In House SEO with Business.coms Jessica Bowman
Manoj Jasra - Friday, June 29, 2007
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We conclude this series on In-house SEO with a fresh title and Jessica Bowman who is the Director of SEO for Business.com - Jessica writes for SearchEngineJournal.com, and overseas SEM for the Business.com directory of sites. Jessica shares her thoughts below:
What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
Often search engine optimization is an after-thought, if it is thought of at all. The biggest benefit for bringing search marketing in-house is that you have someone internal who can champion and represent SEO in the hallways, at meetings, and through relationship building. Also, it gives everyone in the company someone to reach out to for an immediate answer and/or involvement when the need arises.
What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
The biggest challenge with bringing SEO in-house varies by company. The other in-house experts in this series have mentioned the biggest challenges, but to give a different perspective, I'll talk about challenge that I see many in-house teams face – obtaining and maintaining advanced SEO knowledge.
Many in-house teams are formed from existing employees that dabble in SEO and/or get training from a consultant. If the in-house SEO is lucky, they will attend one or two conferences a year. This will get you through the basics, but not the advanced challenges related to search engine optimization. To get around this, I encourage in-house SEOs to have outside council. Corporate attorneys have an outside council to assist with questions, accountants have auditors and SEOs need an SEO consultant that they can reach to with questions, concerns, unique situations and the "what happened" emergencies that pop up every now and again.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
Part 4 - Jennifer Mathews Somogyi - Formerly at Classmates.com
Part 5 - Aidan Beanland - Yahoo
What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
Often search engine optimization is an after-thought, if it is thought of at all. The biggest benefit for bringing search marketing in-house is that you have someone internal who can champion and represent SEO in the hallways, at meetings, and through relationship building. Also, it gives everyone in the company someone to reach out to for an immediate answer and/or involvement when the need arises.
What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
The biggest challenge with bringing SEO in-house varies by company. The other in-house experts in this series have mentioned the biggest challenges, but to give a different perspective, I'll talk about challenge that I see many in-house teams face – obtaining and maintaining advanced SEO knowledge.
Many in-house teams are formed from existing employees that dabble in SEO and/or get training from a consultant. If the in-house SEO is lucky, they will attend one or two conferences a year. This will get you through the basics, but not the advanced challenges related to search engine optimization. To get around this, I encourage in-house SEOs to have outside council. Corporate attorneys have an outside council to assist with questions, accountants have auditors and SEOs need an SEO consultant that they can reach to with questions, concerns, unique situations and the "what happened" emergencies that pop up every now and again.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
Part 4 - Jennifer Mathews Somogyi - Formerly at Classmates.com
Part 5 - Aidan Beanland - Yahoo
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
Bringing SEO In House - Insight from the Experts Part 5
Manoj Jasra - Thursday, June 28, 2007
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Our series continues with Aidan Beanland giving us his thoughts on bringing SEO In house.
Aidan Beanland is the Regional SEO Manager at Yahoo - Aidan is also a frequent speaker at Search Engine Bootcamp in Australia.
What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
The biggest advantage would be understanding. Having worked in agencies and in-house I've learned immersing oneself in products, platforms and content affords a depth of understanding no out-sourced expertise can match. It takes time to get to know how things work, and more importantly, how the people in the company function individually and as a team. I see myself as an internal consultant, advising at every step of production and liaising with almost every department; programmers, web developers, designers, content editors, project managers, sales and marketing. Educating each stakeholder is a vital factor in success, illustrating the benefits of SEO, teaching best practices and passing on knowledge to create a culture where sites are designed to accommodate human users as well as search engines.
On a personal level I relish this bird's eye view of the whole operation, I'm intimately involved with the business which fuels my enthusiasm and allows me to contribute to strategic development, providing value beyond my core SEO role.
