Friday, July 31, 2009
Search Engine Strategies is the event for search marketing and optimization. It’s one of my favourite conferences and I’m disappointed that my schedule doesn’t allow me to attend this year.
But if you are going, I’d love to have notes or feedback on the conference.
And if you’ve never gone before and are going to San Jose, here’s what I would do.
August 10 - Monday (Training Day)
9:00am-12:00pm
SEO and Direct Marketing Tactics for Ecommerce Websites with Matt Bailey, SiteLogic
Half-day $645
The world of ecommerce is fascinating to me and Boxcar Marketing is starting to work on a number of ecommerce projects. I’m interested in how principles of Search Marketing and Direct Marketing can increase the sales rates, impression and visibility of a site.
1:00pm-4:30pm
Search and Social Media Tactics and Case Studies with Aaron Kahlow, Online Marketing Summit, and Hallie Janssen, Anvil Media Inc
Afternoon Session Only $495.
Social media gets a lot of attention but I don’t think that Search should be left by the wayside. This session promises lessons on Integrated Search, Social Media and Website best practices from the trenches of the world’s leading brands to the local business. Stories and case studies are always interesting to me.
August 11 - Tuesday, Day 1
9:00am-10:00am
Keynote Speaker, Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, is great to listen to and inspirational. Get up and go to the keynote.
10:30am-11:30am
Search & Measurement Track
Always be Testing: Marketing Optimization in Challenging Times
Rising costs and shrinking marketing budgets are never going away, nor is increasing demand for accountability. This means you can’t afford not to test, whether it’s A/B or multivariate testing. If you don’t know where to begin, Bryan Eisenberg is the perfect guy to tell you. I find his work exemplary and would love to attend this session.
Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board & Co-Founder, Future Now, Inc, go look him up. Trying searching (lol).
11:45am-12:45pm
Search Fundamentals Track
Successful Site Architecture
I spend a lot of time talking about site architecture with designers and developers. Successful architecture, such as specific page elements and design technologies, affect organic search rankings. Directory, file structure, server-side includes (SSIs), 404 error trapping, JavaScript, robots.txt use, frames, secure area usage—do you know how these affect the ability for customers to find your site?
1:45pm-2:45pm
Search Fundamentals Track
Turn Brain Science into Bucks: Incorporating Persuasive Messaging into Your Content Strategy
Oooo, who doesn’t like the brain and its inner workings. At Boxcar Marketing we are constantly thinking about Twitter, white papers, optimized web pages, blog posts, and any other possible opportunity to help our clients capture the attention of prospective buyers, open up communication with customers, build strong b2b and b2c relationships as well as c2c relationships. I think the showcase of online content campaigns and strategies would be very interesting given the social proof, neuroscience, and psychology twist the speakers will provide.
Moderator: Greg Jarboe, President & Co-Founder, SEO-PR
Speakers: Graeme McLaughlin, Manager Digital Marketing, British Columbia Automobile Association and Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks
3:00pm-4:00pm
Search & Community Track
Stop the Presses! How SEO Can Help Save the Publishing Industry
Publishers absolutely need to know how to leverage SEO and drive traffic to their sites. I can’t talk about this enough so it would be great to hear someone else’s perspective.
4:30pm-5:30pm
Search & Measurement Track
Extreme Makeover: Conversion Edition
Bryan Eisenberg, I’m a fan. I’d be back to hear Bryan speak in this session on metrics, usability and persuasion. Plus it ties into the A/B test in the earlier session. The big sell: “This session will instruct you on how to identify the critical barriers to success on the sites selected and how this team of experts would go about fixing them in less than 48 hours.” I hope someone will share notes here.
Moderator: Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board, Founder Partner and CMO, http://Joblr.com and Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink
Speakers:
Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board & Co-Founder, Future Now, Inc.
Ethan Giffin, CEO, Groove Commerce
Day 2 and 3 thoughts coming up ...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Crissy, the Boxcar Marketing intern, has been working on a number of video projects this summer, and we wanted to share our tips and tools with you.
Video on the web is used for much more than entertainment. For businesses, it can be a great way to get your marketing message out — video content is the most commonly shared type of content online. Below is a list of tips and tools on using video for marketing.
Getting Started
Content and sound quality are the most important elements of online video. That said, you do not need expensive equipment or a high production budget. Check out
Craigslist.org for used equipment and experiment with free editing software like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker.
In terms of content, decide what kind of video you are going to make. Will it be informative, entertaining, shocking, funny? The more entertaining a video is the
more potential it has to go viral. On the other hand, an informative video might be more useful to your audience. Decide on how you want to position your brand.
