Online Conversion & Beyond

Outdex Boston

Good experiences have long half-lives.  No where is that more evident at Outdex Alumni reunions (for consultants and staff who worked at the former CSC Index) like the one held at the Tennis & Racquet Club in Boston last night.  Along with my co-hosts Chris Regan and Jon Tepper and his wife who made the food run, I was pleased to see a great turnout at our semi-annual gathering, attributable at least in part to the fact that significant others and family were asked explicitly to join in.  Although I had to fill in for Carol Youngclaus who usually holds court at the sign-in table, I had a chance to catch up with many old friends, like Kay Coleman; Marie Pechet; Al Dodge; Tom and Jodi Davenport; Tom, Anna and Tommy Garrity;  Ritarose Williams; Mark Zawacki; Lois Slavin and Mick; the good Mr. McGovern; Peter Hay; Steve Stulk; Jay Rodgers; John Thompson; Steve Hoffman; John Goode, Kris Hyde; the Luconi family; Mary Foxx; Jayme Saks (and fiance');  Gary Gulden; master networker Brad Power; Molly Alger; the courageous Glenn Mangurian;  Adam C. and Chuck Callan (who'll be one of our hosts next time).  [Please forgive me if I've omitted your name - it was a long night].  Hats off also to Tom, who kept the drinks and conversation flowing.

Pictures follow for those who had to miss for unavoidable reasons (Glen T and Carol Y - you were missed).  

Search Engine Strategies - London - Redefining Customers

Anne Kennedy introduced Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, a person who, in her words "knows as much about customers as anyone else in the world."

He opened with an example of missed connections - the GoDaddy superbowl commercial that spent $5 million to publicize the "GoDaddy Girl" - which drove traffic to a homepage that did not show the GoDaddy Girl (the draw) anywhere. Bottom line - people have come to expect multi-channel connections - and these connections and active involvement are what the customer is about today.  The word for the day is interconnectivity. Marketing has been redefined.  It has become harder and harder to sell today.

Bryan then opened up an experience study done by Future Now, which shows the friction encountered by buyers on websites.  Buyer experience is critical . . . in fact, no businesses have been built on advertising since the 90's . . . they are now built on customer experience (e.g. Starbucks, Virgin, etc.). Customers who select by experience control the conversation, and certainly the buying process.

This lack of focus on the customer experience accounts for some of the dismal conversion rates we see today.

What can one do to improve? The secret is to appeal to the way that customers want to buy - which can be approached by appealing to the temperaments, an idea as old as Hippocrates. And by recognizing "scent" - what Jared Spool calls the "move forward until found" rule.  An indicator that few people are really attending to scent is the 65% dropoff rate by the second page . . . which has not really changed since the late 90's.  Examples of "dropped scent" include the Geico commercial (online) which begins with the appealing green Gekko, and then drops you to a page where you are overwhelmed by gray inquiry boxes.

Next he turned to usability.  His hierarchy for sites (apologies to Maslow) - Functional at the base, then accessible, then useable, then intuitive and at the top of the pyramid . . . persuasive.

Finally, he summarized with an explanation of the elements of Persuasion Architecture.

Questions:

1. Would you say that the 4 types of people would differ if your site only targeted women or men? - No, but it may differ by industry.
2. My clients say "I'll put what I want on my site." - Yep, they are right . . . but they may choose to make no money. 
3. Did you have an experience of something that did work in the US but not internationally? - The core never changes, but the demographics may change across cultures.
4. It's tough to get offline and online on the same page.  How do you work with this? If they value their brand, they'll see beyond channels.
5. Do we still need sales? - While we do meet smart marketers (as opposed to sales people), we still need to do sales online.

........................................................................................................................................

Disclaimer - Future Now is a client of City Square Consulting, the author's firm.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Video & Podcast SEO

Moderator Anne Kennedy (Beyond Ink) introduced the Video & Podcast panel members Amanda Watlington, Searching for Profit, Onil Gunawardana, blinx, Joe Morin, Boost Search Marketing and  Tim Gibbon, Elemental Communications.

Amanda spoke first, speaking from a strategic standpoint, pointing out the benefits of these exciting new media for brand marketers and search marketers.  She provided a number of slides providing tactical advice on optimization of video, but chose to focus on her podcasting, leaving video for the other panelists.

