Day 4 at Search Engine Strategies New York focused on Search Engine Marketing training. One of the downsides to a lot of conferences is that one hour sessions don’t allow a deep dive into the topics we really want to discuss. No fear here, as these are four hour long sessions. Here’s what we learned…
Click to read the rest of this post…
Day 4 at Search Engine Strategies New York focused on Search Engine Marketing training. One of the downsides to a lot of conferences is that one hour sessions don’t allow a deep dive into the topics we really want to discuss. No fear here, as these are four hour long sessions. Here’s what we learned…
Click to read the rest of this post…
Posted by great scott!
Last week we unveiled our newest toy, Open Site Explorer, to the world and the response was phenomenal. Now we want to take some time and really show everyone just what this powerful link analysis tool is capable of and answer your questions, so we’re hosting not one, but two FREE Webinars this week (it’s the same content, run twice to help accomodate schedules and time zones).
The presentations will be 60 minutes each, 25 minutes of slides, followed by 35 minutes of Q+A on Wednesday, January 27th at 2:00PM (PST), and Thursday, January 28th at 10:00AM (PST) In each live webinar, Rand will show you around Open Site Explorer, offer tips and strategies for getting the most out of it, explain our new Domain Authority & Page Authority metrics, and answer your questions.
Here’s the catch: each webinar is limited to 1,000 attendees. The last time we announced a webinar on the blog, we had over 3,000 people try to register in the first hour, so if you want to attend one of the live sessions, register quickly. If you can’t make it, we’ll have a recording of the presentation available in a couple of days on our webinars page.
In February we’re stepping it up even more. In addition to our monthly educational webinar (February 4th on Analytics), we’re adding a second monthly webinar where we’ll be performing live site reviews of sites submitted by our PRO Members!
PRO Members can head over to the PRO Webinars page for more info on February’s webinars, as well as recordings and slide decks from past webinars. If you’d like to join us for the next PRO Webinar–and possibly even get a live site review–sign up for PRO to access the PRO Webinar page for registration details or just watch your inbox for an invite.
Posted by great scott!
Last week we unveiled our newest toy, Open Site Explorer, to the world and the response was phenomenal. Now we want to take some time and really show everyone just what this powerful link analysis tool is capable of and answer your questions, so we’re hosting not one, but two FREE Webinars this week (it’s the same content, run twice to help accomodate schedules and time zones).
The presentations will be 60 minutes each, 25 minutes of slides, followed by 35 minutes of Q+A on Wednesday, January 27th at 2:00PM (PST), and Thursday, January 28th at 10:00AM (PST) In each live webinar, Rand will show you around Open Site Explorer, offer tips and strategies for getting the most out of it, explain our new Domain Authority & Page Authority metrics, and answer your questions.
Here’s the catch: each webinar is limited to 1,000 attendees. The last time we announced a webinar on the blog, we had over 3,000 people try to register in the first hour, so if you want to attend one of the live sessions, register quickly. If you can’t make it, we’ll have a recording of the presentation available in a couple of days on our webinars page.
In February we’re stepping it up even more. In addition to our monthly educational webinar (February 4th on Analytics), we’re adding a second monthly webinar where we’ll be performing live site reviews of sites submitted by our PRO Members!
PRO Members can head over to the PRO Webinars page for more info on February’s webinars, as well as recordings and slide decks from past webinars. If you’d like to join us for the next PRO Webinar–and possibly even get a live site review–sign up for PRO to access the PRO Webinar page for registration details or just watch your inbox for an invite.
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2009 was a very successful year for Smashing Magazine. It was a year of ambitious goals and an intense time schedule, which brought many changes over the past year. In 2009 we published more posts than ever (on average, 8 posts per week). We broadened our areas of interest: for instance, we explored freelancing and the business side of web development, but also tackled user interface design and mobile web design. We also discovered new formats, such as the “Global Web Design” series and Q&A-Sessions — unfortunately, the latter (the Ask SM series with Chris Coyier) lasted only a couple of months.
We have tried our best to improve the quality of our articles so as to increase their value for designers and developers. In this post, we’ll review what has happened on Smashing Magazine over the past year: smashing highlights, setbacks, and small sensations of 2009 — which we present in a month by month timeline. You can compare the highlights of 2009 with those of 2008 or 2007 (which, by the way, include links to some really useful articles).
2009 was a very successful year for Smashing Magazine. It was a year of ambitious goals and an intense time schedule, which brought many changes over the past year. In 2009 we published more posts than ever (on average, 8 posts per week). We broadened our areas of interest: for instance, we explored freelancing and the business side of web development, but also tackled user interface design and mobile web design. We also discovered new formats, such as the “Global Web Design” series and Q&A-Sessions — unfortunately, the latter (the Ask SM series with Chris Coyier) lasted only a couple of months.
