I just happened across a page published by Microsoft detailing 8 SEO tips. Oddly, the information is well presented and I find myself mostly agreeing with what they suggest.

A lot of readers will be familiar with all this anyway, but I thought it might be relevant to some website owners or new faces.

Microsoft: help people find your website.

I particularly like that they mention Google's services before MSN's services - proving that this article is more than just a shameless plug for MSN search (well done team(.

Source: Some SEO wisdom from Microsoft

I love writing, especially when compared to speaking. If I make a spelling error or need to pause and think...no problem, but with video I notice my awkward pauses and voice inflections and cringe, and then I worry about sounding like the Fox weatherman with turrets


I recently came across Chris Martenson's Crash Course and appreciated the clarity of the message and presentation, which got me to thinking I should try to get better with video stuff.

I saw Brian Clark mention Web Video University. Andy Jenkins is quite good with video stuff too. Have you done much audio and video recording? What are some of your favorite tips, and what courses/books/products/etc. would you recommend?

Most the attempts at political SEO I have seen this year have been grassroots GoogleBombing or half-thought out campaigns asking fans to comment online (and the occasional robotic sounding request for viral content creation).

Obama was estimated to have spent over $2 million on Google ads, and Google political ad man Peter Greenberger claims that limited and inconsistent search ad spend hurt Hillary Clinton, going so far as saying

The McCain campaign was the savviest among the Republican presidential primary campaigns. We think it's not a coincidence that the two savviest primary campaigns with Google are the winning ones.

How well rounded was their search engine marketing? How savvy were they with Google? Were they doing organic search optimization as well? Does anyone know a SEO working for one of their teams? Are any SEOs working for other political candidates like the Senators or members of the House of Representatives?

A full featured and information packed day is how many SES attendees would describe day two of the conference in San Jose. I know the TopRank Blogging team would agree with 13 new posts today!

• Advanced B2B Search Marketing - Jessica
• Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers - Thomas
• What’s New with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer? - Ashley
• Global Search for the B2B SEM - Jessica
• 5 Things No One Will Tell You About SEM - Dana
• Search Advertising 101 - Dana
• 7 Proven Ways to Get Your Website on Page 1 Organically & Then Convert - Thomas
• Landing Page Testing & Tuning - Ashley
• Keynote with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella - Jessica
• SES San Jose Expo Hall Photos - Dana
• Measuring Success in a 2.0 World - Dana
• Internet Marketing Conference Tips: Danny Sullivan Third Door Media Lee
• Internet Marketing Conference Tips: Robert Scoble FastCompany.TV - Lee

Watch for even more in depth session coverage tomorrow on day 3 of SES San Jose. It’s so good, it’s like you’re here in person! Except you’re not.

Next up is the Google Dance!

Sponsored By: Digital Publishing & Advertising DPAC II Next wave of digital conten

If you are in the market to harvest leads from your web site, then this is the session for you! Industry experts Barbara Coll, CEO of WebMama.com, Patricia Hursh, President and Founder of SmartSearch Marketing and Adam Goldberg, Chief Innovation Officer for Clearsaleing gave some tips and insight to help B2B marketers develop search strategies to increase the number of qualified leads from their search campaigns.

Patricia kicked off the session with 10 tips for B2B Marketers!

1. Reach prospects early in the buying cycle
The sales cycle can often be long and complicated. B2B marketers rarely face the fact that people are conducting product searches at the beginning of the buying cycle. Reality is, your customers are looking for your product information way before they are ready to convert. You have to be there early!

2. Advertise in ‘the tail’
General keywords should be leveraged to reach customers early on in the buying cycle. As customers progress through the cycle, their keyword searches become more specific to the product.

3. Include non-branded keywords
Measure the search history of a person who ultimately converts on a branded term. B2B marketers typically measure the last click that converts. However, customers are searching for product information for up to 12 weeks prior to purchase. Track behavior over time, although they converted on the branded term, what initially brought them to your site? Be apart of the conversation from the beginning of their search.

4. Pre-qualified clickers
Use ad copy to pre-qualify clickers and address your specific target audience. The pros of pre-qualifying leads out-way the cons. Be specific about what you offer and who you serve.

