SES Magazine November 2012

Sneak Preview

SES Chicago

November 12–16, 2012

SESConference.com

November 2012

The Basics of B2B Social Networking Creating Solid Business Relationships through LinkedIn page 8

The Synergy Among Social, Search, and Content 1 Performance Display for SEM Marketers 9 Are You Following PPC Best Practices? 15

To register your interest in next year’s event: Sponsorship & Exhibition Opportunities Sales Department 646-755-7255 sales@sesconference.com Attendance 800-955-2719 registration@sesconference.com

SES Chicago 2013 November 4–8

contents

Follow SES at twitter.com/SESConf

cover Story

8

The Basics of B2B Social Networking Creating Solid Business Relationships through LinkedIn Conference Information

3 17

Columns

9

10

Know Your Competitors’ Strategies, Inside and Out Stay One Step Ahead by Learning the Trade Secrets of Your Rivals

12

HOW TO Engage Customers with B2B Video Orabrush Case Study

Sponsors & Exhibitors SAMPLE SESSIONS at SES Chicago

Performance Display for SEM Marketers Combine the Power of Intent, the Scale of Display, and the Effectiveness of Your Well-Designed Creatives

13

rate, Teach, Enforce, and Measure What You, the SEO, Need to Do in Your Website Migration

14

How to Effectively Audit Your Paid Search Accounts Deliver Maximum Performance by Reviewing Your Settings, Account Structure, Ad Copy, and Extensions

15

Are You Following PPC Best Practices?

A Checklist for Successful PPC Campaigns

November 2012

Cover art via Shutterstock

The Synergy among Search, Social, and Content Speaking with iCrossing’s Rob Garner interview by Dawn Cavalieri

H

Don’t miss this session at SES Chicago:

aving an integrated social-search strategy is essential when you’re building a brand and trying to engage your audience. At SES Chicago, Rob Garner, vice president of strategy at iCrossing, will explain how to develop one.

He will be among the speakers at a session on “Activating the Social-Search Dynamic,” scheduled for November 13. He took some time to speak with Dawn Cavalieri, editor of SES Magazine, about his session and about trends in search and social.

Dawn Cavalieri: On what do you plan to focus during the presentation?

Rob Garner: I’m going to urge content marketers and publishers to integrate social media and search in order to build connected brands. I am surprised to find that many marketers still believe that search and social are tactical considerations for publishing effective content, which could not be further from the truth. I will show marketers how search technologies and research can help them find influencers, understand the content tastes of their audience, and even find their audience in the farthest corners of the web. Content marketers will learn how search is strategic

Activating the SocialSearch Dynamic Tuesday, November 13, 2:30-3:30pm Hyatt Regency

photo by Giovanni Gallucci

for optimization and for better measurement of content popularity. In addition, they will discover how social networks are critical to content distribution. Overall, I would like to see attendees become practitioners of all three.

DC: Can you tell us more about your role in search and social?

RG: iCrossing is a full-service interactive agency that builds connected brands for CMOs. Every aspect of our business is continues on page 16

Brands that seek performance from social media must embrace the dynamic between social and search. If search marketing is all about delivering value from consumer intent, social is about delivering value from consumer interest.

Search marketers must understand the dynamic between search and social where interest begets intent, and intent reinforces interest. Rob Garner, VP of strategy at iCrossing, and Bill Mungovan, director of product strategy, advertising solutions, at Adobe, will discuss: •• How to develop an integrated social-search strategy.

•• Key points of crossover.

•• The importance of combined measurement.

•• Client examples from top brands.

Register

staff Matt McGowan MD, North America Mike Grehan Publisher Sharon Morabito Head of Events, Americas Ro Osborne Marketing Director, Americas Program Development Senior Conference ManageR Laura Roth Conference Producer Anna Lee Operations Senior Event Manager Event Manager Customer Service Manager

Kim Kiedaisch Jackie Ortez Charisse Rosales

ClickZ & Search Engine Watch Director, SEW special projects editor Copy Editor Asia Desk Editor

Jonathan Allen Melanie White Caitlin Rossman Adaline Lau

Sales & Marketing Sales Directors

Director, Client Services Marketing Director Marketing Manager Marketing Associate Web Designer Online Operations manager Online Operations associate

Elaine Mershon Elaine Romeo Peter Westerholm JoAnn Simonelli Angela Man Amy Xu Ploy Tangtrakul Rebecca Holz Louise Laberge Aleksey Gershin

Magazine Editor Contributors

Dawn Cavalieri Rob Garner Dax Hamman Jeremy Hull Greg Jarboe Melissa Mackey Josh McCoy Jasmine Sandler Suren Ter-Saakov

Corporate Chief Executive Group Managing Director

Tim Weller James Hanbury

SES: Volume 6, Issue 5 | November 2012 © 2012 Incisive Media plc To subscribe, contribute, or view past issues, visit www.sesconference.com/ses-magazine To advertise, contact sales at sales@sesconference.com or +1 (212) 457-4993.

Comments? Want to unsubscribe? E-mail us at magazine@sesconference.com Incisive Media, U.S. 55 Broad Street, 22nd fl.

New York, NY 10004-2501 tel +1 (646) 736-1888 fax +1 (646) 390-6612

Incisive Media, head office 28-29 Haymarket House London SW1Y 4RX, UK tel +44 (0)20 7316 9609 fax +44 (0)20 7930 2238

about SES Welcome to the Chicago issue of SES Magazine. SES Chicago will consist of five days of unparalleled education in online marketing, including the latest techniques and trends in search, social media, mobile, and email. Avinash Kaushik, digital marketing evangelist at Google, will return to keynote. He will share tips and strategies for marketers in need of a better way to connect with their targeted customers, largely through a shift in marketing mentality to multi-touch attribution.

This issue features a roster of eminent practitioners who will be speaking at the conference. Jasmine Sandler of Agent-cy Online Marketing will offer a pre-keynote workshop on “Maximizing the Effectiveness of LinkedIn to Generate More Qualified Leads Online.” Rob Garner of iCrossing will be among the panelists in the session on “Activating the SocialSearch Dynamic.” Chango’s Dax Hamman will explore the state of the art in PPC, including new ad formats, display, and social.

See pages 17–19 for sample sessions.

To make the most of your time in Chicago, be sure to download the SES Chicago app. The most up-to-date agenda can also be found on the conference website, SESChicago.com.

And don’t forget these upcoming events: •• SES Singapore, November 26–28, Singapore Marriott Hotel (SESSingapore.com) •• SES New Delhi, December 4–5, The Leela Kempinski Gurgaon (SESNewDelhi.com) •• SES London, February 18–21, Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre (SESLondon.com) •• SES New York, March 25–28, New York Marriott Marquis (SESNewYork.com) In addition to the five-day learning environment, there will be many opportunities for informal networking throughout the conference. See you there!

Best regards, Mike Grehan, Chair SES Advisory Board Chair Publisher Incisive Media

Matt McGowan Managing Director, North America Incisive Media

SES Advisory Board

Comprised of both industry thought leaders and real-world practitioners, the SES advisory board brings together top players in the field of interactive media and search. The team works to deliver continually cutting-edge search techniques, more integrated and relevant content, and professional development resources to SES attendees.

Mike Grehan, Chair PUBLISHER SES/Search Engine Watch/ ClickZ

Bryan Eisenberg Bestselling Author bryaneisenberg.com

Jon Myers Head of Account Management Yahoo! UK & Ireland

Jonathan Allen Director SearchEngineWatch

Paul Fegan Head of e-Learning Incisive Media

Lee Odden CEO TopRank Online Marketing

Matthew Bailey President Site Logic Marketing

Andrew Goodman President Page Zero Media

Giovanni Rodriguez Digital and Social Strategy, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Chris Boggs Director, SEO, Rosetta

Bill Hunt President Back Azimuth Consulting

Laura Roth Senior Conference ManageR SES Conference & Expo

Mikel Chertudi Sr. Director, Online & Demand Marketing Adobe

Anne F. Kennedy International Search Strategist Beyond Ink USA

Crispin Sheridan Sr. Director of Search Marketing Strategy SAP

Eddie Choi Managing Director Frontiers Digital

Anna Lee Conference Producer, SES Conference & Expo

sponsors & Download the app or visit SESChicago.com. exhibitors Expo Hall Hours: Tuesday, November 13, 10:00am–6:30pm | Wednesday, November 14, 10:00am–3:00pm

Platinum Sponsor Marin Software Booth 204 www.marinsoftware.com Marin Software provides the world’s leading online advertising management platform for advertisers and agencies to manage their paid search, social media, display advertising, and mobile campaigns. Marin Software’s platform is designed to meet the workflow, reporting, and optimization needs of advertisers and agencies, helping them to save time and improve financial performance.

Silver Sponsors Adchemy www.adchemy.com Adchemy is an advertising technology company that helps advertisers leverage consumer intent to create more effective digital advertising experiences. Adchemy IntentMap™ technology radically simplifies advertisers’ paid search campaigns and improves campaign reach, relevance, and return. Listed by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 50 venture-backed companies in the U.S. in 2010, Adchemy is a rapidly growing Silicon Valley–company backed by Accenture, August Capital, Mayfield Fund, and Microsoft.

