SES Toronto: Smart Mobile Marketing
Posted on 17. Jun, 2011 by BLarson in Blog, mobile, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, SESTO, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The “Smart Mobile Marketing” session was a panel discussion, moderated by TopRank CEO Lee Odden. To begin the discussion, Lee opened with a question for the room of 80+, “How many people in the room have developed a mobile version of a site?” 3-4 hands slowly raise. And with that, the stage is set: There is a lot of learning to do surrounding mobile marketing.
The session panel consisted of 2 leaders and veterans of the mobile marketing industry, Deborah Hall and Michael J. O’Farrell.
Deborah Hall
Hall founded web2mobile 3 years ago, frustrated with the user experience when trying to access a site via a smart phone. One of the greatest challenges she noticed was the upload speed, or lack thereof, of sites.
Here are some interesting stats Hall shared regarding when users access their mobile device:
- 80% while shopping in stores
- 17% during movies
- 14% while on a plane
- 7% while in church
Maybe most interesting to mobile marketers, 17% of users have showed a store clerk an image of the product they wish to purchase! This stat is indicative of many of the fringe benefits mobile marketing offers brands. Although these 17% of users didn’t transact via their mobile device, they certainly were informed and aspired through mobile marketing.
To inspire the audience, Hall pointed out a few companies that are emerging as leaders in leveraging mobile technology and highlighted GetGlue. For those new to GetGlue, it is a social network for entertainment where users can check into locations as well as check into “things” (e.g. wine, Will Ferell movies, chess, etc.). The end result is a network where people can theoretically find people in close proximity with similar interests.
Michael J. O’Farell
O’Farrell’s professional experience with mobile predates text messaging and he is the founder of The Mobile Institute – a company that helps clients develop strategies for the mobile marketplace.
During his presentation he, similar to Hall, shared many compelling stats about the growth of mobile marketing. As the session opened for QA, O’Farrell and a crowd member pointed out an interesting benefit to mobile marketing revealed by data collected by Google on search habits: mobile use doesn’t dip. Unlike desktop search, where use on weekends, holidays and evenings drop significantly. That’s simply not the case with mobile, where users are consistent and unrelenting in their activity. These images tell the tale.
As the session continued, the next question needed to be asked. With a timid crowd, Lee thankfully stepped to the plate and asked “What are some tips for the audience on how they can get started?” Both O’Farrell and Hall agreed that the first step is research.
Google Analytics provides data on mobile traffic. Marketers should leverage these numbers to form a picture of their current mobile audience and prioritize their efforts accordingly. That is to say, a company with 3 visitors from mobile devices is not likely to invest the same resources into mobile as a company that has 30,000 mobile visitors.
The next step is understanding how your audience uses mobile. Google Analytics provides data on what Operating Systems (OS) visitors use. This is important and should have a big role in your mobile marketing approach, as different OS’s will require different specs for a mobile site.
Finally, get out there and try. O’Farell and Hall recommend a phased approach where marketers can dip their toes in the water by testing different mobile strategies. There will undoubtedly be some misses at the outset of any mobile marketing effort, but as mobile use continues to grow, there is no denying that it is time take the leap.
Canada is following the United States in adopting smart phones, with 50% of the Canadian population expected to own a smart phone in 2014 (55% is expected in the US).
To learn more, check out these top mobile marketing resources.
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SES Toronto: Smart Mobile Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com
SES Toronto: Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics
Posted on 16. Jun, 2011 by BLarson in Blog, facebook marketing, facebook targeting, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
WARNING: This post is based on a Marty Weintraub presentation. If you have seen Marty present, then you understand the warning and are probably smiling. For those of you who have not, just remember you were warned, although this text doesn’t do justice to Marty IRL.
All kidding aside, Weintraub, CEO of aimClear, is a talented presenter that has a passion for his subject matter, Facebook. In “Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics” at SES Toronto, Weintraub focused primarily on behavioral targeting. You know, identifying the behavior of your ideal audience and target/market accordingly. Sounds simple until you consider the millions of ways a marketer can slice and dice audience segments in Facebook.
