Archive for September, 2009

Takeaways from WordCamp Portland

Published September 24th, 2009 Blogging, Ecommerce, Events, Industry No Comments

I’ve finally had a chance to put down some thoughts about WordCamp Portland, which was hosted at WebTrends last weekend. First off, what an amazing event. The group dynamic was fantastic; it was a great mix of developers, marketers, bloggers, general WordPress users, designers, and others. Second, hats off to Aaron Hockley (@ahockley), Besty Richter (@betsywhim), Dale Chumbley (@dalechumbley), and all of the other volunteers and people that made it possible. Next, props to the other sponsors for putting their money where their blogs are and enabling a stellar setup. Finally, what’s a conference without great presenters? I took away great nuggets from every presentation I attended (and watched); which I can’t always say after leaving an conference. I can’t possibly cover them all, but I want to point a few takeaways that I found the most beneficial for medium-to-large businesses using WordPress as a blogging solution, or even as their complete CMS.

Speeding Up WordPress

Jason Grigs (@grigs) kicked off the event with Speed Up WordPress, an awesome presentation for WordPress administrators (i.e. users) that outlines several methods for speeding up delivery of your WordPress content. This is excellent for those of us running heavily customized sites with many plugins, or those with high numbers of daily visitors. From database efficiencies, to caching, to image optimization, and more; I guarantee there is something in this presentation you are neglecting on your WordPress installation (unless your Jason, or maybe @turoczy now).

Scaling WordPress to the Next Level

Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), the founder of WordPress, did a Q+A session on day one that was great. I’d never seen Matt speak, and I was blown away by how engaging he was. With the growth of the WordPress empire, I really believe Matt is one of the most influential internet entrepreneurs ever.

One of the last questions Matt answered was in regards to how WordPress is being used for sites that are far from being blogs, and sites that see massive traffic. I had a similar question queued up, because as we make recommendations to some of our larger clients, regarding content management system decisions, we want to be confident that WordPress is being developed to handle the “non-traditional” things it is being made to do by users and developers. Matt’s reply to this question gave me confidence that WordPress will be able to handle the load as developers customize it more and more, and larger sites push the product.

More Takeaways

Many more takeaways from the event, here are a few:

Duane Storyey (@duanestorey) developer of WPtouch, gave a great preso on WPtouch and mobile web development in general.

Shayne Sanderson (@shaynesanderson) showed us how awesome the WP Ecommerce plugin has become, and how it can be used in WordPress MU.

Will Norris (@willnorris) on How Not to Build a WordPress Plugin, for developers (a bit beyond me, but interesting).

There were many many more awesome presentations and breakout sessions. Check the Twitter feed for #wcpdx, and checkout the official WordCamp Portland site for links to streams, descriptions on presentations, and other good info.

Managing Social Media Backlash

Published September 23rd, 2009 Paid Search, Social Media No Comments

A few weeks ago, John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about Obama’s health care reform initiatives. The comments made by the chief executive have been stirring controversy on the web and social media, spreading a Whole Foods boycott off and online through protests, a website, blog, Flickr page, Facebook page and group with over 30,000 fans, and a Twitter account with close to 630 followers.

There is an old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity, though ignoring Internet press, good or bad, can hurt a company and their online reputation. Here are a few ways you can respond and manage a spiraling viral incident in a strategic manor.

Corporate Social Media Guidelines

First and foremost, make sure you company has corporate social media guidelines in place. Policies regarding social media are becoming a standard for today’s organizations and by outlining rules or best practices within your company, you can express the importance of your brand.

React, Don’t Retract

Be aware of the comments and confront them with positive feedback. Use the credibility and knowledge of your brand to interact with these users, answer questions, offer insight on marketing decisions and clear up any rumors or misconceptions.