Bruce Clay, Inc. Booth 112 www.bruceclay.com Since 1996, http://www.bruceclay.com has been one of the leading search engine optimization destinations. Today, Bruce Clay, Inc. (BCI), provides Internet marketing optimization services worldwide, including SEO, PPC, analytics, SEO Web design, conversion optimization, and social media marketing. Solutions are designed for companies ranging from Fortune 500s to small local business. The company’s global training programs, including the SEOToolSet® training, are renowned for providing thorough SEO/SEM methodologies and practical hands-on tactics for students. With headquarters in Southern California, BCI has offices in Australia, Europe, India, Brazil, and Japan.

eLocal Listing Booth 120 www.elocallisting.com eLocal Listing uses all aspects of new media: search engine optimization, search engine marketing, mobile search, mobile display, social media, local display advertising, and even local TV and radio to drive qualified leads as paid calls to enormous numbers of local businesses. It does this through a combination of technology and process that turns the obscure and hard-to-navigate tools of new media into the easily comprehended phone call without the local business ever having to do more than answer the phone.

eLocal Listing takes advantage of the rapid growth and proliferation of new media, especially mobile media, to join businesses with customers through the phone.

Quantcast Booth 201 www.quantcast.com Quantcast is an audience measurement and targeting company.

The pioneer of direct audience measurement, we start with the industry’s most in-depth understanding of digital audiences to help marketers and publishers buy and sell the most effective targeted advertising and drive conversions through the full funnel. Our products let publishers match their audience to the exact consumers an advertiser wants to reach with impression level targeting. Ranked Fast Company’s #3 Most Innovative Company on the Web and the Overall Winner of AlwaysOn’s Global 250 Top Private Companies, Quantcast is used by the world’s leading advertisers, the top 10 media agencies, and 100+ million web destinations. Launched in 2006, Quantcast is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Founders Fund, Polaris Venture Partners, Revolution Ventures, and Cisco Systems.

SubmitEdge Booth 208 www.submitedge.com Located in the UK, the US, and India, SubmitEdge is one of the largest contextual link building companies in the SEO Industry. We are an ISO 9001-2008 certified company with over 200 in-house employees. Since our production house is in India, we can offer services at affordable prices. SubmitEdge has served over 18,000 customers worldwide since 2006. Our link-building effort has helped our customers achieve their SEO goals to get organic ranking, leading to increases in traffic and sales. SubmitEdge is the brain child of Kush Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. that specialised in SEO, content writing, and web programming.

Exhibitors adSage Booth 202 www.adsage.com adSage is a leading SEM company in Asia. Founded in 2005 and based at Beijing, adSage has multiple branches in the US and China, with over 200 professionals. adSage manages SEM campaigns for over 100 premier advertises in China, including the largest Chinese online bookstore, the largest retail store, the largest financial and insurance institutes, schools, etc. adSage for Search (AFS) is adSage’s flagship product. It provides campaign automation, keyword research and bid optimization across all popular search engines such as Google, Baidu, MSN, and Yahoo!. AFS has unique architecture that combines the benefits from rich client (Excel

sesconference.com • SES 3

sponsors & exhibitors SES Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 front­end) and cloud computing. adSage also provides software services for media companies including Baidu, MSN, Yahoo!, and Facebook as well as a number of SEM agencies in the U.S. and China.

Bing Sponsored Session www.advertising.microsoft.com Search advertising with Bing helps you efficiently reach your next best customer—within your budget and with the support you need to get started and optimized, and measure your results.

Brafton Booth 114 www.brafton.com Brafton is a news content marketing agency. Our full-time journalists write exclusive content to clients’ unique editorial briefs and keyword strategies, and account management teams provide consultancy on brand-appropriate content marketing strategies. Brafton’s SEO-friendly content increases organic search listings, engages social audiences and drives relevant traffic to conversion pages.

ClickZ Academy Booth 203 www.clickz.com ClickZ is the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, research, and reference in the world, online or off-. From search to social, technology to trends, our coverage is expert, exclusive, and in-depth.

Our mission: to help interactive marketers do their jobs better.

The seasoned ClickZ News team serves up smart, original reporting and analysis on the interactive marketing industry and the companies that make it tick. Experts from the trenches provide commentary, opinion, advice, and thought leadership from the leading practitioners in interactive marketing. The ClickZ Stats section is an award-winning source for interactive and Internet research. Facts, figures, research, and data on every facet of the online industry, domestic and worldwide.

ClickZ Academy: ClickZ Academy has been created to help online marketers develop their skills. From e-learning and webinars, to onsite or in-house training, we offer a format to suit your preferred learning style.

Contactology Booth 115 www.contactology.com Contactology is simple, yet scalable, email marketing software.

Marketers love our autoresponders, dynamic list segmentation, and social media integrations that allow you to share and track for better results.

Advanced users trust our API to provide customization and automation. Contact us today to learn why Contactology will be the last email software you’ll ever need.

4 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

Covario Booth 207 www.covario.com Covario is one of the nation’s largest independent providers of SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) agency services and management solutions. The firm was selected

by OMMA as the 2011 Search Agency of the Year. It was one of only nine agencies from more than 100 considered to make the 2011 Forrester Wave of U.S. Search Marketing Agencies. Covario is also the developer of a unique platform for cross-media optimization and attribution analysis, known as the Covario CMO Dashboard™.

Headquartered in San Diego, the firm has about 200 team members worldwide, with additional offices in Chicago, London, Beijing, Tokyo, and Singapore. Covario’s growing customer base includes world leaders in technology, consumer electronics, retail, ecommerce, financial services, media, entertainment, publishing, and consumer packaged goods.

Edgenet, Inc. Booth 119 www.edgenet.com Edgenet creates technologies harnessed to its unparalleled expertise in managing, structuring, and optimizing product data and product data feeds.

Founded in 1991, Edgenet is a privately-held company with offices in Atlanta, Nashville, and Milwaukee, where they have assembled a team of experts who boast years of experience in taxonomy and some of the brightest minds in the world.

Edgenet’s team designs successful solutions for everything from guided and visual selling to collecting and optimizing manufacturer data to product search’s most pressing demand—merchant feeds and product listing ads (PLAs).

Today’s customers demand rich, structured data for their comparison and research needs. Edgenet’s technologies enable merchants (both in store and online), search engines, and suppliers to accurately and completely represent their brand and products online.

Humana Booth 206 www.humana.com Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the nation’s largest publicly traded health benefits companies. Humana offers a diversified portfolio of health insurance products and related services—through traditional and consumer-choice plans— to employer groups, government-sponsored plans, and individuals.

Today, Humana is a leader in consumer engagement. Throughout its diversified customer portfolio, the company provides guidance that can both help lower costs and lead to a better health plan experience.

product & service guide Advertising Networks Bing...................................................... Sponsor 7Search.com..............................................209 Affiliate & Performance-Based Marketing Solutions myThings..................................................... 117 7Search.com..............................................209

Interactive Marketing Associations & Publications Local Search Association.................. TechXpo Pavilion Search Engine Watch............................. 203 topseos.com................................................210 Website Magazine....................................113

Content & News Feed Providers Brafton..........................................................114 Website Magazine....................................113

Link Building Linkdex..........................................................116 Majestic SEO............................................. 111 Page One Power.......................................110 SEMRush............................................ Sponsor SEO.in............................................................118 Stone Temple Consulting............ Sponsor

Display Advertising Marin Software........................................ 204 myThings..................................................... 117 Quantcast....................................................201 Website Magazine....................................113

Local Search Marketing Services & Directories eLocal Listing.............................................120 Local Search Association.................. TechXpo Pavilion

E-Mail Marketing Solutions Contactology..............................................115

Marketing Optimization Solutions Adchemy, Inc..................................... Sponsor Marin Software........................................ 204 myThings..................................................... 117 Resolution Media............................ Sponsor Search Engine Watch............................. 203 SubmitEdge...............................................208 topseos.com................................................210

Content Management Edgenet, Inc................................................119

General Search Engines Bing...................................................... Sponsor Interactive Marketing Agencies Bruce Clay, Inc........................................... 112 Covario..........................................................207 Resolution Media............................ Sponsor Wpromote.................................................... 211

Linkdex Booth 116 www.linkdex.com Linkdex is a free enterprise class SEO platform where you only pay for valuable, actionable, profitable data.

Linkdex was founded by a team of seasoned search marketers.

Together with a rapidly growing group of passionate business and agency users, Linkdex is developing the software to deliver on an ambitious product vision.

Linkdex is also a platform that is evolving further and faster than any other, with a dedicated team of Europe’s leading developers working flat out, turning user feedback into new features as regularly as every two weeks.

None of this would be possible without a £ multi-million investment from one of the world’s leading venture capital funds and Silicon Valley’s highest profile investors.

So whether you’re aiming to benchmark what SEO is delivering against the competition or work more productively for your team, with Linkdex you can Seize Every Opportunity.

Majestic SEO Booth 111 www.majesticseo.com Majestic SEO provides competitor backlinks intelligence to SEO specialists. Majestic SEO is the planet’s most comprehensive backlinks information provider, and offers a number of tools to access to this

Booth #s on right.