And remember, short, concise and less scripted videos are best.
Posting Your Video
Post your video everywhere! The more places it is, the easier it will be found. Some sites to consider:
blip.tv
YouTube
Flickr
iTunes
Or use a service that will post your video to all of the video sharing sites for you. For example, Visible Measures
or Tubemogul.
Optimizing Your Video
Optimizing your video is key if you want people to find it. Using descriptive, straightforward keywords in your title, description, and tags will help your video
show up in relevant search results.
Make sure you promote your video! Once you have uploaded it to a video sharing site, use the embed code provided to post your video on Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and your blog. The great thing about embedded video is that it can be posted in multiple places, and unlike text, Google does not have a
duplicate content penalty.
Analyze
Why make a video if you do not analyze and track its success? Here are some tools to use to see who is watching your video, where they are coming from and what
they are finding engaging about it:
YouTube Insights
blip.tv stats
Plus, Visible Measures and
Tubemogul provide analytics across multiple video sites.
Resources
How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing by Hubspot.
Hubspot hosted an excellent webinar that covered content development,
equipment needed, editing and publishing, optimization, and analytics.
How to Make YouTube Videos Look Great by Squidoo.
This Squidoo article tells you how to encode, compress or optimize your videos to get them to look their best.
Make Internet TV is a step-by-step guide to recording and publishing online videos. This is a great site. It covers
everything: equipment, shooting techniques, video tutorials for using editing software, licensing explanations, publishing options and ways to promote your video.
Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources by Mashable
is excellent. They cover online video how-to sites; online video
editors, converters, sharing and hosting sites; vidcasts and vlogging;
video mashups; mobile video apps; video search; and online video
downloading services.
Video SEO Tips and Techniques in the Reelseo collection includes tips for beginners to advanced users.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
8:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Pravda Studios, Seattle, WA
Register Here
http://eeroadshow.eventbrite.com
Come join us for a day-long series of sessions on ExpressionEngine, our favourite content management system.
Summary of Sessions
8:30-9:30 am
Breakfast and Registration
10am-11am
“Introduction to ExpressionEngine - From The Man”
by Leslie Camacho
11am-noon
“Making Money Selling EE Add-Ons”
by a great group of panelists
Lunch and hang out time
1pm-2pm
“Deploying and Maintaining ExpressionEngine Using Version Control”
by Jason Hudnutt
2pm-3pm
“Performance Tuning ExpressionEngine”
by Matt Perry
3pm-4pm
“10 Ways to Improve Your ExpressionEngine Site Development”
by Ryan Irelan
4pm-5pm
“Five Minute Demos”
by You!
Cocktail reception
Full Session Details…
Location
1406 - 10th Avenue, Suite 200
Seattle, Washington
http://www.pravdastudios.com
See the map…
Have a Question?
Just ask…
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Monday, July 20, 2009
Do you have a strategy in place to increase your website’s search ranking? Need help? SES San Jose is a search engine strategies training and conference series that will teach you how to optimize and market your site within search engines.
Who Should Go?
Marketing Managers
Creative Directors
E-Commerce Managers
Brand Managers
Business Analytics Directors
Media Buyers
Media Planners
SEO Specialists/Consultants
PPC Analysts
Webmasters
Web Developers and Designers
IT Project Managers
What Will You Learn?
How search engines rank web pages.
How to optimize your site to out-rank competitors.
New methods of link building to keep your brand in front of your customers.
How to increase traffic via organic listings and avoid “spam” penalties.
How to optimize and rank better with pay-per-click campaigns.
How to improve user experience and increase conversions by testing and tuning landing pages.
How to track your performance and maximize ROI using analytics software.
Details
SES San Jose runs August 10 to 14, 2009 at the McEnery Convention Center. The conference runs August 11 to 13. August 10 and 14 are training days. A three-day pass for August 11 - 13 costs $1995 - save $200 when you register before July 24. For more information visit the SES San Jose site.
Register here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Registration for BookCamp Vancouver 2009 Unconference: Exploring New Ideas in Books, Publishing and the Future of Reading is now open.
The free unconference will be taking place on Friday October 16th at Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver.
Sign up now. Seats are going fast!
BookCamp Vancouver is a user-generated unconference that brings print publishers, educators, community builders and the tech community together - for free! BookCamp Vancouver is an opportunity to explore the present and future of books and book-like technologies. It’s open to anyone interested in the publishing industry and the potential dynamics of the reader/creator/publisher relationship.
