My final session of the day and the conference was “Online Video for Conversions, Engagement and Reach.” When I got to the room about ten minutes early it was already packed, and continued to fill up as the speakers got started. This is obviously a hot topic! The panel was made up of Michael Behrens, VP eMarketing of WebMetro, and two of his clients, Jim Buffington, president of Career Networks Institute (a vocational college) and Philip Krim, founder of Merrick Group (an online retailer offering high-end mattresses through AngelBeds).

Michael started off the presentation with some fast facts about online videos:

• 63% of Americans have broadband
• 158 million U.S. users watched video in July 2009
• 21.4 billion videos viewed
• 62% watch video on video sharing sites
• 25% of Google searches in U.S. return video results

He then prefaced his section with this statement: “We’re not going to talk about getting on YouTube.” Essentially, to be successful, videos don’t need super high production value or be summer blockbusters. He said that the session would look at videos from the point of view of a direct marketer (good thing, considering the show we’re at!) and show how to attendees might improve quality of customer engagement, lower cost of acquiring a customer, increase onsite conversions, improve overall ROI and capture visitors with a brand personality.

Michael explained why videos are so powerful: enable rich, non-linear, interactive storytelling; boost perceived value; enhance credibility; increase site’s stickiness; communicate value proposition more quickly; and, of course, generate leads/sales. He also claimed that fewer than one-third of online retailers offer video, so the opportunities are huge, especially right now.

To explain the AngelBeds video program, Michael and Philip tag-teamed through the slides. Michael explained how they start each program with analytics, then focus on three elements: site paths, fallout and page value (the most valuable/profitable page are deepest in the funnel). The following are the key elements of an eCommerce buy funnel:

1. establish site credibility
2. establish company credibility
3. establish product value
4. establish service/support value
5. establish guarantee/warranty value
6. establish transactional trust

[this was for AngelBeds, but you these elements can be tweaked to fit any initiatives]

The video focused on establishing credibility, highlighting low price and providing tangible benefits (especially important when selling bed online, where customers are not able to actually touch and lay on them before purchasing). They used pleasing images and customer testimonials. Due to this simple yet effective online commercial, AngelBeds increased conversion rates 11% in first month alone.

Michael then moved on to the video program for Jim and Career Networks Institute (CNI). The main challenge they wanted to address was the drop in ranking due to some aggregators–CNI became lost in a list of other schools on these aggregator sites. They just became a logo with no mention of what make CNI unique. Other challenges included numerous competitors, geo-targeting (the school is based in Orange County), quickly communicating benefits and giving the school a real personality.

CNI has seven different school programs, so they decided to segment the campaign and create seven different videos. They created a sort of virtual campus tour and placed it in the headers of their site. Results for the video were: conversion rate increased 28%; phone leads increased 145%; students were brought closer to enrollment; and CNI was given a competitive edge.

This was one of the better sessions, but I still felt like I didn’t receive a good deal of actionable advice. Initially, the topic sounded like it could be extremely enlightening and beneficial, but none of the info was groundbreaking. I understand that everyone enjoys case studies, and I definitely need examples every now and then to truly understand some concepts, but I feel there were way too many case studies throughout all of the sessions. I was hoping for some insider tips and tricks to bring home, share with the team and leverage for our clients. But I did not feel that I learned much that we don’t already know.

This topic is very relevant for our clients and for my own internal social media efforts, so I was extremely interested in discovering some innovative ways for measuring social media and placing a value on those initiatives. I’m not convinced that I found any of those new techniques or tools, but I’ll recount some highlights before I provide any opinions.

Rob Howard, founder and CTO of Telligent, kicked off the session. He gave a brief overview of himself and his company (Telligent developed enterprise collaboration and community software that “helps businesses transform info into knowledge and actionable data”). Rob intimated the three most important steps for social analytics are listening, engaging and measuring.

When listening, you must monitor key discussions and note their sources, any volatile and active topics and user sentiment. He stressed engagement over simple page views; by evaluating user engagement through web analytics (noting where users spend their time) you can create better experiences and thus increase sales.

Rob used the National Breast Cancer Foundation as an example. He explained how they use Twitter, LinkedIn and other social sites as an entry point. They engage with users on these social sites, then bring then bring them into the Breast Cancer Institute site and the social communities there. He also noted how they pinpoint those users having a particularly hard time in coping with their cancer, then reach out to them online and provide support.