Organic Search Marketing Brafton..........................................................114 Bruce Clay, Inc........................................... 112 eLocal Listing.............................................120 Linkdex..........................................................116 SEO.in............................................................118 SEOmoz.............................................. Sponsor Stone Temple Consulting............ Sponsor SubmitEdge...............................................208 topseos.com................................................210 Wpromote.................................................... 211 Pay-Per Click Networks & Management Services 7Search.com..............................................209 Pay-Per-Call Companies eLocal Listing.............................................120 Search Marketing Agencies Bing...................................................... Sponsor Bruce Clay, Inc........................................... 112 Covario..........................................................207 Resolution Media............................ Sponsor SEO.in............................................................118 Stone Temple Consulting............ Sponsor SubmitEdge...............................................208 Wpromote.................................................... 211

SEMRush............................................ Sponsor SEOmoz.............................................. Sponsor Staffing Solutions Humana, Inc...............................................206 Specialized Search Engines (Multimedia, Mobile, Shopping, International, etc.)

Edgenet, Inc................................................119 Training Courses & Certification in Search Marketing ClickZ Academy........................................ 203 Video Crowdsourcing SparkReel......................... TechXpo Pavilion Web Analytics Humana, Inc...............................................206 Majestic SEO............................................. 111 SEMRush............................................ Sponsor SEOmoz.............................................. Sponsor Website Search and Technologies Edgenet, Inc................................................119 Humana, Inc...............................................206 Majestic SEO............................................. 111 Search Engine Watch............................. 203

Search Marketing Software Adchemy, Inc..................................... Sponsor Linkdex..........................................................116 Marin Software........................................ 204

valuable resource. Most recently, Majestic launched Site Explorer— offering more data than anyone else by a considerable margin.

Majestic enables registered users to test its services free of charge by generating reports for sites users control. Registration is free, and highly competitive subscription plans start at low prices, with one-month minimum commitment. Subscribers have a range tools to enable link analysis of competing domains to be performed.

For enterprise users, Majestic offers an API service for internal use that enables developers to integrate the data into new or existing suites of reports and applications.

myThings Booth 117 www.mythings.com Founded in 2005, myThings is the global leader in conversiondriven personalized display advertising solutions, growing sales at scale for top online retailers. Its service propels acquisition through retargeting, pre-targeting, and look-alike targeting, generating over 150% uplift compared to the retargeting industry standard. myThings personalizes over a billion banner impressions a month and operates in 14 markets including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Benelux, Nordics, Russia, the US, India, and Japan. Among its clients are top-tier European online retailers such as SDG group (Littlewoods, Very), Zalando, PriceMinister, Orange, Vodafone, Telecom Italia, Carphone Warehouse, and Microsoft Store.

sesconference.com • SES 5

sponsors & exhibitors SES Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 Page One Power

SEMRush

Booth 110 www.pageonepower.com Page One Power does custom SEO, link building, and SEO site audits.

Custom SEO: Custom SEO by Page One Power is a unique blend of thorough research, skillful application, and constant communication. We don’t use canned solutions or pre-planned deliverables; instead we focus on a sites particular needs and wrap SEO solutions around those needs.

Link Building: Page One Power specializes in custom link building. We have several dedicated link building teams of college graduate researchers and writers who spend all of their time finding high quality links. We analyze a niche, the leading competitors, and industry experts to formulate a customized solution for your particular link building needs. We are creative and hard working and get the links you need.

Site Audits: A site audit prepared by Page One Power is a comprehensive resource for your web team do use to plan their SEO strategy around. We focus on three items in our site audits: technical, relevancy, and linking. The intent of our site audits is always how to get ranking results. Sometimes all you need to get your SEO project underway is an unbiased, expert opinion.

Page One Power is an SEO firm located in Boise, Idaho. It is headed by two brothers, Jon and Zach Ball. Page One Power focuses on customized, white-hat SEO. They work with a limited number of highly motivated clients who are focused on getting top search engine rankings.

“We’re a small firm. We don’t have departments and account managers so our clients work directly with the leadership of the company. Because of this our clients love working with us. Of course we get results too.” Jon Ball, Page One Power

Badge Booklet Sponsor www.semrush.com SEMrush provides users with invaluable competitive intelligence— tracking the top 95 million keywords and 42 million domains. SEMrush data currently includes 10 of the most popular regional Google databases, as well as US Bing, and returns extensive metrics relative to both organic and paid traffic (both AdWords and AdSense), as well as backlink info.

SEMrush can reveal just what keywords your competitors are ranking for, what campaigns they’re running, what their budget looks like, and what kind of traffic they generate. Thus, it can provide all the ammo one needs to effectively optimize, run impactful campaigns, and increase overall traffic and revenue.

Resolution Media WiFi Sponsor www.resolutionmedia.com Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group company, is a leading digital marketing agency with a focus on identifying digital consumer insights to inform strategy and planning. Resolution’s proprietary behavioral analysis methodology, ClearTarget™, activates your business in search, social, mobile, retargeting, performance display, video, local, and more. Our methodology answers the who, what, where, when, and how to target most effectively, empowering brands to build stronger customer bonds and drive better business results. Resolution has offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Toronto, and San Francisco, and over 170 employees. Clients include Hewlett-Packard, Lowe’s, State Farm, Visa, and FedEx.

Search Engine Watch Booth 203 www.searchenginewatch.com Search Engine Watch provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry, and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines.

6 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

SEO.in Booth 118 www.seo.in SEO.in is an online marketing agency with an aim to create comprehensive services that provide results for our clients and partnering agencies. We provide our services to numerous small businesses, enterprises, and other agencies looking to outsource their work to another agency in the online marketing industry. We have a history of working with companies of all shapes and sizes and continue to offer our services in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and India. We offer a variety of online marketing services as a part of our online marketing suite. It is our mission to make our services work for our clients.

SEOmoz Lanyard Sponsor www.seomoz.org SEOmoz develops the industry’s #1 SEO and social monitoring platform with a robust link intelligence API. Plus, we host a comprehensive collection of free SEO and inbound marketing resources and a vibrant community of 300,000 online marketers. SEOmoz PRO combines SEO management, social media monitoring, actionable recommendations, and so much more in one easy-to-use platform.

Mozscape, our unique index of the web that crawls over 350 billion URLs, powering the popular Open Site Explorer link analysis tool.

Take a 30 day free trial! SEOmoz is also home to Roger MozBot, the world’s most helpful and cuddly robot.

7Search.com Booth 209 www.7search.com 7Search has been a premiere pay-per-click search network for over a decade, distinguishing itself for driving quality traffic, affordably. It is known for excellent customer service—advertisers can call, email, or instant message an actual person that is an expert in training and assisting advertisers to optimize their campaign. This team is dedicated to ensuring each and every advertiser achieves the best return on investment they possibly can. Take advantage of 7Search’s network to drive traffic your way.

sponsors & Download the app or visit SESChicago.com. exhibitors SparkReel TechXpo Pavilion www.sparkreel.com SparkReel is a video crowdsourcing engine for brands, publishers, and events that maximizes fan participation. It provides a platform to easily add video to your social media mix and best of all, creates a community hub built around fan videos.

Thanks to SparkReel, gone are the days where video contests yield underwhelming results and fan engagement is limited to 140 characters. SparkReel enables brands to finally take advantage of the video camera that their audience has with them at all times, their smartphone!

Stone Temple Consulting Cocktail Reception Sponsor www.stonetemple.com Stone Temple Consulting provides holistic internet marketing optimization services. This includes SEO, social media, and PPC services, all designed to grow your business steadily over time. Link building services focus on strategies that combine brand building with the creation of all natural high quality authoritative links.

Key STC facts include: •• more than 10 years experience in the industry •• 25+ experience online marketing practitioners •• clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to startups STC CEO Eric Enge is the lead co-author for The Art of SEO, a frequent industry speaker, and a regular columnist for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land.

Topseos.com Booth 210 www.topseos.com The independent authority on search vendors, topseos.com evaluates and ranks the top internet marketing companies. Categories ranked by topseos include: search engine optimization, pay per click management, affiliate marketing, social media optimization, and many more.

Since 2002, topseos has been a trusted resource for businesses looking to launch or improve internet marketing campaigns. The pathfinder service allows topseos to work directly with you to help find companies that best fit your business needs. Why waste time searching through thousands of sites with false promises? Go

straight to the authority, gain insight into the industry, and work with the best.

Website Magazine Booth 113 www.websitemagazine.com Website Magazine, the Magazine for Web Success, presents expert information on how to succeed on the Internet in 12 print issues per year, and in print, digital, iPhone, Android, and iPad editions. WebsiteMagazine.com offers news and blogs daily, as well as e-newsletters on search marketing, e-commerce, website design and development, affiliate marketing, and website success.

Subscribe today! http://websitemagazine.com/subscribe

Wpromote Booth 211 www.wpromote.com Wpromote is an award-winning online marketing firm headquartered in El Segundo, CA. Founded in 2001 by Michael Mothner, Wpromote has helped over 37,000 clients grow their businesses online. With unmatched experience in search marketing and an unrivaled dedication to our clients’ results, Wpromote stands out from the crowd. Wpromote’s suite of services includes PPC management, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, facebook advertising, mobile advertising, conversion optimization, email marketing and media buying.