Join us for a day of sharing new ideas, radical notions and engaging conversation! We’ll consider the future of the Book as an object; examine its ongoing role as a delivery mechanism for stories, information and entertainment; and examine how publishers can leverage themselves for success in the digital age.
We’re encouraging BookCampers to suggest topics of discussion for the day and to suggest sessions that they would like to lead.
Full Details
Register
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Thursday, July 09, 2009
Building successful online communities isn’t easy. To help us out, Powered recently held a webinar on the Pitfalls and Best Practices for Building Online Communities. Below is what they had to say.
Just because you built it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.
Community: an interactive group of people connected by a common interest.
Marketer’s Sins
* Thinking that you know it all already - Tropicana changed their ‘look’ and didn’t think that they needed to consult with online communities. Result: online backlash.
* Wanting to be something you’re not - Pepperidge Farm tried creating their own online community rather than joining an existing one, but Pepperidge Farm isn’t an online community like FaceBook or MySpace.
* Thinking you’re done once its built - successful communities must by nurtured like a successful cocktail party.
* Assuming more is better - Moms Miami site: there is no common interest so it isn’t sticky for anyone.
* Not planning for anger or responding to it - Motrin example: moms got angry at their ad campaign so Motrin took their site down and went back up with a message saying that they were pulling the ad - did Motrin overreact?
* Wanting what the other guy has - Zune is trying to have what iPod has.
* Wanting it all…and all your way - General Mills’ My Blog Spark asked people not to post anything negative; this was greedy, they wanted to control the message.
51% of online adults are willing to participate in a company’s online community.
Adults across generations will engage in online company forums - they want to be a part of all stages of the marketing mix.
Understand who social media is for: brand enthusiasts who have passion (positive or negative). Get them to market the message for you and make them into brand advocates.
Have a clear objective for your community. Types of objectives include:
* Listening - good for direct customer insight, new product ideas and beta testing.
* Speaking - create an emotional attachment, advertising based on network.
* Energizing - excite your biggest fans, word of mouth.
* Supporting - peer to peer support.
* Embracing - members become contributors, extended workforce.
Focus on customer problems, not your products. Use the community as a way to help members solve their problems. The Axe community helps members solve how to get the girl. This gives Axe insight into their customers to use for more relative marketing.
Ensure the community is ‘heard’ inside of your company; it’s about managing your company to take advantage of what the community can do. Create a process for reporting what you learn from the community.
What keeps members coming back and participating? Hint: it’s not the technology.
Vibrant communities need:
* Sense of ownership
* Shared passions/needs
* Opportunities for self-expression in a variety of ways
* Active facilitation
* A company that demonstrates listening
* Fresh, engaging content
Best practices for creating your own online community
1. Listen - what are your customers saying? Where? Use Google Analytics.
2. Choose - What do you want to use the social community for? Customer research? Sales? Product Innovation?
3. Include - get legal/compliance on board early and often; get them to help you build a social policy.
4. Join - sign up for communities where your customers are (but learn the etiquette first).
5. Engage - thank your customers for telling you what they think; in plain English; ask more questions.
6. Build - if you’ve gotten good at #1-4 consider creating your own community.
Get the full webinar and presentation slides.
Note: You’ll have to give your name, email address and company information to access the video and slides.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
THE search engine marketing and optimization event of the year is here. SES San Jose is a 4-day training and conference series that covers PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization and usability. This year, the keynote speakers are Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director for Google AdWords.
Location
McEnery Convention Ctr
150 West San Carlos St.
San Jose, CA
August 10 -14, 2009
Cost
The conference runs August 11 - 13. August 10 and 14 are training days. A three-day pass for August 11 -13 costs $1995 - save $200 when you register before July 24.
Why Should You Go?
1) It’s more and more important to know how to get your site to rank on the first page of search results. Less than 70% of users look past the first page.
3) Search is very competitive and difficult to do right. The conference will demystify how search engines work and give you tools so that you can rank higher than your competitors.
3) It isn’t enough to just do SEO. The conference will help you develop a search marketing and optimization strategy to increase your site traffic and measure results.
For full details visit the SES San Jose site.
Register here.
Still unsure if this conference is for you? Check out Search Engine Strategies’ Free Webcasts and Webinars to get a taste of what you’ll learn at the conference.
New to SES San Jose? Check out searchenginewatch.com’s article, SES San Jose Offers Conference Sessions for First Time Attendees
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