None of this would have been possible without the tremendous support of our authors, contributors, and editorial staff. We express sincere gratitude to them for all the ideas and hard work they’ve put into articles published here on Smashing Magazine. We also want to thank you, the readers, for your attention, criticism, ideas, suggestions, emails, tweets, and links over the past year. Smashing Magazine is driven by your support which is why we are always listening to you and we truly appreciate every message we receive.
We have tried our best to improve the quality of our articles so as to increase their value for designers and developers. In this post, we’ll review what has happened on Smashing Magazine over the past year: smashing highlights, setbacks, and small sensations of 2009 — which we present in a month by month timeline. You can compare the highlights of 2009 with those of
The year starts with a rather lengthy post
By far the most popular article of the month is
In February, Paul Boag reveals
Also, Alexander Makarov takes a couple of work days off, tests 9 popular PHP IDEs, and presents a very detailed review of popular PHP IDEs in the article
February is also a busy month for us and our readers. We announce a
In March, we get technical. We publish articles related to
The most popular post of the month is
The most controversial inspirational post of the month is definitely
This month we also announce the
In March we start discussing with Jacob Gube what would be an interesting twist for April’s Fools Day and we come up with a nice idea. As a result, we publish Jacob Gube’s article
In April, Rob Morris presents
May turns out to be a practical month. We re-discover round-ups with very useful resources. We publish a round-up of
The most popular posts of the month are
June turns out to be a time for experiments. Because we observe a large number of Mac-users in our stats, we decide to publish a couple of Mac-related posts. We started slowly in May, and continued in June with
The most remarkable posts of the month are Inayaili de Leon’s challenge to
In general, through the first six months of the year, CSS-related articles perform best. We notice this and start looking for more professional CSS/JS-developers who have time for writing. We also intensify our cooperation with our current writers. The results are seen in the months to come.
July is another month with a wide variety of design-related topics. Our advanced readers learn about clever
We try to take our inspirational posts to a new level, making them more extensive and less random. Our first result is Diogo Terror’s article about
We present the results of our Typographic Layout Design Contest in which we aim to collect beautiful typographic (X)HTML+CSS-based layouts created by the design community and release them for free. The response is overwhelming and we release
In August we present the findings of our large
We publish a quite controversial article
We explain how to code your first
September starts unpleasantly for Smashing Magazine.
We need a little time to recover, but get back on track quite quickly. We follow the attack with a few involved, thought-provoking articles: in the article
Many coding articles on Smashing Magazine cover various WordPress-related tips, tricks and techniques. Almost every month we published at least two articles related to WordPress; in September we published one of the most popular WordPress-related posts of the year:
Also in this month, Jon Tan helps us to create the Smashing Experts Panel: because some articles were incorrect or contained factual errors, we invite experts and professional designers and developers to do paid reviews of Smashing Magazine’s articles before they’re published. As of this writing, we have over 25 experts in the panel. This turns out to be bittersweet news for our authors: editing and feedback now need more time and authors need to be more precise in their articles.
The last few months of the year are months of big changes for us and for our readers. In October, for the first time in our young history, we acquire an existing website,
In October, Louis Lazaris explains
Apart from classic CSS and usability posts, the month brings many original articles. For instance,
Important to us was
November is another important month for us. Finally, after 3 years of working in different cities, we move to our first joined office in Freiburg (Germany). This is also the reason why the rest of the year is a bit hectic: there are literally hundreds of things that had to be considered, discussed, and taken care of.
Probably the most practical article of the month is Kat Neville’s post about
In November we have quite a surprise for our readers. Together with Paddy Donnelly, we discuss creating a spectacular post that covers a recent trend in modern web design: magazine-style blog post designs, or art-directed blog posts. Paddy refers to it as a ‘blogazine’. After four weeks of preparation, the article
The article is one of the best posts of 2009, as it manages to spark a huge discussion in the design community and gains over 550 comments. The readers are in disagreement about the design of the article, but the idea is inspiring and shortly after it’s published we start to see a couple of emerging new ‘blogazines’.
Finally.
Among other news, in December we hire our regular writer Cameron Chapman — she becomes the editorial manager on Smashing Magazine. Cameron is a professional writer, web- and graphic designer with over 6 years of experience. She will still be writing articles for Smashing Magazine, but now she also handles communication between many of our new and regular authors, discussing article ideas with them.