Facebook marketing is a big topic and this presentation was specifically focused on Facebook ad targeting.
One rally cry heard throughout the session was “PPC is to SEO, as Facbook Ads are to social SEO.” Weintraub explains that much like how PPC can spike traffic and help point out opportunities (i.e. keywords that produce at a high rate) and weaknesses (i.e. pages that convert at a relatively low rate), Facebook Ads can do the same for social SEO.
The heart of the session was highlighting unique ways to use Facebook to reach target audiences. But before we get into some of Weintraub’s more creative examples of behavioral targeting, let me point you to some interesting user stats shared during the session regarding the wide dispersion of English speaking Facebook users. Did you know that there are 13.4 million English speaking Facebook users in the Phillipines alone! The English speaking social media audience is larger than most think.
With the scope of the English speaking Facebook audience in mind, let’s look at some unique examples of how a brand can engage in Facebook Ads.
Literal/Safe Targeting
A hockey equipment company looking to increase online sales could easily turn to Facebook and target men and women who ‘like’ hockey. Or, a music and event promotion company selling Justin Bieber tickets would be wise run ads aimed at girls aged 12-15.
This may not be an groundbreaking approach, but the truth is that this is the safest and most reliable way of targeting an audience.
Lateral/Creative Targeting
Thinking beyond the obvious association, lateral targeting uses some logical assumptions. For example, from our previous example, Facebook users who ‘like’ hockey are likely to be receptive to ads winter jackets. Hockey is primarily played areas of the world with colder climates. People in colder climates need to stay warm. Winter jackets to the rescue!
Using this approach requires creativity and a willingness to take a chance.
Negative Sentiment/General Disdain Targeting
Fans of the Facebook page I Hate My Neighbor – click the link if you don’t think it’s a real page – are certainly good prospects for a privacy fence company, if not a moat installation company. We know this because of the things that they indicated they don’t like. But let’s take it a step further. Facebook users who ‘like’ the I Hate My Neighbor page are also likely the audience that would be happy to pick up the latest Lewis Black comedy album.
Undoubtedly the least conventional and most dangerous approach to reaching audiences through Facebook Ads. Proceed with extreme caution if you choose this road and be very transparent with the brand you represent regarding your approach.
These are just a few of the examples shared in the “Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics” session. The underlying message through it all was that Facebook is big and there are opportunities throughout this massive network. Facebook has 700+ million users. I’m convinced that Weintraub will have figured out some way to market each and every user by the time my plane lands in Minneapolis.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
SES Toronto: Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics | http://www.toprankblog.com
SES Toronto: Competitive SEO Analysis
Posted on 15. Jun, 2011 by BLarson in Blog, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Really, truly understanding the competitive landscape can help pave the way for a successful search engine marketing program.
Chris Boggs led a panel discussion at SES Toronto on Competitive Analysis – What tips and tools can get you the vital competitive information that every SEO needs. According to Boggs, “Competitive analysis is one of the most exciting and important tactics (SEOs) can do.
The session was segmented into 3 areas of focus: on site research,off site research and PPC research.
On Site Research
Marios Alexandrou, Rosetta
When conducting on site (i.e. within your competitor’s site) competitive analysis, start by:
1) Asking yourself, “what companies should I look at?” Compete.com can come in handy here. Enter a handful of competitors and look for companies with high traffic. These are the companies that will likely have characteristics that will help inform your SEO approach.
2) Assessing your competitors site. Be sure to divide on site components into 3 categories: Content, Technical and Internal Links. By segmenting, you can more easily identify their strengths, as well as their areas of weakness.
3) Crawling competitor sites by leveraging crawler tools like Xemu. This will help determine:
- size of site
- links to internal pages
- popular search term pages
- Google Index
Once you have conducted your research, create a matrix to get a full picture of the competitive landscape. Do this by listing your competitors within excel on the y-axis and cross reference them against criteria (x-axis) like: Targets Long Tail, Optimized Title Tags, Internal Linking, Image Content, etc.