Amanda's emphasis was on decision-making before embarking on a podcasting journey.  Her slides on preparation (keyword selection, tagging, album art, naming the show, etc.) focus on the basics . . . things you should do before recording the first podcast to appear.

Her key steps for podcast optimization:

1. Optimize the File Name
2. Optimize your blog page - separate page for the podcast, and each episode
3. Optimize you landing pages (separate page for audio and video
4. Submit the feeds
5. Track and monitor submissions

. . . and finished with 5 tips . . .

Oril, from blinkx, asked the audience how many people had done SEO for video (12-15 hands), and what was the purpose of the optimization.  Most said it was about enhancing branding. Oril has a different take on SEO goals, which depend on the type of advertising you are doing:

• within video - speaker says word, appears in banner alongside video
• pre-roll video and companion banner
• sponsored search (in text space)
• outside video - banners

He said that you really need to look inside a video to figure out what's going on with it.  Text and titles alone will not tell you what you need to know.

For tactics, he emphasized:

• Metadata
• Key elements (title and description, filename, category, tags)
• Sitemap/MRSS Feed
• Format (in-format metadata)
• Where to submit (User generated video sites and blinkx)

Tim Gibbon once again asked "ok, why is it important to optimize?"  He noted that it was a key marketing too and a great way to engage with your audience, among other things.  He agreed with Amanda that one should have a dedicated area for audio and video, provide multiple download methods, etc. to make it easy for visitors to find and use.  He said that metadata should be short and simple.  Headlines need to be descriptive and attention getting, and 5-10 tags are recommended.

For finding sites he recommends Social Media Portal (which they created) to find video sites by type, category, interest, etc.  He pointed up the need for good metadata, facilitating search by content (based on keywords).

He finished with a crisp list of do's and don'ts (tag stuffing, poor content, pure commercials, cloaking and flaming and one-way content).

blinkx has indexed over 19 million hours of video, and has generated a whitepaper on video SEO.  Oril has found that users prefer to play video on the site where they found it.

Joe Morin closed the presentation part of the session with further thoughts on video.  He noted that he now has a new gig as CEO at Storybids.com.  He noted that with Universal Search, and heavy consumption of video (10 billing video streams watched in December during the writer's strike) video optimization must be part of the online marketing strategy.

He stressed the importance of video optimization, both "hosted and posted," and pointed out what needs to be done to do both.

Next, he recommended some uploaders and analytic vendors (TubeMogul.com, VisisbleMeasures.com, Ooyala.com (with Free Backlot program).

Finally, he spoke on monitization - pre-roll, post-roll, pay-per download, etc.

A large audience (over 150 in the room) had a number of questions and great interest in this new and emerging topic.

Disclaimer - Amanda Watlington is both my business and life partner of 37 years.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Blog & Feed Search SEO

Moderator Andrew Goodman introduced his panel,  Amanda Watlington (Owner - Searching for Profit), Lee Odden (CEO, TopRank Marketing), Massimo Burgio (Founder and Chief Strategist, Global Search Interactive).

Amanda, who has been one of the earliest proponents of optimization for blogs, provided the audience with loads of tactical advice on improving results from investments made in blogging.  She rapidly provided advice on everything from optimizing RSS feeds  (e.g. using keywords in feeds) to employment of blidgets to cultural issues like aligning the internal (company/organization) blogging team.

She stressed the need for original material, rather than simply reflecting what's already been said.  There is no substitute for quality.

Massimo followed suit regarding blog content - stating as his first SEO rule = content is king. Only after this has been done should we concentrate on optimizing it. 

He then contrasted the use of categories versus the use of tags, and reconfirmed the critical need to focus on keywords . . . the right keywords . . . ones that help reach general audiences as well as niche audiences.  He stressed the importance of good linking and optimization of feeds, with some good "how to" information (including an eyechart slide that showed the full text of an RSS feed). 

Once blogs and feeds have been optimized, they need to be submitted. Massimo's advice would be to submit broadly, listing 36 possibilities (from Google to the Guardian Newsblog) for consideration by the audience.  He also provided suggestions for promotion of blogs through the blogosphere and social networks, including blog rings.  His key message - share to grow.