What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
I would suggest communication is one of the biggest challenges. Effecting change in a large company requires diplomacy, clear processes, patience and strong communication skills. The in-house SEO manager must be able to clearly illustrate success that's closely aligned to the true business goals - it's all very well ranking highly for a specific keyword phrase, is it meeting the right targets? You need to show how your efforts and advice have made a difference. Use whatever reporting tools you have available to track performance over time, and if possible, translate this into financial terms.
Once you have buy-in from all departments, people should proactively seek your advice and willingly implement it. Aim to empower your colleagues and share in each others' success.
It's also wise to take a look outside your usual sphere, keep your skills sharp and avoid becoming too comfortable with the same sites. Try to think objectively, don't be afraid of a second opinion, challenge yourself and try fresh approaches to familiar problems.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
Part 4 - Jennifer Mathews Somogyi - Formerly at Classmates.com
Aidan Beanland is the Regional SEO Manager at Yahoo - Aidan is also a frequent speaker at Search Engine Bootcamp in Australia.What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
The biggest advantage would be understanding. Having worked in agencies and in-house I've learned immersing oneself in products, platforms and content affords a depth of understanding no out-sourced expertise can match. It takes time to get to know how things work, and more importantly, how the people in the company function individually and as a team. I see myself as an internal consultant, advising at every step of production and liaising with almost every department; programmers, web developers, designers, content editors, project managers, sales and marketing. Educating each stakeholder is a vital factor in success, illustrating the benefits of SEO, teaching best practices and passing on knowledge to create a culture where sites are designed to accommodate human users as well as search engines.
On a personal level I relish this bird's eye view of the whole operation, I'm intimately involved with the business which fuels my enthusiasm and allows me to contribute to strategic development, providing value beyond my core SEO role.
What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
I would suggest communication is one of the biggest challenges. Effecting change in a large company requires diplomacy, clear processes, patience and strong communication skills. The in-house SEO manager must be able to clearly illustrate success that's closely aligned to the true business goals - it's all very well ranking highly for a specific keyword phrase, is it meeting the right targets? You need to show how your efforts and advice have made a difference. Use whatever reporting tools you have available to track performance over time, and if possible, translate this into financial terms.
Once you have buy-in from all departments, people should proactively seek your advice and willingly implement it. Aim to empower your colleagues and share in each others' success.
It's also wise to take a look outside your usual sphere, keep your skills sharp and avoid becoming too comfortable with the same sites. Try to think objectively, don't be afraid of a second opinion, challenge yourself and try fresh approaches to familiar problems.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
Part 4 - Jennifer Mathews Somogyi - Formerly at Classmates.com
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
Bringing SEO In House - Insight from the Experts Part 4
Manoj Jasra - Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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In this multi-part series I am asking some of the Top In-house SEOs the same 2 questions:
- What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
- What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
Today we're featuring Jennifer Mathews Somogyi who was formerly the SEO Manager at Classmates.com. Also check out Jennifer's SEM Website: http://www.semdiscussion.com/. Below are Jennifer's thoughts:
The biggest advantage to bringing Search Marketing in house really depends on the company and that scale of the campaigns. Search Marketing as a whole is usually split into 2 categories; 1) Paid Search Marketing (Or PPC) and 2) Natural Search Marketing (or SEO). Even when the paid search campaigns are handled in house there is usually a vendor brought in to manage the bidding, and the overall campaigns. The same can generally go for natural SEO. Vendors are often brought in for more man power with a larger site, or to help the in house SEO justify projects or bugs to those that still remain skeptical. Even the larger companies like Classmates.com and other even larger corporations bring in vendors to help with their paid and natural campaigns.
So what is the advantage to having an in house search marketing person? The scale of paid and natural search marketing can be such an immense undertaking that assigning one person to manage the vendor relationships as well as monitoring all of the paid and natural search marketing initiatives will not only help the individual focus on the companies best chance at increasing the return on investment (higher conversions through paid and natural search will generally increase the ROI). Rather than assigning the task to someone that already manages direct marketing, or another aspect of the business who then tends to place a low priority on the search marketing initiatives either from lack of knowledge or general interest in search marketing.