Off Site Research
Ross Dunn, StepForth Web Marketing
One of the most important elements to consider when performing off site research (i.e. looking at factors outside your competitor’s website) is quantity and quality of their external links.
Like on site research, off site analysis by identifying the competitors. One way to determine your competition is to enter core phrases like “mountain bikes” as well as long tail phrases like “brand x mountain bike parts”. Survey the search engine results page (SERP) for top ranking businesses. Be sure to weed out wikipedia and other non-competitive sites.
Now that you understand the different players, follow Ross’s tips for off site analysis.
1) Create Advanced Reports within Majestic SEO for each competitor and export the list to excel
2) Manually review top 50 links for each competitor and ask yourself:
- is their anchor text relevant?
- is their relevant on page content?
- do they have quality on page content?
3) Find and highlight shared links among 3 competitors (hub links). These links are likely attainable and have value for your search results.
4) Look for biased links (i.e. hundreds of supposed different all linking to the same page with the exact same anchor text should raise some flags)
Don’t recreate the wheel. Learn from your competition’s link efforts to elevate your online strategy.
PPC Research
Matt Van Wagner, FindMeFaster
Start your PPC research with the mindset that to succeed you need to go beyond obvious questions like “what keywords are my competitors buying?” to ask questions like “where is the biggest area of opportunity?” Both questions are important, but the latter will help you look past competitive data to focus on the opportunities that can be gleaned from your research.
Quality PPC research tools are plenty, but before you start your research, arm yourself with questions that will help you hone in on key aspects of PPC.
How many ads are they running? How many different messages/offers do they present? Are they using best practices (i.e. do relevant keywords appear in ad titles)? How often do they present new ads? Do they react to bid changes?
With these types of question in mind, here’s a list of some of Van Wagner’s favorite tools for competitive PPC research:
- AdGooroo
- Compete
- iSpionage.com
- Keyword Competitor
- Keyword Spy
- Comscore
Walking into this session, I have to admit that I was looking for the silver-bullet. The one tool that does EVERYTHING. The truth, as we all know, is that although there are powerful competitive research programs, your approach to competitive analysis is truly your most powerful tool. Learn from competitors by researching their efforts with a laser-like focus.
To borrow a line from Alexanderou, “copying your competitors doesn’t make you better than them. It makes you the same.” Determine their strengths. Determine their weaknesses. Incorporate these lessons to take your program to another level.
You can learn more about different competitive intelligence tools by reading the “Competitive Intelligence – Search Insider Summit” post.
Stay tuned for more posts from SES Toronto. Follow @TopRank and #sesto on Twitter for real time updates.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
SES Toronto: Competitive SEO Analysis | http://www.toprankblog.com
SES Toronto: SEO is Dead. No it’s Not.
Posted on 14. Jun, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, SESTO, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Moderated by Jonathen Allen, the SEO is Dead. Long live SEO! session included a number of “salty dog” SEO experts: Terry Van Horne, Jim Hedger and Garry Pryzklenk.
Essentially, the key questions discussed in this panel centered around what is it that we’re doing as marketers that could be considered as SEO vs. Marketing. Other topics included: Google +1, personalization, evolving nature of SERPs, “Trust Rank”, analytics and other technical aspects of SEO were discussed.
Moderator: What does search engine optimization mean anymore? The thing about SEO is that there are many technical considerations. What ranking factors still matter? Should we still be considering tags, H1, Titles, etc.
Terry: Title tags are one of the biggest factors.
Jim: Beyond the URL the first thing the search engine will see is the title tag. You can gain a great deal of power from your title tag.
Jim: Being a great SEO isn’t being a magician. It’s about being a great marketer that uses SEO.