Whole Foods Health Reform Forum

Mackey posted a blog thread to set the record straight on his comments and also invited consumers to participate and share their thoughts through a forum devoted to that topic. Social networks may not capture your complete key demographic, but as seen by this Whole Foods incident, the Honda Accord Facebook fiasco, and last year’s Motrin Mom advertisement, consumers can have a strong and effective voice. If your marketing resources allow it, consider involving your audience on marketing decisions in the future.

Utilize Another Online Medium

When news spreads like wildfire people are searching online for what is being said. Use this targeted traffic to your advantage and customize a pay per click campaign. Using paid and organic search strategies together will result in a higher brand awareness as well as greater authority and sincerity from consumers. Since paid search advertisements are displayed along with search results, run a campaign with keywords based around your brand’s press-worthy events. This brings searchers into your domain, where you can develop a controlled and customized landing page to promote your company on your turf.

Get Free Bacon From Bac’n

Published September 19th, 2009 Ecommerce, Events, News No Comments

Bacn-logo

Ironically, I was fortunate enough to win one of the coolest door prizes here at WordCamp Portland, a $50 gift code for Bacn.com. Though it pains me to pass up free meat, I feel as a sponsor SwellPath shouldn’t take home such a righteous door prize. Therefore, I’m giving the code away to a lucky winner. Here’s how you win it: follow @swellpath on Twitter or become a fan of our Facebook page http://bit.ly/sp_fb. I’ll pick someone at random tomorrow (Sunday 9/20) afternoon sometime, and the Bac’n is yours. The only rule is that you have to be at WordCamp Portland, or at least have been a registered attendee. Bring home the Bac’n!

[UPDATE] Congrats to @WyattWerner on winning the Bac’n! Thanks Wyatt, everyone that “entered”, and all WordCamp Portland attendees!

Advanced SEO Services: 5 Key Methods

Published September 9th, 2009 SEO No Comments

SEO isn’t rocket science; best practices are easy to learn and implement with a little practice. However, SEO goes way beyond simple best practices to include strategies and techniques only realized and utilized through experience. Furthermore, advanced SEO (in my opinion) is the practice of successful and proven techniques coupled with methodologies that support larger business objectives.

These are in sense, less of specific tactics as they are an approach for providing advanced SEO services.

1) Integrate Analytics

triangleData-driven decisions is our mantra. Whether it’s Google Analytics, Omniture or WebTrends, it doesn’t matter. Just as long as it’s configured or has the appropriate features/applications/components to provide SEO intelligence. Analytics should be used identify opportunities and weaknesses of a site.

Site search, apart from functionality is a feedback tool, providing insight into what user’s are searching for on a site. Analytics is the key to mining this data from your site’s users and incorporating it into an SEO keyword plan.

Additionally, sections of a site should be analyzed independently to determine their overall impact in terms of driving organic traffic; including a blog, categories and any deeper content. Understanding of historic data gives insight into where the site has been and where it’s capable of going.

2) Monitoring & Measurement

Most SEO specialists have some sort of measurement system in place for measuring impact; from ranking positions to organic traffic. However, monitoring and measurement should go beyond a simple aggregate of monthly organic traffic to measure campaigns from every angle; including segmentation of organic traffic and long tail impact.

All online marketers, especially SEO specialists should be well versed in the theory of the long-tail; whereas most traffic consists of infrequent and rather unique search queries. The majority of keyword traffic lies in the long tail, thus every SEO strategy should focus on tapping into long tail traffic. As such, that strategy also needs to be monitored and quantified.

Organic traffic should be segmented in the following buckets: branded, head keywords and long tail keywords. Additionally, a few filters, customer reports, and some reg ex can easily configure Google Analytics to track SEO efforts as this level; providing insight into the true impact of SEO.

3) SEO to Compliment Design

SEO often and regularly conflicts with design. This is most often the case with bigger brands where branding and style guidelines are integral and more often than not, required. Advanced SEO techniques offer alternatives to such heavy design (images & rich media) rather than the normal contradictory approach.

Simply suggesting removing Flash for instance, is no recommendation. Flash has it’s place even as SEO unfriendly as it may be. There is a balance between user experience/branding and SEO; advanced SEOers know when to offer the middle ground.