The first challenge as an in house person is brought in is lobbying the buy in from others within the corporation itself. Executives tend to believe in SEO and see what it has to offer, but don't always understand it. Those in Management and lower level positions tend to be more skeptical and therefore can be a bit more difficult in gaining the support needed to get initiatives moving. The key role of an in house SEO is to get the support needed from others within the company which will help in getting work completed for SEO (whether it be a change in url structure, change in content to include key terms, etc).
Us in house SEO's are usually a team of one. There are so many aspects to natural search that the one person (if to given support ) will eventually burn out. Keyword research, analysis and tracking, campaign management, project management, and so on. The larger the company, the more man power is needed in order to fill all of these roles.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
- What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
- What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
Today we're featuring Jennifer Mathews Somogyi who was formerly the SEO Manager at Classmates.com. Also check out Jennifer's SEM Website: http://www.semdiscussion.com/. Below are Jennifer's thoughts:The biggest advantage to bringing Search Marketing in house really depends on the company and that scale of the campaigns. Search Marketing as a whole is usually split into 2 categories; 1) Paid Search Marketing (Or PPC) and 2) Natural Search Marketing (or SEO). Even when the paid search campaigns are handled in house there is usually a vendor brought in to manage the bidding, and the overall campaigns. The same can generally go for natural SEO. Vendors are often brought in for more man power with a larger site, or to help the in house SEO justify projects or bugs to those that still remain skeptical. Even the larger companies like Classmates.com and other even larger corporations bring in vendors to help with their paid and natural campaigns.
So what is the advantage to having an in house search marketing person? The scale of paid and natural search marketing can be such an immense undertaking that assigning one person to manage the vendor relationships as well as monitoring all of the paid and natural search marketing initiatives will not only help the individual focus on the companies best chance at increasing the return on investment (higher conversions through paid and natural search will generally increase the ROI). Rather than assigning the task to someone that already manages direct marketing, or another aspect of the business who then tends to place a low priority on the search marketing initiatives either from lack of knowledge or general interest in search marketing.
The first challenge as an in house person is brought in is lobbying the buy in from others within the corporation itself. Executives tend to believe in SEO and see what it has to offer, but don't always understand it. Those in Management and lower level positions tend to be more skeptical and therefore can be a bit more difficult in gaining the support needed to get initiatives moving. The key role of an in house SEO is to get the support needed from others within the company which will help in getting work completed for SEO (whether it be a change in url structure, change in content to include key terms, etc).
Us in house SEO's are usually a team of one. There are so many aspects to natural search that the one person (if to given support ) will eventually burn out. Keyword research, analysis and tracking, campaign management, project management, and so on. The larger the company, the more man power is needed in order to fill all of these roles.
The rest of the In house SEO Series:
Part 1 - Chris "Silver" Smith - Net Concepts
Part 2 - John W. Ellis - ResortQuest
Part 3 - Rudy DeDominicis - Time Inc.
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
Bringing SEO In House - Insight from the Experts Part 3
Manoj Jasra - Tuesday, June 26, 2007
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Rudy DeDominicis : Search Marketing Specialist at Time Inc Interactive - Rudy previously did search marketing for Ziff Davis, AOL, and Paper.com. Also check out his Audience Development Golden Triangle.
Here are Rudy's thoughts:
I think the biggest advantage to having an in house SEO expert, is the familiarity with all of the in-house technology and business cultures. Having worked with many of the top consultants and SEO agencies I have noticed that once the consultant drops off a document the internal work of translating that document into ownership and getting approval starts. In many cases proper prioritization of the recommendations based on business needs to be applied. In addition its very easy for a company to just say yes to a recommendation from an outside agency. As an in-house expert you need to understand what the recommendation truly does and how to best execute for your specific business with your specific resources. Making sure you execute the SEO items that have the biggest SEO impact with the least amount of effort.