In terms of content, December turns out to be a slow month with less traffic and fewer comments — apparently, our readers have other things to take care of. Still, we keep publishing useful and original content. We explain how you can
In December, we publish the most challenging article of the year: we encourage our readers to
We’re planning some big changes in the coming months. Soon we will release the Smashing Network Widget for your website and a mobile version of Smashing Magazine. Well-known authors and experts are currently writing articles for us. You can also expect to see more new team members and newly released books in cooperation with a publishing house. Also, the translation of the Smashing Book to other languages (currently only Korean version) is being prepared. We also have some interesting plans for Smashing Magazine and the design community, so you better stay tuned to our updates in 2010.
We’ll do our best to deliver useful and inspiring high-quality articles in the new year. We’ll come up with new ideas to keep Smashing Magazine an exciting place. And we’ll be listening to your ideas, suggestions, complaints and criticism. Have a truly smashing, successful, healthy and peaceful new year in 2010!
Your opinion has always been very important to us. Please share your impressions about our work over the last year and let us know what you would like to see changed on Smashing Magazine in 2010. Also, what was your most memorable Smashing Magazine’s post in 2009? We’ll do our best to improve Smashing Magazine in the new year!
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Posted by jennita
It has been a couple weeks since PubCon and yes, it’s taken me this long to recuperate! Bare with me here as I reminisce about my favorite tidbits over the 3 days of sessions. PubCon does an amazing job of putting together a schedule that covers a multitude of tracks and topics. Which usually means that I often end up with a case of "session envy." You know, when you’re sitting in a session and you start to see tweets about how great another session is. It doesn’t even mean that the one you’re in is bad, it’s just that you want to be in two places at once.
Many people were live blogging the event and obviously there have been quite a few recaps of PubCon as well. I realize I’m a little late to the game. 
But, let’s get to the good stuff! While there were many great speakers and presentations there were a couple that stood out to me. What I was looking for were answers to questions that we often get either through comments on the blog or through Q & A. With that said, these are my favorite take-aways from PubCon 2009.
This was a great session, full of valuable information. The biggest takeaway for me, came from Bruce Clay. He took the road of sticking to a very specific topic, image and video content and explained how to get them indexed.
Since these are topics that come up quite a bit in Q & A I was excited to get some specific information on interesting ways to index images and videos. Thanks to Virginia Nussey over at Bruce Clay sending me the actual presentation (woot!).
Case Study – Indexing Images
The first thing Bruce spoke about was a case study they did involving getting images with text indexed. Here are the steps they took:
So what happened? Well the PDF was indexed AND the text from the image was also indexed. Take a look at this SERP.
Also, the search query contains text directly from the article which is an image in the PDF. It shows up in the title and meta description. Pretty sweet eh?
Obviously this isn’t going to work for you in all cases, but it’s an interesting way of getting images indexed and could be useful in a number of scenarios.
Case Study – Indexing Video
Next, Bruce went through another case study where they got a video indexed. Here are the steps they took.
You can see this most clearly at Google audio indexing in the Labs section. Do a search for "economy" then notice how it shows you where in the video the word "economy" is spoken. I can see this being the wave of the future. How awesome would it be to have your videos come up in a search for words that were spoken within the video. Yea, pretty cool.
What I really liked about this presentation was that the information was displayed as a case study. If you read SEOmoz often you know how much we like to test theories out and put them to action. And although indexing images and video in this way may not be new to everyone, it’s new to some people and could be a great way to enhance your sites.
This was seriously one of my favorite sessions. The speakers (including Rand) had a ton of great information but the one that really stood out to me was Jim Boykin of We Build Pages. He gave away some really great tips but the one I liked the most had to do with how to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting. Here are the steps to take:
Obviously not only does this help with checking out which keywords your competitors are focused on, but it can also help you make sure you’re site is also focusing on the right keywords.
For me the third day was my favorite. I actually wanted to attend every session in the first slot. I ended up watching the first part of the Link Buying session and the second part of the site review with Matt Cutts. I have to admit also that I loved the fact that the PubCon team programmed Matt Cutts doing a site audit at the same time as the Link Buying session… pretty darn ingenious if you ask me! Rand posted information about the site review, so I wont go into detail but it was a great session.
Although I think the best part came after the session when Matt took to shaving Evan Fishkin’s head due to a bet they made while at the SEOmoz Werewolf party earlier in the week. And although that alone was pretty great, I loved the fact that while Matt was shaving Evan’s head, people were asking him questions and he was answering as if it were a regular Q & A. Here’s a short clip of the shaving!
Ok, ok back to the Search Engine Smackdown. I should admit that I debated whether I should head back to the hotel after a long 3 days or go to the final session, and I’m glad I went! These are the topics I found most interesting… and yes they’re all from Matt Cutts.