Lee concluded the panel presentation with a set of case studies (small-medium-large from a budget standpoint). He noted that 112 million blogs are now being tracked by Technorati, 2600 of which have thousands of links and at the end of the long tail, those with less < 20 inbound links.  From an SEO standpoint, blogs are great - they are a source of fresh content, attract links, serve as a platform for social promotion.

• Case #1 - Small development company - UMV increased by 500%.
• Case #2 - Online book retailer - Tactics = SEO'd the blog, then Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, etc. - UMV from 2K to 283K in less than 2 years.
• Case #3 - Online Marketing Blog (his own) - Intent was to create though leadership, visibility and lead generation.  Tactics - Publish a regular schedule of unique content including how-to's, interviews, conference coverage, reviews, photos, videos, etc. Social bookmarking has created 40K inbound links.  Results = 3 to 4 business inquires per day!  First blog as a media sponsor of SES, SMX, PubCon, etc.

Takeaways:

1. Goals drive content
2. Automate SEO as much as you can
3. Socialize
4. Measure
5. Refine and repeat

Question from the audience:

• How you avoid duplicate content on the blogs - should we handle with robots.txt?
• Should I draw content from other people's blogs? (Answers stressed the use of aggregators, rather than simply using content that others have generated.)
• Why should we not "fidget with widgets?" (Some slow your site down - others are really efficient)
• Why blidgets?  (They are a great testing tool)
• Don'ts? (Stop blogging, Post on a 3rd Party, blog when mad or drunk, have a blogging policy but don't be too strict, don't send untrained bloggers online, etc.)

Disclaimer - Amanda Watlington, Searching for Profit (City Square Consulting, Inc.) is my business and life partner of 37 years.

Search Engine Strategies - London - 022008 - Nick Carr Keynote

Following a video keynote from Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, Kevin Ryan put the following questions to the panel:

What do you think about MS offer for Yahoo!? - Paul Doleman, Head of Paid Search & CTO, iCrossing (former Microsoft) - At last, but not really competition for Google.  Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar - Great - good for competition and good for the consumer, after previous missteps by Microsoft and Yahoo! Think Yahoo! is making a mistake by not taking this offer.  Not sure it will happen. There is a real culture clash - Yang and Balmer are so different - with MS being the dinosaur. Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now - Microsoft became aware of the concept of duality, that there will be a top two, not three. Other issues - will the cultures ever work together.  Steven Kaufman - SVP Media Director, Digitas - Wow.  How's it going to impact the search world - but now see it as having a much broader impact. Mike Grehan, SES London,CEO Searchvisibile, Ltd. - What does it mean to marketers?  Both serve up ads, but the business models are very different. And both are no strangers to M&A - why can't they make it work?

Has Yahoo! ceded defeat in search? Bryan - Yahoo! has not conceded defeat but loss of dominance, yes. Steven - Still have some dominance in certain markets.  Paul - i don't think they've given up on it. Leaders can change (MySpace vs. Facebook).  Erica -MSN and Yahoo! can give good value.  Bryan - They do have global reach.  And don't forget, there have been leaders of search in the past.  What we'll see in the future is getting on the phone and saying "Where's the best Mexican close to hear and getting results.

Questions from the audience:

• Don't forget about other sources and services (Fox, etc.)
• Privacy - Most people trust Yahoo! more than Google.
• The stock market has looked at the offer, and has weighed in negatively. Could MS have spent its money more wisely?
• If it goes through, what do you (the panel) see happening?
• Will one of the implications of them coming together be a change in commission structure (in the UK)?
• Can search be too personal?

We'll wait and see . . .

Search Engine Strategies - London - Orion Panel - Universal, Blended and Vertical Search

Despite the late hour, the Gallery Hall was filled for the 4:45PM presentation.  Kevin Ryan, moderator, led a lively discussion of the current impact and future of Universal Search with panel members Andrew Goodman, Chair SES Toronto and Principal Page Zero Media, Adam Lasnik, Search Evangelist at Google, Mike Grehan, Chair SES London and CEO SearchVisible  Ltd. and Jeff Revoy, VP Yahoo! Search and Social Media - EU.