I think the biggest challenge is finding that perfect balance of SEO expert and affinity for your business. You need to truly know about the business you are performing SEO for to offer the best advice. You need to truly live in that world and become that business. Finding that individual to bring both business experience and proper enterprise SEO experience will be the toughest challenge.
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
DM News: Essential Guide to Search Engine Marketing 2007
Manoj Jasra - Monday, June 25, 2007
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DM News has released their Essential Guide to Search Engine Marketing. The 56 page guide covers expert insight on topics such as Fundamentals, Paid Search, Organic, Conversion and Search 2.0. There is also 5 Featured sections with opinions from John Ellis, Danny Sullivan, Adam Lasnik, Tanya Lews and Giselle Abramovich. Download your copy here.Labels: Industry News
Today, John W. Ellis, Online Marketing Manager, Search for ResortQuest, will share his thoughts:What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
Having search marketing in-house makes search marketing a top priority. Thus, ROI becomes much more important. Often, out-sources solutions focus on traffic, and not the quality of the traffic.
Because many at the executive-level do not understand and/or appreciate search engine marketing, an in-house team is forced to constantly look for new ways to improve ROI. Plus, having the department in-house allows for quick changes and strategies. This can often counter-act any unwanted press or take advantage of news-worthy items quickly
What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
Of course, the above can also be one of the biggest hurdles. Because of the lack of knowledge at the executive-level, a vast majority of an in-house team's job consist of educating the company. There is often a struggle not only at the high level, but also at the IT level.
However, lessons learned from these hurdles make a stronger well-rounded Search Engine expert. Thus, these growing pains make him/her more marketable when the time comes.
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
Google Adwords: Cost Per Action Summary
Manoj Jasra - Sunday, June 24, 2007
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For the business to business market, generally focused on lead generation, this is a massive move forward. B2B marketers are acutely aware of the cost of a lead and therefore through the Adwords platform pay specifically that value......As the product is still in the beta phases its release is not available to everyone. Conversion tracking must be in place on your account and your account must have over 500 conversions per month.
Read the full post here: http://www.searchengineposition.com/blog/default.asp?Display=92
Bringing SEO In House - Insight from the Experts Part 1
Manoj Jasra - Friday, June 22, 2007
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1) What is the biggest advantage for an organization to bring Search Marketing In-house?
2) What is the biggest challenge in accomplishing a transformation to In-house SEO?
The first expert up is Chris "Silver" Smith the Lead Search Strategist from NetConcepts who wrote an excellent post which listed some of the Top In-House SEOs. Chris had this to say:The biggest advantage in bringing search marketing in-house is the combined synergy from: long-term cost savings, long-term revenue/conversion improvement, and having readily-available expertise and advocacy on all stages of online marketing projects from inception to project launch.
The biggest challenge in attaining in-house management and development of SEO is in terms of politics. Not only must an organization have search channel managers, but those managers must also have support and prioritization of their projects at the executive level, along with the cooperation of the IT department to make it happen. As a best-practice, an organization should also build-in some sort of process management to insure that their in-house team will not become too incestuous or myopic. In-house projects should have some amount of auditing, either from outside agency experts, or from a peer review of practices and plans if a company has multiple internal experts. As a further indication of the political support for the search marketing program, there needs to be some amount of budget set aside for it. Not only could tools be purchased to assist with the program, but agency consulting could be available to be brought in for special projects, and the internal staff need! to be able to attend a couple of search marketing conferences every year in order to keep their education up-to-date.
Stay tuned next week as I get some thoughts from some In house SEOs (from companies such as Time Inc., Classmates.com, Business.com and ResortQuest). If you're interested in sharing your thoughts, send me an email: mjasra@gmail.com
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEO In House
Bringing Search Marketing In House - 10 Great Resources
Manoj Jasra - Thursday, June 21, 2007
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Bringing SEO In house is quickly becoming one of the hottest topics across the Industry. With businesses looking to cut down on marketing budgets and wanting to expand on preexisting In House teams it will be difficult for traditional SEM Firms to continually offer the same services (at the same premiums) as they have been in the past. Businesses are looking to strengthen their relationships with their online marketing departments and what better way to do this then removing the 3rd Party SEM firm out of the picture.
