He just said it’s proven that chocolate and peanut butter is like crack for women (well, not verbatim), and there’s actually been studies done on this [nudging Virginia]. Now we are doing some yoga. No joke, everyone in the audience is trying a new yoga move. This might be a fun session …

He has three case studies to share with us today, so I’m going to do my best to pull out the nuggets of info that can be beneficial to you.

1. How well do you know your customer? Don’t send the same email to everyone, capitalize on preferences.
2. Can you communicate with empathy? Don’t make it sound like a script, make it natural and conversational.

He runs surveys every year to get insight into types of marketing like mobile. He has some takeaways from the data based on how people use their phones:

• Segment users out from mobile and offer them something unique.
• Do something on social like a survey, make it personal, ask a customized question. A trick on surveys: Make it top heavy. Ask a question upfront so they have an open ended question. The rest becomes easy for the user.

Case Study: Retailer

• A wedding gift registry sends an email after the honeymoon to the couple, showing them what items they did not receive from their registry. This is an example of personalized emails.

Other ideas:

• Instead of word surveys, show pictures and have people click on the images that represent the idea; it’s more interactive this way.
• Predict open rates and click-throughs before you do the campaign.

Case study: Cataloguer

• Have a representative that follows up with the consumer who is a real account-type rep. Attach a name and be ready to have that person talk with the consumer if they call.

Case study: Financial Institution

• ATM machines are mostly repeat transactions. One financial institution decided to integrate offers and opt-in during the transaction. People are more responsive.

What can you do to anticipate the person’s next transaction — what’s next?

More Tips for Emails

• Write actionable subject lines: Insert witty subject line; take your campaigns and narrow down all the subject line ideas.
• Capture data to communicate across channels — segment! Build associations between their interests.
• Optimize and leverage landing pages; we do so little to plan for the landing page. Subject line > campaign > landing page. If you know who the user is, adjust the landing page to personalize to them.
• On deliverability: It’s your responsibility to test your emails.

Security and Deliverability

• SSCAE is the new certification to look at if your ports are tight, if you are protecting consumer interests and things like that.
• When you get phished, you have to quickly educate the top, the front line and let your customer know what they need to do. Create a five-slide presentation on what phishing is and start educating your team members. Then, draft up an email for a rainy day if this happens so you can fire it off quickly. [You can connect with Sundeep for a sample presentation.

Some Final Thoughts

• Know what they want: Ask, observe, imply.
• Do not badger the consumer: Message by channel, put messaging frequency cap.
• Focus on transactional acknowledgements, then turn the receipt into valuable information for the customer.
• Let the consumer choose between offers, they feel empowered that way.
• Speak real language — this is empathy.
• Deliver the deliverable in near real time. In three minutes: 98.5 percent open rate; in 10 minutes: 96 percent open rate; 30 minutes: 87 percent open rate.
• Use intrigue versus incentive.

Move from random acts of messaging across channels to a unified campaign across channels. Then, train your channels.

Check out his site EmailYogi.com for more tips, and specifically check out his latest video on social; he asks to give feedback on it if you have it.

The post Engagement Through Email Marketing appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• Understanding the content landscape
• Becoming a trusted resource
• Power of links, press, and social sharing
• Systematic outreach tips
• Leveraging demand media’s strategy
• Embracing video content
• FAQ: How can I enhance my online presence with a successful SEO strategy? 

Understanding the Content Landscape

First, to make sure your content creation efforts are impactful, identify the content and verbiage that will resonate with your target audience. Analyze things like format and subject matter. Content inspires action, and elements like puppies, babies, and love are guaranteed triggers for engagement. Additionally, incorporate beautiful, clear, high-resolution images to captivate your audience visually.

Becoming a Trusted Resource

Google values websites that are seen as reliable resources rather than sales-driven platforms. By positioning yourself as a valuable source of information, you can gain increased search engine traffic. Consider developing targeted niche blog articles that cater to specific interests within your industry. For instance, a podiatrist blog could feature a series of interviews with marathon runners, focusing on their stories. By sharing these articles within the runner’s network and leveraging local angles, you can attract relevant customers to your business.

The Power of Links, Press, and Social Sharing

Building a strong online presence involves systematic outreach to webmasters, bloggers, and journalists. Connect with category experts and tastemakers through platforms like X.com, industry blogs, conference speaker lists, and real-time search engines. Encourage people you know to link back to your website, increasing your visibility. Additionally, utilize social media platforms to share your content actively. Remember to engage with your audience by commenting and posing questions rather than simply posting the article. This fosters meaningful interactions and enhances your online presence.