5. Focus and align ad copy
Align ad copy with keywords. Ad copy should reflect general search terms to target customers early in the buying stage ie: lap top information. As customers move through the buying cycle, your ad copy should speak to their desire to compare brands with user reviews. When they are ready to buy, provide features specific to your product and brand.

6. Create very specific landing pages and microsite
Test microsites, focused on specific solutions and target audiences. Each microsite or landing page should focus on just one solution, with an objective to gain qualified leads. If your customers come to your home page on a targeted search keyword, they will get lost in a sea of information overload and you will loose the lead.

7. Test pages continuously
Will your registration form entice more click-through’s if it is located on the landing page or if you design a click path to reach it? Testing various options on your site can help improve conversion rates. If you are going to test, it is imperative that you track results over a period of time to determine what works and what doesn’t.

Recommended elements to test include:

- Page layouts
- Images
- Benefit statements
- Action triggers
- Names and descriptions of downloadable assets
- Registration form placement
- Registration form fields (required and optional)

8. Offer multiple action options
It’s important to offer choices. If your customers don’t want to download your software, maybe they want to take a product tour or download a white paper. What if the person isn’t ready to be contacted? Is there something else you can give them to keep the dialog going?

9. Simplify registration forms
Registration forms are typically too lengthy! There is a disconnect of the perceived value of what your customers are going to get and the process that it takes for them to get it. Test a simplified form to increase conversions. Baby step the prospects through the process and implement a robust follow up process to obtain the necessary qualifying data.

10. Turn web inquiries into sales leads
Implement a lead qualification process, starting with everyone that comes to your landing page. Next, identify the valid inquiries, followed by those that are ‘accepted’ leads. Once the lead has completed the inquiry follow up process, they are labeled as a qualified lead.

Barb specifically addressed the challenges within an enterprise wide sales force as search marketing at the enterprise level is whole new ball game. The enterprise sales force typically implements a leads ratings system to qualify their pipeline, with an obvious goal to ‘fill the pipeline’.

Where do most enterprises get ‘A’ leads? By searching their rolodex, making phone calls, or reaching out to someone they have contacted with interest in the past. This is not bad, but it’s not the only way.

Search can drive potential customers through high priority, high trust lead generation channels!

How you ask?
- Optimize more than home page and product category pages
- Point paid search clicks at aggressive lead generating pages
- Make search an A lead

So, how do you make search an “A” lead gen channel?
- Force it into the A lead bucket if it is a high converting paid search word
- Can’t treat all search traffic the same
- Educate the reps by showing them the paid search numbers
- Check to see what the reps are following up on when search leads come in

Review sales success measures, specific to the sales world, including:
- Close Rate
- Time to close
- Average selling price
- Quarterly Quota

Adam talked more about the use of technology in the B2B space and compared the online world of marketing to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Certain needs must be met to move up the pyramid.

Wrong Metrics = Wrong Decisions

Goal to get the cheapest lead you can is not a good goal to follow. The goal of Advertising is to drive profit.
How many of that specific lead does it take to actually close?
The best ad is that ad that is the most profitable for your business. If you are not focused on profit, you might be making decisions that look good on paper, but your ultimate goal to drive profit might not be reached.

Advertising sources sends traffic to your site; however the right technology is required to capture advertising analytics data required to make decisions.

Without the right technology, how can you determine the real value of a conversion? You need to connect the dots to know the values of each lead and sale.

The last click fallacy:
The last click does not necessarily deserve all of the credit. The buying cycle starts with problem recognition, where your customers are looking for general information online. From there, customers move into an information search, evaluation of alternatives and purchase decision. Every ad that is responsible for bringing the customer into the purchasing cycle has helped contribute to that sale. Because the last click is typically driven by a branded search, the misconception is that branded searches are really driving sales based on ‘the last click’.

If your objective is to increase qualified leads, are you driving traffic to a specific landing page or microsite?

For more photos from SES San Jose, be sure to visit TopRank on Flickr.

Sponsored By: 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide All New Report from Marketing Sherpa

What is it about web analytics that that intrigues and yet scares companies at the same time? Everyone want to understand analytics, yet once one starts digging in, it can get complicated. In Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers, they gave tips on what you should be looking at and what you should be paying attention to.