There are already some excellent resources available in helping businesses bring SEO in house and I would like to share the ones I have looked into:
- SEM / SEO In-house Blog by Jessica Bowman - Director of SEO at Business.com
- How To Structure An In-House SEO Team by Paul J . Bruemmer who writes for SearchEngineLand and its column "In House"
- Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations: Part I by Melanie Mitchell. This is part 1 of a 4 part series at SearchEngineWatch
- Jessica Bowman for SearchEngineWatch: When the Honeymoon Ends, In-house
- Five Ways to Determine Whether You Should Bring Search Marketing In-Houseby Heather Lloyd-Martin - MarketingProfs (requires login)
- Jody Nimetz of Enquiro shares his top 7 reasons for bringing SEO in house: Bringing Search Marketing In-House - SEO 2007
- Tamar Weinberg of SE Round Table discusses: What Skills Should a Full-Time SEO Have? - a topic from the SearchEngineWatch forums
- Gary Angel, CEO/CTO of SEMPhonic provides his thoughts on Bringing Search Engine Marketing In House at Ecommerce Times.
- Chris Silver Smith provides an excellent list of Some Top In-House SEOs. Some excellent consultants who know what it takes to be successful as an in house SEO.
- Keep Current SEO or Take It In-house? By Jill Whalen at SearchEngineGuide
What about the other side of the story? Read: The True Cost of an In-House SEO Campaign: Why an SEO Firm Can Increase Your ROI by Scott Buresh from the American Chronicle.
Labels: Search Marketing In House, SEM, SEO, SEO In House
How to Make Money Blogging Guide
Manoj Jasra - Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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Here are some resources worth checking out for making money through blogging:
- How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs - Darren Rowse, ProBlogger.net
- How to Make Money From Your Blog - Steve Pavlina - who now makes $1000/day through blogging
- Washington Post shares how to Make Money off Your Blog
- Users share their tips on how to Make money blogging on 43 Things
- Get Paid to Blog through PayPerPost
- Jeff Wuorio for Microsoft Small Business: How to make money from your blog: 5 tips
- Robbin Good explains How to Make Money with Your Blog Site
- Maki at DoshDosh.com: How to Make Money Blogging: 7 Strategies to Help you Get Started Immediately
- Make Money from Your Blog - Matt Huggins
- Matt Bacak posted an Ezine how to: Make Money Blogging
- John Chow on How to Make Money Blogging - 52 Page PDF
- Make Money Blogging For Know More Media: 20 Open Blogs
- How To Make Money Blogging The Easy Way: HubPages Gets You Started by Michael Pick
- Seopher.com 8 ways to make money online in a short amount of time
- EbMug.com Learning How to Make Money Blogging
- Learning How to Make Money Blogging by Yaro @ Entrepeneurs Journey
- Bob King at GraphicTruth.com - Feeding the Beast - making blogging pay without selling your soul.
- See this Squidoo Lens: How to Monetize Your Website or Blog on Squidoo
- Ask Shane: Top 10 Blogs About Making Money Blogging
- How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online - in 10 Easy Steps
- Advertising Tactics that Simply Do Not Make Money - Web Analytics World
- Get Paid to Write Reviews
- Have you tried Reviewme.com?
If you have a suggestion for a link that needs to be added to this post, please leave a comment and I will add it.
Labels: Blogging, Make Money
The main reason we created confetti is that it helps you make sense of data that you never understood before. You know how Google Analytics shows you browser data and you have no clue what to do with the data or what it means? With confetti, you can see how FireFox users interact differently then IE users. With my blog I noticed that very few IE users clicked on the "Older Posts" link even though they make up almost 1/4 of the traffic. This shows me that I need to try and get more FireFox users to my site because they maybe more interested in reading the content. - Neil Patel
Interact with a rich flash visualization of all of your clicks. Color and filter clicks based on Top 15 Referrers, Search Terms, Operating System, Browser, etc...