Systematic Outreach Tips

In your outreach efforts, personalization is key. Research the individuals you’re reaching out to and tailor your emails accordingly. By making your outreach emails highly targeted and personal, you can increase the chances of receiving a response. Remember that around 1 in 10 emails may yield a positive result, so persistence and consistency are essential.

Leveraging Demand Media’s Strategy

Demand Media, despite being one of the most well-known content farms way back in the day, achieved remarkable success even in a post-Panda world. Their strategy involved four steps:

1. Demanding: Instead of telling the world what to listen to, they analyze data to figure out what people want to know. By using tools like Google Insights, they identify trends and interests, prioritizing “how-to” content over news and weather.
2. Listening: By analyzing data, they determine what content millions of consumers are searching for. For instance, they discovered that there are millions of monthly searches for “how-to” videos. Capitalizing on this demand, they focused on creating informative and instructional video content that aligned with user interests.
3. Analyzing: They identified specific search queries that have high demand but limited quality content available. For example, there were 13,800 monthly searches for “how to bunny hop.” By recognizing the gap in information provision and creating content that satisfies user intent, Demand Media capitalized on untapped opportunities.
4. Creating: Demand Media leveraged user-generated content by encouraging people to write about what they love and are knowledgeable about. However, they learned from their experiences and incorporated a strategic shift by hiring editors to ensure content quality. They also took down certain content after the initial Panda update, which ultimately contributed to increased revenue.

Even though this case study is from some time ago, it is still a classic crash course in how to leverage high-quality content to drive organic traffic to your website.

Embracing Video Content

Videos are a powerful content type that drives engagement and captures attention. Google’s incorporation of images and videos in search results has made video content more essential. John Mueller, a prominent figure in SEO, has posted numerous how-to videos on Google Search Central’’s YouTube channels. Take inspiration from this and consider incorporating video content into your strategy. Remember that many search engine results pages (SERPs) now feature videos, making it an effective way to improve your visibility and engagement.

SEO is one of the most important components that define a successful business. Be sure to take the time to truly understand your target audience so that the content you publish drives conversions. Take inspiration from successful case studies and industry experts, adapting their approaches to suit your business. Remember, the power lies in consistently creating exceptional content and building genuine connections with your audience. Embrace the opportunities that content-driven SEO presents, and unlock the full potential of your online presence.

Elevate your business with a dynamic SEO strategy—craft compelling content, foster genuine connections, and unlock the full potential of your online presence today. Contact us.

FAQ: How can I enhance my online presence with a successful SEO strategy?

Anyone seeking to enhance their online presence must master Search Engine Optimization. A properly executed SEO can dramatically affect search engine visibility and help attract the appropriate target audience. We will cover some key components of successful SEO campaigns and expert insights that will assist with this journey.

Understanding the Foundation

To kickstart your SEO journey, it’s crucial to comprehend the foundational elements. Begin with comprehensive keyword research to identify the terms and phrases your target audience is searching for. These buyer-intent search terms will serve as the backbone of your strategy, shaping your content and optimization efforts.

Content is King

Successful SEO strategies must recognize the significance of creating high-quality, relevant content. Google and other search engines prioritize articles that provide value to their users. Ensure your content aligns with user intent, answers their queries, and addresses pain points. Regularly update your content to stay relevant in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Technical Optimization Matters

A well-optimized website is the key to higher search engine rankings. Pay attention to technical aspects like site speed, mobile responsiveness, and secure connections. Search engines favor websites that offer a seamless user experience. Regularly audit your website for technical glitches and promptly address them to maintain optimal performance.

Build Quality Backlinks

Backlinks remain a powerful ranking factor. Focus on building high-quality, authoritative backlinks from reputable sources within your industry. Networking and collaborating with influencers can be a valuable strategy. However, it prioritizes quality over quantity, as Google values the relevance and authority of the linking sites.

Monitor and Adapt

SEO is an ongoing process that needs constant vigilance and adaptation, using analytics tools to track both website performance and user activity. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and be prepared to make adjustments based on the evolving digital landscape.

Mastering the Art of SEO

Enhancing your online presence through a successful SEO strategy requires a holistic approach. Each element plays a crucial role, from understanding the foundation and creating compelling content to optimizing technically and building quality backlinks. Keep abreast of industry trends, stay adaptable, and consistently refine your strategy for sustained success in the dynamic digital realm.