The, 80+ employees at Wpromote currently manage more than 3,500 clients spanning a wide range of industries and verticals in over 60 countries worldwide. Wpromote’s integrated search engine marketing clients include Bayer HealthCare, TOMS, Toyota, Wine. com, Behr, Allied Van Lines, HP, Southern New Hampshire University, Symantec, Fisher-Price, and Universal Music Group.

A privately held firm, Wpromote established a position as the #1 Integrated Search Marketing Company by offering the industry superior proprietary technology, dedicated customer support and an honest, holistic approach. Inc. Magazine has honored Wpromote six times on its annual Inc. 500|5000 list which recognizes the fastest growing companies in America. Wpromote is one of the few firms invited to Google’s semi-annual Client Forum, is on Google’s SEM Council and Social Council, and is a Google AdWords Certified Partner.

sesconference.com • SES 7

focus

Cover Story/ SOCIAL MEDIA

The Basics of B2B Social Networking Creating Solid Business Relationships through LinkedIn

by Jasmine Sandler

L

inkedIn has rapidly become the number-one B2B social networking tool. Over 175 million people around the globe use it, including 2.2 million C-level executives, 1.7 million business directors and managers of enterprise-level companies, and a whopping 13 million entrepreneurs—a noteworthy figure for those interested in engaging small-business owners.

How do you create long-term business relationships through LinkedIn? You know that your target audience lives there and that you have the opportunity to talk to them through content, direct messaging, advertising, and the like. You can also receive an introduction to those with whom you want to do business through LinkedIn’s “get introduced through a 1st level connect” feature.

It’s not as easy as 1-2-3, however. To obtain solid, long-term, direct client and business referrals in LinkedIn, you need a personal brand, a value, a mission, ethics, and a real commitment to delivering value to your LinkedIn connections. So where do you start?

Personal Brand and Target Audience Let’s start with an analysis of your personal brand and your target audience. Done correctly, this analysis will yield an effective LinkedIn marketing plan that will enhance your business development.

Your personal brand needs to reflect your primary strength as a business professional.

Your personal brand style must be consistent with how others view you. It is not unlike how you impress others in ways you may not necessarily be cognizant of. To uncover your personal brand and related style, ask your clients and colleagues what your strengths are and what about your personality attracted them to do business with you in the first place. You will see a common thread among these people: they like and trust you and therefore decided to work with you. Now you need to understand why.

8 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

Don’t miss this pre-keynote workshop at SES Chicago:

Maximizing the Effectiveness of LinkedIn to Generate More Qualified Leads Online Tuesday, November 13, 7:45–8:45am, Hyatt Regency How can you really use LinkedIn as your number-one personal branding and qualified lead-generation tool? LinkedIn coach and trainer Jasmine Sandler, CEO of Agent-cy Online Marketing, will show you: •• How to ensure that your profile is engaging to your target audience.

•• How to utilize the vast tools and apps within LinkedIn to develop and grow your brand.

•• How to gain business referrals directly from LinkedIn. •• How to develop and manage an ongoing LinkedIn communications plan that works for you.

•• How to leverage all of your other marketing programs to support your LinkedIn presence.

Register

Let’s go on to your target audience. Who are the people you’d like to see engaged around your personal brand, and why? Who are your qualified clients? Who are qualified influencers (that may refer LinkedIn business to you)? Get granular in how you think about these people. In LinkedIn language, this means knowing which groups your targets are participating in, which categories of questions these people care about and where they need help, which types of information they seek, and whom they have in their concentric LinkedIn networks. On a company level, where do your targets work and what does LinkedIn say about these companies?

Follow the companies that represent the people with whom you want to do business.

Profile Now, let’s look at why someone in your target audience would choose to do business with you on LinkedIn. To start, you must have a solid, complete, and engaging personal profile that supports your personal brand. This entails a number of crucial items: •• A professionally taken headshot or picture of you delivering your service.

•• A solid headline that indicates what you do, your experience, and your customers.

•• A summary that goes beyond your resume. It should describe your achievements, years of experience, awards, and accreditations.

•• A complete contact card that includes your business phone, Twitter ID, Face­ book ID, website link, blog link, and email address.

•• A consistent job history that supports your headline statement.

•• Ongoing, frequent recommendations from your clients.

•• Compelling, fresh content in blog posts, presentations, PDFs, and video work.

•• Completed skills, awards, accreditations, education, and publications sections of the profile.

•• Your top (up to 50) groups that support your personal brand.

Communication Now that you have defined your personal brand, established your target audience, and completed your personal profile, you can continues on page 11

Search Marketing

focus

Performance Display for SEM Marketers Combine the Power of Intent, the Scale of Display, and the Effectiveness of Your Well-Designed Creatives

by Dax Hamman

B

ack in the mid-2000s, when Google, Yahoo!, and MSN swept in and introduced basic display offerings, I was working at a full-service agency running a display team. I started hearing about display ads being run from the search marketing side of the room, and I got protective. I assumed that the search marketers didn’t know what they were doing when it came to banners.

Then I looked at the tools they were using and realized that I was dead wrong.

The search marketing team was simply better equipped than my team. While we were stuck using basic planning and audience tools in the hopes of locating people who might resemble our prospects, the search team was specifying exact parameters to identify prospects in ways that we never could.

It would seem that search marketing should have been the clear winner for years, but instead it is starting to hit a ceiling. SEM is a very mature marketing tactic, and, as a result, the competition for keywords becomes harsher every day. The most expensive keywords are starting to break the $55 barrier; CPC numbers are only going to increase across the board.

Plus, search marketers still face the same creative limitation that they did back in 1996: text-only ads. What search marketer hasn’t fantasized about jumping into a world of images and color, as Dorothy did in The Wizard of Oz? This ceiling doesn’t have to exist for search marketers. There are dynamic new paths to reach in-market consumers, and marketers can go down these paths without giving up the power of intent that makes SEM so effective.

Why Use Performance Display?

Imagine that you’re Nike, and you’re trying to acquire new customers for a new basketball shoe. Would you rather spend your marketing budget on buying prominent placements for eye-grabbing display ads across ESPN.com, or on placing ads in front

of people who have recently expressed intent to buy new basketball shoes?

Search marketers, I know your answer already. And I’m the first to agree that buying inventory at a fixed CPM, and then crossing your fingers and hoping that the right audience sees it, makes little sense.

But does it really make sense only to reach consumers with intent to buy via text ads that are strangled by a high CPC, or within the very limited window that consumers actually spend in the search channel?

The happy news for marketers is that there is now another approach. Performance display combines the power of intent, the scale of display, and the effectiveness of welldesigned creatives. Better yet, it allows you to get the most out of every dollar of your spend.

searched. In other words, the power of intent doesn’t have to begin and end with traditional SEM. Search retargeting campaigns can be built around the very same keywords that drive traditional SEM campaigns—and the creatives can actually be … well, creative.

In addition to taking advantage of the power of intent, search retargeting companies (like our firm, Chango) will provide dynamic creatives, inserting into the creative the keyword for which the user searched.

In my agency days, we were weaving stories about how search and display could work together, but up until now there have been few tactical steps that could actually be taken. Search retargeting is the first practice that finally brings them together, and it has search marketers excited about getting access to the display team’s budget.

What Is Performance Display?

At a base level, performance display is for campaigns with direct response goals, rather than for just branding or awareness. There are many forms this can take, but the most common are site retargeting and search retargeting, two tactics that remain surprisingly misunderstood.

Site retargeting is the practice of serving display ads to users who have already visited your site, in the hopes of compelling them to return. It’s a very effective practice that can achieve amazing results when you factor in lots of data points. The data-intense version, known as programmatic site retargeting, retargets users based on the referral site, the date and time of the visit, on-site behavior, and CRM data to create a sophisticated picture of each site visitor and how much it’s worth to try to bring him or her back.

But perhaps even more exciting for traditional SEM marketers is the rise of search retargeting. In essence, search retargeting extends SEM beyond the text-only listings that appear around search engine results.

Once users leave Google, Bing, or other site on which they’ve performed a search, search retargeting can target them with display ads based on the keywords for which they just

Real-Time Bidding Means Real-Time Results All of these performance display tactics are made possible by one key technology: realtime bidding (RTB). RTB gives marketers the ability to bid on a single impression served to a specific (though entirely anonymous) user, and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger part of how display media is bought and sold.

It’s predicted that by 2015 almost 50% of display ads will be bought or sold through RTB exchanges.

With RTB at our disposal, there’s no longer an excuse for buying blocks of impressions on a site or collection of sites. After all, why would you want to target a site in the hopes of reaching a specific user when you can now target that user directly?