Here are a few of the tips & thoughts that were shared:

Craig Danuloff

• Invisibility; what can’t we see?
• Every search is a question, every ad is an answer. Keywords simply connectors.
• ROAS is a ‘feel good’ metric. don’t take it seriously.
• Deception - Can you trust what you see?
• Accuracy - What’s the margin of error. Is there statistical significance?
• Banish brand terms as they throw everything off.
• Unlimited power from huge data volumes. Lots of campaigns lots of data and a fluid business environment.
• A change is not a test. Test design, test tracking, scoring test results.
• Apply math and statistics.
• Make a record of changes made to the site.

Brian Cosgrove

• Implementation - Everyone needs to ensure analytics are configured correctly.
• Filtering - Filter out internal traffic or those that come to the site as part of their job.
• Process should be: report, analyze, optimize, measure, repeat.
• How many pages are actually landing pages, how many are not getting visitors?
• Connect landing pages and keywords as a search engine doesn’t always drive traffic to what you think is the best page.

Heather Dougherty

• Use competitive intelligence to identify and analyze sem opportunities.
• Identify trends and seasonality.
• Analyze competitors strategy.
• Act upon opportunities.
• Get the calendar ready and stay ahead of seasonal trends.
• Understand paid vs organic search in specific industry.
• Look at competitors. Paid vs organic. Click thoroughs.
• What is the user intent? Example: Purchase an item or news/research.
• Can use analytics for reputation management.

Michael Stebbins

• What’s in your data? Most analytics have bounce rates, average time, page views, but does yours have conversion rate and cost of revenue per visit?
• The Grim Reaper: Find which 10% of ads are not performing and kill them.
• Find ads with high cost, bad ROI, low engagement, low conversion and those will help find the 10%
• They can either be cut or replaced.
• Don’t keep them hoping they’ll get better.
• Free Research Tool: Microsoft’s Commercial Intent
• Free Research Tool: Google Adwords Keyword too. With this you can even check age range and sex to help target your ad content
• Free Research Tool: Google Ad Planner

Brett Crosby

• Came from Urchin and helped grow Google Analytics
• Wanted to make it easier for non-geeks to dive in and explore. Aka: The shallow end.
• Always setup goals and funnels.
• Customize dashboard for your needs.
• Customize email reports for different rolls in the company.
• Setup goal value. This will help you see values per keyword
• If you can hook up to eCommerce data, it’s even better

The session had great speakers from the technical side of things to the beginner side of analytics. It was a lot of information in a short time, but still very good overall.

–

Check out all of TopRank’s coverage of SES San Jose and sessanjose08 Photos.

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.

Google is the Wizard of search marketing’s Oz. The all-powerful being around which our universe orbits, and the all-knowing guru to whom we turn for website advice. While Google, like the wizard, may guard its own secrets, it lifts the curtain and lets us look at the inner workings of websites. In this session, two of Google’s own, Avinash Kaushik and Tom Leung, gave us an insider’s tour of changes in Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, two tools of incredible value to search marketers and webmasters alike.

Google Analytics

Avinash, author of Analytics Evangelist, outlined a few key uses of Google Analytics that can make a huge impact on the success of your website.

Bounce Rate

“If you’re not using bounce rate as a filter to fix things really fast…than you are probably committing a crime against humanity,” Avinash asserted.

He recommends looking to bounce rate first and foremost to determine if your website “sucks.” While the bounce rate can’t give you a solution, it is a quick indicator of problem pages on your site.

Examine your site’s Google Analytics bounce rate report and identify any low performers. Investigate these pages and consider changing and testing alternative formats to improve performance.

Keywords

Avinash focused his discussion of Google Analytics keyword reports on its relevance to both ‘head’ keywords and ‘long-tail’ keywords.

• Head keywords The top few keywords that drive a lot of traffic to your site. Head keywords often include branded terms.
• Long-tail keywords The many other keywords that drive a little traffic to your site. These words are often category, generic, or early bird terms for your goods or services.

Head keywords should be monitored very carefully; you need to “obsess efficiently” about them, according to Avinash.

