Yo! SEO. The approach to SEO and training is effective, results-oriented, and always improving. It is an honor to be part of such a knowledgeable and successful team. I am looking forward to taking customer satisfaction to a higher level.”

Join us in welcoming Lyena to da house!

Learn more about Lyena Solomon. (Yes, she even has a bio page.)

Team Yo! Yo! SEO at PubCon

You’ll find Lyena Solomon and Dana Lookadoo “tag teaming” PubCon sessions in Las Vegas the week of November 7. They’ll be networking and having a great time as team Yo! Yo! SEO while spending the week with fellow Internet Marketers.

If you’re going to be at PubCon, make sure to get one of Lyena’s new business cards!

Dana’s Panel Schedule

You’ll also find Dana on 3 panels at PubCon:

• SEO Design & Organic Site Structure – Speaking
• Interactive Organic Site Reviews – Reviewing & Auditing
• Crowd Sourcing – Moderating

<Dana may carry a few of Lyena’s cards as well!>

Please stop by to shout out a Yo! to both. For those of you not making it to Vegas, send us a shout via Twitter:

• @lyena
• @lookadoo

Most of all…

Please welcome Lyena to da house!

Lyena Solomon is in Da Yo! Yo! SEO House by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

Yo! WireDoo and MC Hammer! Here are some tips to get found in organic and social search.

Below is a mini site review/SEO audit with tips for maximizing search marketing as the cornerstone of your brand and launch of your relationship-driven search engine –  WireDoo.com later this year. You’ll build relationships with your prospective users, generate buzz, and optimize your site for search engine visibility. To break it down, you need to…

• Put on your entertainer’s hat and get the audience excited about WireDoo’s upcoming release!
• Optimize the heck out of your online presence.
• Build a strong memorable brand that people want to share, link to, ANDto talk about!

It’s Hammer time!  

You cannot turn back the clock of your initial footprint. Your WireDoo Announcement at Web 2.0 Summit on October 19, 2011 got good press. But visits to your website and Twitter profile left one feeling deflated and confused. It’s been 2 weeks since your big announcement, and there just isn’t much going on with your online presence.

Topsy shows only 128 tweets mentioning your Wiredoo.com (your one-page website):

128 tweets about Wiredoo.com on Twitter in 2 weeks

Notice the hashtags associated with those tweets. Why #fail?

Consider the following SEO and branding tips to turn this into a success…

Launch with a Bang

My Mom always said,

“There’s no second chance to make a good first impression.”

I, like many, visited your website and Twitter profile and found NOTHING exciting to read, look at, share, connect with, or even understand. They are essentially null and void.

WireDoo.com Website

Wiredoo.com Website - Nearly null and void

• The logo is 1990ish in design and nothing worth gracing the cover of a gold album or a cutting-edge search engine. I wasn’t sure how to word it yet found the following sentiment by someone I don’t know:

Tweet about quality of WireDoo Logo

• The words “search engine” are not found anywhere on the site. Actually, there is NO explanation about who you are or what you will be.
• There are no links to learn more, no graphics and links to your social media presence, pretty much nothing other than a generic sign-up without mention of a privacy policy.

@WireDoo on Twitter

When I first visited @WireDoo on October 20, there were no tweets and 3 followers. A few days later there were 10. Four days later you had 19 followers, 5 of them search marketers. As of this writing, you lost one of the search marketers and have 18 followers.

@WireDoo on Twitter

NOTE: Search marketers (top-notch SEOs) keeping an eye on you via Twitter are @AlanBleiweiss, @StevePlunkett, and myself (@lookadoo & @YoYoSEO). Feel free to reach out to us for advice and testing. We want to see your deep search engine succeed!

[ ] TASK:  Tweet. Share. Give us more!

Optimize WireDoo.com

Optimize your website’s titles, tags, text and links. Below are some high-level SEO audit points:

Display Your Home Page

The home page, wiredoo.com, has a meta refresh to redirect users to your sign-up page - wiredoo.com/global/signup.html.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://wiredoo.com/global/signup.html">

Why? You WANT your home page (/) to display!

Google treats a Meta-refresh of 0 as a 301 Permanent Redirect, which means the authority and strength of the home page are being diluted and passed onto your Sign Up page. Plus, Google discourages use of the meta-refresh redirects, because they cause confusion for website visitors and for search engine crawlers.

You have people linking to http://wiredoo.com/global/signup.html, when you want the majority of your links going to http://wiredoo.com/, the home page.

It may sound all technical, but ask yourself.