Richard Margetic of Dell was up next with a section subtitled “Growing Social.” Richard discussed Dell’s use of social media and recounted some great stats from their initiatives:

• 63% increase in time spent in member communities
• 566% increase in time spent on Facebook (Richard showed the number of Facebook users worldwide. I can’t remember the exact figure, but I do remember him saying it’s more than the population of Indonesia, essentially making Facebook the 4th largest country in the world! Crazy!)
• 4,000-5,000 conversations about Dell online everyday; they use social monitoring as an early alert system; Dell can now can respond two to three weeks earlier than before
• 50% negative sentiment found in 2006; that dropped 60% after Dell started getting more involved
• Dell measures just under 100 KPIs for social media

Richard stressed that measuring social media’s value depends on two things: objective and tools. He recommended defining your KPIs and objectives first and selecting tools/outlets way, way before launching social media. He discussed three types of outlets used by Dell: company owned properties (e.g., IdeaStorm), company run properties (e.g., 39 official Dell Twitter accounts, Facebook, etc.) and third-party properties (other Facebook pages, blogs, etc.).

Richard stated that the most effective social media tactics are often the hardest to measure. He implored that the audience “broaden your definition of ROI” to truly understand the value of social media.

Renee Jordan was up last. She does social media for Taste of Home, the world’s largest cooking magazine. Taste of Home was founded on user-generated content even before it went online. At first all recipes were mailed in, tested in Milwaukee then added to the magazine if they were good.

Renee laid out five steps to social media:

1. Establish strategy
2. Set goals
3. Create community policy
4. Define measurements
5. Execute, evaluate and build learning, or what she referred to as the “rinse and repeat” step

Renee provided a list of ten guidelines for community management. Most of them were somewhat second nature–be transparent, be honest, encourage product feedback–but there were a few gems that stuck out:

• Don’t force the formation of the community, it takes time
• Become the Alpha Dog — as a company representative, you must guide the groups and topics to fit brand-relevant topics, and yank the lease if the topics stray too far
• Advocate social media internally and encourage staff from every department to get involved
• Expect the unexpected and prepare to be surprised, even alarmed

Renee wrapped up her section by sharing some amazing metrics she’s see with Taste of Home and explained that attendees could get an idea of what they could/should track by these stats:

• 22% increase in searches for Taste of Home in search engines over past year
• 23 days per month is average number that people visit the site and participate online
• 1,103,500 posts on site since launch of new community functionality (18 mo.)
• 5x better response rate for tell-a-friend recipients
• $45,000 est. lifetime revenue value of one recipe generated by user (you read that right, one (1) recipe! that’s super impressive!)

Rob took a few moments at the end to push the main takeaway: there isn’t one clear metric yet. That said, measurement and analytics is the key; you’re only burning your company’s money with social media investments unless you have clear metrics.

The panelists did a fine job and provided some very important information, but I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in the knowledge level and I feel the title was somewhat misleading. I was expecting in-depth insights into tracking social media with analytics–new metrics that I never thought to track and innovative technologies. Instead, I got bigger picture metrics and basic, albeit interesting, case studies. I don’t feel that I walked away with any actionable data. In fact, this is the second session that made me fell underwhelmed. And the session I attended yesterday afternoon was a little too in-depth for my level. I need to find a happy medium between the two. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for this afternoon’s session. Stay tuned.

The next session I attended was in the Online Optimization track titled, “Behaviorgraphics: A New Approach to Online & Offline Analytics.” The speaker was Frederick Barber, COO of Directive Corporation. I thought this was an extremely interesting topic, but have to admit that much of it was over my head. When he started really getting into the nitty-gritty of analytics and data aggregations, my eyes glossed over, but I was still able to take some good notes.

I was trying to get a blog posted before starting another, so I was again a little late to this session. I walked in as Barber was talking about the process for behaviorgraphics. The following are the steps he mentioned:

1. Business Understanding
2. Data Preparation
3. Behaviorgraphic Modeling – predictive analytics; association analysis (use event trees)
4. Value Prediction — correlate behavioral segments to spend, purchase frequency and profitability; calculate (i.e., arbitrarily come up with) value for each; I see this much like placing a value on social media and leads; it may be arbitrary but it’s still meaningful

Essentially, what I got out of Barber’s presentation is that behaviorgraphics is all about making correlations. Much of it is assumptive, but can be extremely powerful if backed up by real data.

Text mining from blogs and product posting boards is one effective way to get this data. Measure count of posting events and categorize content into positive or negative and specific subject areas. He also mentioned this can be used in call centers: behavioral data can be summarized from customer service calls.