Isolate the data you want to compare and hide the rest. All without having to reload anything.
Labels: Industry News, Web Analytics
The Canadian Association for University Education has given the Web Analytics Association and the University of British Columbia an award for excellence for their 4 course Award of Achievement in Web Analytics Program. The Four courses consist of:
- Introduction to Web Analytics
- Web Analytics for Site Optimization
- Online Marketing Campaign Measurement
- Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture
The program was honored for its innovation in the growing web analytics sector and for offering superior value to this niche audience. Web marketers from major companies, including Coca-Cola and the American Dental Association, have praised the WAA-UBC Award of Achievement program for its ability to provide immediate, actionable knowledge and tactics for applying, leveraging and understanding web metrics.
By taking the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics, participants receive practical approaches to:
- assessing effective methods and tools used in web analytics, weighing each tool's pros and cons
- designing and tracking marketing or communication from initial entry into the web site through to the desired sale or action (known as a "conversion")
- optimizing conversions by analyzing web site content for enabling, supportive or confusing messages
- applying the concepts of participation marketing and visitor segmentation to determine how different markets are responding to your content, leading to conversions
- analyzing click and navigation patterns to determine the best product or service mix as well as identify profit centres.
Labels: Web Analytics
Web Analytics Manager
Company: Intuit
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact: Tracy Ross (650) 944-5495
Description: We are currently seeking a talented Web Analytics Manager to work in our San Diego facility supporting our Consumer Tax Group/TurboTax...
Sr. Marketing Analyst at AOL
Company: AOL
Location: Dulles, VA
Contact: Susan Velasco (703) 265-6656
Description: You will use data and analytics to drive business decisions related to marketing campaigns, corporate business objectives and competitive challenges within the internet space.
Web Analyst
Company: I4 Commerce
Location: Timonium, MD
Contact: Susan Tapper (410) 602-6035
Description: I4 COMMERCE, nationally recognized as a high growth technology company with established brand equity, connects leading retailers with high value customers to improve the online purchase experience. ...
Sr. Analyst, Web Metrics Analytics
Company: Analytic Recruiting Inc
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Howard Fishman 1 212 545 8511 ext 110
Description: Chicago based travel/e-commerce company seeks Sr. Analyst, Web Metrics Analytics to conduct financial analysis, data mining/modeling; forecasting, web metric analysis, and provide decision support
Web Analyst
Company: Staples
Location: Framingham, MA
Contact: Michelle Quinn (508) 253-5000
Description: Reporting to the Manager of Web Analytics, the Web Analyst position will be primarily responsible for supporting two key initiatives, search and web analytics.
Online Marketing Director
Company: Red Ventures
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact: Susan Shanklin (704) 971-4382
Description: Red Ventures owns and operates several dynamic marketing companies in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Labels: Web Analytics Jobs
On July 11th in New York FreeWebs.com will be introducing their first ever Widget Marketing Conference: WidgetCon 2007
The first conference designed specifically for widget marketers. A full day of dialogue and productive networking. Case studies, examples, data, insight. An invite-only guest list comprised of the leading agencies, most innovative clients and widget-savvy publishers
WidgetCon is a one day conference consisting of 2 keynotes, case studies of how to leverage Widget Marketing and a Widget Roundtable, in which industry experts discuss opportunities and obstacles for Widget Marketing.
Another exciting part of the event is the Big Widget Challenge where people can submit their own Widgets for a chance to win $1000. Here's the criteria:
- Innovativeness. We'd really love to see is a "we didn't know that was possible!" moment.
- Web 2.0-ness. Mashiness, usability, thick clientosity, beauty, virality, and other made up words.
- Usefulness. Translation: A screensaver ain't gonna cut it.
- Freewebsiness and Widgetboxiness. Look at what we do and make it easier, better or more fun. "Wow" us.