Some of the highlights . . .

A question for search marketers (raised by Mike Grehan) - will paid advertisers with text ads, noting the presence of video/multi-media eye candy on the SERP on which they are presented, seek to get their own videos placed as well?

Adam Lasnik's take on social media was both hopeful and realistic. He said that when you have individuals contributing rich media, you get junk and diamonds.  It's up to the engines to help users find the diamonds.

Jeff Revoy followed by saying that there is no "secret sauce" for doing so, but that it's still the engines' mission to provide the most relevant content to users. 

Andrew Goodman - Why not just write your review (for anything) on Google's search page rather than sites like Trip Advisor, etc.

Jeff Revoy - As a matter of corporate policy, Yahoo! is about openness.

Andrew Goodman - Fair or not, there will be pressure to show preference to one's own properties (e.g. Will Google more favorably place YouTube versus other purveyors of video).

Finally, there was an interesting exchange prompted by an invidual from audience noting that "mp3" is the most sought out query in China.  Will the engines bring music to Universal Search as they have already brought video?  This launched a short but vigorous discussion on digital rights, downloading and liability.

The questions will continue as we live and learn more about Universal Search.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Orion Panel: All-Star Analytics Team

In a manner befitting a major sporting event, Kevin Ryan (Search Engine Strategies)began the session by asking the All-Stars to introduce themselves beginning with Jim Sterne (Target Marketing and WAA Chairman), Bryan Eisenberg (Future Now), Brian  Clifton (EMEA - Google), Steve Jackson (SATAMA, international Co-Chair WAA) and Ian Thomas (Microsoft). 

And it did look like a sporting event.  The Gallery Hall was packed.

At the outset, the panel tackled the issue of transparency labeled by Bryan Eisenberg as a "church and state separation" issue (i.e. the firm - Google - that sells advertising also measures results).  After lively discussion, some panelists concluded that most of those selling ads will soon have analytics "baked in" to their services. 

This led to a discussion of the benefits of the free tools (Google and Microsoft) which most on the panel supported.  For many small businesses, it's what they can afford.  However, one should not assume that any of the tools are free - the cost of analysis and reporting draws down on the internal resources of the firm, or must be farmed out to consultants or agencies.

Next, the panel discussed data (accuracy) versus trends.  Most agreed that the data is often contradictory . . . what you can get is useful trend data. Why are all the results so different? Lack of standards are key.  As Bryan said and others like Steve Jackson confirmed, each of the major tools has a different idea what's meant by a "session" or "visitor." It's confusing.

Jim Sterne indicated that he would prefer to put his energy into analyzing behavior - keyword to time spent on page to action taken.  Continuing the discussion on economy of motion, Bryan added that if you have a large site, you begin with the landing pages, etc. that give  you the big results. Identifying these pages is key to getting into action, versus simply generating reports (which may or may not lead to action).

To get to action, there is a need for education.  People have to be trained so that they can understand and use the data they get.

What about social media?  Yes, Jim Sterne said, we want to know what impact social networking is having on our results.  Bryan raised the issue of video, and the complexity of tracking the impact, abandonment points, etc.  for clients who want to know "is it working for me?"  However, everyone recognized that web analytics people are going to have to rise to this challenge because it's where the market is going.

A brief and incomplete (apologies to the speakers) synopsis of the key takeaways from the session - Bryan Eisenberg- Conversion rates are stagnant; Brian Clifton - We are looking forward to a year of testing; Jim Sterne - Time for focus on attitudinal measurement, Ian Thomas - Similar thinking by Microsoft, Google- ,  Jackson - Change in the culture of companies, more awareness of analytics.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Auditing Paid Listing and Click Fraud Issues

The session was opened by Frank Watson, Kangamurra Media,  introducing Jon Myers of MediaVest, who provided a historical overview of the click fraud issue, including a "how it was" slide from 2007 (this is a fast-moving issue).  He cast the issue as a David and Goliath conflict, in which Google and Yahoo! clearly occupy the heavyweight category. 