On to the Q & A section:

The first question was about people that clear cookies. The audience member asked how they deal with this and if there is a way around it. Barber stated that only about 90% of people actually clear them, so he has not really found it to be an issue.

Another attendee asked about using different computers (e.g., work, laptop, blackberry) and how they deal with this variation. Barber said they treat this information the same; you can assume the person using these different devices still has the same personality, so all data is useful.

Another person asked about combining grocery checkout data with online behavior. Barber said this is possible for not only grocery purchases, but retail and pharmacy as well. He said their are privacy restrictions and you cannot just go out and buy this list, but it is being done by some.

He went on to say that, for the most part, you can’t use credit card data. One exception is a major home improvement company (he didn’t say which, but you have a 50/50 chance of guessing which one). This company collects data using credit cards, but only when they get personal info at same time. They then track every single transaction when they see your card come through the store again. He didn’t say what they do with the data, but it’s an interesting fact. He also said that there’s a 40-45% unique match rate between last name and zip code when asked at retail purchase. Again, he didn’t state what this is used for, but it was interesting (if not somewhat frightening) statistics.

Another attendee (our very own Alex Porter, he insisted I give him credit!) asked about integration with Google Analytics and if it’s possible. Barber emphatically said yes. In fact, he stated, “GA is an open sandbox, you can build whatever you want.”

That’s it for the DMA09 sessions today. I’ll be back with more recaps tomorrow. There’s a social media session bright and early. I’ll try to make it but now, it’s happy hour so we shall see.

I arrived in San Diego for DMA09 this morning just moments before the show started. Luckily, our hotel is right next to the conference center. Still, I was glowing after the two minute walk to the center. The wet, buttery sea-level air is too much for this Denver girl. I’ll just have to grin and bear it for the next few days–or just hide out in the air conditioning the whole time, which is my preference.

I b-lined it to our booth to greet our team already there, then headed off to my first session: “The Rise of Universal Search.”

I wanted to attend this session to see what the direct marketing community–a group that we clearly identify with because of the direct response nature of search, but one that has not always shared our fascination with online marketing–was doing with search marketing. Most of the shows we attend are specifically search or at least online marketing focused. So I was curious to see how advanced these sessions were, and thus how advanced the DM community is as a whole.

As I said, I missed the first half of the session, so I can’t speak to the entire panel, but I noticed that the level seemed to be intermediate at most. This was especially apparent during the Q & A section at the end when all talk focused on keyword selection advice. But I did catch a few snippets of knowledge from the last two speakers:

Unfortunately, I did not get the woman’s name, but the first thing I heard from her was a perfect one-liner: “Rankings don’t mean revenue.” This is a great piece of advice and something we intimate to all of our clients. Moving up in the positions is fabulous to see, and typically means more traffic, but it doesn’t guarantee sales. You must take steps on your actual website to ensure that you are getting sales (e.g., clear paths to conversion, motivational calls to action, etc.). You need to be aware, and be okay with the fact, that SEO is a long process.

She also touched on branded vs. non-branded keywords; most sales come from branded keywords, but you should understand how general, non-branded terms are adding to your sales. Don’t discredit these terms.

These are a few of her fav-orite tools: SpyFu; Wordle (she uses it for blogs and competitor sites to get a visual representation of the main words); Thumbshots.com (for search engine comparisons); Touchgraph.com (networking/relationship tool); YSlow (site performance), Aardvark (quick view of CSS and tags on a page); and all Firefox SEO plug-ins.

Next up was David Lloyd, search marketing manager for Cisco, Inc. David started out discussing some case studies for work done for Cisco. He mentioned a YouTube video they pushed out, and highlighted the two places you can put links: in the video descriptions section, and in the actual video.

When it comes to finding the best keywords, David stressed that you need to find the “sweet spot” (or what one audience member later called the “Golden Triangle”) between the three Ds–demand, distinction and delivery.

As I mentioned before, the Q & A section focused mostly on keywords and how to select the best ones. Each of the panelists stressed the need for relevant keywords, and that they are “the number one thing you must do right.” A very true statement, but if you select the proper keywords then simply bid on them and optimize site structure once, you’ll never be successful.

I did, however, enjoy one of the last statement made: “Unbranded keywords are the point of market entry; branded keywords are the sale.”

I’ll be posting recaps or reviews of others sessions, so be sure to check back often or subscribe. And follow us on Twitter (@Location3) for more updates and random thoughts.