He claims that with many other analytics tools, the sheer amount of data with respect to the number of keywords your site ranks for can be overwhelming. With analytics, you can mine your keyword report and pull out relevant long tail keywords, the terms that you can monitor more loosely.

Avinash recommends pulling analytics reports that show dynamic long tail keywords, those that have recently begun driving more or less traffic to your site. This will cut through the clutter of all of your ranking keywords and help you identify those to monitor.

Conversion Metrics

Avinash believes the biggest mistake online marketers make is narrowly defining their conversion. Each business has multiple definitions of a conversion, and should reflect this in their web analytics.

Google Analytics allows sites to define four conversions. For an ecommerce site, these conversions will all most likely have a direct monetary value.

For content sites, Avinash recommends recognizing and defining conversion goals in terms of customer loyalty and recency. Pull Google Analytics Reports for visitor loyalty to see how many visitors come regularly. Pull the visitor frequency reports to see the frequency with which people return to your site. These metrics can be turned into goals and assigned monetary amounts to give an idea of their value.

Website Optimizer

Tom Leung, Business Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, gave an outline of trends and changes in the website testing field. He began his session by giving an overview of the reasons behind the increasing momentum testing has seen:

• A higher focus on ROI and CPA
• Leading agencies are offering landing page testing services
• More resources for testing become available every year
• Site visitors have high expectations due to increased choices
• A best-practice landing page has become a minimum requirement

Tom then explained some of the key changes Google Optimizer has undergone. New partnerships with third party groups have allowed for greater integration of Google Optimizer with other tools. Also, a number of new Google Optimizer resources are currently available, from the Optimizer Blog to new tutorial videos.

Some of the key functional changes specific products have undergone include:

• Landing page testing report “pruning” Users can identify and disable poorly performing landing page variations to drive more traffic to those performing well
• Improved Reports Google Optimizer has changed the color coding of confidence levels showing the performance of landing pages. Pages are only shown in red or green if they are performing either well or poorly on a statistically significant level.
• Offline Validation for A/B testing

Tom claimed one of the biggest changes in Website Optimizer isn’t in the product offerings so much as a change in Advertiser attitude. With the tools Optimizer can provide, advertisers now know they have a right to higher conversion rates, better landing pages, free testing technology and more.

Even though Google’s analytic products tend to set the industry standard in terms of function and usability, they are constantly listening to user feedback in order to further improve their products. As the Wizard of Oz gave useful gifts to his visitors, Google has once again provided online marketers with tools they can use to improve their sites and increase client profits.

Stay current with the SES San Jose conference by checking in regularly with the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and view more photos from the TopRank Team at TopRank on Flickr.

Sponsored By: Follow TopRank on Twitter Get daily updates, insights and links

The global market represents a huge opportunity for those who can master the nuances of local customs and languages.

In this session, leading global B2B search marketers Patricia Hursh, President of SmartSearch Marketing, Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder for Didit, and Jeffrey Pruitt, President of SEMPO and VP of Corporate Sponsorships for iCrossing share their advice on how to optimize your global search efforts to improve ROI for global B2B campaigns.

Patricia Hursh kicked off the session, giving tips on how to get started in global B2B search.

Before launching a global B2B search campaign, consider:

• Which search engines to focus on
• The importance of translation
• Regional search trends
• Ease of PPC campaign set-up

To identify where to focus efforts, first you need to understand what search engine is used within the targeted country/region.

• China Search Engine Market Share. Baidu is the number one search engine in China with 60% of the market share. Baidu is also the third largest search engine used around the world.
• Japan Search Engine Market Share. MSN is the number one search engine in Japan. Biadu only just officially launched in Japan eight months ago.

In addition to understanding search patterns, it is important to research seasonality, not just in the US, but across the globe. Don’t expect the trends to be the same as in the US markets.

The Importance of local language varies based on:

• Search engine requirements
• Target audience language skills
• Searcher preferences
• Acceptable methods

Go beyond translation…Think localization

• Capitalize on local dialect, vernacular, cultural references, current events and regional word preferences. Use a ‘local voice’
• Work with native speakers currently living in the country
• Utilize translation memory tools

One thing to keep in mind is that click volume may be harder to estimate in other countries. Google PPC is much more consistent and re-establishing credit is not required for global campaigns.