Terry: I’ve always followed the Document Object Model to identify what HTML attributes are important for SEO. Then you have other formats like RDFa and microformats.
Jim: It’s important to remember we’re writing for two audiences: people and search engines.
Terry: Spiders don’t buy anything
Jim: Titles help people navigate the website
Moderator: Is link building a SEO tactic or a marketing tactic?
Terry: Its a marketing tactic. I’ve been link building before I started doing SEO. If you look at link building without SEO then you’re pretty safe when it comes to Google guidelines.
Audience: How does personalization and Google +1 affect SEO?
Jim: Search engines will continue to innovate and change. Just because things change doesn’t make optimization any less relevant. We may need to change how we do things and use different sets of tasks, but you’re still doing things to make it easy for search users to find your content.
There’s not a lot you can do with personalization when it comes to SEO. Localization and personalization are very close to each other. Except personalization is mostly informed by your behaviors.
Garry: Social is an area where Google wants to move into for signals, but I don’t think they want to have a high reliance on any one source. Google +1 is their attempt to mitigate reliance on external social signal. It does have some correlation between personalization and localization.
Terry: The most important part of personalization, is that when people are logged in, Twitter becomes very important. Tweets can take up a lot of SERP screen real estate from . People say +1 is a ranking signal, I don’t believe that.
Terry: As far as personalization, I try to use personas and optimize according to customers. You’ve got to look at audiences, not just keywords.
Garry: Personalization and +1 is still new. We’re going to have to wait a little bit to see it gain some traction and see if it will have an impact.
Moderator: With Twitter, we know Google uses the firehose of data. With +1, content posted can appear on a Google profile and can also appear in real-time search results. Is that SEO or marketing?
Audience: Now that traditional SEO is changing, what are some of the key things we need to be looking at for the “new SEO”
Jim: What’s old is new. In the beginning there was Alta Vista. Search engines of that day were just about acquiring content. Content was king before links became commoditized by Google.
Today, quality content, making your sites accessible and usable is important. Usability is polite. Accessibility is the law.
Audience: The +1 is all user generated content. I don’t see anyone outside of techies ever using it. What do you think the shelf life will be? Also, what about Bing?
Garry: Buzz died pretty quickly because it was so similar to other services. With +1 it depends whether it gets traction or not.
Bing conversion rates overall have been very good with PPC. Bing is also a center of innovation and could be a real competitor.
Terry: +1 really is only known and used by techies. There’s nothing obvious about what will happen with +1 for users, whereas with other sharing buttons, you can tell it’s for Facebook or Twitter.
Moderator: +1 on PPC ads provides better demographic data for advertisers and can positively affect quality score. Google has a lot of data that shows if you integrate social, with display and PPC you get better overall lift.
Panel: Google is a bit naive about how they approach social. They have engineers deciding to make things that will be cool, but don’t really make an effort to explain to users why it’s important. Google +1 is a good example of this. There are many reasons why advertisers and Google would want people to use +1, but not many compelling reasons for people to use it.
Jim: Is SEO dead. SEO dies every day. We spell die wrong. It should be “dye”. SEO is dying, changing every day.
Audience: I’ve not seen having a mobile optimized landing page or site helps your Google ranking on a Google mobile device or search.
Terry: I’m of the opinion that “mobile” sites will be obsolete because HTML5 will improve. Mobile and website from a code perspective will converge.
Garry: Is an optimized site on mobile a great user experience when you have to pull back on certain features to accommodate mobile limitations?
Terry: If you’re looking at your users with mobile, you’ll give them a different experience than on the web.
Audience: When you’re logged in, it seems everyone has a YouTube or Gmail account these days. How many queries happen when logged in vs. logged out?
Terry: Since caffiene you’re pretty much always logged in.
Garry: If you’ve ever logged in, the cookie will persist whether you’re logged in or not.
Terry: Google is also pulling data from Chrome and the toolbar, whether you’re logged in or not. Keep in mind advertising networks like Google’s DoubleClick can read those cookies too.