This is a Wordle of this blog post. Note the size of "keywords."

Updated on October 22, 2009 with links to tools and speakers.

The first boco conference was held this past Friday in Boulder, Colorado. Organized by Andrew Hyde, this conference was being touted as a mini SXSW. While I have never been to SXSW and, therefore, cannot make an accurate correlation, I see great potential in boco. With all the amazing and brilliant talent on the Front Range, there is no doubt in my mind that this could be huge.

Why tech, music and food?, you might be asking. These three things might seem extremely separate, but they’re not at all. Or at least shouldn’t be. By using technology to influence food and music, we can not only improve the consumer’s experience, we can help reduce the carbon footprint treaded by these industries. And Boulder/Denver is an ideal place to get it started. This area is, as many people know, extremely environmentally conscious. What you may not know is that the music and art scenes are phenomenal, and talented and driven techies are popping up all over the place. I believe we’re in a great place to show the rest of the country that you don’t need a coastline to be innovative. In fact, the fresh mountain air might just be better suited to feed these ideas.

The first group of sessions was called, Food and Music Inspire. Rachel Weidinger kicked off the day talking about Handheld Awesome Detectors. She married food and tech by discussing iPhone apps that tell you where to find the freshest, healthiest and most eco-friendly products. The app she mentioned that interested me most was Good Guide. It rates foods by safety, health and “greenness.” If you’re standing in front of the beverage cooler at the grocery store trying to decide on a drink, you may reach for a bottle of OJ. This is the best choice because it’s made of 100% fruit juice, you think. But is it truly the best choice overall? Where was it produced and how was it packaged? If it came from a location that took weeks to transport, it can be more damaging to the environment. A more locally-produced drink that is healthy for your body and was bottled in an environmentally-friendly facility produces a smaller carbon footprint and is truly the better choice. Good Guide helps you make this educated decision. Spawned as much from her personality as her knowledge of tech and food, Rachel’s presentation broke free of the dull PowerPoints we all know too well. Later, while waiting in the restroom queue, I watched Rachel put a sticky note on the wall that read, “Ladies of boco, I’m glad you’re here.” Thank you, Rachel. We were psyched to be there and glad you were there, too!

Next up was Mark Menagh, speaking on Organic vs. Locavore. Mark discussed how organic does not mean that a product was simply grow in your backyard. Organic foods come from a rather new science that requires a great deal of technical savvy to create. Just because you picked a tomato from your neighbor’s garden does not mean it isn’t covered in chemicals. In fact, it is extremely difficult to grow organic produce. Therefore, the tomato is most likely shrouded in all kinds of unhealthy and unnatural molecular chains. Mark pushed the audience to rethink their ideas or organic and support the industry to help inspire new technologies that make organic foods simpler to produce, or at least more common.

The two best sessions of the day, in my humble opinion, were by Rick Levine and Amber Case. Rick is a techie turned author (The Cluetrain Manifesto) turned chocolatier (Seth Ellis Chocolatier). He discussed chocolate and how it relates to ideas put forth in The Cluetrain Manifesto, a book which discusses how businesses operating within a newly connected marketplace should act. While nearly ten years old, the ideas in the book still hold true in our internet society, and may be even more pertinent with the rise of social media. The main thesis of the book is that markets are conversations, a constant that has been around since ancient marketplaces and is still strong, albeit very different, today. Rick’s presentation was a delicious concoction of marketing, technology and food science, with a dash of humor. And then he tossed out delightful Sun Cups—a completely nut-free, gluten-free snack that tasted like a peanut butter cup and came in a compostable wrapper.

Amber Case is a self-titled cyborg anthropologist. Huh? What that means is she studies human computer interactions and how technology affects the way in which we communication with each other. Amber was animated, interesting and gave an insightful presentation that is still lingering in my mind. One point she made with really stuck with me was that the hammers we use today still resemble—look exactly like, in fact—tools make by troglodytes millions of years ago. Yet, the laptops we carry around today look nothing like the first nearly warehouse-sized computers made only 50 or so years ago. We are evolving at an exceptional rate—what is that doing to our social selves? Amber is a tech fanatic, yet views our advancing reliance on it with a mindful eye. We all may be cyborgs, but Amber made it clear she is no drone.