Google Social Search
Here’s the information straight from the site:
Sign in to Google and do a search. If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called "Results from people in your social circle."
To see even more social content you can click the "Show options" link at the top of the results page and then click on the "Social" link.
What is your social circle? It’s a combination of your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you’re publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed). Learn more about social search.
I can see myself using this quite a bit. Most of my job is about "social searches" in general,so this one is right up my alley! It was a fun find for me.
Testing for Speed
As Rand mentioned in his post, Google representatives have mentioned several times that page load time is important and Matt himself said at this session that although they haven’t used speed as a ranking factor in the past, that they’re thinking about adding it in the future. He gave some resources on how to check the speed and ways to make it faster.
I’m sure if you follow me on Twitter you know quite well how I feel about Vegas. I really wish there was a good way to clone myself so I could attend multiple sessions at once. With up to 7 tracks going on at the same time, it’s difficult to pick one. In the end PubCon was a hit, and it was great to meet many of our SEOmoz members and see some old friends. See you again next year!
Posted by jennita
It has been a couple weeks since PubCon and yes, it’s taken me this long to recuperate! Bare with me here as I reminisce about my favorite tidbits over the 3 days of sessions. PubCon does an amazing job of putting together a schedule that covers a multitude of tracks and topics. Which usually means that I often end up with a case of "session envy." You know, when you’re sitting in a session and you start to see tweets about how great another session is. It doesn’t even mean that the one you’re in is bad, it’s just that you want to be in two places at once.
Many people were live blogging the event and obviously there have been quite a few recaps of PubCon as well. I realize I’m a little late to the game. But, let’s get to the good stuff! While there were many great speakers and presentations there were a couple that stood out to me. What I was looking for were answers to questions that we often get either through comments on the blog or through Q & A. With that said, these are my favorite take-aways from PubCon 2009.
This was a great session, full of valuable information. The biggest takeaway for me, came from Bruce Clay. He took the road of sticking to a very specific topic, image and video content and explained how to get them indexed.
Since these are topics that come up quite a bit in Q & A I was excited to get some specific information on interesting ways to index images and videos. Thanks to Virginia Nussey over at Bruce Clay sending me the actual presentation (woot!).
Case Study – Indexing Images
The first thing Bruce spoke about was a case study they did involving getting images with text indexed. Here are the steps they took:
So what happened? Well the PDF was indexed AND the text from the image was also indexed. Take a look at this SERP.
Also, the search query contains text directly from the article which is an image in the PDF. It shows up in the title and meta description. Pretty sweet eh?
Obviously this isn’t going to work for you in all cases, but it’s an interesting way of getting images indexed and could be useful in a number of scenarios.
Case Study – Indexing Video
Next, Bruce went through another case study where they got a video indexed. Here are the steps they took.
You can see this most clearly at Google audio indexing in the Labs section. Do a search for "economy" then notice how it shows you where in the video the word "economy" is spoken. I can see this being the wave of the future. How awesome would it be to have your videos come up in a search for words that were spoken within the video. Yea, pretty cool.
What I really liked about this presentation was that the information was displayed as a case study. If you read SEOmoz often you know how much we like to test theories out and put them to action. And although indexing images and video in this way may not be new to everyone, it’s new to some people and could be a great way to enhance your sites.
This was seriously one of my favorite sessions. The speakers (including Rand) had a ton of great information but the one that really stood out to me was Jim Boykin of We Build Pages. He gave away some really great tips but the one I liked the most had to do with how to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting. Here are the steps to take:
Obviously not only does this help with checking out which keywords your competitors are focused on, but it can also help you make sure you’re site is also focusing on the right keywords.
For me the third day was my favorite. I actually wanted to attend every session in the first slot. I ended up watching the first part of the Link Buying session and the second part of the site review with Matt Cutts. I have to admit also that I loved the fact that the PubCon team programmed Matt Cutts doing a site audit at the same time as the Link Buying session… pretty darn ingenious if you ask me! Rand posted information about the site review, so I wont go into detail but it was a great session.
Although I think the best part came after the session when Matt took to shaving Evan Fishkin’s head due to a bet they made while at the SEOmoz Werewolf party earlier in the week. And although that alone was pretty great, I loved the fact that while Matt was shaving Evan’s head, people were asking him questions and he was answering as if it were a regular Q & A. Here’s a short clip of the shaving!
Ok, ok back to the Search Engine Smackdown. I should admit that I debated whether I should head back to the hotel after a long 3 days or go to the final session, and I’m glad I went! These are the topics I found most interesting… and yes they’re all from Matt Cutts.