When you use search retargeting on an RTB exchange, you’re essentially bidding on keywords, just as in traditional SEM. Only now you’re bidding for the chance to serve a relevant ad at a price that’s likely to be lower than what you’d pay to serve your text ad against that keyword on Google. With search retargeting powered by RTB, you’re serving continues on page 11

sesconference.com • SES 9

focus

Strategies

Know Your Competitors’ Strategies, Inside and Out Stay One Step Ahead by Learning the Trade Secrets of Your Rivals

by Suren Ter-Saakov

H

ave you ever wondered what strategies your competitors are using to further their Internet marketing PPC campaigns? Wouldn’t you like to be able to confirm whether these strategies are successful? Think about how much your AdWords success could improve through an analysis of your competitors’ bidding habits. Take a moment to imagine all of the benefits of recognizing exactly what your competitors don’t want you to know: which tactics are successful and which are not.

Effectively applying reverse engineering to search engine analytics can help you gain, and capitalize on, confidential information relative to your competitors. In order for your Internet marketing campaign to be palpably successful, you should use data, take a comprehensive look at all aspects of the campaign, and evaluate precisely what you hope to achieve in the long run.

Keywords An examination of different keywords and their data—including a statistical comparison to relative keywords, the competitors that are bidding on them, their CPC, and the frequency with which they are searched—provides an abundance of information in itself.

Whether you want to determine the keywords your competitors are bidding on, the percentage of their budgets allocated to their marketing approaches, overall search trends, or other valuable information, discerning the trade secrets of competitors can do wonders in facilitating a more prosperous campaign.

You can locate something as straightforward as the cost-per-click for the keyword, the volume it receives per month, or the number of results.

Budgets and Trends You can analyze business budgets and interpret how and why they fluctuate, while also locating the direct marketing initiatives of

10 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

competitors. By discovering the advertising budget trends of your competitors and learning how best to use their PPC optimization efforts to your advantage, you can gain a stealth advantage in your market.

Effectively applying reverse engineering to search engine analytics can help you gain, and capitalize on, confidential information relative to your competitors.

In order for your Internet marketing campaign to be palpably successful, you should use data, take a comprehensive look at all aspects of the campaign, and evaluate precisely what you hope to achieve in the long run.

Facebook Ads You can do something innovative that wasn’t possible in the industry until now: analyze Facebook Ads (SEMrush recently introduced a tool to do so). Social media is a massive and extremely popular means of connecting and advertising for many different businesses and industries. Since Facebook is used by a variety of individuals for both personal and business purposes, ads can reach an extremely varied audience. Discovering who is utilizing Facebook PPC on a global level by top ads, domain, and keyword can help you discern the marketing methods that would be best for you, based on what your competitors are or are not doing on Facebook.

Viewing Competitors’ Ads Ad copy is an integral part of Internet marketing. Viewing the precise ads that your competitors are administering allows you to edit your ad copy based on that of your competitors.

Various Competitor-toCompetitor Comparisons Graphs comparing you to your competitors over several years can help you assess how you have stacked up in areas such as search engine traffic, number of keywords, search engine traffic price, number of ads, ad traffic, ad traffic price, and keyword research. You can discover who is doing something advantageous with their advertising and how it is affecting their business overall. You can analyze trends and see when expenditure increased or decreased, or if trends were relatively stationary. These are just bits and pieces of the types of information that you can find using competitive analysis; ultimately, the possibilities are endless.

Conclusion Competitive analysis is a strategic and clever addition to any Internet marketing campaign.

Having the opportunity to dissect and understand the advertising successes and failures of your competitors can only make your own business decisions easier to make and more profitable in the long run. While AdWords is an extremely beneficial tool in an Internet marketing campaign, there are supplemental methods to learn the trade secrets of your competitors. Information such as this can allow you to stay one step ahead.

As the COO of the SEOquake Team, Suren Ter-Saakov utilizes his extensive knowledge of search engines to help develop tools that serve those who make their living online.

social media/ search marketing

focus

The Basics of B2B Social Networking continued from page 8 start finding qualified leads and engaging in frequent communication. You can easily start by doing a contact import from your email program and pull in university, client, colleague, employer, vendor, and partner contacts. The minute you ask someone to connect with you on LinkedIn or accept a

may help them, and only request a call or meeting next if they express a real interest.

Once you have a network on LinkedIn and a full profile, you can start real business development. To do so, you will need to devote time every day to create and deliver compelling and valuable content across your LinkedIn network, stay aware of your target network’s updates and comment when

LinkedIn invitation, you are starting a business relationship. It is important that you personalize your invitation and that you immediately reply to anyone from whom you accept an invitation to ask for a live phone conversation.

LinkedIn networking is just that: a way to network with other business professionals, so do it. Whether you are inviting someone in to your network, accepting an invitation, or requesting a warm introduction to a target client, remember that you must speak to that person as you would in a business networking meeting. You want to introduce yourself, ask what they do, offer valuable insight that

appropriate, and participate in groups that matter to you, your industry, and your target audience.

To truly stand out on LinkedIn, spend time in honestly answering questions where you can provide real support. People will appreciate free advice that drives direct results and will more than likely ask to connect with you on a real level.

Remember also that journalists, conference leaders, and the media are using Linked­In to find experts for articles and stories. The more you focus on creating and delivering a personal brand that provides real value to your target audience, the more opportunities

Performance Display for SEM Marketers continued from page 9 the right ads to the right people at the right price.

Conclusion Display has come a long way. And it’s reached this point by learning more and more from SEM. Among other things, this means that SEM marketers are uniquely positioned to take advantage of performance marketing. SEM teams are already familiar with the tools and already appreciate the power of reaching a user based on online behavior.

It’s no longer a search-versus-display world. It’s a whole new, targeted world with new techniques and creatives driving innovation. Are you ready?

Dax Hamman is chief revenue officer at Chango, the innovators of search retargeting, and is based in Chicago and Toronto.

Prior, Dax founded and led the global iCrossing media group, developing the concept of “performance display.”

you will have to share your story with these folks; these opportunities will, in turn, positively affect your online branding efforts.

Conclusion In the end, creating solid business relationships on LinkedIn takes strategy, execution, and commitment, just as any other successful marketing program. LinkedIn as a B2B social networking tool will grow as features are added and awareness grows. Create a compelling personal brand on LinkedIn and deliver it effectively with a target plan, and you will find that LinkedIn will be your business development tool of choice.

Jasmine Sandler is CEO and founder of Agent-cy Online Marketing, Inc., an interactive agency in NYC with a team in digital strategy, web design and development, search marketing strategy and management, social media marketing, and online PR.

Don’t miss this session at SES Chicago:

PPC beyond Search: New Ad Formats, Display, and Social Wednesday, November 14, 2:00–3:00pm Hyatt Regency With the explosion of ad types such as search retargeting and Yahoo!’s SmartAds, keeping search campaigns and contextual ads in different buckets is getting harder to justify. Dax Hamman, chief revenue officer at Chango, will bring you up to speed on the state of the art. He will discuss the tools and skill sets needed to manage and report on results from multiple search engines and even Facebook, and ways marketers should prioritize efforts.

Register

sesconference.com • SES 11

focus

VIDEO

How to Engage Customers with B2B Video Orabrush Case Study

by Greg Jarboe

V

ideo can build a powerful emotional bond between consumers and brands.

Over the past year, I’ve written several case studies that looked at how marketers at small and medium–sized businesses (SMBs) have created that bond and found success on YouTube. These include: •• The BBQGuys at ShoppersChoice.com.

•• Owner Staci Perry of VeryPink.com.

•• Susan Gregg Koger and Eric Koger, the husband and wife cofounders of ModCloth.com.

•• The Richard Petty Driving Experience team.

•• TRX, founded by former US Navy SEAL Randy Hetrick.

But all of these examples come from B2C marketers. Can B2B marketers use video to engage and build relationships with customers? Even B2B marketers at SMBs? Yes, we can.

Many of the keys to success with B2B video are ones that B2C marketers use to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock: •• Mapping out your video marketing strategy.

•• Making videos worth watching.

•• Creating content worth sharing.

•• Customizing your YouTube channel.

•• Exploring YouTube advertising.

•• Optimizing video for YouTube.

•• Engaging the YouTube community.

•• Trusting, but verifying, YouTube Ana­lytics.

•• Studying YouTube success stories.

Keys to Success with B2B Video SES Chicago Tuesday, November 13, 4:00-5:00pm Hyatt Regency Speakers: Greg Jarboe and Peter La Motte See page 17 for details.

12 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

Orabrush One of the case studies that I’ll discuss during my SES presentation was originally shared with me by Jeffrey Harmon, the chief marketing officer at Orabrush, and Austin Craig, Orabrush’s spokesman. Orabrush is the first product to jump from almost no sales online or offline to nationwide retail distribution only using YouTube.

In 2009, the 75-year-old inventor of the Orabrush, Dr. Bob Wagstaff, teamed up with Harmon and Craig, then college students at BYU, to figure out how to sell his tongue cleaner online. They went on to sell more than a million tongue cleaners using YouTube. But even after tens of thousands of consumers asked via Orabrush’s YouTube channel if they could buy the tongue cleaner in major stores, the company had difficulty getting a hold of major retailers like Walmart.

A Walmart store manager in Utah had seen Orabrush’s videos and ordered a tongue cleaner. After using it for several months, he contacted the company and said, “Hey, I’d love to carry your tongue cleaner in my store.”

Walmart managers from other stores who were going on a tour through his Walmart were so impressed by Orabrush’s display that they decided to carry the product.