There were tons of other fabulous sessions by smart, introspective and motivated individuals (few shout outs: Dan Kohler, Seth Haber from Trek Light Gear, Ingrid Alongi, Grant Blakeman, Justin Perkins from Olomomo Nut Company, Scott Andreas) and a beautiful, chill-inducing performance by The Autumn Film (if you haven’t heard them, I strongly suggest you download (for free!) a few songs from their site and I knowingly challenge you not to get choked up).

I really enjoyed how the boco sessions were scheduled—you didn’t have to choose between a bunch of topics, you got a little taste of everything and then went to break out sessions on a variety of topics.

I’m thrilled to have attended the first (annual, hopefully!) boco and look forward to getting more involved in years to come. It’s Rocky Mountain High-time Colorado broke free of the Crocs-sporting, granola-munching, “dude”-spouting stereotype and claimed our position as the burgeoning cultural and tech hotspot that we truly are.

You’ve heard the terms tossed around when discussing SEO tactics, one with a positive connotation and one with a negative. Naturally, white hat is the angelic one, describing SEO techniques that are viewed as ethical by the search engines and thus awarded long-term ranking. Menacing black hat SEO uses less acceptable, and some might argue, shady tactics to get a page to pop to the top of listings in a very short period of time.

Black Hat / White Hat SEO panelists (left to right): Andrew Beckman, Scott Polk, Frank Watson, Dave Snyder, Daron Babin

The black hat/white hat SEO session took place at the Affiliate Conference in our fair city of Denver last week. And our very own Andrew Beckman spoke on the panel, along with Scott Polk of Bruce Clay, Frank Watson (Kangamurra Media) and Dave Snyder (Search & Social). Moderators Daron Babin (Webmaster Radio co-founder and one of the major forces behind the conference) and Marc Lesnick (AffEuro) assigned each panelists a color. Andrew was crowned with a white hat, Scott was a hazy gray, Dave was charcoal and Frank was jet black. Each panelist was asked to play that part, regardless of how angelic or menacing they practice SEO in real life.

As you can imagine in a panel of this stature, guys who have been doing this since the dawn of SEO times, the discussion was animated, entertaining, somewhat scandalous at times and incredibly informative throughout. I didn’t have my laptop so I was furiously scribbling one liner after one lifer from all panelists. I hope that I give proper credit to what each panelist said and accurately portray the role they were playing; my apologies if I miss assign any lines.

First, Daron and Dave explained that black hat, while definitely not the moral high ground, is not illegal. Black hat is simply another way to automate a time-consuming process, something we are definitely not opposed to in other areas of marketing and life in general. Additionally, Daron explained how black hat is actually helping the engines fine tune results and provide a better service for users—black hat tactics reveal weaknesses and holes in the algorithms that the search engines can later fix. In fact, it’s common practice for all engines to invite black hats in to kick around the algos to locate these holes.

Dave went on the state that even though the engines claim you get quality links by creating great content, putting it out there and waiting for others to link to it, it doesn’t really work that way—sometimes, he stated, you have to get dirty. And Scott exposed a hard truth—certain verticals, such as gambling, pharma, adult and some financial industries, must use black hat tactics because the competition is so stiff.

Andrew Beckman

Andrew chimed in with his white hat advice; you must plan ahead—6 to 8 months, at least—for terms you want to rank on. Consider future sales, promos and/or product rollouts and build out an SEO strategy well in advance. He claimed that you cannot rank on single term phrases in a short time period—long-term is the way to go since the competition is less and traffic is typically more qualified.

The other panelists disagreed, stating that there are numerous ways to pop on a single term, but they should be used with caution. All panelists agreed that black hats may see success quickly, but that it is fleeting. Daron stated that aggressive black hats will self implode in about three to eight weeks and others piped in that you could even get your domain banned for good if caught. And since all link building is technically against the rules, getting caught is highly probable. Marc explained how many SEO pros will start off black hat for an initial pop, then turn white hat for longevity.

SEO warfare was a hot topic—“borrowing” competitors ranking and what to do in case someone snags your search results. Daron boldly stated that if you are not getting beat up, you’re not playing in a competitive enough area and that he welcomes these battles. But all agreed that you have to choose these battles because you certainly don’t want lawyers from huge corporations knocking at your door, trying to shut down your business and seize your house, which is a possibility and something these panelists have seen happen before (to others, of course!). However, while Daron agreed that black hat can lead to messy legal situations, he stated that “unless a cease and desist is court ordered, it means nothing.”

Daron when on to explain how he has black hated the hell out of a domain, then 301redirected the links to a client’s site. This removed the risk to the client, and still allowed them to take advantage of quick ranking strategies.