Step-by-Step Guide: Enhancing Your Online Presence with SEO

1. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research: Identify buyer intent search terms relevant to your niche.
2. Craft Compelling Content: Develop high-quality, valuable content that aligns with user intent.
3. Optimize Technical Elements: Ensure your website is fast, mobile-friendly, and secure.
4. Build Quality Backlinks: Collaborate with authoritative sources to establish credible backlinks.
5. Regularly Update Content: Keep your content fresh and relevant to maintain user engagement.
6. Utilize Analytics Tools: Monitor website performance, user behavior, and keyword rankings.
7. Adapt Based on Data: Make informed adjustments to your strategy based on analytics insights.
8. Stay Informed on Industry Trends: Keep up with SEO and digital marketing developments.
9. Network and Collaborate: Build relationships within your industry for potential backlink opportunities.
10. Prioritize User Experience: Ensure a seamless and user-friendly website navigation.
11. Implement On-Page SEO Best Practices: Optimize meta tags, headers, and other on-page elements.
12. Audit and Fix Technical Glitches: Regularly check for and address any technical issues on your website.
13. Create a Content Calendar: Plan and schedule your content to maintain consistency.
14. Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments and messages to foster a sense of community.
15. Diversify Content Formats: Explore different types of content, including videos and infographics.

16. Optimize for Local SEO: If applicable, ensure your business is optimized for local searches.
17. Secure Your Website: Implement SSL certificates for a secure browsing experience.
18. Regularly Review and Update SEO Strategy: Adapt your approach based on changing algorithms and trends.
19. Educate Yourself: Stay informed about SEO best practices through reputable sources.
20. Be Patient and Persistent: SEO success takes time; stay committed to the process for lasting results.

This article was updated on December 13, 2023.   

The post The Power of High-Quality Content: A Guide to Effective SEO Strategies appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Chris Boggs is up first. Let’s talk the concept of triage — who do you treat first? Those with the least injuries get treated first, so they can get back out there on the battlefield. He relates this to SEO — work with what can get you going to get traffic up and running.

You should always be in diagnostic mode. Two directives of SEO diagnostics:

1. Reactive: Loss of rankings and traffic; loss of conversions; loss of phone calls, emails, etc.
2. Proactive: New competitor, algorithm update, industry shift, “cleaning your rifle” (this is the maintenance).

On reactionary tactics, Chris says he knows this next statement is controversial, but SEO emergencies often result from the IT team when they overlook something from an SEO perspective. So, check:

• Your code
• Your neighborhood
• The way your site is positioned in the search results
• Your best practices

For those “uh-oh” moments. If you see something that drops off, don’t assume the whole site is screwed. Pinpoint the problem areas. This will demonstrate that you know what you are doing (for example, after Penguin hit, lots of people may have wanted to abandon their entire site).

Confirm the problem and then begin the assessment. There are areas:

• Off-site promotion
• On-site optimization
• Technical

Look at the content and click-through rate — assess if it’s still unique and up-to-date. This takes a competitive analysis. In a spreadsheet, list out all the pages and assets that your competitors have to get a snapshot of the types of content they are producing.

Then, is the right page ranking? Use the “site:” search. You want to know what the top-ranking page is for your keywords.

Link removal is the new black. Watch out for something that people might be doing deceptively with links now — buying bad links on behalf of their competitors. A couple things to consider:

• Anchor text over-optimization.
• Paid or seemingly paid links.
• Zero social media buzz.
• Link removal costs as much or more time than traditional link-building.

All of those need to be in the proactive SEO diagnostics.

Algorithms go through various versions and iterations, so always go back and remeasure — don’t ever assume it stays the same consistently.

Tools Chris can’t live without:

1. Google Webmaster Tools
2. URIValet
3. Majestic/Raven/SEOmoz

Content is still king, and don’t just focus on yours — see what the competitive landscape is doing.

Up next is Duane Forrester. He is going to be diving into the new tools Bing offers, among other things. If you don’t know about the new tools, check out our interview with Duane in June’s SEO Newsletter.

Invest in these major areas:

• Quality
• Trust
• Popularity
• Timeliness

Six major investment areas for SEO:

1. Crawlability
2. Content
3. Site structure
4. Links
5. On-page
6. Social

Think of these areas as a series of curves. You don’t have to hit everything all at once. But, are you having the critical conversations that need to be had consistently around these areas? Stick to these things to keep you centered. They will provide the answers you need to most things.

The post SEO Diagnostics for the Skilled Search Mechanic appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Ready or not, social media and mobile are prompting email marketers to re-examine the effectiveness of their current programs. With new social networks, mobile devices, and mobile apps constantly entering the digital arena, it’s easy to feel confused or overwhelmed. This session will provide an opportunity to pause, think, and take action on the intersection of email, social, and mobile. It will:

Explore how and why the mobile age is transforming the “inbox.”
Explain why your email marketing is a strong foundation for social and mobile marketing success.
Equip you with ways to immediately optimize for and navigate the social and mobile currents.