Google Social Search
Here’s the information straight from the site:
Sign in to Google and do a search. If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called "Results from people in your social circle."
To see even more social content you can click the "Show options" link at the top of the results page and then click on the "Social" link.
What is your social circle? It’s a combination of your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you’re publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed). Learn more about social search.
I can see myself using this quite a bit. Most of my job is about "social searches" in general,so this one is right up my alley! It was a fun find for me.
Testing for Speed
As Rand mentioned in his post, Google representatives have mentioned several times that page load time is important and Matt himself said at this session that although they haven’t used speed as a ranking factor in the past, that they’re thinking about adding it in the future. He gave some resources on how to check the speed and ways to make it faster.
I’m sure if you follow me on Twitter you know quite well how I feel about Vegas. I really wish there was a good way to clone myself so I could attend multiple sessions at once. With up to 7 tracks going on at the same time, it’s difficult to pick one. In the end PubCon was a hit, and it was great to meet many of our SEOmoz members and see some old friends. See you again next year!
Yesterday, Danny Sullivan wrote an article named 10 Years Ago: The First Search Marketing Conference, A Retrospective. The article is a must read for everyone who is a daily reader of this site.
In short, Danny talks about how the first search marketing conference came about. He also talks about the various sessions they hosted then. Including many of the panelists who still talk today at his conferences. Yes, the first conference in search marketing was in 1999 and Google’s founders were on a panel as the “small search engine.”
While the agenda listed Larry Page as speaking, Sergey was also there. He either joined Larry or replaced him at the last minute. Some conference veterans remember how Sergey rollerskated on stage. Actually, he did that a year later, joking about new Google technologies and demoing his shoes with pop-out wheels.
We didn’t start covering search conferences until 2003, four years after the first search conference. Wow, has the time flown by and has this industry changed or has it?
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Yesterday, Danny Sullivan wrote an article named 10 Years Ago: The First Search Marketing Conference, A Retrospective. The article is a must read for everyone who is a daily reader of this site.
In short, Danny talks about how the first search marketing conference came about. He also talks about the various sessions they hosted then. Including many of the panelists who still talk today at his conferences. Yes, the first conference in search marketing was in 1999 and Google’s founders were on a panel as the “small search engine.”
While the agenda listed Larry Page as speaking, Sergey was also there. He either joined Larry or replaced him at the last minute. Some conference veterans remember how Sergey rollerskated on stage. Actually, he did that a year later, joking about new Google technologies and demoing his shoes with pop-out wheels.
We didn’t start covering search conferences until 2003, four years after the first search conference. Wow, has the time flown by and has this industry changed or has it?
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Posted by Dr. Pete
I’m reporting live from Pubcon Las Vegas this week, along with some of the SEOmoz team. To be honest, we’ve struggled a bit with how to cover the conference here on the blog. As someone who only hits a couple of conferences per year, I know how annoying it can be to have to hear how great an event is that you already regret not being able to go to. On top of that, sometimes information that seems brilliant in context just doesn’t translate into a quick blog blurb or Tweet. So, in the interest of providing value to those of you who aren’t here at Pubcon, we’re going to try to take some deeper dives into the content, hopefully providing some of that context you may be missing.
No, I’m not trying to distract you. These first two days of sessions, I couldn’t help but feel that there was an elephant in the room with us during the social media sessions. The enthusiasm for social media (and especially Twitter) has been stronger than ever, but we all seem reluctant to dampen that enthusiasm by talking about an uncomfortable fact – very few of us have really found a way to measure social media success. Sure, there are internal metrics for any given platform – Twitter followers, for example – but without something external to tie it to, those are little more than high scores in the social media video game.
Of course, the default answer is always "branding". Unfortunately, much like "engagement", branding is too often just a distraction, an intangible excuse we use to avoid the fact that we have nothing to measure. Ironically, during a session that had nothing to do with social media, I heard something close to an answer during Q&A. No matter what you think branding is, find a way to measure it. Here are just a few possiblities:
Where’s there a number, there’s a path to calculating ROI.
At this morning’s keynote, we had a chance to hear from the marketing departments of various Vegas hotels. Like the rest of us, these marketers are learning as they go, trying to figure out how to use Twitter and Facebook to drive real business value. Most of the hotel marketing departments see social media as a direct-response channel, and that’s certainly a start. Put out a special offer through social media channels, and you can measure the response. Where there’s a measurable response, there’s ROI.
