May 19th, 2008 Jason
I will be at the International Search Summit in London this Thursday, May 22. I’m quite looking forward to the networking, for one thing, but as my remit continues to expand from the UK on an almost-daily basis, I’m expecting it to be a load of good information as well. Maybe see you there.
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March 20th, 2008 Jason
Session brief:
Representatives from major crawler-based search engines cover how to submit and feed them content, with plenty of Q&A time to cover issues related to ranking well and being indexed.
Yahoo!, Google, and MSN all put themselves on the podium and each ran through an overview of their webmaster tools. Anyone who is already using these tools and/or keeping up on the industry blogs probably didn’t get much new out of it, though I did catch just a couple tidbits:
For once, the Q&A was the heart of the session, and after a bunch of standard “I have this very specific issue with my site” kind of questions, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try raising a ruckus with a meaty one. I wanted to know how the engines were currently viewing the use of the rel=”nofollow” attribute on internal links to a website’s own pages. Though Matt Cutts has gone on record about it several times, I think there’s still confusion, so I asked. The responses:
I was a bit amused that Evan referred to the question several times as a “pretty advanced topic.” Sorry, man, the SEO 101 session was three days ago, and I didn’t cross the ocean to go to it.
Posted in Google, MSN, SES, Yahoo, conferences, seo | No Comments »
March 18th, 2008 Jason
I’ll admit it right up front: I’m a swag ho at an expo, and I am particularly bad about the pens.
When I was in art school way back when, I developed a few pronounced preferences in the pens that I use. It needs to feel right, it needs to write right, and I need to be able to flip spin it around my thumb when I’m bored or in a meeting. Couple this with the fact that I can also be stubbornly cheap, and hate actually buying pens, you can see where going to an expo - where branded pens are the swag of choice - would be like trick-or-treating for me.
Respect where it is due, I will at least make eye contact and thank the folks at the booth, and when I can I’ll have some basic conversation with them, regardless of how relevant their service or software is to me. Now and then I will admit that I just want the pen, but I don’t think they really mind, and seriously, when I find one I like I tend to keep it in my pocket and use it until I lose it or it dies. The Yahoo! pen I got at ad:tech London last year was outstanding, and I was very sad the day I literally ran it out of ink.
Today I made the rounds of the expo (three floors!) at SES NY, although I did not get another Yahoo! pen as they have changed the design and I already have one from PubCon. I’m sure I missed a few, but as a bit of a ‘thank you’ to the vendors for the ones I did get, I give you my reviews:
ABC Search
ABCSearch is the world’s largest privately held meta search engine, conducting over 100 million daily searches through our network of specialized engines and metacrawlers.
Body: oversized white with orange detail
Ink color: Black
Click or Cap: Click
Grippy: textured orange plastic
Branding/Logo: large blue logo and taglineRated on:
Aesthetics: eye catching - 3/5
Mechanics: design is biased to hold one particular way - 2/5
Ink quality: nothing special - 2/5
Spinnability: too light - 2/5
Overall: 2.25
Acronym media
Acronym Media, an independent, global Search Marketing and Keyword-Driven Marketing ™ agency, is headquartered in New York’s landmark Empire State Building. Consistently rated as a top 10 search engine agency by Advertising Age, the firm offers its clients 13 years of search marketing experience and top-notch SEM consulting services from multiple locations around the globe.
Body: orange plastic with whizzy integrated spring design
Ink color: Black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: no
Branding/Logo: black lettering with tagline and URLRated on:
Aesthetics: very space-age - 4/5
Mechanics: so-so - 3/5
Ink quality: boring - 3/5
Spinnability: very good - 5/5
Overall: 3.75
Adgooroo
Monitor competitors, expand keywords, and protect trademarks with AdGooroo. AdGooroo is the leading provider of search engine intelligence. Its proprietary technology tracks search activity across any industry vertical, empowering sophisticated agencies and advertisers with actionable data related to competitors’ keywords, ad copy, natural and paid search via online reports and daily e-mail alerts.
Body: Shiny blue plastic with chrome clip and tip
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: textured blue rubber
Branding/Logo: white URL which is also their logoRated on:
Aesthetics: contoured design is cool 4/5
Mechanics: nice - 4/5
Ink quality: standard ballpoint - 3/5
Spinnability: great - 5/5
Overall: 4
adMarketplace
The adMarketplace Exchange has delivered performance and volume for over 100,000 Pay Per Click advertisers since 2003. adMarketplace is the leading one-stop shop for online marketers to drive performance-optimized PPC traffic from approximately 250 million searches every day.