Jon provided some really interesting maps, showing the locations where fraud risk was highest.  While India, southern South America, Mexico, etc. were still in the red, it's interesting to note that the risks are up in the US, but somewhat down in the former Soviet Union and China.

The magnitude of fraud (UK alone) he calculated at over 26K Pounds Sterling during just the time consumed by the current session!  In contrast, he noted help on the way from a growing number of auditing firms and councils.  Finally, he provided some helpful hints for self-monitoring discipline . . . after all, if you are the potential victim, it's your responsibility to spot the problem first.

Andrew Goodman, Page Zero Media, continued with Preventing Click Fraud Through Proactive Account Strategy.   His opening assertion was interesting, that "rogue behaviour" seems endemic to the Internet (due at least in part to the "savvy gap" and relative anonymity of the web). Given that, he did not recommend that your in-house SEM people should be spending their energy on "policing" when they have other more pressing issues to attend to.  He showed a graphic from PPC Assurance, a 3rd party monitoring service, which showed how they could help you identify and address click fraud issues.

His key advice was to "build it (campaigns) right" to avoid fraud, leading with a "granular, well organized campaign."  He also had thoughts regarding keywords, cautioning against the use of "head keywords" and surprisingly "tail keywords" as well.  He suggested using two word phrases, and going for the "torso" of the keyword list to avoid the obvious threats.  His advice on monitoring was "track, iterate and adjust" looking for odd traffic,  high bounce rates, etc. (If, for a given keyword, time spent on page less than 5 seconds is 60+%, good chance it's fraud).

Finally, we heard from Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Manager for Trust & Safety, Google.  He described the ways that Google protects against click fraud, including their treatment (and non-charge) for invalid clicks.  By casting the invalid clicks web wide (large "false positive'' pool), they attempt to save users from improper charges. He noted that Google does, in fact, have an economic incentive for addressing the issue, which relates directly to their need to compete (for dollars) on the basis of advertisers' ROI. 

Shuman provided an explanation of Google's 3-part system for invalid click detection, Proactive  (Real-Time) Filters and Offline Analysis and Reactive Investigations. According to Google, < 10% of clicks are filtered today, most proactively.  Less than .02% are detected reactively.  As for tools, some employ simple rules (e.g. >1 click per IP within n seconds) and some are found through statistical anomaly detection, a far more sophisticated technique.

Thanks to Frank Watson, for moderating a great session, and an excellent, if short, Q&A.

Search Engine Strategies - London - 021908

With the help of some good friends (Thanks Greg, Rory, Matt), I find myself in the midst of Search Engine Strategies - London, and will be providing session coverage during the rest of the week.  After the wear and tear of an elongated commute across the pond (weather delays), I'm frankly happy to just be here.

To get some of the local flavor, I'm sitting in the Local Search session, listening to Hunter from Qype, Web 2.0 review site which boasts multi-lingual capability.  In a comparison of local 2.0 sites and directory sites, he concedes that Directories remain a good place for small businesses to advertise.  However, the expectations of users for 2.0 content (video, maps, etc.) may drive the change (convergence?).

The real question on the table is "how can local search compete?" Perhaps the best answer came from Andrew Klein, Spotzer, who said that the way that local search players can best compete with Google is by "becoming a 'trusted advisor' for  clients."  This differentiates them in a positive way from the large media companies.

More to come . . .

Look for more this week. Happy to be back online.

MBODLG Best Practices

Yesterday evening the MBODLG (Mass Bay OD Learning Group) reprised one of its most popular formats, the multi-track "best practices" session, titled Best Practices in Six Work Environments III.  Six teams of presenters provided experience-based overviews of OD work in Internal, External, Healthcare, Biotech/Pharma, Non-Profit and Virtual environments. 

I sat in on the virtual teams session, co-led by Nancy Settle-Murphy (Chrysalis) and Nina Viswanathan (Monster) and learned some new tricks to make virtual environments more engaging, improving the experience of group leaders, facilitators and participants.  We also took a look at a new tool to help virtual teams succeed.

From what I heard in conversations with those attending the other five sessions, the learnings were well worth the time spent in each breakout.  Many thanks to our great presenters.   And thanks also to our hosts Tufts Healthcare, who provided a wonderful facility for the work.  It was  a great night for all who attended.