Labels: Industry News
A few companies have already taken advantage of the opportunity to advertise their organization here at Web Analytics World. There are still a few spots left open so if you're interested send me an email: mjasra@gmail.com. There are numerous advertising options available to market your company, event, or news worthy item:
- Graphical Ad on the right side navigation
- Text Ad on the top navigation
- Graphical Ad embedded within a single post or multiple posts
Download the Sponsor Information PDF to learn more!
On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced some updates to YouTube's website. The updates consisted of the following 5 updates:
- Search Layout Makeover: Search now more prominently displayed and search results sortable in list/grid formats.
- Homepage Additions: See thumbnails of videos being watched as well additional notifications for friends, video responses and messages.
- Watch 3.0: Increased video player size, more videos from that user's channel are more easily accessible, and related videos are more prominently displayed.
- Upload Redesign and Geo Tagging: Complete re-design of the video upload home page with the improved ability to assign the location of our video.
- Adobe Mixer: Edit your videos with text, audio, graphics, overlays, effects, and transitions with the Adobe Mixer.
Labels: YouTube
Gord Hotchkiss posted some of the findings from Enquiro's Chinese Eye Tracking Study in which they compared users' search experience between Google and Baidu (the post is at SearchEngineLand). The results show that Chinese searchers interact with search results quite differently than North Americans. There was also considerable differences when comparing heatmap scan patterns between Google and Baidu.What's difference in user experience between Baidu and Google?
When you compare a 62% market share (Baidu) against a 20% market share (Google China) you would think that there should be a significant difference in user experience behind those numbers, right? Well, there is, but not in the way you would expect. Based on North American standards, Google should present a better user experience...On Google, users found what they were looking for in literally half the time (30 seconds vs 55) and with half the real estate - Gord Hotchkiss for SearchEngineLand
See how visitors interact with your with an Eye Tracking panel.
Labels: Baidu, Eye Tracking, Google
It's difficult to stay on all the hottest stories so I have decided to recommend a few posts/articles that are definitely a must read:
SEM
- Vanessa Fox Leaves Google, Heads To Zillow - SearchEngineLand has the story
- GrayWolf talks about Google Adds Paid Links Reporting
- SearchEngineGuide says: Hide and Speak: Google, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Google!
- Kevin Newcomb discusses Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations
- Bloomberg Interview: Yahoo Battles to Gain Ground on Google
- In her last post at Google Vanessa Fox discusses Duplicate content summit at SMX Advanced
- ASK Enquiro - Online Strategy: Why is it So Hard for B2B Marketers?
Web Analytics
- Many bloggers around the Industry Discuss: John Marshall Leaving Clicktracks
- Dennis Mortensen talks about Cookies and their effect on Unique Visitors
- Google Analytics Adds New Features
- LunaMetrics - Conversion: Assessing 15 sites in 90 minutes
- Tracking Google Audio Ads with Analytics at Epik One
Labels: Industry News, Must Reads
Vanessa Fox on Duplicate Content
Manoj Jasra - Thursday, June 14, 2007
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Google's Vanessa Fox has posted an excellent entry on Duplicate Content at the Webmaster Central Blog. She touches on the most common issues in regards to Duplicate Content:
- Specifying the preferred version of a URL in the site's Sitemap file
- Providing a method for indicating parameters that should be stripped from a URL during indexing
- Providing a way to authenticate ownership of content
- Making a duplicate content report available for site owners
- Working with blogging software and content management systems to address duplicate content issues
Vanessa also mentions the answers to questions that were posed to her at SMX:
- If I nofollow a substantial number of my internal links to reduce duplicate content issues, will this raise a red flag with the search engines?
- Are the search engines continuing the Sitemaps alliance?
- Many pages on my site primarily consist of graphs. Although the graphs are different on each page, how can I ensure that search engines don't see these pages as duplicate since they don't read images?
- I've syndicated my content to many affiliates and now some of those sites are ranking for this content rather than my site. What can I do?
- As a searcher, I want to see duplicates in search results. Can you add this as an option?