Which page do I want to have the authority and to show up in the search engines?

[ ] TASK: Get rid of the meta refresh, and put up a real home page ASAP.

Remove Duplicate Content

Two versions of your Sign Up page display. One with www and one without:

http://www.wiredoo.com/global/signup.html

http://wiredoo.com/global/signup.html

You want only one version to display in the browser. This is duplicate content to the search engines. Plus, you DO NOT want people linking to both www and non-www versions.

[ ] TASK: Decide if you are going to display www.wiredoo.com or wiredoo.com - without the www. Once that decision is made, redirect the other version to the root (canonical) version.

Look at what the competition doing to help you decide. Both Google and Bing are redirecting all versions of their home page to their www version:

• http://www.google.com/
• http://www.bing.com/

NOTE: You’re website is on a Linux server running Apache, which makes it super easy to implement 301 redirects.

[ ] TASK: Have your IT people fix the duplicate content issue. If you want to display as http://www.wiredoo.com/, here’s your task:

1. Turn on Apache Rewrite Module.
2. Create a blank text file, and name it “.htaccess“.
3. Once done, load it to the root of your server.
4. Create the following code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^wiredoo.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.wiredoo.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Load the .htaccess files to the root of your server.

[ ] TASK: Get rid of your Apache Tomcat page, http://wiredoo.com/index.jsp.

WireDoo Tomcat Page - index.jsp

Add the following lines to the redirect above to redirect this page to your home page (/):

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.jsp
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.wiredoo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Optimize Your Title Tags

Optimize what many SEOs believe is THE most important tag (element) on your website – your title tag. Title tag text displays in the user’s browser window, is saved as their bookmark text, and it’s the display in the SERPs. It’s the first thing people see:

WireDoo SERP display

The title tag on your Sign-up page leaves one wondering what a “wiredoo” is:

<title>Wiredoo: Are you one?</title>

TIP: Keep the title tag under 60 characters to optimize for both Google and Bing. Put your most important (and memorable) keyword phrases at the beginning. Think of it like the name of a song that captures attention.

[ ] TASK: Write quality title tags for your home and sign-up pages and for new pages as they are launched.

Create Meta Descriptions

Most search engines use meta descriptions as part of your site summary in the SERPs (shown above). Facebook uses this when someone shares page. A good description can make or break click through rate, meaning if searchers decide to click on your listing.

[ ] TASK: Create compelling meta descriptions for each page, like a miniature ads. Convey benefit, and include a call to action when applicable.

TIP: You’ll want to remove the refresh/redirect from the home page first before you can work on the home page title tag.

Create a Content Strategy

Not only will content keep us interested, but you’ll be building relevance for search engine optimization (SEO) and capturing places in Google & Bing.

[ ] TASK: Put together a content strategy that tells us about your features, how you plan to add value to search results, what we can expect in those results, and why our lives will be enhanced.

Optimize Your Twitter Profile

Give us something to devour, connect with, retweet, and share!

Create an Avatar

Brand out that Twitter profile! Get rid of the default egg!!

Wiredoo Avatar - default "egg"

[ ] TASK:  Put your logo into a square image (300×300 pixels). Twitter will scale it down as needed.

Write a Bio

Your social media profiles need a bio about who you are – Wiredoo, the deep relational search engine.

Twitter bios show up in search results. As a brand and for online reputation management, you want your social profile to show up for a search for “wiredoo.” You need to get started with your Twitter profile ASAP.

[ ] TASK: Create a bio that is 160 characters in length.

• Use words (keywords) for which you want to be found and show up in search results.
• Put most important phrases at the front of your Twitter bio.

Design a Twitter Background

Here’s your chance to look like an album cover and some life to your Twitter party!

[ ] TASK:  Create a background image that measures 1635 x 1288 pixels. Add some photos or information about WireDoo, etc. Read this post, 4 Ways to Optimize Your Twitter Background, for more tips on rocking out your Twitter profile.

Tweet

No elaboration needed.

Start tweeting!

[ ] TASK:  Get some tweets flowing! Share the hype. Share articles. Retweet what people say about you. Tease us with upcoming release information and features.

HAT TIP: Nice to see that you tweeted a link to How Brands Should Do SEO on State of Search. Pay attention to some of those tips, especially this insight:

You may be competing with Google and Bing, but you also want your website and your social profiles to show up in search results. It’s time to ramp up your social media and SEO efforts to create a cohesive brand. And you should ASAP.