Frank, Scott and Dave talked about reverse engineering links from competitor sites. They discussed using tools to replicate competitor search rankings and applying them to another site. Frank explained one strategy for thwarting competitors—find out who they are trying to get links from, call up the site owner and talk them into linking to your site instead.

Frank also touched on Google Business Center, one service that provides local map listings. He urged all business owners to sign up as it is a simple way to rank on the engines and get exposure without actually using SEO tactics on your site.

Andrew answers a questions from the crowd while (L to R) Daron Babin, Marc Lesnick and Scott Polk listen in.

An audience member asked the panel to talk about podcasts and video. White Hatters Scott and Andrew said they optimize the pages themselves, not necessarily the media files. Daron explained how to ethically optimize podcasts—place a transcription of every word in the ID3 tag. This way it is completely crawlable by the engines and he has never run into duplicate content issues with an actual web page with the transcription because the ID3 tags are viewed differently then web content. And audience member pointed out that this is also ADA compliant, so it can be seen as white hat all the way.

The moral of the story—black hat is not for the faint of heart. Scott stressed that it is all about risk; it can be lots of fun, but you absolutely should not do it for your clients (and even for yourself) if you are not a seasoned veteran that knows exactly what you are doing. Dave emphasized quality over quantity—a handful of credible links are worth more than thousands of shady ones. And if your links are quality white hat, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to be knocked out of rankings by black hat strategies.

Whether they are black hat or white hat in real life, these panelists are certainly old hat at SEO and had some strong opinions and great advice. The session, what Daron summed up as, “Shades of Gray,” was broadcast live on Webmaster Radio. Check out this entertaining and enlightening session here.

I attended my first conference this weekend, SMX Advanced, or the Search Marketing Expo for those of you who are acronym-challenged like I am. As you might expect, the majority of presentations were based around search, such as “Mythbusting PPC Urban Legends,” “Duplicate Content Solutions,” and my favorite title of all “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me – A Broad Match? Exact Match? Negative Match?.” However, with the constantly noisy trend of social media, a few tracks were devoted to mastering the art of corporate twittering and proving the value of social media as well.

The first session I attended was “Keyword Research Artistry,” an in-depth look into tools and tactics for developing the most relevant keywords for your search campaign. The first presenter, Christine Churchill (KeyRelevance), had an impressive list of tools she uses, everything from Google Trends and Yahoo! Buzz to Facebook Lexicon and WikiRank. Using these social media tracking tools is a great way to determine what words are being used by the online community today, which when combined with search volume and positioning tools can give a much more robust keyword picture.

So considering my position as both a Social Media and SEO Account Manager, I figured what better presentation to hear than that on “Twitter Tactics and Search Marketing.” I certainly found this session useful, especially when Joanna Lord (TheOnlineBeat) gave us her extensive list of Twitter tools at an alarmingly fast pace (she even used a slide to remind her to breathe in the middle). For those of you unfamiliar with the Twitter language, you might get a kick out of some of the names: Tweet Later, Tweetbeep, Tweetmeme, Twit(URL)y, Twibs and TwitterHawk just to name a few.  But seriously, the amount of tools out there for Twitter alone is so over-whelming; it was nice to have someone as experienced in this space as Joanna to recommend those that have been tried and true. Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land) also did a nice job moderating, interspersing a few comedic lines as well as some of his own expertise in this arena.

Getting ready for my presentation - "Proving the Value of Social Media"

After an over-sized lunch (it was buffet-style after all), it was time for Proving the Value of Social Media, presented by yours truly, as well as Tony Adam (Yahoo!), Ben Straley (Meteor Solutions) and Edmund Wong (iCrossing). To be honest, I was a bit on the nervous side for my first conference presentation that I wasn’t entirely able to retain information from the other presentations. However, I’ll be recapping my portion in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned!

Answering questions during the Q&A portion of the session. Tony Adam (on my left) looks thrilled with my answer.

One last session of the day, “Beyond the Usual Link Building.” It’s a tough position being at the end of a long day, but once again moderator Danny Sullivan got the crowd going for the 3 panelists Hamlet Batista (RankSense), Arnie Kuenn  (Vertical Measures) and Chris Silver Smith  (KeyRelevance). The panelists had some interesting suggestions on obtaining links such as widgets and contests, as well as some big don’ts when it comes to legitimate link building. This was obviously a topic of interest at the conference, as every seat in the largest hall was full, as were many of the aisles.