Source: Google Analytics Blog - Vanessa Fox
Labels: Google
Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, the noted web analytics author, consultant, and speaker, will marquee as Keynote Speaker and also serve as one of the expert facilitators.
In addition to Mr. Peterson, expert facilitators will include leading authorities in web analytics: Gary Angel, Manoj Jasra, Marshall Sponder and many others. These practitioners will work peer-to-peer with attendees on subjects such as Engagement and Brand Measurement, Site Base lining with Functional Analysis, Social Network Analysis, and Managing Data Quality Issues. Participants will work through their unique problems, brainstorm solutions and help define new solutions and best practices in the most important areas of web analytics.
I am excited to be part of this event and look forward to creating actionable strategies surrounding Web Analytics and Social Networking.
Labels: Web Analytics
Yahoo Battles to Gain Ground Against Google
Manoj Jasra - Wednesday, June 13, 2007
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In this video Gord discusses how difficult it will be for Yahoo to take market share away from Google. Even with the recent introduction of Panama and Quality Scoring, Yahoo is still playing catch up with Google Adwords. Gord says that Yahoo is looking to make its search better whereas Google is looking to gain more touch points on the Internet in order to offer a more complete user experience.
After receiving numerous requests for the same features, Google Analytics has added some new features. They include:
- Clickable URLs - We've added the ability to click on external links in certain reports and navigate straight to those pages. These external outbound links are available in the Referring Sites, Top Content, Top Landing Pages, and Top Exit Pages reports.
- Hourly Reporting - Many of the reports now have a "View by: Daily/Hourly" switch that allows you to select whether you want to see your data by day or by hour.
- Adwords Integration- It’s now easier to add an AdWords account to an existing Google Analytics account.
- Search Engine Detection - The list of French search engines has been updated to include aol.fr, club-internet.fr, and voila.fr. US search engines now include mama.com.
- Report Linking Issue Fixed - Reports that are newly added to the dashboard now have their data properly linked to their more detailed versions.
- Added Support - We've added more Help resources to the Email Reports interface.
- Smoother Registration - Some countries have been added to the list menu in Step 2 of the Account Activation process. The list is now consistent with available country choices in AdWords.
- Translation Errors Fixed - Some translation errors and omissions in the interface and Help Center have been corrected.
- Bounce Rate Issue Fixed - Bounce rates measurements have had their colors changed for visual consistency. A decrease in bounce rate is now colored green to match other positive changes, while an increase in bounce rate is colored red like other negative changes.
- Cross-segmenting by Network Location has been added to the standard list of segmentation options throughout the interface.
- More data viewable at once - We have increased the maximum number of table rows per page from 100 to 500 rows.
Personally I really liked the addition of the hourly reporting and clickable URLs and am amazed how fast these new features/updates were rolled out - well done Google Analytics Team!
Labels: Google, Web Analytics
Universal Search: Winners and Losers
Manoj Jasra - Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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Data from HitWise
Labels: Google, Universal Search
Google will be sending quite a few representatives to Searchnomics this year, which happens to be Google's first.
Searchnomics focuses on the importance of search to websites and online businesses, including site discovery, optimization, advertising, user experience, commerce and measurement. Attendees are about 50% Fortune 500 Internet marketing groups, and 50% online retailers. We're sending a lot of presenters there, including keynote speaker Marissa Mayer, our Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, as well as Google Analytics' Brett Crosby and Avinash Kaushik. It's a one-day conference with a packed agenda of seminars about SEO, SEM, design, branding, engagement, conversion, and tracking. Both Brett and Avinash will be presenting on action-oriented web analytics to improve your website and business. - Google Analytics Blog
Here are some reasons to attend Searchnomics
• Strategies to maximize your search marketing ROI and get the biggest exposure for your dollar.
• Best practices to track, analyze, and improve SEM and SEO campaigns.
• Optimization techniques to increase traffic and improve conversion.
• New trends and future direction of this industry and how you can best position yourself to benefit.
Labels: Google, Searchnomics