Secure Your Brand Name in Social Media

WireDoo is easily mispronounced and spelled as “wireddoo.” Your brand is already “diluted” and knocked-off. Someone bought WiredDoo.com on October 19 to put up a parody site.

wireddoo.com - Knock-off Parody Site

Someone also secured the Twitter profile, @WiredDoo.

• The knock-off website at least mentions “search,” even though it only goes to one of MC Hammer’s videos.
• The knock-off Twitter profile has 119 followers.
• The parody website even got a link from the WashingtonPost article - MC Hammer’s great idea — WireDoo, the new Google. OUCH!

[ ] TASK:  STOP the parodies and knock-offs! Read below.

Use KnowEm to Secure Your User Name

KnowEm UserName Check* is THE way to ensure your brand is secure and prevent social cyber squatting.
*Shameless affiliate link, because I used them and have seen them help save reputations!

You have not secured “wiredoo” across the key social networks. Below is a screen shot showing a search for your user name:

Knowem UserName Check for "WireDoo"

[ ] TASK:  Go to KnowEm to check availability of your user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites.

OR

[ ] TASK: Go to each social media website to see if your user name is available.

TIP: They offer a subscription service that will automatically secure your name as new social networks pop up.

[ ] TASK:  Secure common misspellings as well.

“Case” your Brand

Be consistent in your brand name across properties with use of title case. This means, always use the same combination of capital letters and non-capital letters. Make sure every use of your name represents the brand. You currently use 3 versions of your name:

• Your logo – WIREDoo (sounds like “wired oo”")
• Your website title tag – Wiredoo (sounds like “why re do”)
• Your Twitter profile – WireDoo (sounds like “wire do”)

Drip Your Marketing

We signed up and heard nothing from you!

Engage those who sign up for WireDoo’s search engine beta by sending us a thank you email, additional emails giving us the inside scoop, keeping us interested, and more. Engage us in dialogue.

Learn more from Marketo. Their drip marketing blog post states:

Using drip marketing is a valuable way of keeping your prospects engaged and creating credibility as a resource.  By sending regular targeted email messages, you keep your company at the top of your buyer’s mind.

Shout out a Yo!

Yo! Go ahead and shout it out!

Put target keyword phrases into your content, conversations, and your digital assets. We call it Word-of-Mouth SEO.

Know that search marketers and SEOs want to join in your conversation. Open the doors. We’ll be there.

Yo! @MCHammer – Break Down These SEO Tips to Launch @WireDoo Search Engine by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

Shop without opening an account on Lowes.com? FORGET IT! Our shopping experience on Lowe’s website took over 2 hours and an exercise in extreme patience. The live ecommerce case study was unplanned and unwanted. It started with a trip to a retail store. We thought it ended with my husband, an epitome of patience, throwing his arms up in frustration and saying,

“You have to write a blog post about this crappy experience of shopping on Lowe’s website! I’m cancelling my unwanted account immediately!”

As of the publishing of this post (Friday night, 9/9), the purchase of the refrigerator is not 100% complete. We STILL do not have confirmation of the purchase 3 days later! (I hope this doesn’t turn into a sequel.)

Below is the real-life ecommerce case study on how Lowe’s succeeds in disengaging customers.

From Disengagement to Engagement to Disengagement

My parents’ refrigerator took a dump Tuesday morning, 9/6/2011. My Mom immediately went to Lowe’s retail store. She didn’t really know what to look for, and no one offered to help her. She didn’t know and couldn’t tell they had an extended Labor Day Weekend sale on all appliances. She walked in and walked out.

Disengaged!

In-store customer lost.

I visited Lowes.com that evening and WHALLAH! Refrigerators were on sale. Tuesday was the last day!

Lowes.com Sale - Engaged!

Engaged!

15% OFF Appliances – Extended 1 Day Only

I helped my Mom, over the phone, navigate Lowes.com. Given that her experience in understanding how to use the Internet is at pre-101 level, we resorted to screensharing to walk her through the shopping experience. (It was too confusing for her.) With Join.me, she could watch my laptop screen and make decisions about her new refrigerator.)

Is my Mom’s inability to figure out where to go on Lowe.com the Web designer’s fault? Hard to say. But most definitely, few site visitors at the “beginning” level would have been able to walk successfully through Lowe’s checkout process.

The sale was ending in a few hours. We remained motivated and engaged to buy a new refrigerator while they were still on sale with free delivery.

Sorting & Information Architecture

We didn’t want to buy a refrigerator that was too tall for the space. The website offered multiple navigation choices to sort by manufacturer, price, dimensions, etc. We narrowed the options by sorting by height. Nice job on the sort options, Lowes!