Body: slim, clear plastic with green plastic clip
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: no
Branding/Logo: green printed logoRated on:
Aesthetics: logo is difficult to read - 1/5
Mechanics: it’s really just a Bic - 2/5
Ink quality: feels kind of scratchy - 2/5
Spinnability: possible but not fun - 2/5
Overall: 1.75
Didit
With award-winning expertise in auctioned media management and targeted online advertising, Didit has been leading the evolution of online marketing with its blend of technology, intelligence, and passion since 1996. Through its multi-disciplinary methodology, Didit combines top-tier SEM strategy, highly sophisticated analytics and modeling, and best-of-breed technology to produce unmatched SEM results for clients across all major verticals.
Body: Shiny, dark green with gold details and wiry clip
Ink color: Black
Click or Cap: Twist
Grippy: contoured, smooth green rubber
Branding/Logo: small gold logoRated on:
Aesthetics: very classy - 4/5
Mechanics: twist is awkward in practice - 3/5
Ink quality: dry at first, otherwise un - 3/5
Spinnability: uniquely impossible - 0/5
Overall: 2.5
Interwoven
Interwoven is a global leader in content management solutions. Interwoven’s software and services enable organizations to effectively leverage content to drive business growth by improving the customer experience, increasing collaboration, and streamlining business processes.
Body: amazing rocket shape with blue liquid body and glowing red light
Ink color: black - very small well, won’t last long
Click or Cap: small rubbery cap, will get lost easily
Grippy: no
Branding/Logo: white printed logo, no URLRated on:
Aesthetics: skews the standard - 5/5
Mechanics: cap will get lost, but light is coool - 4/5
Ink quality: nothing spiffy - 2/5
Spinnability: not a chance - 0/5
Overall: 3.75
Marchex
Marchex is a local online advertising company and leading publisher of local content. Marchex’s innovative advertising platform delivers search- and call-based marketing products and services for local and national advertisers. Marchex’s local content network, one of the largest online, helps consumers make better, more informed local decisions through its network of content-rich websites that reach tens of millions of unique visitors each month.
Body: Flat black plastic rollerball with metal clip.
Ink: Water-soluble cool Black
Click or Cap: Cap
Grippy: No
Branding/Logo: White text, no URLRated on:
Aesthetics: stylish and simple - 4/5
Mechanics: no moving parts - 4/5
Ink quality: Rollerball flows smoothly, I like it - 5/5
Spinnability: kind of light - 3/5
Overall: 4
Marin Software
Founded in April 2006 by experienced search marketers and software experts, Marin Software provides an enterprise-class paid search management application for advertisers and agencies. Combining power and ease-of-use, Marin Search Marketer addresses the workflow, analysis and optimization needs of professional search marketers, saving time and improving financial performance.
Body: gloss black plastic with plastic clip
Ink: Water-soluble neutral Black
Click or Cap: Click
Grippy: Yes, textured black
Branding/Logo: Silver logo with call to action and URLRated on:
Aesthetics: shiny, modern - 4/5
Mechanics: basic click - 3/5
Ink quality: very nice, smooth flow, neutral color - 5/5
Spinnability: very good 5/5
Overall: 4.25
Microsoft adCenter
Microsoft adCenter, part of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, powers the paid search advertising service. Microsoft adCenter improves advertising performance and return on investment by providing a high quality audience and advanced targeting tools, and gives advertisers the right tools to manage and control their campaigns for top performance.
Body: Pearl white metal with black grip and chrome details
Ink: Black
Click or Cap: Twist
Grippy: smooth black
Branding/Logo: simple black text with URL on opposite sideRated on:
Aesthetics: styley - 5/5
Mechanics: twist is awkward - 3/5
Ink quality: unexciting - 2/5
Spinnability: too much weight at the back - 2/5
Overall: 3
MobileStorm
mobileStorm powers your business with digital marketing solutions that reach people how they want to be reached — and makes you more money. Our customers love the Stun platform — advanced marketing technologies and many ways to reach their prospects with SMS, e-mail, fax, voice, RSS — even video messaging.
Body: Purple plastic with metal clip, chrome detal and black grip
Ink: Black
Click or Cap: Click
Grippy: smooth rubber with chrome banding
Branding/Logo: small white logoRated on:
Aesthetics: busy - 2/5
Mechanics: nice springy click - 4/5
Ink quality: pretty standard ballpoint - 3/5
Spinnability: a little off balance - 3/5
Overall: 3
Offshoring.com
Offshoring is the practice of relocating business processes to another country as a means to decrease staff costs while increasing productivity. At Offshoring.com, we specialize in providing companies with dedicated personnel in a wide area of fields, including IT services, contact centers, and backend business processing.
Body: Forest green plastic with chrome and black detail
Ink color: Black
Click or Cap: Click
Grippy: Textured rubber
Branding/Logo: white logo and taglineRated on:
Aesthetics: nice color, clearly swag - 3/5
Mechanics: click button is almost pointy - 2/5
Ink quality: standard - 3/5
Spinnability: way too lightweight - 2/5
Overall: 2.5
Omniture
Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline, and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture’s software, which it hosts and delivers to its customers as an on-demand subscription service, enables customers to capture, store, and analyze information generated by their websites and other sources and to gain critical business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes.