Kevin Lee discussed some of the challenges seen in B2B search as well as global markets.

Challenges in B2B Search:

• No single decision maker
• Offline conversions
• Long lead time and lagged conversion
• Keywords are often not B2B specific
• Huge range in lead quality
• Huge range in LTV of a closed deal
• Leads can cool off fast
• Buying cycle and buying process variations

So, how do you deal with B2B metric uncertainly?

• Lead forms/whitepaper requests/newsletter registrations
• Visits to the contact us page
• Phone calls (tracking at the keyword level)
• Immediate orders
• Site stickiness
• Lead scoring

Why geographic segmentation may be the most powerful method of segmentation you have:

• Clicks are worth different amounts
• Customers have different profit profiles
• Prospects respond to different messages

However, geo targeting is only one segment lever, other segment levers include:

• Time of day
• Day of week
• Network click source (context vs. search)
• Demographics

The Power Segment is like the perfect storm and happens if the same geo or daypart segment has:

• Better conversions from click to lead/sale
• Higher immediate revenue value
• Better lifetime value of the customer

Should all regions use the same metrics?
Sites and communication strategies may need to vary by regions due to:

• Different success metrics
• Different values assigned to metrics
• More touchpoints may be needed
• Competitive landscape is different by region

Kevin summarized with the advice to B2B owners, stay educated on best practices and pick the right technology for your target audience.

Jeff Pruitt covered some trends in B2B SEO & SEM. He urged that in order to launch a successful B2B campaign, you have to identify your strategy.

Things to consider when developing your campaign strategy:

• Understand the communication flow
• Successful global marketing strategies rely on localization
• Determine your global business goals and objectives to select the right tactics

B2B trends in SEO / SEM

• Mobil
• Display offers
• Social engagement
• Web Development

Extending search into the local B2B market is difficult enough. To take it globally, you need to look at the program management process. Understanding search triggers is important to identify the search channels to leverage.

Campaign execution factors to consider:

• Localization
• Know your space

Does your global B2B marketing campaign take into account what search engine iyour target market using?

For more photos from SES San Jose, be sure to visit TopRank on Flickr.

Sponsored By: Digital Publishing & Advertising DPAC II Next wave of digital conten

Who doesn’t like when secrets are given away? I know I do, and I can’t be the only one who thrives on search engine tips, rumors and gossip. This afternoon the expert panel of David Rodnitzky, Terry Whalen, Chris Knoch, Vinny Lingham and Chris Zaharias, we in the audience learned some new, exciting and potentially scary tips from these industry experts.

Debunking 5 current SEM assumptions - the continued growth of the long tail, the 1,001 things to do in SEM, that everyone should do SEM, listening to the search engine and the opaqueness of search - the panel addressed the following realities of the SEM world.

Chris Zaharias kicked us off by saying that the ever-popular long tail has reversed. In the second half of 2007 and through June of 2008, the popularity of 1 and 2 word phrases being searched upon has risen. Because of this, Chris says that search is now becoming a direct navigation portal. Searchers now go in and look up the names of websites they want to go to or the actual brand ad style of shoe they want to buy rather than performing multiple searches on different keyword phrases to ultimately find something worth buying. Long tail keywords can still work, but if you are setting yourself up as the final destination point of purchase, think of how you will reach that goal with the keywords you select.

Next was Vinny Lingham, discussing that while there are thousands of SEM tactics to perform, do not do every thing for every one. The expensive and time-consuming campaign that worked wonders and gave a huge ROI for a B2C client may not have the same effect for a small B2B client. Vinny’s overall thought was to keep promotions tight and centered around gaining the larger ROE (return on effort) for your clients.

Dave Rodnitzky came up and stated flat out that SEM may not be a good tactic for certain products, such as those with latent demand. He gave an example of TiVo. TiVo would not center itself around “alternative to VCR” because no one is searching for that term, even though that term descries exactly what it does. For these products, Dave recommends using alternatives to search engine marketing, such as placement targeting, vertical search, video advertisements or even (eek!) offline media.