Andrew passing me Link Juice (get it, passing the link juice? Ok, maybe I was the only one who thought this was funny)

Before heading off to a much anticipated dinner and reception, it was time for the keynote presentation with Matt Cutts from Google. This was one of the most interesting portions as you might imagine, as people on the floor got to ask Matt questions regarding the infamous Google Algorithm. The most common topic dealt with page rank sculpting, or using no-follows on selected internal links so that the remaining links on the page carried all the weight. Not so, explained Matt. Now while he did not go in to detail as to why that is no longer a useful tactic, he did recommended against using no-follows on any links pointing to pages other than those you sincerely don’t care to rank, as the whole of the link juice does not actually get dispersed to the remaining links. Good news for those who were about to spend a good amount of time on this type of strategy, bad for those of us who already did.

All in all, a very successful first conference. I was able to give my first conference presentation without any major mishaps, and I learned a lot more about both search and social media in the process. I  was also given the opportunity to demo some new tools by SEOMOZ before jetting off to the airport, so I’m excited to give those a spin in the real world. Hopefully there will be many more conferences to come (hint hint).

I got a little bit of a late start today and I have to head out early to catch a flight, so I’ll only be doing this one post today. I attended the “Conducting an SEO Audit to Troubleshoot Problems & Tune Up Performance” this morning with Vanessa Fox, Derrick Wheeler and Adam Audette. Unfortunately, I was running out of juice on my battery, so I couldn’t take great notes for a recap. And while I’m usually a huge advocate of pen and paper, I wasn’t up for the furious scribbling that would have been required of all the amazing info they provided. So I decided to sit back and enjoy and try to soak it all in.

Essentially, the panelists offered a number of useful tools for conducting site audits and discussed how to go about “battling the beast” we all know as a large, disorganized website. The nofollow debate came up again, which was another beast mentioned at the You & A with Matt Cutts yesterday evening. It seems this issue could go round and round with little hope of resolution. From a site structure basis, it’s best to block links that you really could care less if the engines rank–shopping cart and other nonessential links. When the debate turns to link juice strategies, that’s where it gets hazy and heated.

We broke for lunch then on to the last session for dear old Angie–“How Much Do I Charge for SEM, Especially Now: Search Agency Pricing Models.” The session was moderated by Chris Elwell of Third Door Media; panelists included Matt Walker (Best Rank), Marty Weintraub (aimClear) and our very own Andrew Beckman. The panelists shared real world experiences and anecdotes about their businesses and the various pricing models that they have used with their companies.

Matt — Matt shared the good and bad that he’s seen develop out of the current recession. Some of the bad includes clients shopping around more and taking longer to pay. On the other hand, he’s found a great deal of talent out there looking for jobs that are willing to work for much less than before. Matt went on to discuss how he made Best Rank’s pricing model more competitive and beneficial for both his agency and the client.

Marty — Marty flippantly read off his official bio from the web, stating that he’s tried to get it off numerous times because he thinks it’s awful. But I disagree–he has an extremely interesting background and it was fun to hear how he went from cover band to search agency owner. Anyway, Marty discussed the campaign model that he’s adopted since the economic times started to get tougher. He strongly advocates shorter contracts, as they ease client jitters and show that you are confident in your abilities.

Andrew — Due to the diverse services offered at Location3, there are numerous pricing models that we employ. They vary for paid search, SEO, social and local search offerings. They vary across clients and verticals; and sometimes they even vary across a single client’s numerous campaigns. Andrew discussed all of the pricing models we’ve used over the years, the ideal campaign for that model and the pros and cons of each.

Andrew discusses the various pricing models utilized at Location3 Media.

All in all, SMX Advanced was a great event. I met a ton of people, soaked up so much info and had a great time. But my brain is full from learning and my fingers are tired from blogging. Now it’s off to the airport and, hopefully, a nice nap on the plane. Check our Facebook page in the next few days for more photos.