Within about three weeks, 20 Walmart stores were carrying Orabrush. The sales in Utah were so good that Orabrush knew that it was time to get in touch with Walmart headquarters to do a broader launch beyond Utah.

They advertised in magazines and spent over $20,000, but were still not successful.

Then Orabrush sent a link pointing to an unlisted YouTube video to the buyer at Walmart headquarters. The personalized video addressed the buyer by name and featured Craig and Orabrush’s mascot, Morgan the dirty tongue. “Hi, we’re Orabrush,” they said. “Here are our sales numbers from the test market in Utah.” They incorporated clips from Orabrush’s video ads, episodes of the Diary of a Dirty Tongue, and excerpts of user reviews. They also included a lot of mainstream media coverage.

Morgan the dirty tongue, star of Orabrush’s YouTube ads.

Orabrush was hoping that the buyer at Walmart would email them to request a face-to-face meeting. Instead, Orabrush received an email that asked, “Can you support 735,000 Orabrushes by August?” There was no in-person meeting; there wasn’t even a phone call. With one email linking to an unlisted video on YouTube, Orabrush got nationwide retail distribution in 3,500 Walmart stores. And they did it in the oral hygiene category—a remarkable accomplishment considering that this category is dominated by a few big companies.

So, yes, B2B marketers can use video to build relationships with customers. Even B2B marketers at SMBs. Greg Jarboe is president and cofounder of SEO-PR, which provides search engine optimization, online public relations, social media marketing, and video marketing services. He’s the author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day.

SEO

focus

Collaborate, Teach, Enforce, and Measure What You, the SEO, Need to Do in Your Website Migration

by Josh McCoy

P

articipating in a website migration can be a truly fulfilling experience for a marketer. Chances are that you are a member of this effort as your site has taken a new identity, be it through aesthetics, a new message, or a new direction for your company. Possibly, the move is to ease internal resources and shift to a more manageable content management system.

Whatever your company’s reasoning, know that your role as the SEO is the same as that of a surgeon performing a vital transplant.

You have to give life to a new property while ensuring that all previous elements are transitional and able to perform as well as they used to … but hopefully better! You have a big job ahead of you, as you will be the collaborator, teacher, enforcer, and measurer of the effort.

Collaborate No site redesign/migration effort is a sole movement, unless someone is an absolute genius who has uncovered the ability to work a 50-hour day! Effective website migrations require the collaborative devotion of decision makers, web designers, web developers, and marketing personnel.

So, where do you as the SEO become involved? First, as someone who listens to the decision makers, you have to ask what the goal of the migration is. Are they putting forth this new site to function better, be faster, be more informative, be more aesthetically pleasing, establish the brand, or convey a different message? Don’t be surprised if the answer is “all of the above.”

Second, you have to gain an understanding of your development/design team’s ability and how they plan to execute what the decision makers need in the framework of the new site. Third, as the search engine marketer, you must educate all parties on how to take the goals of and requirements for the new site and pair these with the structural needs. You must also teach them that adherence to SEO migration best practices is crucial and explain the probable negative

consequences of not following these practices for search engine visibility.

Pay Heed to the Moment The redesign/migration process is exciting.

Instead of continually masking problems and applying band-aids to an old, ugly site, you can stand in front of a fresh canvas. What do you want that you have never had before?

You are at an advantageous point at which you can completely rework the information architecture of your site to present your message and appeal to your audience and the search engines. You have gained an opportunity to categorize site content accordingly, fill content gaps, target additional keywords, move away from ugly, parameter-filled URLs, create a user-friendly and SEO-friendly navigational structure—the list of benefits goes on and on. As an SEO, you must remember to be a marketing professional, always bearing in mind that the new site must benefit users as well as the search-engine crawlers.

Be the Sheriff When the ideas leave the drawing board and hit the staging server, you have to convey many stages of SEO best-practice management. This begins with restricting search engines’ access to staged content. Do you want the engines to index all site content as it is being built? I didn’t think so. This fear can be alleviated through robots.txt exclusion, and no-index tagging of the staging area and password protecting this platform for added security. You must also stress that there will be a 301 permanent redirect from all old site pages to the new ones. I do this via a two-column Excel spreadsheet, also including all changes to the information architecture and URL folder. This is quite possibly one of the most important processes of the website migration for SEO purposes. Failing to redirect historical site pages results in lost rankings, 404 error pages, lost page age, and passing of link weight.

In launching a new site, you probably don’t want to start over in the view of the

search engines. You don’t want to lose the links and social attention you’ve brought to the site, as well as the age and trust you’ve gained in the search engines’ eyes. Sexy, image-heavy sites may load slowly. Do a full design review to look at page size, page speed, and dependence on pausing factors such as file references or requests.

When you’ve made your SEO assurances across keyword targeting, page loading, and page redirections, make sure that the restrictions you put in place in the beginning of development are lifted. Launching the site while excluding all site pages will lead to your disappearance in organic search.

Measure How successful will you be if you do not measure metrics? Not very. It is imperative for the SEO measurement of the site redesign or migration to note certain criteria in prelaunch. These include ranking reports for targeting terms, homepage and internal page-load time information, and index pages in Google and Bing. Post launch, these will let you know how effective your migration efforts were from an SEO perspective. Aside from this, you should constantly monitor 404 error pages in Google Webmaster Tools to ensure that you didn’t miss any pages in the URL rewrite list mentioned above.

Conclusion I emphasize the rewarding aspects of a website migration. However, the migration can be stressful for you, the SEO, as you will have to wear several different hats to ensure that all parties adhere to SEO best practices. Dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s will leave you with a much stronger site moving forward.

Josh McCoy is a lead strategist at Vizion Interactive. Previously, he worked with 15miles in SEO and local search. He manages the Kansas City Search Engine Marketing Association.

sesconference.com • SES 13

focus

paid search

How to Effectively Audit Your Paid Search Accounts Deliver Maximum Performance by Reviewing Your Settings, Account Structure, Ad Copy, and Extensions

by Jeremy Hull

L

et’s face it—paid search is an incredibly complex ecosystem. Quality score, bids, ad copy, landing pages, targeting, and dozens of other settings, multiplied by hundreds of thousands of keywords and ads in an account, leave a lot of room for errors. Factor in the continual rollout of new features by Google AdWords and Bing Ads, and it is easy to wind up with unoptimized accounts.

In order to ensure that campaigns are delivering maximum performance, search marketers should regularly review all aspects of their paid search accounts. A paid search audit can help flag issues and identify opportunities for growth. A thorough audit is also a fantastic way to begin tweaking an account you just inherited.

There are a number of resources to help you audit your account. Many agencies offer audits as a one-off service, and there are also a number of free audit products. You also may want to bring in resources from within your company or agency. While it’s usually less complicated to execute the audit yourself, employing a fresh set of eyes helps avoid blind spots and preconceived notions.

Campaign Settings Begin by reviewing campaign-level settings. The easiest way is by downloading the account into AdWords Editor or Bing Ads Editor and looking at the campaigns tab.

Right click on the header row, unhide all nonmetric columns, sort by each one at a time, and review.

Look for any settings that are different across campaigns. If a targeting setting such as network, device, or targeting method isn’t the same as most campaigns, double check that the setting is intentional. Your campaign names should reflect the intended targeting; verify that the settings reflect the names. See if there are any opportunities for improvement. For instance, have you split tablet and desktop into separate campaigns yet?

Then review other settings such as ad rotation, exact and phrase matching, and

14 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

delivery method. Make sure that there is a reason for each campaign’s settings, and that none are accidents.

Account Structure Review the current campaign / ad group structure. As accounts grow over time, it is easy for structure to get messy—and messiness leads to inaccurate reporting and missed opportunities.

Make sure that your campaign / ad group naming convention is consistent and easy to understand. Ensure that this naming convention highlights brand/nonbrand division, match-type split, device and geographic targeting, high/low-performance keywords, or any other segmentation.

Then look at the structure itself. Is your account granular enough? Google AdWords now allows advertisers to have up to 10,000 campaigns per account. Since targeting is set at the campaign level, that is an obvious split, but keep in mind that daily budgets are also set at the campaign level. Do you have your keywords segmented so that lower-value, ultra-competitive keywords are not stealing budget from high-performing keywords? Are any keywords in the wrong campaigns? Are seasonal campaigns labeled clearly—and activated/paused correctly?

Look for structure opportunities that were not obvious at launch. Split keywords that consistently outperform your goal into a separate campaign for easier management, better budget allocation, and quality score benefits. Pull underperforming keywords into their own campaign so that you can keep a close eye on them.

If your account structure has become messy, consider reorganizing. The time spent cleaning up a disorganized account is a great investment that will drive more performance and clearer insight.

Ad Copy Download all ad copy in the account—live and paused. Then run spell check on all ad copy. It is amazing how many typos can slip

by when you are writing thousands of ads.

Make certain that all trademarks and product names are capitalized correctly.

Then look at how many ads are live in each ad group. You should always be testing at least two ads, but be on the lookout for ad groups with more than four active ads. Determine which are working, delete the rest, and plan a new test.