Actually, the overall Information Architecture – Home > Kitchen > Refrigerators – made it very easy to find the perfect unit that would fit.

Engaged!

We found a Whirlpool side-by-side refrigerator with the features they desired at 1 hour into the research/buying process, FINALLY!

We added it to the cart.

Wait! What’s this? We need an account?

Disengagement began…

Fortunately, there was some fine print that comforted us that we could check out as a guest. <sigh of relief>

Lowes.com Account Login - No Account? No Login

I did not want to create an account to buy a refrigerator for my Mom (or myself).

Dear Ecommerce Merchants,

DO NOT make a shopper create an account to purchase. It’s one of the biggest causes for shopping cart dropout!

With the assurance that no account was needed, we forged ahead.

Re-engaged

We proceeded to checkout.

Product Images (or lack thereof)

Questions arose.

Aren’t there more images?

What did the inside of the refrigerator look like?

My Mom and Step-Dad doubted if this is what they really wanted. They weren’t 100% sure. It’s a lot of money to spend without seeing more.

Each product page offers only 1 image with zoom and no alternate image views:

Lowes.com Product Page - No Additional Images (Caveat: screenshot taken after sale ended)

Only a plethora of textual information is provided via tabs. NONE OF THIS helped my Mom visualize what the refrigerator looked like – the type of shelving, door storage, crisper drawer configuration, etc.

Note to Ecommerce Merchants

You need to appeal to all senses and leave no questions unanswered to keep the shopper from becoming disengaged and clicking away from your site.

• For the visual learner and emotional shopper, pictures sell!
• The logical reasoning learner likes to research and doesn’t need images. For them, tabs with detailed descriptions and specs sell.

Disengaged and questioning…

Where was the Live Chat to answer questions?

My Mom still had time to run back to Lowe’s to see it in person and talk with a salesperson.

Lowe's Customer Service

OK, let’s call the local store to see if they have it in stock.

Lowe’s national Customer Service phone number offered a lengthy menu and store locator. However, there was no way to connect to a local store or find a store’s phone number. The system sent us BACK to Lowes.com!

Disengaged again!

• A quick trip to Google to find the phone number.
• A call to the store and quick chat with the Appliance department, who told us the refrigerator was “special order” and not in stock.
• Back to Lowes.com to look at it one more time.

Lowes.com - Shopping Cart Expired

Our shopping cart EXPIRED in the time it took to find the elusive store phone number and speak with a live person!!

Disengaged and FRUSTRATED!

BUT… that 15% discount was expiring at midnight. It’s now 7:45 p.m. Should she buy, sight unseen?

Motivated Buyers

We started over with the shopping process, found the Whirlpool refrigerator, and added it to the cart again. Guess what? Now we had 2 units in the cart! <sigh> At least that was easy to fix.

This was turning into a live ecommerce case study!

My parents, watching via Join.me, didn’t understand why the screen was moving around so much. What was the problem? It was all getting very confusing to them. They then decided it was too big of a purchase to not be sure of what they were buying, and they were getting tired.

Heck, they only had 4 hours to save $150, but the savings was not enough to convince them this was the right unit for them. They wanted to see what it looked like and couldn’t, so they were going to give up.

It was time to find images.

Refrigerator Image by 'AJ Madison - Your Appliance Authority'

Back to Google…

I searched for the manufacturer and model number.

Lo and behold! I found a site that had a picture of the inside! WOW!

Not only did the picture of the refrigerator show the inside, but AJMadison.com had “staged” it with fruits, veggies, fresh and frozen food.

My Mom and Step-Dad were able to visualize how much food it would hold. They NOW realized this was perfect for them, even a little bigger than their current refrigerator.

They were SOLD!

Thank you, AJ Madison. You really are the “appliance authority!” Unfortunately, your analytics data will only register 1 visit and no sale. Lowes.com’s analytic will never show that you get attribution credit for finalizing the sale.

Back to Lowes.com…

We proceeded through the checkout.

• Entered shipping information and instructions
• Entered billing information
• Realized we needed to edit the shipping information – how?
• Hit the back button
• Started over
• Finally re-entered credit card details

“There was an error processing your order. Error code 51.”

WHAT?

Disengaged AGAIN!

By this time, I asked my husband to take over. My patience had worn thin.

He tried changing names – maybe there was a mismatch.

He tried changing credit cards – maybe it was because some cards require the same shipping and billing info.

NO LUCK!