MGM Grand’s marketing head hinted at another possibility – their employees monitor Twitter to spot dissatisfied hotel guests, dispatching staff to help solve the problem. What’s the natural next step? Measure this response. How many problems did they intercept? How many were they able to solve? What does solving one customer’s problem equal in real dollars? All of these questions can be answered, and from those answers comes tangible value.
Finally, during a session about how social media and search intersect, we heard a great example from Lee Odden about how to put a value on social media. Lee mentioned that his firm drives about 15-20 major media mentions per month from social media. He estimates that this equates to paying a PR firm $10,000/month. This may not sound like metrics in the traditional sense, but it’s an entirely valid approach. PR costs money to generate, and social media has replaced that value.
When it comes to measuring social media ROI, what are we really afraid of? If I start measuring, will I have to admit that being a 307th-level Maniac on Facebook Mafia Wars isn’t providing solid business value? Stop making excuses, stop mumbling about branding, and find a way to quantify social media success in real dollars.
Posted by Dr. Pete
I’m reporting live from Pubcon Las Vegas this week, along with some of the SEOmoz team. To be honest, we’ve struggled a bit with how to cover the conference here on the blog. As someone who only hits a couple of conferences per year, I know how annoying it can be to have to hear how great an event is that you already regret not being able to go to. On top of that, sometimes information that seems brilliant in context just doesn’t translate into a quick blog blurb or Tweet. So, in the interest of providing value to those of you who aren’t here at Pubcon, we’re going to try to take some deeper dives into the content, hopefully providing some of that context you may be missing.
No, I’m not trying to distract you. These first two days of sessions, I couldn’t help but feel that there was an elephant in the room with us during the social media sessions. The enthusiasm for social media (and especially Twitter) has been stronger than ever, but we all seem reluctant to dampen that enthusiasm by talking about an uncomfortable fact – very few of us have really found a way to measure social media success. Sure, there are internal metrics for any given platform – Twitter followers, for example – but without something external to tie it to, those are little more than high scores in the social media video game.
Of course, the default answer is always "branding". Unfortunately, much like "engagement", branding is too often just a distraction, an intangible excuse we use to avoid the fact that we have nothing to measure. Ironically, during a session that had nothing to do with social media, I heard something close to an answer during Q&A. No matter what you think branding is, find a way to measure it. Here are just a few possiblities:
Where’s there a number, there’s a path to calculating ROI.
At this morning’s keynote, we had a chance to hear from the marketing departments of various Vegas hotels. Like the rest of us, these marketers are learning as they go, trying to figure out how to use Twitter and Facebook to drive real business value. Most of the hotel marketing departments see social media as a direct-response channel, and that’s certainly a start. Put out a special offer through social media channels, and you can measure the response. Where there’s a measurable response, there’s ROI.
MGM Grand’s marketing head hinted at another possibility – their employees monitor Twitter to spot dissatisfied hotel guests, dispatching staff to help solve the problem. What’s the natural next step? Measure this response. How many problems did they intercept? How many were they able to solve? What does solving one customer’s problem equal in real dollars? All of these questions can be answered, and from those answers comes tangible value.
Finally, during a session about how social media and search intersect, we heard a great example from Lee Odden about how to put a value on social media. Lee mentioned that his firm drives about 15-20 major media mentions per month from social media. He estimates that this equates to paying a PR firm $10,000/month. This may not sound like metrics in the traditional sense, but it’s an entirely valid approach. PR costs money to generate, and social media has replaced that value.
When it comes to measuring social media ROI, what are we really afraid of? If I start measuring, will I have to admit that being a 307th-level Maniac on Facebook Mafia Wars isn’t providing solid business value? Stop making excuses, stop mumbling about branding, and find a way to quantify social media success in real dollars.
Posted by Dr. Pete
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Conferences can be amazing opportunities for education and networking, but to get the most out of them, you have to make it to the end. If your average SEO conference is an endurance event, then PubCon is the Iron Man – 3 full days of sessions, sponsored parties, being dragged around Vegas by crazy people, topped off by a full afternoon of even more drinking (just in case you somehow managed to forget where the “pub” in PubCon came from). This year marks my 3rd PubCon, so I thought I’d offer some tips for getting the most out of your experience without ending up looking like this guy.
Even before you leave for a conference, take some time to plan. Time flies onsite, and by Day 3, you’ll barely remember your name, let alone what the difference is between "Track A1 – Social Media" and "Track A2 – Media in Society". The Murphy’s Law of conferences is that the 4 sessions you most want to see will all be in the same time slot. If a session just isn’t cutting it for you, don’t be afraid to get up and go somewhere else, unless you were foolish enough to sit in the front row.