Chris Silver Smith, KeyRelevance — Chris started off by saying he wasn’t going to talk about super flashy link building strategies (opposed to his super flashy shirt! great choice, I love it!). Instead, he focused on somewhat more mundane strategies, but ones that really work. Here are a few key points from Chris’s section:

• Get .edu links
• Get links from public domain content — fed and state government, wikimedia commons, Gutenberg
• Get private domain content links — copyrighted works (fair use, of course), Open APIs
• Get links from blog bling (I usually call these things flair, but I think I’m going to start using this from now one. Yea, alliteration!) — create useful widgets and gadgets, badges and ratings

Keep in mind the widget dos:

• provide widget on same site it’s linking to
• create widgets thematically related to site where possible
• provide clear legal terms stating that links are included
• provide layout/color options
• keep branding minimal
• provide easy to instal code
• promote widgets

And widget don’t:

• hide links
• bury mention of links in legalese
• include ads/pop ups

Hamlet Batista, RankSense — Hamlet titled his specific session “Covert Link Building Tactics,” highlighting  his advice to use outside the box approaches. He offered four tactics to get valuable links:

1. Forget the toolbar page rank; now it’s all about the Google cache dates — since the engines only have a limited time to crawl, they must prioritize crawling and ranking; the sites they crawl first and most often are those that are updated more frequently
2. Inform your subscribers (don’t spam)
3. Share interesting video content — don’t overlook that link building is PR/branding effort
4. Include links inside other docs–PDFs, Flash, other media types–these are treated the same and most people don’t think to use them

Arnie Kuenn, Vertical Measures — Always start with a joke. Not everyone can pull off this adage, but Arnie did. Asking the audience how many hated link building, he took a photo of his hot “prospects.” We all had a laugh, then got serious to discuss Arnie’s helpful link building strategies. He named four categories of sources for links:

1. Video — convert PPTs to videos (free or inexpensive); YouTube — make sure you add “http:”
2. Content & Profiles — many free places to create profiles, and many do allow dofollow links
3. Clients & Suppliers — (requesting links) exchange for gift cards, discounts; ask through snail mail letter (it would stand out since no one mails anymore), use the phone (man, this guy’s so old school!); get involved with local/national organization and ask for link
4. Contests & Promos — make prize valuable, something reasonably innovative, set a reasonable time frame, create buzz, optimize every page

That’s it for the recap of day one. Off to Matt Cutt’s keynote and then (finally!) happy hour. Check back tomorrow for more info about sessions.

After a delicious lunch with tons of veggie options (and everyone seemed to be pretty happy about the meat selections, too), I’m back upstairs feeling reinvigorated and ready to absorb as much of the knowledge these SEM gurus can dish out. The next session is “Proving Social Media’s Value,” with our very own Tarla Cummings on the panel. 

Ben Straley, Meteor Solutions — Ben argued that, while necessary, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are not sufficient for links; you must generate (or earn) links from other sources. These earned referrals are a significant source of quality traffic (typically lifting conversion rates 1-5 to 4 x, according to Razorfish). By measuring them, you are able to optimize campaign performance. Also, Ben reminded us of our love for sheep outfitted with LED lights.

Edmund Wong, iCrossing — Edmund focused on forums, both 3rd party ones and ones you might make yourself. He discussed the benefits of forums: significant discussions, high visibility, drive traffic, improve customer service, test new ideas and get feedback, customer retention and shows that you care. Additionally, forums have “lurkers,” users that don’t engage in conversations, but listen and are impacted by the talk. He had some great equations for proving the value of social, but I regret to say that much of it was over my head. Numbers elude me–I’m a word gal and really struggle to grasp mathematical ideas and formulas. He had some great formulas for 

Tarla Cummings, Location3 Media — Tarla set the stage for her session with the example of a luxury hotel and discussed how she ran and proved the value of this social media campaign. She touted the MOM approach–monitor, outreach, measure.

Monitor — locate negative and positive influencers; gauge their influence

Outreach — reach out to negative and apologize; reach out to evangelists and reward; do promotions through social networks, make it easy for them to pass along to friends

Measure — hard numbers (money in sales, promos redeemed, SMS opt in; soft numbers (new followers, fans, future sales); data (analytics, facebook insights); spend vs. gain

Tony Adam, Yahoo! — Anyone else having deja vu right now? Tony reminds us that we were struggling to prove the value of SEO just a few years ago–it’s the same with social media. Need to push just as hard for social right now. He recommends using case studies along with tons of charts/graphs to help make it clearer and a no-brainer for execs. Here are the top five reasons Tony thinks you should engage in social media:

1. Traffic 
2. Engagement
3. Branding
4. Insights — get feedback about community, from community
5. Protect reputation — use tools and profile to protect brand

Takeaway from Q & A:

Thinking about friendster and other defunct social sites, is any of it worth it? — Naturally, all of the panelists said yes. They all admitted that social sites come and go, and who knows what will be the next big thing. But if you don’t bother with social media, negative conversations can significantly damage your reputation and/or you may miss invaluable (and honest) feedback about your company.