By this time, my parents were off the phone, off the computer. They had no idea how much more hassle ensued. We were left STRUGGLING to give Lowe’s our money!

Lowe's Customer Service

The only message the website gave us about our “error code 51” was that we needed to call the phone number on the checkout page for help.

Ring. Ring.

Customer Service was CLOSED! Customer Service is only open during regular hours east coast time.

Dear Lowes.com,

Why did you tell us to call them if no one was there?

Have you not considered customizing error messages based of location and time of day? You already had our ZIP code and knew our time zone!

And while you are at it, write those error messages in English rather than computer code!

Totally DISENGAGED!

But, the sale was ending… If we were not highly motivated, we would have simply been another statistic, part of the billions of dollars of lost ecommerce revenue due to shopping cart difficulties.

MULTIPLE iterations later, we tried the only thing we had not done – CREATE AN ACCOUNT.

Order complete! <relieved>

Dear Lowe’s,

You lied to us when you said we could purchase as a guest!!  Instead of telling us why our order would not complete, you gave us an error code 51 that meant nothing to us. You sent us into what seemed like an endless loop, a comedy of errors!

You also gave us a deliver date of 9/13 during the checkout process. Upon completion, you added a week and changed the date of delivery to 9/20!

2 Days Later…

I’m spending my vacation time writing this blog post, and I was ready to hit Publish. Then I started getting nervous. We had…

• No email confirming the order
• No transaction activity on the credit card
• No ability to log in to the Lowe.com account

Now we have to research if our order had really been completed!

We try to get back into the UNWANTED Lowe’s account. We get the following error:

Lowes.com Application Error

Great. We didn’t want the account, now we can’t get in!

After this technical difficulty passed, we found that we didn’t even have an account! The email address was not on file!

No Email on File!

And now we have to call “Customer Care,” yet again!

Disengaged and Nervous

We called. After 7 minutes on hold, “Jessica” could not find our order!

Customer Service acknowledged there was an error with Lowes.com, and the problem was their fault. We’re told the local store will call within 24 hours to let us know if they will uphold the sale price.

My parents have no idea about what has transpired and think they are getting a new refrigerator on 9/13, 15% off, and with free delivery…

What bugs me most is that we’re wasting valuable time on our vacation because of Lowes.com!

Lowe’s Calls Us

“Jerry” from Folsom Lowe’s calls us 2 hours later. (That was much better than 24!) He guarantees he’ll uphold the sale price and free delivery. HURRAY!

• He explains the importance of ordering the $9 stainless steel connection hose, just in case the old one breaks when taking out the old refrigerator.
• He offers an extended 4-year warranty for $109, making it a total 5-year warranty. Sounds good!

(Why were these things not explained on the website? The site’s warranty was $69 for 1 year!)

Engaged!

Shipping information… Billing information… Credit card number… Phone & email…

We’re now looking at a delivery of 9/15.

3 Days Later

Three days after the online store purchase and 1 day after speaking with Lowe’s in Folsom, we STILL have not received email confirmation of our order.

Disengaged and nervous again

I’m hitting “Publish” and will be calling “Customer Care” ONE MORE TIME to make sure they have our money and that my parents get their refrigerator!

The live ecommerce case study continues…

Dear Lowe’s,

Your ecommerce system gave me an opportunity to think a lot more about shopping cart usability and dropout, accuracy of analytics and attribution, and what it really takes to create customer loyalty.

The only reason we returned to your online store is that we were highly motivated by the sale. Otherwise, we would have given up and would have saved several hours of vacation time!

The checkout process on Lowes.com is simply too painful!

Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart purchases are rarely straight-forward. Large purchases are usually the result of multiple touch points.

Merchants who sell large-ticket items MUST do everything possible to engage, educate, and nurture the customer throughout the process. Most of all, you must gain the buyer’s trust!

I’ll be back to write more about best practices for ecommerce checkout process another time and to let readers know if the refrigerator actually does arrive.

If you have any experiences or tips for Lowes.com, please share! Let’s see if they are “listening” to social media and open to feedback.

UPDATE: 9/14/11

1. The refrigerator arrived!! It was efficiently installed by Lowe’s delivery. My parents are very happy with it!
2. The receipt and warranty information arrived in the mail today as well.
3. Lowe’s is listening. Brad, their Director of Social Media, commented below.

Dear Lowe’s,

We’ll be watching your site and look forward to the improvements.

Feel free to reach out if you want any feedback. Many of us in the industry will be interested in how this live ecommerce case study turns out. Hopefully, the result will be an improved shopping experience while also helping you make more money!