Moderator:
Sundeep Kapur, Digital Evangelist, NCR Corp.
Speakers:
Jay Jhun, Director of Strategic Services, BrightWave Marketing (@emailrocks)
Alex Lustberg, VP Marketing, Lyris (@alustberg)

Alex believes we live in a time of chaos. There’s a proliferation of data that makes it hard for marketers to understand their audience. Like the weather, you might be able to predict a couple days or weeks out, but you don’t really know.

Pinterest is a phenomena we couldn’t have guessed. How can you integrate different components?

How people get their email today:
Mobile: 36%
Desktop: 33%
Web mail: 31%

We have to design for small mobile devices at the same time as multi-monitor giant screens.

The importance of email:

107 trillion e-mails sent annually
$40 in ROI for every $1 spent
90% believe personalization improves performance

The customer convo:

Start with key questions like where are you customers, what are they talking about and what are they sharing.

Tip #1: Social for customer insights
Drive better engagement
Create more targeted messaging

Tip #2: Social for growing lists

Tip #3: Embed social in email

Tip #4: Social for one-to-one connections
Customer questions asked and answered in real time
Addresses multiple customers at once

Tip #5: Share all content to social

Tip #6: Integrate to further leads along the way

Tip #7: Design for mobile
Have a responsive version or else lose 30-50% of your target

Tip #8: Redeem email promotions via mobile

Tip #9: Stay ahead in social
Curate content that’s visually compelling; leveraging Pinterest may make sense for a business

Tip #10: Develop KPIs
Raw community growth
Subscriber list growth
Social sentiment
Site traffic
Email/text conversions
Sales conversions

A couple best practices:
Deliver a unified message to your customer
Utilize tools to quantify return on investment

Jay is next. He asks the audience to stand if they use a Droid. Blackberry users are asked to stand. Then iPhone users and finally Windows phone users. He says that it’s about 50/50 iPhone to other in the US. The mobile experience is different on all the devices and that has to be accounted for.

Mobile transcends channels:

Phone
Email
SMS
Camera
Social media
Blog
News
GPS
Restaurant guide
Hair cuts
So much more… No one should talk about mobile as a channel.

5 Action Items

1. Identify and target your mobile audience.
2. Get serious about subject lines and preview text.
3. Get smarter about leveraging shareworthy content in email. This includes media, video, blog, social media.
4. Design for mobile.
5. Mobile destinations required. At least have a landing page.

The post The New Inbox: The Intersection of Email, Mobile and Social Marketing appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

How do I focus budget and effort to create the most effective content and use the best channel?

• Demonstrate the value of marketing.
• Focus budget and effort.
• Become a partner with sales.

Rob is talking about the many people in a company that are touching your brand through different channels online before they make a decision.

The next question is: How do I show the organizational value of my digital marketing content development?

How do you show value?

Demonstration of Principles

• Get the attribution right: use the data; apply the correct model (different models for different products); models may be different depending on intent; pay attention to cross channel.
• Measure at the individual and opportunity level: Aggregate individuals into opps, for example, by IP address, by email domain (known visitors), by company, by direct connection to an opportunity (known visitors connected to CRM).

How do you focus budget?

Measure and optimize on the full sales funnel and marketing objectives. Connect the Web lead to the CRM system. Then, create conversion metrics based on funnel stages. For example, lead conversion is important but qualified lead conversion is more important.

You can create metrics by intent, not necessarily tactic:

• Acquisition/awareness methods.
• Interest/engagement metrics.
• Action/conversion metrics.
• Value metrics.

Optimize for the metrics that make sense.

How do I become a partner with sales?

Inform sales on prospect behavior and alert sales on prospective leads. Engagement is a sales predictor. If you are measuring people on engagement like downloading white papers, etc., then you can give the list of companies who are visiting and interacting with your brand.

Or, you could do an activity report for the sales team. The sales guy could say, I’m talking with X company, what do you know about them? The marketing team could give activity reports on how they were engaging with your brand online and help the sales people interact with them.

You can find this presentation at SlideShare.net/BusinessOnline.

The post The B2B Challenge: Value and Attribution appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

At any given time, there are 50-200 versions of Google’s core search algorithm handling over 12 billion queries per month. At the same time, Google has made substantial quality improvement efforts through Panda and Penguin updates that require website owners to focus on quality content, optimization, and social engagement to stay above the fold. Siloed SEO is not a competitive advantage, and webmasters must master the converging worlds of search, social media and content. This session will help you:

• Identify key benefits and processes for integrating optimized content and social media marketing.
• Understand how to develop an optimized and socialized content marketing plan.
• Learn best practices optimization for social networks including Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Moderator: Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board; CEO, TopRank Online Marketing (@LeeOdden)

Speakers:
Arnie Kuenn, President, Vertical Measures (@ArnieK)
Chris Winfield, CMO, BlueGlass (@ChrisWinfield)

Chris asks who is actively engaged in a content marketing plan. A couple hands go up. Who wants to? A bunch of hands.