Chris Knoch was up next, warning us of the dangers of the search engine upsell. With helpful graphs as visual aids, Chris outlined that traffic from only organic search is found to be hugely relevant to company websites. Comparing that to search advertising traffic to company sites, the traffic is found to be hugely non-relevant. The search engines make money selling advertising tactics based on the great job they do of indexing and providing relevant sites for organic search. Before engaging in these search advertising platforms, make the search engine prove the quality of it within a targeted silo. Chris also reminds us that the biggest growth market for search engines is poor, non-converting traffic sources, so do your homework and be wary.

Terry Whalen finished up the panel this afternoon by giving some information that is very simple, but that is hugely overlooked: The Internet is transparent. If you are a smaller company just starting out with SEO or PPC, there is a lot of competitive data out there that is relatively easy to find. Within a few minutes, a small business can look at competitor PPC ads and find out what keywords the competitors are buying, what their ad messaging strategy is and review their landing pages for relevance and messaging. This information is out there, and smaller businesses can use this information as a kickoff point for their campaigns. Terry said that a lot of companies don’t seem to be doing this competitive research, so he wanted to remind us of this tip to get us ahead of the norm.

These 5 tips were informative and very engaging for the audience to hear. Whether they reminded us of something small we haven’t been doing in a while or alerted us to a new way of measuring, I know I left the session with ideas for improving even on these tips. I’m curious to see what next year’s session on SEM secrets will sound like, and what will have changed over the next 12 months.

This concludes my posts from SES San Jose 2008. Keep following Ashley, Thomas and Jessica of the TopRank team on Wednesday for their session reviews and sessanjose08 pictures from tonight’s Google Dance!

Sponsored By: 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide All New Report from Marketing Sherpa

When performing a search on Google, there are two different types of results that show up: the organic listings and the paid, or sponsored, listings. Organically ranked sites are those which Google finds most relevant for that search query. The paid listings show up because an advertiser is paying money to be ranked that highly for those phrases. When a searcher clicks on one of those listings, the advertiser is charged the cost per click price for that ranking, so hopefully the searcher will convert into a sale for that advertiser.

But what if you don’t know anything about search advertising or setting up a pay per click campaign? What are the best practices behind PPC? And how do you track conversions? This session at the end of Day 2 of SES San Jose goes over the basics of search advertising and how to implement it for success.

Dana Todd and Matt Van Wagner (together with Rebecca Lieb as the “Three Redheads”) gave exciting presentations on the absolute basics of setting up a pay per click campaign. Complete with bright pink wigs and Michael Phelps impersonations, this session was informative and pretty darn funny. Below are the key tips and tricks given by Dana and Matt to kick start any great PPC campaign.

1. Start Small - When beginning a new PPC campaign, do not be afraid to launch it and then test it out. Measure the results, adjust your campaign and test it out again.

2. Don’t “Set it and Forget it” - All campaigns need to be monitored and adjusted, or you risk losing a lot of money and not getting the conversions you need. Make sure to look at the campaign performance at least a couple times a week. At least.

3. Expand on Successes - Has something worked great for you in the past? Keep improving it and making it better!

4. Buy Your Brand Name - You may not want to “waste money” by purchasing your brand name as a keyword, but if you do this successfully, you have complete control over the messaging seen on SERPs for your brand name and you can segment your ads around different promotions or seasonality.

5. Set Bid Amounts High - At first. If you start out with a bang and lock in a high click through rate, you improve your quality score for your ad. Then, pull back if you need to.

6. Make the Changes Count - Don’t make changes for changes’ sake. Make sure that if you are adjusting your campaign, you are doing so with a clear objective in mind. If you think moving around the day part exposure will work to get more targeted impressions, go for it.

7. Create a PPC Campaign Checklist - Before setting this campaign live, make sure you have thought of and implemented these following items: strategy or goal, budget, advertiser rules, established baselines, tracking software, KPIs and allowing yourself to have a risk budget.

Remember, in PPC, everything is measurable. You will know exactly how well your ads and your keywords and your landing pages are performing because of this. And PPC is complimentary to SEO. When you have both organic search results AND paid search results, you gain even more impressions and searchers are more likely to view your brand as being reputable.

Tomorrow the TopRank team will be attending additional search advertising and PPC sessions, so stay tuned for further information and check out all of TopRank’s coverage of SES San Jose and sessanjose08 Photos.

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.