Body: contoured silver with black grip and metal wire clip
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: twist
Grippy: contoured black rubber
Branding/Logo: logoRated on:
Aesthetics: very space age - 4/5
Mechanics: twist is odd, nib is wobbly - 2/5
Ink quality: nothing to write home about - 3/5
Spinnability: possible but not easy - 2/5
Overall: 2.75
Sedo
Sedo is the global marketplace for buying and selling domain names and websites with offices in the US, Germany and London. Sedo offers our users all the tools needed to buy and sell domains among a community of users stretching around the world, including domain appraisals, brokerage services, promotion and last, but not least, Sedo’s popular domain parking program.
Body: purple with white grip and silver
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: white textured rubber
Branding/Logo: silver logoRated on:
Aesthetics: contoured design is clearly from the same supplier as the adgooroo pen, but still cool - 4/5
Mechanics: looser than the adgooroo one - 3/5
Ink quality: took some real effort to get working - 1/5
Spinnability: great - 5/5
Overall: 3.25
SendTec
SendTec is the premier customer acquisition ad agency with expertise in multi-channel integrated direct marketing, both online and offline.
Body: white metal with black grip and chrome clip and details
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: smooth black rubber
Branding/Logo: logo and tagline, heavily printed so you can feel itRated on:
Aesthetics: pretty classy for swag - 4/5
Mechanics: nice click and feel - 4/5
Ink quality: standard - 3/5
Spinnability: good - 4/5
Overall: 3.75
The Search Agency
The Search Agency helps businesses develop effective online marketing strategies and improve their Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization results.
Body: clear orange plastic with white grip and chromed plastic clip
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: white textured rubber
Branding/Logo: white printed logoRated on:
Aesthetics: orange is an acquired taste - 3/5
Mechanics: nice click - 4/5
Ink quality: very dry - 2/5
Spinnability: so-so - 2/5
Overall: 2.75
Yellowpages.com
“Need something?” For more than 125 years, consumers have trusted the Yellow Pages to deliver comprehensive information on local businesses. And today, wherever, however, and whenever they “need something” local, they use YellowPages.com.
Body: bright yellow shiny plastic with black details
Ink color: black
Click or Cap: click
Grippy: flashy black rubber racing stripes
Branding/Logo: black printed URL/logoRated on:
Aesthetics: distinctive - 4/5
Mechanics: strong spring, very solid - 4/5
Ink quality: sadly standard - 3/5
Spinnability: actually very good - 4/5
Overall: 3.75
On averages alone, the Marin Software pen wins, and that or the Marchex are likely to be in my pocket for a long time…though the Interwoven Rocket is easily one of the ‘must haves’ from this show. I am surprised to note that there is not a single blue ink pen in the bunch.
What does it all mean? Nothing, I’m sure, this was a lark that gave me an excuse to go check out the vendors. But if I’ve helped just one person have a better writing experience this week, then my work here is done. For now.
All company descriptions lifted from the exhibitor listings at the SES NY website; all other opinions are my own and should in no way be taken as reflective of the quality of the services or software provided by the merchants or of their respective marketing departments.
Posted in SES, conferences, geek, links, swag | No Comments »
March 18th, 2008 Jason
Official pitch:
Search result multiplicity is not a new phenomenon, but recent advancements will guarantee the world of search and marketing will be changing forever. Before you attend this week’s optimization and best practices sessions, hear from industry gurus about how search, marketing and information seeking is changing the industry that follows the search. Our ongoing series on universal search will include research data available only at SES.
I almost didn’t go to this, and in fact showed up a bit late, but in the middle of a day of sort of uninspiring sessions, this genuine conversation in panel format ended up making me glad I went.
As I walked in, comScore’s James Lamberti was discussing a very interesting graph they’d built. Their research into universal search results showed a direct correlation between type of search result and clickthrough rate. In their model, if “no universal results” provided a 100% clickthrough rate, including video results showed a slight decrease to (I think) 98%. As more types of results came into play (images, maps, and so on), the clickthrough rate continued dropping, and result sets including “news” or “stock quotes” were showing less than 50% clickthrough.
Predictably, the Google rep-du-jour (Jack Menzel) then got raked over the coals for the rest of the session and spent a lot of time denying that they’d changed their business model. If they were intentionally providing information which did not lead people to click off the page, aren’t they then becoming a portal site? How are they going to monetize this, and how will that affect the downstream sites ability to monetize themselves?