Pro Tip: If you do change sessions, please open and close doors quietly. It would be a shame if you were beaten to death with a laptop at your first conference.
What’s the difference between you and an A-list SEO celebrity? Celebrities are constantly surrounded by their posses. You can gain instant celebrity by pre-building your entourage – get on Twitter and arrange to meet some folks for dinner the night before the conference starts. Then, follow those people around, each taking turns being the center of attention. People will automatically assume that you must be famous.
Like any endurance event, you have to remember to stay hydrated. If you see a free bottle of water, grab it, even if you’re not thirsty. The vending machines at the Las Vegas Convention Center do take credit cards, which may seem convenient, but you’ll feel differently when you get home and your wife asks you why there are 7 pages of $3 charges on your Visa bill.
Pro Tip: The IRS does not consider $600 worth of Pepsi to be a legitimate write-off.
Running a large event is grueling work, so it’s no surprise that many conference organizers grew up in the Himalayas. Being near-Yetis, these otherwise helpful organizers labor under the assumption that everyone is comfortable at a balmy 50° Fahrenheit. By Day 2 of any conference, no matter how manly you think you are, you’ll be begging to borrow the nearest hot-pink cardigan. Do yourself a fashion favor and bring your own sweater or dress in layers.
Laptops outnumber outlets by a ratio of 99:1 at any SEO conference, and even though you love your iPhone, let’s face it – it has the battery life of a crack-addicted drumming monkey. If you bring a portable power adapter, you’ll not only be able to share outlets, but you’ll be a hero to anyone who comes along with a dying battery.
Pro Tip: Save your last remaining plug for a celebrity – you never know when Matt Cutts may need to plug in his Android phone.
SEOs love controversy, so try to have a few in your pocket for when you need a conversation-starter. Start with something easy and work your way up. Here are a few to get you going, from least to most controversial:
Of course, you never know what side of a controversy any given person will be on – when in doubt, use these handy, pre-packaged phrases to keep the conversation going:
No amount of Red Bull can keep you awake for 4 days straight, and sooner or later you may need to sneak a cat nap. There are some comfy chairs in Vegas, but there’s also a lot of competition, and napping on slot machine stools gets expensive fast. If you find yourself falling asleep during a session, just bury your head face-first into your iPhone or Blackberry. People will naturally assume that you’re fanatically Twittering.
That’s right – 8 tips for the price of 7, because that’s just the way I roll. Pay attention, because this one is important. Whoever wrote the motto "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" clearly doesn’t work in our industry and has never heard of this thing called the internet. Of course, from a marketing standpoint, "What happens in Vegas will probably be photographed on a cell phone, Tweeted, Re-tweeted, posted on Facebook, and tagged for the entire world to see" doesn’t really have much of a ring to it.
This isn’t really a tip, but if you’re a Moz community member, don’t be shy about introducing yourself. SEOmoz is also going to be hosting a special event you won’t want to miss (more details coming very soon). Hope to see you there!
(Las Vegas sign photo licensed from iStockPhoto.com)
Posted by Dr. Pete
Conferences can be amazing opportunities for education and networking, but to get the most out of them, you have to make it to the end. If your average SEO conference is an endurance event, then PubCon is the Iron Man – 3 full days of sessions, sponsored parties, being dragged around Vegas by crazy people, topped off by a full afternoon of even more drinking (just in case you somehow managed to forget where the “pub” in PubCon came from). This year marks my 3rd PubCon, so I thought I’d offer some tips for getting the most out of your experience without ending up looking like this guy.
Even before you leave for a conference, take some time to plan. Time flies onsite, and by Day 3, you’ll barely remember your name, let alone what the difference is between "Track A1 – Social Media" and "Track A2 – Media in Society". The Murphy’s Law of conferences is that the 4 sessions you most want to see will all be in the same time slot. If a session just isn’t cutting it for you, don’t be afraid to get up and go somewhere else, unless you were foolish enough to sit in the front row.
Pro Tip: If you do change sessions, please open and close doors quietly. It would be a shame if you were beaten to death with a laptop at your first conference.
What’s the difference between you and an A-list SEO celebrity? Celebrities are constantly surrounded by their posses. You can gain instant celebrity by pre-building your entourage – get on Twitter and arrange to meet some folks for dinner the night before the conference starts. Then, follow those people around, each taking turns being the center of attention. People will automatically assume that you must be famous.
Like any endurance event, you have to remember to stay hydrated. If you see a free bottle of water, grab it, even if you’re not thirsty. The vending machines at the Las Vegas Convention Center do take credit cards, which may seem convenient, but you’ll feel differently when you get home and your wife asks you why there are 7 pages of $3 charges on your Visa bill.