Audience: Can you name the top 10 signals you’d advise someone to use that is a large player, software, international, high end. That already has #1, #2 ranking positions. What are your top 10 signals for the “uninitiated”.
Jim: Titles, description meta tags, text and links
Terry: Title, copy and links
Garry: Agree with Jim. Quality of content is king because that’s what will attract links.
Jim: Site structure and quality of site structure is also important.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
SES Toronto: SEO is Dead. No it’s Not. | http://www.toprankblog.com
SES Toronto: Keyword Forensics
Posted on 14. Jun, 2011 by BLarson in Blog, keyword analysis, keyword discovery, Keyword Research, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
In my preview post for SES Toronto, I counted John Alexander’s Keyword Forensics session as one of my “Must See” presentations for the 2011 conference. The promise of really digging down into keyword discovery and keyword analysis techniques sounded far too good to pass up. After all, keyword research is an essential part of any SEO process.
The session starts with an inspiring quote on the projector “Keyword Forensics – Exploring the Hidden User Search Behavior for Keywords That Are Often Missed by Keyword Researchers.”
I research keywords! What am I missing?
Here are some good nuggets from the presentation:
Understand the Difference Between Keyword Research vs. Keyword Forensics
Keyword Research: Researching identified keywords to determine which phrases will provide the most search traffic.
Keyword Forensics: Discovering keyword variations associated with a root word. According to Alexander, keyword forensics does not begin with any assumptions. The purpose is to uncover how people search.
Exploring User Behavior
Challenge: One of the challenges one encounters when researching user behavior for most people is the need to lose the “keyword hunt mindset”. The more you tend to guess at the most logical keywords, the less likely you are to find exactly what phrases people are actually searching.
Solution: Don’t guess or assume search phrases. Uncover popular keyword phrases in tools like Wordtracker by entering a root word and discovering how that word is most often being used. For example, entering the root word “buy” will produce variations like “What do people buy?”
Wordtracker 101
Wordtracker is Alexander’s weapon of choice for keyword forensics. Here’s a little Wordtracker 101.
First, enter a root word into the search query. Second, sort by KEI and consider the following:
Keyword Effectiveness (KEI): The higher the number here, the better. Use this metric to identify popular keyword phrases with little competition.
In Anchor and Title: Count of the number of pages for which the exact keyword phrase appears in both the title tag and as anchor text on the page. This metric gives you an understanding of what kind of keyword focused content needs to be generated to achieve a quality search engine rank.
Think Laterally About Behavior
A person searching for baby names=diaper purchasing prospect. A brand doesn’t need to sell baby names (although that would be an interesting business model!) in order to provide relevant content. Imagine a diaper company that aggregates all common and uncommon baby names on one site. People searching for baby names, i.e. likely parents to-be, will be introduced to the brand in an organic manner. The diaper brand can then provide special offers or relevant links to visitors so they can learn more about the products or receive discounted pricing.
To wrap up the session in a nutshell, Alexander takes a very creative approach to keyword discovery and encourages others to do the same. Put even more succinctly, SEOs should discover keywords and not assume them. If you’re in need, here’s a list of keyword research tools you might find useful.
Stay tuned for more posts from SES Toronto. Follow @TopRank and #sesto on Twitter for real time updates.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
SES Toronto: Keyword Forensics | http://www.toprankblog.com
4 Must See Social Media & SEO Sessions at SES Toronto
Posted on 08. Jun, 2011 by BLarson in Blog, conference, content marketing, Keyword Research, Search Engine Strategies, ses toronto, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social SEO
If you’re wondering, “Who’s Brian Larson?”, you’re not alone. Before I jump into the details of some of the can’t miss sessions at the upcoming SES Toronto conference, I’ll borrow a line from Austin Powers: “Please allow myself to introduce…myself.”