4) Business Analysis

Ok, this isn’t necessarily “seo”, but it is important that SEO specialists integrate a deep level of business understanding into their approach. Where does SEO fit into the overall marketing mix? What are the KPIs beyond just organic traffic? How does your sales cycle map to your SEO strategy?

It’s important to understand more than simply just rankings; you need to know if SEO is helping your business succeed. An advanced SEO approach will need to make recommendations regarding budgets and resources; prioritizing SEO against other mediums and needs.

5) On-site & Off-site Plan

This “catch all” method really just includes the other major components of advanced seo – content development, landing page optimization and link baiting. SEO is nothing without the off-site factors (external backlinks) and vice a versa with the on-site factors.

A thorough SEO strategy includes both an on-site and off-site strategy and most importantly how the two strategies overlap.

Of course, our jobs don’t stop once a user hits the site; it actually just begins. SEO and online marketing aren’t just about specific variables and tactics but rather a bigger picture of how resources, techniques and technology align with overarching business objectives.

Display v. Search – The Last Ad Model Bias

Published September 3rd, 2009 Paid Search, SEO No Comments

display v. searchNow many would argue that it’s not display v. search but rather the synergies achieved when both mediums work together. Search marketing currently comprises more than one-half of all interactive dollars, and will remain the biggest format through 2014. Most ad networks don’t love that stat and for obvious reason. Their response has been that they receive little to no conversion credit and thus a diminishing media budget.

The issue with display ad ROI measurement is the inability to assign a quantifiable value, which some believe results in a disproportionate value being assigned to search, otherwise know as the last ad model.

“The current “last ad” model attributes 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last ad seen or clicked. This is the current standard the industry has relied on to justify their digital media spend. The problem with this approach is that it ignores the contributions of any previous ads that led the customer down the road to that conversion.”

Source: Atlas Institute

Of course, the Atlas Institute (Microsoft) has been pushing their Engagement Mapping approach or the ability to measure cross-channel impact, but details into their technology are still blurry. Regardless of the technical ability to measure (another post altogether), there has been little credit given the role of search throughout the entire conversion funnel or search’s ability to generate demand.

While clearly there is somewhat of a “halo effect” between display and search whereas users that have been exposed to display ads are more likely to click on a paid advertisement – note case study by iCrossing. However, many mediums (that can’t all be measured) can be attributed with creating greater upstream demand; mediums such as TV ads, radio, billboards and yes, display ads. However, no credit is given to search as vehicle to drive awareness and demand in the last ad model.

A common argument is that the majority of sponsored search clicks are simply navigational; assuming that sponsored search is not bringing in new prospects but simply delivering people to a URL they are seeking. I would argue that savvy search marketer understand the importance of branded traffic but focus the majority of SEM efforts on non-branded traffic and new segments to target – essentially on “research” type queries higher in the conversion funnel. As such, search is not only the “last step” in a purchase funnel, but one integral throughout.

An example given by Atlas is one that looks at users searching for basketball shoes. A user compiles their research for basketball shoes, decides to buy Nike, and returns to a search engine and searches “Nike basketball shoes”. They state that 100% of the credit is given to the “nike baseketball shoes” and search had little to do with the research but was simply navigational.

I would argue that a “basketball shoes” search query is a research query whereas a user is comparing brands, prices and reviews and users find this type of data more often than not, online and specifically via search engines. Now display ads can clearly support the brand but are not the main vehicle for research or driving demand. Additionally, there are numerous retailers selling Nike basketball shoes, thus a users’ intent is possibly to find where to buy and not necessarily navigate to Nike.com.

The point is that search is credited for capturing users towards the end of the sales cycle but is also ideal for conducting research and generating awareness, something display ads try to claim the majority of credit for. Other mediums certainly have an impact on demand and search and should be a part of the online marketing mix. However, mediums need to be evaluated based on the industry and data at hand; data that needs to be accurate and opaque.

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