Engaged and will attempt shopping at Lowes.com again!

How Lowes.com Disengages Customers – A Live Case Study by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

Google Plus is one more opportunity for businesses to “capture” a search result. Yes, Google+ profiles are showing in the SERPs, even though Google has not officially released Plus “Places” pages for businesses. Check out the the search results for “rustybrick google+” (as of July 3, 2011) below:

RustyBrick's Google+ Profile in the SERPs

Google+ Business Profiles

Search Engine Land was also one of the first to get their “business” profile on Google+ without waiting for the official business “Pages” to launch. View a screenshot of their profile page in the “Google+ “Pages” Coming For Businesses” post in which they covered the topic (and need) for enabling businesses to more easily setup their profile.

Sure enough, the Search Engine Land Google+ profile is helping them blanket the search results (as of July 3, 2011):

Search Engine Land's Google+ Profile in the SERPs

Google SERP Snippet

Let’s break down the snippet of how Google Plus results display. Below are listings for RustyBrick and Search Engine Land as shown in the SERPs:

Google Plus SERP Snippet for RustyBrick & Search Engine Land

1. The title is pulled from your Google Plus profile name.
   “Profile Name – Google+”
2. The page name (URL) is the Google Plus ID.
   “https://plus.google.com/your profile ID”
3. The date appears to be the date your Google Plus profile was created, and the description is from the Introduction field where you provide some information about who you are.

Takeaway

Put on your SEO hat, and optimize accordingly.

Google Plus ID

The URL for each Google Plus ID is one big ugly number. Look at RustyBrick’s Google+ profile below:

URL for RustyBrick's Google+ Profile

I’m adding the ability to customize the URL to my Google Plus wish list. (Heck, Facebook allows businesses to customize their fan page after 100 <correction on 7/9/11> 25 fans.)

Dear Google, please allow profiles to customize their URLs after 100 people have added them to their Circles?

And if you grant this wish, please implement a 301 redirect.

TIP: Google Plus Short URL

You can (and should immediately) grab your company’s Google+ short url once you are on Google Plus.

Create a Google Plus Short URL

Obvious SEO Benefit

It goes without saying… the benefit of your company profile display in the SERPs is a key to online visibility! You simply need to be there (period).

Google was quoted in explaining the SEO benefit of the upcoming Google+ Places pages:

Once these pages/profiles arrive they will probably operate in a way that’s pretty similar to Facebook Pages, but with some Google SEO benefits. They will be indexed, “followable” and individual updates or posts can be +1′d — much or all of which will be fed back into search results and rankings.

Yo! Did you catch that? “…fed back into the search results and rankings.”

Make sure you check ” Help others find my profile in search results” under Search Visibility in your profile settings so you can be found:

Enable Google+ Search Visibility

Google Plus offers businesses with yet another opportunity to be seen and to engage.

What if you are not in Google Plus?

Don’t wait for your invite.

• Build out your Google profile now, and you’ll be ready to launch when it’s open to everyone.
• Our Yo! Yo! SEO Google profile is anxiously awaiting to get in.

Do you have other examples of other businesses on Google Plus already? Have any + tips? Please share.

Google+ Profiles for Businesses in the SERPs by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

Participatory Content?

It’s more than multi-syllable marketing jargon. Participatory content was the focus of the aimClear Facebook Marketing Workshop at SMX Advanced on June 9. We gained an in-depth understanding of its importance. To be successful on Facebook, you must focus on:

Participating with one’s community by engaging with superior content.

Marty Weintraub predicted in 2007 that Facebook would evolve into a critical business tool for B2B and B2C marketers.  Marty’s prophesy has come to fruition. Thousands of companies are developing relationships and tapping into a virtual gold mine of thoughts, desires and consumer behavior available nowhere else.

Facebook has more than 700 million people hanging out sharing their inner thoughts. They (we) log in 3-5 times a day!

Companies can get in front of this audience. Those who produce and share kickass content are generating Likes and Facebook wall posts that result in increased online visibility… and bottom-line sales.

Facebook Intensive – One Packed Workshop

aimClear Notebook & Thumb Drive for Facebook Marketing Intensive

We spent more than 8 hours learning about the value of the Facebook ecosystem at the workshop. (Heck, the Bell Harbor Conference Center had to kick us out!). The aimClear notebook and thumb drive, which contained all presenter presentations, couldn’t hold all the Facebook marketing insights. Neither could our brains!

Holy canoli! Where do I start? (It’s been over 2 weeks since the workshop, and every day since I’ve secretly yearned to play hooky from work, other commitments, and distractions to savor the PowerPoints and 24 pages of yummy notes.)