Pro Tip: The IRS does not consider $600 worth of Pepsi to be a legitimate write-off.
Running a large event is grueling work, so it’s no surprise that many conference organizers grew up in the Himalayas. Being near-Yetis, these otherwise helpful organizers labor under the assumption that everyone is comfortable at a balmy 50° Fahrenheit. By Day 2 of any conference, no matter how manly you think you are, you’ll be begging to borrow the nearest hot-pink cardigan. Do yourself a fashion favor and bring your own sweater or dress in layers.
Laptops outnumber outlets by a ratio of 99:1 at any SEO conference, and even though you love your iPhone, let’s face it – it has the battery life of a crack-addicted drumming monkey. If you bring a portable power adapter, you’ll not only be able to share outlets, but you’ll be a hero to anyone who comes along with a dying battery.
Pro Tip: Save your last remaining plug for a celebrity – you never know when Matt Cutts may need to plug in his Android phone.
SEOs love controversy, so try to have a few in your pocket for when you need a conversation-starter. Start with something easy and work your way up. Here are a few to get you going, from least to most controversial:
Of course, you never know what side of a controversy any given person will be on – when in doubt, use these handy, pre-packaged phrases to keep the conversation going:
No amount of Red Bull can keep you awake for 4 days straight, and sooner or later you may need to sneak a cat nap. There are some comfy chairs in Vegas, but there’s also a lot of competition, and napping on slot machine stools gets expensive fast. If you find yourself falling asleep during a session, just bury your head face-first into your iPhone or Blackberry. People will naturally assume that you’re fanatically Twittering.
That’s right – 8 tips for the price of 7, because that’s just the way I roll. Pay attention, because this one is important. Whoever wrote the motto "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" clearly doesn’t work in our industry and has never heard of this thing called the internet. Of course, from a marketing standpoint, "What happens in Vegas will probably be photographed on a cell phone, Tweeted, Re-tweeted, posted on Facebook, and tagged for the entire world to see" doesn’t really have much of a ring to it.
This isn’t really a tip, but if you’re a Moz community member, don’t be shy about introducing yourself. SEOmoz is also going to be hosting a special event you won’t want to miss (more details coming very soon). Hope to see you there!
(Las Vegas sign photo licensed from iStockPhoto.com)
Posted by great scott!
Rand’s in Jolly Ol’ England this week, so I decided to share a preview from our upcoming DVD Training Series, "Tips, Tricks & Tactics: Volume 1," coming out in November.
We filmed this series during our recent seminar in Seattle and the response was amazing. One of the most popular sessions was Conductor CEO, Seth Besmertnik’s, presentation on "How to Win SEO Budget and Influence Your CMO." In this week’s Whiteboard Friday you’ll get a sneak peek at part of Seth’s presentation (one of 17 presentations on the DVD series) where he’ll show you how to quantify the actual business value of SEO in a way that will get serious attention from executives and clients alike. Watch as Seth explains his surefire way to strike fear in the hearts of your C-suite, maintain motivation in pursuing an SEO strategy, and generate reports like a mad-man.
Keep in mind, this is just seven minutes of his 30-minute session, so it’s really just a small taste of what Seth has to teach.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Tips, Tricks & Tactics Preview: Seth Besmertnik on Winning SEO Budget
Quick Note: A couple of the slides shown in the presentation look a little washed-out. That’s a result of the video compression for streaming; they’re perfectly clear in the uncompressed DVD video.
Posted by great scott!
Rand’s in Jolly Ol’ England this week, so I decided to share a preview from our upcoming DVD Training Series, "Tips, Tricks & Tactics: Volume 1," coming out in November.
We filmed this series during our recent seminar in Seattle and the response was amazing. One of the most popular sessions was Conductor CEO, Seth Besmertnik’s, presentation on "How to Win SEO Budget and Influence Your CMO." In this week’s Whiteboard Friday you’ll get a sneak peek at part of Seth’s presentation (one of 17 presentations on the DVD series) where he’ll show you how to quantify the actual business value of SEO in a way that will get serious attention from executives and clients alike. Watch as Seth explains his surefire way to strike fear in the hearts of your C-suite, maintain motivation in pursuing an SEO strategy, and generate reports like a mad-man.
Keep in mind, this is just seven minutes of his 30-minute session, so it’s really just a small taste of what Seth has to teach.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Tips, Tricks & Tactics Preview: Seth Besmertnik on Winning SEO Budget
Quick Note: A couple of the slides shown in the presentation look a little washed-out. That’s a result of the video compression for streaming; they’re perfectly clear in the uncompressed DVD video.