Lamberti commented that the future value in search results will be not in the click, but in what is being displayed in the results. If people are clicking less, then it’s all the more important to be showing them something of value in the window of opportunity you have. The follow on question I have is a practical one: how do you measure this? Right now, universal results are showing for a small percentage of search traffic, but I have no idea if my sites are showing as part of an integrated SERP or not. I can’t get impression data for organic results, now, can I? No, I cannot.
The other Big Issue that put Jack on the hotseat was the fact that Google owns space in many of the channels now listing in the universal search results, and it’s hard to believe that there is no bias. YouTube has the most traffic and the most videos, but does that mean they have the best video for a particular result set? No. But the perception is that YouTube gets preference because Google owns it. Is it true? Jack insisted not.
Of course, with a G-man on the stage, the conversation was bound to focus there, but clearly Yahoo! and Ask and everyone else are taking their result sets in this direction as well, and in the theoretical or “big picture” view, the questions directed at Jack are going to be relevant to all. The final takeaway comments from the panelists were worth summing up, as they really seemed to encapsulate some very key bits of the future of search:
All in all, quite a provoking conversation, one which offered no solutions or tips and tricks, but addressed some hard questions and I think left everyone in the room with a lot to consider.
Posted in Ask, Google, SES, Yahoo, conferences, seo | No Comments »
March 18th, 2008 Jason
Official pitch:
How can you translate analytics data into meaningful, actionable, recommendations for improvement of an SEO strategy? The focus is on ACTION.
Matt Bailey opened with an excellent presentation arguing that the traffic stats by which we live and die are nothing if we’re not actually doing the analysis to put them in context. If, as he says, we simply report the numbers, we then spend the rest of the month justifying them; analysis provides the ability to identify actionable changes, backed by the data, and drive progress.
Using his brilliant example of the Red Shirt Phenomenon in Star Trek (also summed up on the aimClear blog), the backbone of the presentation emphasized the importance of segmenting your data to get a clear view of what the numbers really mean. Since he’s got the whole thing out there on the blog I’ll not go into all the details, but here’s his summary:
Of the elements that helped to provide this analysis, segmentation was key. Segmentation of groups allows for comparisons. Comparisons allow you to spot trends that by be different from the rest. Asking questions of the data allows you to dig into specific trends and spot additional factors that have affects the original analysis. Unless we dug into Kirk’s personal life, we may never have spotted the contrast of Kirk’s attraction to alien females as it related to saving red-shirt crewmen’s lives.
This definitely had me thinking about how we’re currently slicing and dicing in WebTrends. We’re generally measuring visits to conversions, and are of course segmenting by search term and referrer, but I think there’s far more we can be doing. Matt drove home the idea that as well as benchmarking vs. our competitor traffic information, if we aren’t fully looking at how our users are using our own site, we’re missing opportunities. This will be prompting some further research when I’m back in the office.
Steve Keller followed up with his look at how he shifted his PPC campaigns from a CPC model to what he called ROAS - Return on Ad Spend. By adjusting both their method of estimating customer value and how their bid management partner used analytics data they provided, they were able to deliver much better traffic, focused to the right version of their product, and improved their returns significantly. Admittedly, since I’m not doing paid search at all, this left me a little dry, but it did make me want to refresh on just how we’re defining ROI on our organic traffic.
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March 12th, 2008 Jason
I’ll be on the ground in NYC in 4 very short days for SES. Looking forward to it, to be sure, but not feeling remotely caught up enough at work to be away for the week. So it goes.
I have spent just a little bit of time looking through the actual session schedule, but I’m not likely to be really putting brainpower towards that until I’m there, awake and bored at oh-god-o-clock because of the jetlag.
I’ve certainly been giving some thought to Todd (Stuntdubl)’s SEO conference tips again, as well as his more recent tips on how to be a conference douchbag. I don’t think I fared too badly at PubCon, so should be safe again. Though this time, I’m glad to say, I’ll have business cards.
Packing? Hah. I have been doing the proper planning this evening, looking up the latest recommendations on the best pizza in New York, scoping out Broadway shows and perusing the official SES NY party and events schedule. St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl? Hell yeah. See you there.
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February 20th, 2008 Jason
I am not going to SES London this week, but I will be going to the post-con party organized by LondonSEO.
I am not going in part because, thanks to the exchange rate and hotel expenses, it costs about as much to go to SES New York next month, so I’m doing that instead. I lose the European focus, but gain the larger event. So, see you there.
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December 4th, 2007 Jason
Day one at PubCon and I’m already feeling the full weight of not having cards ready before the trip. Sure, I can blame work for being slow about getting them processed - I’m sure they’ll be sitting on my desk when I get back - but it’s my bad for not having something to pass around, and it means the onus is fully on me to keep up with people I meet here.
Meanwhile, I’ve been practicing various reasons for not having one available:
Come to think of it, the bluetooth thing isn’t a bad idea…
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