A high-level summary is all that will fit in one blog post. To get more, attend a future aimClear Facebook workshop!

When I announced I planned to attempt a recap, a fellow workshop attendees, Kiko Correa tweeted:

@lookadoo yeah good luck condensing that goldmine into a few nuggets :)

June 9, 2011 9:33 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@obiwankikobi

Kiko Correa

Facebook Mentors

First, a “thank you” to the brain trust of presenters who openly bared their Facebook souls:

• Marty Weintraub, President, Merry Morud, Matt Peterson, Lauren Litwinka, Online Marketing Account Managers of aimClear.
• Lisa Buyer, President of The Buyer Group
• Will Scott, President of Search Influence

Facebook Marketing in a Nutshell

Marty broke it down:

There are two kinds of marketing – paid and organic.

Paid targeting is about organic targeting – demographically.

“Rankings” are about getting into the organic contextual flow without writing a platform a check.

Facebook is organic contextual and paid. It’s about getting into the flow by participation – what we call “social media.”

Did you get that?

Facebook is about getting into the flow by participation.

STOP right here. If you read nothing more, understand this:

• It’s all about people – no spam, no gaming the system.
• You cannot fake or automate engaging with your community.
• You either add value or you fail. Simple.

Marty reminded us,

Do what you do with people. You’re in social space. Do social things. Be with those people.

Creative Paid Targeting

Facebook offers the opportunity to get creative and engage these social butterflies based on their likes and interests. Put on your paid marketing cap to realize the vast opportunities available to specifically target and reach your audience. How?

• Narrowly target keywords.
• Find those people and mine their interests.

Marty explained:

Search PPC is to SEO what Facebook ads are to community demographics and community management.

You don’t have the country of America. You have the country of English. You have human constructs by where people participate.

Facebook Targeting English Speakers (@aimClear slide)

So, what does this have to do with participatory content?

Engage Based Off Interests

Create ads to engage based off your audience’s likes and dislikes. Interests represent participation! Facebook ads enable you to show the most interesting ads based off what they like and don’t like.

You can segment people by Porches and Rolexes or by age and interests. Their social graph is broken down by their interests.

Create and deliver ads such as:

• Hockey sticks to hockey players
• Jonas Brothers tickets to Disney set

Or hold a contest like Will Scott did where they…

• Gave away Victoria’s Secret gift cards to fans of Victoria’s Secret to raise fans for a Plastic Surgeon

Or think outside the box…

• Take out pizza to pot smokers
• Minivans to those who like medical services

Or use negative competitor’s sentiment and typing “sucks” in the Interests box:

• “If You Hate [Their Brand] You’ll Love [Our Brand]”
• “10% Discount If You Think [Brand] Sucks”

(And for any of you who know Marty Weintraub, “creativity” abounds!) The Facebook Intensive Marketing workshop taught us, in Marty’s words, how to:

Get sideways about it!

You are competing on a page that has a lot of activity on it. For your ad to stand out, be rigorous to write good headlines.

Resource: Learn more about Facebook Ads Targeting.

Participatory Content (Community Engagement)

Participatory content; however, is about more than paid targeting. It’s about organically targeting – getting to know and engaging with – your community. Below are some engagement tips and tools (12 of 1/2 dozen of the other) from the workshop’s Facebook mentors:

Tips

1. Cherish the 80% 20% split. You have to share content you don’t own, and you have to interact. ~Lauren Litwinka
2. Have the best content on the block to share. Empower your community manager to share. ~Marty Weintraub
3. When building a Facebook fan base remember, “It’s not about you. It’s about them.” ~Will Scott
4. Ask questions. It’s a great way to get interactions. ~Lisa Buyer
5. In social media, attention span is like a lit match. ~Merry Morud (quoting Tim Ash)
6. Don’t remove negative comments. Negative reviews make positive ones appear more genuine. ~Lauren Litwinka
7. Be somebody that people like in normal life. Be friends. ~Marty Weintraub
8. Get off your page, and become friends with people outside Facebook. ~Lisa Buyer
9. Get into the minds of what your personas would say on Facebook. ~Merry Morud
10. Welcome friends with an @ reply on your fan page, which shows up as a post on their wall. ~Lisa Buyer
11. Sow to Reap – You have to give in order to get. ~Will Scott
12. Facebook is considered the social web. PR & media pros wants to stay on Facebook and hang out. Have an online newsroom as a tab in your Facebook fan page. ~Lisa Buyer