Confirm that all ads are current and do not reflect sales or holidays that occurred several months ago. Double check your use of keyword insert—if you are not testing it, there is an opportunity! If you are testing it, make sure that none of the ad groups utilizing keyword insert have misspelled keywords. If you are not leveraging {Param2} and {Param3} in Bing Ads, that is another opportunity.

Ad Extensions Check to see whether all campaigns have at least six sitelinks (two for mobile-targeted campaigns)—and then check to make sure that each sitelink is driving to a unique landing page. Google recently started enforcing their policy that each sitelink has to drive to a page with a distinct user experience. Also, set up sitelinks on Bing Ads. The feature was released very recently, and lots of advertisers have yet to take advantage of it!

Do not overlook other ad extensions like PLAs, location extensions, and social extensions. If you have not tested them, that is another opportunity.

There many other points to consider, such as keyword gaps, landing pages, negatives, and more, but after auditing the above items you will have a good feel for how your account is doing.

Jeremy Hull is iProspect’s associate direc­tor of paid search. He has provided campaign analysis and direction to Accor Hotels North America, Nike, Burberry, Timberland, and Talbots.

PAID SEarch

focus

Are You Following PPC Best Practices?

A Checklist for Successful PPC Campaigns

by Melissa Mackey

M

ost of us probably use several checklists every day, from workplace to-do lists to grocery lists to “things I need to pick up on my way home from work.” Checklists are especially helpful in PPC management. Even experienced PPC managers need reminders that will help ensure the best possible results from their campaigns. This PPC campaign checklist will help PPC managers at all levels of experience get the best results from their campaigns. □□ Do your campaign settings make sense and match your campaign strategy and goals?

Goal setting is a crucial first step for any PPC campaign. Keep goals in mind as you plan your campaigns, and make sure that your settings match them. An awareness campaign, for example, should have a broad reach, while a strict conversion-focused campaign may have constraints to maximize conversions. □□ Have you separated search and display campaigns?

This is a basic best practice, and yet it’s still not unusual to see search and display in the same campaign. The fact that this is Google’s default doesn’t help matters.

□□ Is ad rotation set the way you want it?

Both Google and Bing offer the option to optimize for clicks, or to rotate ads more evenly. Although it’s common for PPC pros to recommend even rotation, the ultimate decision should be based on your campaign goals. If your goal is conversions, then even rotation makes sense; if your goal is traffic generation, then optimizing for clicks is the better option. □□ Are geographic locations correct?

Choosing the right geography seems like a no-brainer, and yet it’s common to see campaigns set to “all locations worldwide.” If you choose that option, make certain that you can actually service the entire world! And even if

you do sell worldwide, it’s better to separate campaigns by country or at least by continent and region, as keywords and ad copy perform very differently from country to country. □□ What about your campaign budget? Do shared budgets make sense for you?

The rule of thumb for campaign budgets is to set them to an amount you’re comfortable spending. For some advertisers, that’s $15 per day; for others, it could be $1,000 per day or more. Become familiar with Google’s new shared budgets option. Shared budgets allow advertisers to set one budget across multiple campaigns, thereby reducing the amount of daily budget tweaking that many PPC managers previously had to perform. □□ What about dayparting?

If you’re in the B2B space, take a long look at dayparting. Are your customers searching for you after hours or on weekends? Are you getting traffic and conversions during off hours? Like many aspects of PPC, there is no one right answer to this question. Use actual data to determine whether you should limit ad serving to normal business hours.

And if you’re not in the B2B space, you still may want to daypart, based on results. Many ecommerce advertisers find that their fraudulent orders increase dramatically after midnight, for example.

Mobile and Tablet Evaluation □□ Are your results different by device?

If so, consider separating campaigns by device. It’s a good idea to do this even if results aren’t different, because mobile campaigns have unique features, such as click-tocall, that may work very well in mobile but don’t apply to desktop campaigns. □□ Should you use a different message in ads?

Mobile searchers’ goals may be very different from those of desktop searchers. Mobile users need an answer right away. It’s unlikely that someone would research an expensive

B2B software product on a mobile device, but they might use mobile to find a phone number. Think about testing different calls to action, offers, and even landing pages for your mobile and tablet campaigns. □□ Are you taking advantage of the right features?

Sending mobile traffic to a mobile-optimized landing page is pretty obvious. But did you know that you can target specific mobile operating systems? While not every advertiser will want to segment by OS, there are many instances where this makes sense. Mobile app vendors, for example, should target their iPhone app ads to iPhone users, and their Android apps to Android users. An advertiser selling mobile phones could also use this tactic: “Tired of your old Android device?

Upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy SIII Today!” □□ Is something failing?

This is a good question to ask in relation to just about every PPC campaign aspect, but especially mobile campaigns. Let’s look at a real-life example: We had a client who was advertising B2B services on tablets. On the surface, the demographic made sense to them, but their ads were appearing on iPad kids’ games!

The players of these games are definitely the wrong target audience, and it’s likely that the clicks on the client’s ad were accidental clicks by little kids trying to play a steering wheel game. Needless to say, this campaign didn’t perform as well as it should have.

Use this checklist for both new and existing PPC campaigns, and watch your results improve!

Melissa Mackey is search supervisor at gyro, the largest independent B2B agency in the world. She also blogs at Searching Beyond the Paid.

sesconference.com • SES 15

focus

STRATEGY

The Synergy among Search, Social, and Content continued from page 1 touched by search and social technologies, including media, web development and design, creative, content marketing, SEO, and social. My job is to help our business and our clients understand and prepare for the future. I typically work as a lead strategist on accounts to help set direction and identify key opportunities for a business; I work with our teams to determine the best course for the account. I also help educate internally, and provide guidance to various service lines on where the industry is headed, particularly from the search and social perspective. I am very proud that iCrossing has transitioned in the last six years from a natural search pure play into a global, full-service agency with multiple service lines. Search and social inform all our work, and we use our natural search legacy to this advantage.

DC: Where do you think the search and social marketing industries are headed?

RG: The biggest shift we will see is in how social networks begin to implement more sophisticated algorithms and technologies to improve the social experience, and how they put on their search hat in more obvious ways. Facebook is constantly tweaking its algorithm, which affects what you see directly in your stream. Overall, Facebook and Twitter will shift away from rewarding “newest first” to the newest and “most relevant first.” I refer to the concept as “social relevancy,” and it will only continue to grow.

From the marketing industry, the SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report 2012 indicated that agencies were combining search and social practices much more than businesses were. Agencies will continue to lead from a marketing perspective for the foreseeable future. Overall, a large segment of search and social practices have become one, and we will see higher expectations on search firms to do social very well, and vice versa.

16 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

DC: You’ve published a book, Search & Social: The Definitive Guide to RealTime Content Marketing. What were the main challenges in writing it? What did you learn about search and social in the process?

RG: The main challenge for me was distilling a complex topic into something that both explains the landscape and provides an actionable roadmap and tactical plan for marketers and publishers. The book synthesizes several complex from a strategic perspective is the difference entities, among them SEO, social media opti- between being a good social or content marmization, real time marketing, and content keter and being a great one. marketing. These subjects are often discussed individually, but they are interdependent.

DC: What can SES attendees expect from I also wanted to write a book that had your session? What tips or insights will they never been written before, and I believe that take away from it?

I have accomplished this objective. I take many concepts that have been previously RG: I want attendees to stop and think, discussed at great length, but I show them “Search, social, and content synergy is much through the combined search-and-social lens, bigger than I thought, and we need to get in the content lens, and the real-time lens. the game.” And the session will show attendOne thing I learned about search and ees just how to do it. social is that the two have already become Attendees will also learn how being one to a certain degree, and that we have a “always on” and being a social participant new generation of marketers who need to be optimizes the impact of search, social, and educated on the synergies of the two. I think, content marketing. All of the actions that as an industry, we will be educating new brands undertake—social engagement, writmarketers and business owners about these ing, creating video, maintaining an app or concepts for the next 10 years, just as we community—are forms of publishing, but have been educating about SEO for the last publishing in a different medium with its 15. Many social and content marketers have own unique nuances. Once marketers have shunned search altogether, and they will be determined that yes, they are publishers, at a disadvantage if they don’t look at search they have to decide whether they are going from a strategic perspective. Taking search to be good at it.

Download the app or visit SESChicago.com.

sessions

Sample Sessions

Download the app or visit www.SESChicago.com for complete agenda and session descriptions.

Day 1—Tuesday, November 13 10:30–11:30am

Track 2 Winning PPC Tactics Many marketers miss easy wins. To win with your paid search strategy, you need to execute your campaign using best practices.

These include having the right level of keyword depth, the optimal mix of match types, well-written ads, optimized landing pages, and an account structure that maximizes your possible quality score.

Are you optimizing the mobile and tablet opportunity? Do you need a tactical bidding strategy? If you’re an advanced search marketer, you should also consider segmentation models to truly outwit the competition.

This session will cover all this and more. You will leave with a homework assignment that will increase your chances of getting a promotion and a raise.