Let’s look at silos. Search, social, content… He shows a screenshot of a directory listing. He gives $10 to the first person to name the directory. It’s DMOZ.

He’s seen orgs that point consumers to their YouTube and Facebook, and never their website. Pushing people off the website and to the social channels. When done in an ineffective way, too many strategies can be disconnected. You have to bring the channels together.

The world we live in moves so quickly. A screenshot of a Google SERP taken for a presentation today won’t be replicated tomorrow. Everything is converging. It’s a matter of adapt or die. So what can we do?

Content Marketing

Creating and sharing valuable free content. Stuff that gets people to trust you. Build relationships and trust. Content marketing crosses several boundaries and mediums. It helps grow a business across search, social and more.

Content Marketing Explosion: His company, BlueGlass, acquired a media company Voltaire Digital. They created content for a variety of purposes.

Remarkable content is the best PR. It tells your story in a fun, educational, memorable and non-invasive way. In the PR they epphasized the importance of their service.

Getting the Right Exposure: They gave the exclusive story to Mashable.

Leverage Resources: Reached out through email and Twitter

When people talk about create good content and everything magic happens from there, part of the story is missing. Promotion is not a dirty word. You can share what you’re proud of. You have to make the most of it.

In a post-Penguin world, content marketing is the most effective way to build links. 200+ links to their new services page from 50+ unique domains.

Deep Market Penetration: Remarkable content is highly shared across social channels, leading to highly valuable brand exposure and new touch-points. There was activity across the web, including 700 +1s, 400 LinkedIn shares. All these touch points, wherever they point to (even the Mashable coverage) leads back to them.

Conversions: Future conversion events are the immediate and future goals. The best content calls users to action. Their campaign sends more than 3 qualified leads per week from this piece today, 6 months later! Good content becomes part of the company culture.

What Should I Be Doing?

Plan: Short and long-term strategic planning should guide and inform each initiative. Any content is part of a larger strategy. A one-off content piece is a misappropriation of resources.

Keep the end-goal in mind: Content is a means to an end.

Have a reason: If you don’t believe in it, don’t do it.

Be a scientist: Experimentation is a necessity. Without it there can be no innovation. But know your risk level. Be thorough and avoid bias. Apply the scientific method.

Know your audience: Your content needs to resonate and connect in a meaningful way with your target audience.

Promote: Create a definitive list of internal and external resources to help promote your content.

You can’t get what you don’t ask for: Incorporate CTAs into all your content (even microconversions)

Build on your big wins: Each piece of content

Good content never truly dies: We’re in a digital world. Your content is your voice and it echoes forever.

Be your biggest critic: If you aren’t obsessed with what you’ve created, nobody else will be either.

Questions to ask yourself:

What story can we tell?
What can we do better than anyone else?
Where are the gaps?
Who or what can we leverage?
How can we be remarkable?

Arnie is next. He’s going to answer the questions of how to figure out what content to create, strategy and research for coming up with content. His book “Accelerate” is a content marketing how-to.

The interest in content marketing has risen as shown by Google Trends searches for the term.

Content marketing is not a press release, nearly-identical pages, a random infographic, article marketing, cute pictures of cats.

8-step process:

You have to think like a publisher. They hire students out of journalism school. They hire people who used to be in newspaper and magazine publishing. These people get the process of planning content and a calendar that backs it up.

Ask questions of yourself or clients to start building strategy:

Strategy will evolve through the whole process
Why are you creating the content you are creating
Who is your audience
Who are you – determine your voice
Have you taken an inventory of your current content
What types of content will you create
How will you develop your content
When will you develop your content
How will you promote your content
What will you measure
What does success look like
What will your new content accomplish (customer retention, lead gen, thought leadership, lower customer service costs, open new markets)

Research starts within the organization. Talk to the people in the warehouse, accounting, people answering support calls, sales people. Ask them what they get asked regularly by prospects and customers. Write content that addresses those issues.

More research can be done on Yahoo Answers, Quora, Linkedin Q&A, type in your money keywords, see what people are asking about. There will be spam, just filter through it. Do an advanced Google search for “Discussions” and you’ll see where people are talking about that query phrase. Go promote your content there. You can give these people answers.

SEOmoz Open Site Explorer tab called Top Pages gives competitor web pages in order of strength (generally linking to the page) and you’ll find where you can promote your content to..

List all content ideas in a spreadsheet. Put it together in an editorial calendar. Give the spreadsheet/calendar to the content creators. Layout the year. They give each month a general theme. Three months in advance they plan the month out in detail.