I’m a SEO Account Manager at TopRank Online Marketing – which means I have the enviable job of developing and managing SEO programs for several TopRank clients. One of the many benefits of my job is that I have the opportunity to work daily with some of the most intelligent and forward thinking companies around (you know who you are). As I head to SES Toronto, I go with my clients’ goals and needs at the front of my mind.
Now that I’m not a complete stranger, let’s get on to the good stuff. SES Toronto is just around the corner and it’s time to start making the difficult decisions surrounding which sessions to attend. Here are my 4 “Can’t Miss Sessions” for this year’s SES Toronto conference:
1) Content Marketing Optimization
This is a no brainer. Although there are numerous SEO strategies, good content marketing is the engine that drives a successful online marketing program. TopRank CEO Lee Odden (I call him “boss”) leads a presentation on unlocking the SEO potential of a brand’s content. In the session, Lee will offer insight into how companies can elevate their content-based optimization strategies and increase process efficiencies for content creation and promotion.
My TopRank Account Manager Take: Content development and promotion is core to our work. The minute I stop proactively looking for ways to elevate our approach to content marketing is the minute our content begins to lose its relevancy.
If you listened to Lee speak before, you know you will walk away with a ton of ideas. If you haven’t heard Lee speak, you really should.
2) Keyword Forensics
Cleverly titled, this session seems to have the meat to support such a promising name. John Alexander, of SearchEngineWorkshops.com and Search Engine Academy, will focus the session on uncovering keyword variations overlooked by most Webmasters. Alexander also promises to dive into the hidden behavioral trends of different search personas. Understanding these trends will help determine what search results are REALLY most valued by your target audiences.
My TopRank Account Manager Take: This session immediately piqued my interest because I personally view the selection of keywords as the make or break point for a SEO program. Why? Keywords dictate strategies and tactics. Keywords also represent different persona and audience needs.
To start a program with the wrong keywords is akin to heading north to go south=it’s not going to work out well.
3) Competitive Analysis
Search strategies cannot be developed in a vacuum. Analyzing the competitive landscape and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competition is key to the development of a successful SEO program. In Competitive Analysis, Chris Boggs moderates a panel discussion on assessing the competition to:
- determine link acquisition opportunities
- discover untapped types of content
- identify competitive keywords/identifying non-competitive keywords
- uncover avg. ad spend
My TopRank Account Manager Take: There are literally too many tools for surveying and analyzing online marketing competition. The problem is that when one stops to consider all these options, it can likely turn into the classic: paralysis by analysis.
When a panel of pros meets to share the tools they use to assess the competition, I’m all ears.
4) Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics
As Facebook continues to evolve at an impressive rate, so too do the online marketing opportunities within this 700+ million member social network. From Facebook Ads to Fan Pages, and Sponsored Stories to Groups; options to target and engages audiences are abound. Marty Weintraub, President of aimClear, another fine Internet Marketing agency from Minnesota, hosts this Facebook targeting session, with a focus on reviewing some of the most successful Facebook marketing campaigns to identify their common characteristics.
My TopRank Account Manager Take: Too often companies view the success of their social media efforts in terms of Fans, Friends and Followers instead of affecting business outcomes.
The fatal flaw for many companies is the assumption that audiences can’t engage and transact with a brand through their social channels – that those interactions must happen on a corporate website. Facebook may be the leader in providing companies with a variety of ways to create a rich user experience for their audience. I can’t wait for this one.
Of course I’ll be sitting in on more sessions than 4, but these are my core. Both Lee and I will be liveblogging sessions so be sure to watch for the #SESTO hash tag on Twitter, our Facebook page or just come back to Online Marketing Blog.
If you’re new to SES conference, I’d recommend reading this helpful post on how to get the most out of marketing conferences.
Here are the conference details:
SES Toronto
June 13-15, 2011
Hyatt Regency Toronto
There’s a 20% discount for TopRank Online Marketing Blog readers – just use the discount code: TRB20.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
4 Must See Social Media & SEO Sessions at SES Toronto | http://www.toprankblog.com
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