Moderator: •• Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster Speakers: •• Melissa Mackey, Search Supervisor, gyro •• Natalie Ney, Client Services Manager, iProspect 10:30–11:30am

Track 4 The Age of Big Data and the Modern Marketer The shift of marketing dollars online and the increasing role of social media have ushered in the era of big data, where marketers must effectively mine and analyze massive amounts of data and respond to changing business needs instantly. While most marketers today are well versed in the metrics of their online marketing channels, far fewer are leveraging their big data across all digital marketing channels for cross-functional insight into customer behavior, to gain efficiencies across all channels and to grow traffic and revenue. Key takeaways will include: •• The impact big data will have on the modern marketer—forcing professionals to become part marketer, part chief information officer.

•• How to leverage the latest advancements in technology to gather, analyze, and react to new consumer behavior uncovered by big data with an emphasis on visibility, optimization, and automation.

Speaker: •• Seth Dotterer, VP of Marketing, Conductor Inc.

4:00–5:00pm

Track 2 Effective PPC Auditing Being able to conduct a thorough PPC campaign audit is mission critical for SEM success. PPC managers need to be able to inherit and audit existing PPC accounts with a high level of accuracy in order to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. Without the proper auditing framework, PPC managers may not fully understand what an account needs to achieve maximum performance. Also, the PPC account auditing process needs to be maintained throughout the campaign management lifecycle.

In this session, you will learn how to inherit campaigns and get them started on a new, exciting path to success, and how to create a sustained plan of continuous campaign auditing, analysis, and optimization.

Moderator: •• Marc Poirier, Co-Founder & CMO, Acquisio Speakers: •• Jeremy Hull, Associate Director of Paid Search, iProspect •• Joseph Kerschbaum, Vice President, Clix Marketing 4:00–5:00pm

Track 3 Keys to Success with B2B Video With 84% of the US market viewing online video on a weekly basis, successful brands must fine-tune their video strategy to adjust to the changing market. With the right approach, video can raise brand awareness and inform customers about products—on target and on budget. In this session, you will learn some of the fundamentals around online B2B video marketing, including how to get the most exposure for your video, how to use video to move the customer through the sales funnel, and how to prepare your videos for a global audience. You’ll have the opportunity to review successful case studies and see how a company can use video not only as an indicator of where the viewer is in the sales funnel, but also to enable their sales process.

Moderator: •• Mel Carson, Founder, Delightful Communications Speakers: •• Greg Jarboe, President & Co-founder, SEO-PR •• Peter La Motte, President, GeniusRocket

sesconference.com • SES 17

sessions SES Chicago | November 12–13, 2012 | hosted by Sample Sessions (Cont’d )

Download the app or visit www.SESChicago.com for complete agenda and session descriptions.

Day 2—Wednesday, November 14 9:15–10:15am

Morning Panel SEO 2013: The Future of Search 2012 so far has been a key year in the digital marketing industry.

Big data has exploded onto the scene, forcing marketers to be more savvy with their analytics; the Google Panda update made it necessary for many to transform their websites; and an explosion of social networks such as Pinterest has provided new challenges and opportunities for marketers. Our discussion panel will predict key forthcoming trends and advise you on next steps in your marketing campaigns to stay ahead in this ever-changing industry. Key themes to be covered include: •• How can big data analytics and automation help rather than hinder your performance on search engines.

•• Will winning the second click on your site be more important than winning the first click on Google?

•• How can marketers make use of Google’s concept of the Zero Moment of Truth?

•• Will Google’s Knowledge base eat all of our facts?

•• How successful is search anyway?

•• Is there SEO without links?

Moderator: •• Dana Todd, Vice President of Performance Innovation, Performics Speakers: •• Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc. •• Dan Cristo, Director of SEO Innovation, Catalyst Online •• Andrew Delamarter, Director of Search Marketing, HUGE, Inc. •• Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board; International Search Strategist, Author, Beyond Ink USA 10:45–11:45am

Track 4 Beyond the Click: Conversion in a Social World What does it mean to “convert” people in the swirling cloud of social media?

Once you understand the unchanging fundamentals of human psychology and tribes, you can begin tailoring these new technologies to influence your website visitors. Conversion expert and author Tim Ash will cover social dynamics and the specific strategies you can use to get your audiences to act beyond simply clicking the like button or hitting retweet. Learn how to apply these principles to energize your prospects, increase your online conversions, and boost your bottom line.

Speaker: •• Tim Ash, CEO, SiteTuners.com

18 SES • November 2012 {Chicago}

3:15–4:15pm

Track 5 Ecommerce Site Nightmares … and Solutions Anyone that has ever launched a new ecommerce site knows that the list of problems can run long, even leading to nightmares— ranging from an inoperable site or poor user experience to losing organic search traffic from previously ranked category and product pages. This panel will introduce some of these nightmares, which are more common than you may think, and how to proactively prevent them during the development, build, and launch cycles. It will also describe how to reactively stop the bleeding and move towards strong sales and return on investment.

You will be encouraged to share examples of your own problems and describe how you established a mitigation and solution process specific to your organizational structure and prioritization.

Moderator: •• Jonathan Allen, Director, Search Engine Watch Speakers: •• Steve Braun, Vice President, E-Commerce and Channel Marketing, OfficeMax •• Jeff Katz, CEO, Wize Commerce 4:30–5:30pm

Track 1 Educating the Ruling Class: Optimizing Your Digital Strategy Across the Enterprise To remain competitive at the enterprise level, you must become a digital business evangelist, championing the move toward a more streamlined business model that entails every department working together in concert toward common goals. Learn the steps to take to build a digital business culture from the ground up, and change not only your thinking, but that of your teams.

Moving toward a digital business culture means: •• Changing the way you think of long-standing tactics, as well as how you execute them.

•• Getting your entire team on board, from the top of the organization down.

•• Getting everyone moving in the same direction, and evolving as digital business itself evolves.

•• Embracing chaos, being responsive, and most importantly, deciphering audience intent.

Moderator: •• Anna Lee, Conference Producer, SES Conference & Expo Speakers: •• Christopher Hart, Director of Account Management and Client Services, BlueGlass Interactive, Inc. •• Aaron Friedman, SEO Manager, Spark

Download the app or visit SESChicago.com.

sessions

Sample Sessions

Download the app or visit www.SESChicago.com for complete agenda and session descriptions.

Day 3—Thursday, November 15 10:45–11:45am

Track 3 Leveraging Twitter and Facebook Ads Facebook and Twitter have become platforms many advertisers just can’t ignore. Understanding paid media can amplify your social strategy and build a strong, engaged community. This session will inspire attendees to develop or enhance existing campaign assets and provide proven strategies and tools to conquer Facebook and Twitter ads. Attendees will learn: •• Workflow and organization tactics.

•• How to map search to social inventory •• Tools to identify social synonyms and other segment targeting tools.

•• What images work and how to develop excellent image assets.

•• Winning FB ad strategies that work for B2B & B2C brands.

•• How to track FB ad success with Google Analytics.

•• A case study on the B2B FB ad win over Search and LinkedIn ads.

•• A case study example on how Twitter can be used for creating brand awareness and generate new customers.

•• A deep dive to understand the advertising, analytics, and targeting options on Twitter’s advertising platform.

Moderator: •• Miranda Miller, Lead Writer, Search Engine Watch Speakers: •• Justin Freid, Media Director, TPG, An Omnicom Company •• Merry Morud, Online Marketing Account Manager, aimClear® 12:15–1:15pm

Track 1 SEO and Website Migrations: How to Have a Smooth Transition What are the most common mistakes made during website redesigns/migrations, and how can you avoid them? In this session, you will learn how to merge domains, change URLs and CMS requirements, and review requirements documentation and wireframes.

We will walk you through sample SEO requirements and tell you how to properly communicate them. We will also show you how to develop code checklists and QA testing test scripts.

Moderator: •• Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board; International Search Strategist, Author, Beyond Ink USA Speakers: •• Josh McCoy, Lead Strategist, Vizion Interactive •• Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive

12:15–1:15pm

Track 3 Personalization: Delivering Custom Content to People and Bots As the online marketing industry strives to understand personalization, it is essential to know how to provide customized content for end users and bots without cloaking. This session will explore three specific types of personalization: sitewide, recommendation, and evaluation personalization. It will answer these questions: •• How do personalization and SEO complement each other?

•• How do I make personalization scalable?

•• Can UGC be part of my personalization plan?

•• What is different about personalization in Europe?

Moderator: •• Simon Heseltine, Director of SEO, AOL Inc. Speakers: •• Michael DeHaven, Sr Product Manager, SEO, Bazaarvoice •• Greg Ott, CMO, Demandbase 1:30–2:30pm

Track 2 Sell Without Selling: The Real Secret to Content Marketing Success A truly effective content marketing strategy centers around creating compelling content that gives people a reason to return to your site or engage with you in some way. The secret is to stop focusing on the “sale.” Selling online means taking every opportunity to bring potential customers closer to your brand in an engaged way.

Great content can do this better than any banner ad or pushy sales collateral ever will. Changing not only the way you view content, but also the way you create it, will help you increase conversions.

Learn how to use great content to create multiple opportunities to potentially sell to your audience.

Moderator: •• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board; CEO, TopRank Online Marketing Speakers: •• Adam Proehl, Owner/Principal, Web Strategy Consultant, NordicClick Interactive •• CMO, BlueGlass

sesconference.com • SES 19