Content creation:

• Address pricing and cost. Don’t avoid talking about it on the website. You don’t have to give numbers, but write about “pricing” and “cost” because they’re being searched for.
• Comparisons
• Free guides or white papers
• Interviews. These help you look like the expert.
• Video – they aren’t as hard as you think.

Every brand has a story to tell and the one who tells it best is going to win.

The post The Convergence of Search, Social and Content Marketing appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

He brings this up because he feels larger organizations have the challenge of putting together proactive processes that work across departments. This is going to be part of the conversation today.

First, continual iteration and optimization leads to success.

Expert organizations in the field of optimization typically have a person or a team dedicated to testing. You are targeting and segmenting behaviorally; you see marketing ROI and sales increase 50+ percent. There are beginner and intermediate organizations as well.

What we are covering today:

• Alignment and strategy: Link your conversion optimization to company’s business strategy.
• Process and organization: Understand the processes for creating a culture of optimization.
• Tactical execution: Which tests have the greatest impact on increasing conversion.

Alignment and Strategy

How are you going to win the race? Know what you are getting into. Have a good strategy. Know conversion impact on:

• Relevance
• Conversion
• Sales
• Marketing Budget

You have to translate conversion to marketing budget. For example: If we increase conversion by 50 percent, we will increase ecommerce sales by $25M this year, and lead to an ROI efficiency of 56 percent. This is the language of the CEO and the executive team. Learn to start speaking this way for buy-in.

Next, you need a clear strategy: objective > means > scope. These three aspects comprise a great strategy. Here’s an example of what that might look like:

Process and Organization

Back in the earlier days of Web marketing, there wasn’t much process because the Internet was new. The past 15 years has evolved to give us good standards of how we organize ourselves.

Steps to creating an optimization org process:

1. Operating model alignment: What is the goal or goals?
2. Process design: All the people conversion optimization is going to touch.
3. Change impact and readiness: What does the road map look like so we know we are ready to invest and be successful in conversion optimization?
4. Organizational design: Hire the right people and move them around as needed to get it done.
5. End user training: Make sure everyone involved has the tools necessary to be successful.

When you’re looking to implement, identify the “daisy chain”: Drivers, approvers, contributors. You’ll need exec support, investment in tech, investment in training, dedicated IT resources, dedicated marketing optimizers, dedicated Web analysts, User experience alignment, content and creative production, brand alignment — all with a process to perpetuate the culture.

On culture: In his organization, they have a blog that is dedicated to conversion optimization and a weekly update via email internally. They also have meetings every month that have grown in numbers to keep the company updated on how conversion is affecting ROI. They have free tools for people to test conversions — making it fun.

Tactical Execution

Top 5 areas that impact conversions:

1. The right design on your site and user experience. This includes things like layout and sizing of the content, and what types of content like integrating social elements and more. [Don’t assume integrating social is always a winning ideas; in Adobe tests, they found one of their pages where community content didn’t positively impact conversions].
2. Lead form and ecommerce process testing. This is” the checkout” or the lead captures. The right lead form can increase conversions up to 500 percent. Tool tip: Check out DemandBase.
3. Headlines, bullets and body copy. He is talking about B2B nurture emails and gives these tips: personalize to contact, make it highly relevant to the audience, all-text emails, sent on behalf of sales, include links to landing pages with specific offers with high-value content (reports, etc.), all priority responses go to sales and hopefully they call the people back in three minutes. They tested an element in an email, posing a question versus a statement in their emails; the statement won. They also tested bulleted copy versus a paragraph; the bulleted copy increased conversions by 31 percent. If it looks easier to read, people will want to read it. They tested one offer versus two offers; two offers won. They tested subject lines — offer name versus a relevant question; the offer name won the test.
4. Imagery. This includes things like banner image testing. He is showing examples of some of the tests they’ve done, and he says don’t always jump to conclusions when it comes to imagery. Data-driven people are usually against the creatives in this area. But, you might be surprised what actually converts. They found a banner ad that was designed beautifully but was hard to read actually won over the more straightforward banner ad. The marquee area = money — this area is very good real estate; use it.
5. Calls to action. Make sure people can see your CTA. This is things like links versus buttons for CTAs. He found in one of his tests, the buttons increased CTR by 44 percent, which translated to $195,000 in annual revenue. He also tested things like “download guide” versus “download white paper” — downloading a guide had more conversions because they believed that people felt it was less technical and easier to read. But don’t say “guide” if it truly is a white paper. Decide which type of content to create.

He ends with KIS: Keep it Simple.

The post Optimizing Conversion from Strategy to Execution appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Google has been adding semantic search features. Freebase and Knowledge Graph is a result of the semantic web. There are 4 types of data: structured, linked, semantic and linked open data. Schema is structured data deployed on a website. Linked data is the website that has a lot of open info available. Semantic web is like a cloud of websites connected. Linked open data is a cloud of linked data sites that promote open standards.