Tools

1. Search public updates by keyword - Your Open Book. ~Matt Peterson
2. Search real-time Facebook (and Twitter) updates – Kurrently. ~Matt Peterson
3. Use Visual Words as a research tool for social synonyms ~Merry Morud
4. Urban dictionary is good for keyword research. ~Matt Peterson
5. Use apps like North Social to collect names (and be consistent with Facebook terms of service). ~Will Scott
6. Track effectiveness of engagement by using campaign variables via HootSuite’s URL Tool Builder. ~Will Scott

Most Memorable Facebook Marketing Takeaway

Marty broke it down on how he thinks about the competition:

You cannot have 2 asses on one chair!

Resource: Plan now to buy Marty Weintraub’s upcoming book - “Killer Facebook Ads.” Guess how they came up with the name for the book? Facebook ad targeting!

Workshop Photo Slideshow

What would memories be without photos of the workshop and the people? Remember, it’s all about people!!

Participatory Content – aimClear’s Facebook Marketing Workshop by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation

SMX West brought search marketers from all over the world to San Jose, CA the week of March 7, 2011. If you’re in search, you must read some of the TREMENDOUS live blog coverage from SMX. It’s been over a week since the show as of this post. It’s too late for yet another recap. Instead, below are a few photos from this year’s Search Marketing Expo.

CAVEAT: I had committed to recapping a summary of SMX West highlights and to covering it via SEO Dojo Radio. Plans changed. Sadly, the Japan M9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit immediately after SMX, followed by a nuclear crisis which rocked the whole world. I work in the disaster and catastrophe space, so primary attention (thoughts and prayers) were immediately focused elsewhere. Visions and memories of days immersed in search, social, and SEO are much more uplifting, so it’s time to share the faces (and feet) of SMX.

Dana Lookadoo’s SMX Collection

SMX pictures I took are live on Flickr. View slideshows from the SMX West Conference, epic dinners and the shoes of SMXers:

Photos from SMX Conference

A few shots of the beautiful (and handsome) people of search at SMX West:

SMX Epic Dinners

I’m sure there were many other dinners, but I attended two memorable Epic Dinners, both at Morton’s Steakhouse, which is surely 5-Star:

Dinner at Morton’s is definitely “different” from one’s usual fare, and I only took a few photos. Heck, we were having so much fun!

SPECIAL THANKS to the Michelle Robbins and Elisabeth Osmeloski for hosting the ladies dinner. Thanks to EACH attendee for making the time so memorable.

EPIC THANKS to Alan Bleiweiss for coordinating a dinner that turned into a mini conference within the conference with over 40 SMXers. Heck, Alan put together prizes (guess who won the Lindt chocolates), and he attracted #EpicDinner sponsors. Thank you, George Revutsky and Adam Weinroth for your sponsorship in turning a night of post-conference dining into a grand event!

The Shoes!

Optimizing one’s feet is an important consideration for any conference, because you spend a lot of time walking and standing. Here are a few feet that made it to my Conference Shoe Collection:

OK, I confess… I have a shoe fetish!

Reuben Yau’s Candid Shots

Reuben Yau of Manta gets the award for the best shots of the panels and speakers! View Reuben’s 2011 SMX West photos on Flickr:

Inside information: I met Reuben through Flickr. I accidentally tagged a conference photo of someone from Google (also named Rueben) with Reuben’s name last year. He saw the alert, and we’ve been friends ever since!

Search Marketing Expo on Flickr

Kudos to SMX’s photographers. The quality of their photos of SMX West equals the quality and class of the conference itself!

Thank you, Search Marketing Expo for a grand show!

Final Memories of SMX

With search moving at break-neck speeds, what will we remember? Discussions at SMX West, focused around recent algorithm changes, especially Google’s Panda Update that rocked US content farms starting the end of February and Social Search - now live in both Bing & Google.

• Will these be fleeting memories?

Jessica Lee of Bruce Clay, Inc. caught a shot of Matt Cutts’ Spam Police slide showing input Google has received about their Panda update:

Yes, we’re all hoping low-quality content farms are a thing of the past.

One closing thought…

• Does anyone know the real social search challenge?

If you missed SMX and didn’t catch all the live blogging, networking and epic dinners, here’s the biggest takeaway you need to know:

Create quality content people want to share on Twitter and “like” on Facebook is what it takes to be successful at SEO!

SMX Photos: Conference, Networking & Epic Dinners by Yo! Yo! SEO . Word-of-Mouth SEO - Optimize your online conversation