How do I find freely available data? http://pointblankseo.com lists Freebase sources of data. Before you think of creating brand new content, see if it already exists on Freebase. Pull the data from there and work on the package and delivery, data curation.

If you have image libraries or other libraries of data, deploy open graph tags like <meta property=”og:image” content=”…> or og:type or og:video. Open Graph is a piece of code that enables title and description of a page on Facebook.

Search engine with semantic web: Knowledge Graph. A lot of the info on KG is Wikipedia, which in turn is sourced from DBpedia.

Different types of Schemas a local business can use:

• address
• user generated review
• things to do
• events
• images
• specials
• accomodations
• video
• breadcrumbs

1. Go to Schemas.org and find 10-15 schemas valid for your vertical.
2. Figure out 3 or 4 fields for each schema. When choosing which pages to crawl, a search engine will give preference to the most structured data – it’s like data on steroids.

Use a microdata generator at microdatagenerator.org. Then validate the markup at the rich snippets testing tool from Google Webmaster Tools.

On-site Review Functionality with Schemas

Crucial info needed is: name, email, comment and ratings

Do the research of what people are already looking for and provide that information in your content. The only thing your content writer needs to do is give the name of the attraction, address and lat and long.

Specials and Packages

You need the name, description and price. Some people hesitate to put a price in hard code but you can do starting rate which means your deal price can still fluctuate.

Schema is like talking to search engines in their own language. That also improves the search experience making searchers happier. In a case study the results saw increased visitors and decreased bounce rate. They saw their overall keyword conversion rise. It was a 56% increase in revenue since the new site went live.

Key takeaways:

• Mark up your site.
• Identify right Schema’s for your vertical.
• Think about site architecture and content changes to deploy Schema at a CMS level.
• Communicate to your developer, designer and content writer important data fields you need.
• Explain changes in site architecture.
• Don’t tell the creative folks that they are writing Schemas. ;)
• Improve freshness and trust signals. Ask customers to leave reviews.
• Don’t forget Open Graph for Facebook implementation.

The post Schemas to Increase Engagement & Freshen Content appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

First up is Jamie Smith. He is going to be focusing on Google’s tools for multichannel attribution during this presentation. What do you do with all the data in your analytics?

Tactical planning happens before you analyze the data. What are the KPIs? Return on ad spend? Cost per acquisition? Have a meeting on the channels you’re using to examine what’s profitable and what’s not.

Recently, Google had a webinar on multichannel attribution. Check it out if you can.

Most of us know our conversion rate, but does anyone know what their call-in conversion in? Look at your site rate vs.  call-in rate. Which campaigns make your phone ring?

Jamie’s company did a study and found:

What do you do with this data? His company does a 40 percent attribution to first click, 40 percent to last click, and disperses the 20 percent between the other touch points. This is on a keyword level but you can also do this cross-channels.

It’s not right or wrong is you do it differently, that’s just what they feel most comfortable with.

Build maps and models around common paths. How much money did you spend in this channel, and how did it contribute to revenue? You know direct access if often the last touch point, but look at the previous.

Look at the order value of people who come to your site once versus twice, three times, etc. It’s good to know this information.

Next up is Thomas Bindl. He starts by saying multiple clicks make up 50 percent of all conversions.

Cross-channel tracking:

• Advantages: Attribution of sales and costs, touch points can be defined freely.
• Disadvantages: Implementation, additional costs.

Attribution model examples:

• U shape: First and last touch point gets the highest values. This is the one he recommends.
• Even distribution: Every touch points gets the same value. This is the easiest model to start with.

Attributing everything is better than just attributing to the last click.

What do you do with all the data?

• Use metrics in combination for daily optimization.
• Use campaign data for campaign planning regularly.
• Use customer journeys to understand the buying process.
• Refine attribution model on a quarterly basis.

The future — what’s happening next?

• Better integration of offline data (TV beta in refined ads).
• Auto understanding of correlations.
• Interface with existing systems (CRM, for example).
• Improved attribution models.
• Support budget allocation.
• Auto optimization of campaigns or parts of them.

Do I really need attribution modeling? The answer is yes. This is where we are going. Act now and get an advantage.

The post Measuring Profit and ROI Across Channels appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Traditionally, we talk about remarketing as DR only. Remarketing is also good for search marketers. It can close the leaky funnel or act as insurance by recapturing the audience. Figure out what the audience is interested in and drive them back to the site with a tailored message. 5% of user time is spent in search – 95% outside of search is a lot. Average Americans spend 2 months a year online. They spend more time online than any other medium combined.

For direct response, you can convert consumers who abandoned shopping carts.

84% of users are reached with remarketing in a month. They reach them 10-18 days or more out of the month. They can layer different targeting (a list like cart abandoners) and lay it over another group (groups visiting a fashion site).

Benefit highlights:

• Auto-optimized bidding: the team has built a lot of smarter marketing specific strategies, a lot of control and are encouraged to tweak campaigns. But even a basic campaign will see a lot of lifting by Google on the backend.
• User control: mute this ad for display provides users with turning off ads in the Google Display Network (GDN)
• What’s powering the abilities on the front and back end is the new Remarketing Tag. It’s a revolution in the way Google surfaces the list.
1. Easy to implement
2. Advanced list rules gives more flexibility
3. Back-end optimization
4. Dynamic values, ability to serve dynamically remarketed creative

But before you can start creating different lists for each of your customer segment, you’ll need to paste the tag across the site. Then, define lists using your site’s URLs. Include words that describe the content of each page.

Benefits:

• Create sophisticated remarketing lists, defining granular audiences
• One-time unified tagging
• Integrate with dynamic ads
• Reach more people

If you use Google Analytics, there’s an integration with remarketing. Turn a GA tag into a Remarketing tag. If you can create lists based on patterns in the URL, time on site, deathing, secondary referral sources, all these GA metrics can be used for your remarketing. New signals to help you divide lists and see different types of users.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads

If a user is searching for [shoes] and you know its a user who only looked at sneakers on your site, you can deliver a sneaker-targeted ad – a more personalized, relevant, ideally higher performing creative.

Benefits:

• Expand your reach
• Additional layer of targeting for search
• Re-capture consumer interest

Kevin Lee our moderator asks about the idea that one individual or one cookie ends up on multiple lists. As people move around throughout your site they may be adding themselves to multiple lists. How do you think about this an that users place in the hierarchy of your remarketing? Should they think in the perspective of an individual, particularly one that’s heavily engaged, should be targeted in a hierarchy.

David compares it to a richer version of what you’ve done today with converted users – users in my home page visitors list and not users in my shopping cart. You can say “if this” and “not this”. There’s more finess and detail that can be used. And combining lists is a compelling ability, sussing out the ability to find the response of a certain type of user.

Zach Coelius of Triggit takes the podium next. Remarketing is the killer app of this business; someone who cares is more valuable than someone who hasn’t been to your website. The audience is mostly marketers, more than half have done remarketing.

A cookie on a users browser will show where a user has been on the web. Those cookies are used to target ads based on where they’ve been before and the interest that suggests. This can be a problem if you end up showing ads where you don’t want to show them, or more often than you want to show them. The people on your remarketing list are people who are your customers. You don’t want to annoy them because they’re the most important people to you.

There are 5 rules of retargeting that he’ll share:

1. Insist on transparency. Make sure you can control where your ad will be shown. Frequency is also an issue. The economics of remarketing is not in favor of the marketer; pay close attention to understanding how often your user is seeing the ads. Understand the where and when of your ads being shown.
2. Solve for fragmentation. The cookie pool, data, is valuable. You want to reach them all. But if you only target them on one vendor, you’re not leveraging the whole pool. Multi-channel is another issue that needs to be considered. If you can figure out how to reach a user across channels you can bring a strong message.
3. Segment your customers. Know who bounced off a front page vs. someone who landed in a shopping cart and bounced. The second had a lot of intent but got distracted or changed their mind – they’re valuable. Show them a free shipping ad. Segmentation will drive performance through remarketing. However, if you don’t have scale, that kind of slicing and dicing could be a waste of time. Focus on having pools measured in the 10s of 1000s of individuals.
4. Creative matters. If a user has been to your site, then use the opportunity of these ads to talk to them. You need them to stop and go what is that, leave the site they’re on. Don’t give short thrift to the creative. Spend more time and money on creative. He’s seen exponentially higher return for investment on creative.
5. Use control groups. Attribution is a big buggaboo of retargeting. Using a click as a metric for measuring success leads to view-through transactions. But the view-through metric leads to astronomical rates since a lot of that audience was going to come back anyway. Use a control group that gets no ads (5% or 10%) and compare the behavior of the groups and see where the deltas are. Conversion rate on the control group was 1.7% on a test with Kodak – same conversion rate as normal users. For the group that did see ads it was 3+% conversion. The group that saw ads bought more of the product in the ad, too; 700% more photo books purchased by the group that saw an ad to print out photo books. The value couldn’t be seen in the ad click, though. Users weren’t clicking on the ad, they knew how to get to Kodak’s site.

Want more tips?
Check out our post “The Effectiveness of Slightly Creepy Retargeting“

The post Dos and Don’ts in Executing a Retargeting/Remarketing Strategy appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..