Opening Keynote: The A.R.T. of Engagement

Brian Solis, Award-Winning Author, Futurist and Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group

Great keynote – Brian was very engaging and delivered some excellent information.

•  23% of major media time is on mobile, but only 4% of ad spend is mobile
• The “Connected Lifestyle” is on mobile, is VERY social, and is very real-time
• 1 Facebook Share has the potential value of 200 Facebook Likes
• Point of Sale revenue in grocery stores is plummeting – people are looking at their phones while waiting, instead of looking at magazines and candy
• Experience Architecture: describe the intended experience, then design for it
• In July 2014 58% of time spent with online retailers was on mobile
• Most web sites are designed for the people approving the project, not the consumer!
• A.R.T. Engagement: Action, Reactions, Transactions
• Your brand is defined by those who use it, and they’re much louder than what we say about ourselves
• We live in a strange world when somebody gets excited because they received good service
• 90% of people use multiple screens sequentially. 67% do so while shopping online (they have to in order to complete a transaction properly in many cases)
• “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

Panda, Penguin, Penalties, & More: Staying on Top of Algorithm Updates

Not NEARLY as dry as the title suggests. These guys were good.

Nate Dame, CEO and Founder, Propecta
Matt Koulas, Senior SEO Specialist, Grasshopper

• Google’s revenue from advertising has fallen below 90%; they are trying to compete with organic listings for clickshare
• Google’s SERP and algorithm updates are meant to benefit them, not us (advertisers).

(from http://moz.com/rand/google-seo-dont-actually-change-much/)

Google Updates and the Knee jerk reactions and Big Picture realities:

• Panda
  • Knee jerk: Stop scraping content, nuke low-quality content
  • Big Picture: Google hates poor user experiences
• Penguin
  • Knee jerk: Stop keyword stuffing.
  • Big Picture: Ranking factors not focused on user benefits will continue to decline in performance. Traditional on-page factors are on the decline in importance. Content must be share-able.
• Knowledge Graph
  • Knee jerk: Update our Wikipedia page!
  • Big Picture: Google would prefer to keep people on Google.com whenever possible.
• Pirate
  • Knee jerk: Don’t pirate content!
  • Big Picture: Don’t pirate content.
• Hummingbird
  • Knee jerk: Will it kill link building?
  • Big Picture: Just a back-end upgrade to the Google technology. Not an algorithm update. So remain calm.
• Pigeon
  • Knee jerk: Proximity to the City center
  • Big Picture: Local & standard SEO content is merged

• In the future, Google will probably focus on user experience and social signals as much as, if not more than, traditional ranking factors
• Target user intent, not just keywords; don’t be keyword-centrc! The keyword does nothing for the user.
• Create content with TOPICAL authority
• Create SEO landing pages that influencers will amplify (by sharing them, blogging about them, linking to them, etc)
• It is no longer acceptable not to have social sharing buttons on every page of your site, especially content pages
• Link building is being replaced by influence building
  • Create content worthy of linking to
  • Perform outreach worthy of a response
  • Build influencer relationships worthy of a second (and third) date

Diverse Paid Search Strategy Puts More Patients in Dr. Offices

Christine Bon, M.A., Manager, Digital Marketing and Communication, Advocate Health Care
Rod Holmes, Partner, Chicago Style SEO

This session focused fairly tightly on the medical industry. However, there was a nugget worth jotting down.

• Outbrain.com is a PPC vendor that promotes content.

Next Generation Website Usability: How to Optimize Your Site for the Best User Experience

Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive

I was hoping this session might break some new ground, but in fact it didn’t though some good info was shared.

• She discussed the User Experience Honeycomb (from http://www.melodiesinmarketing.com/2011/03/13/ux-user-experience-honeycomb-design-aspects/):

• Gray and especially dark gray is very difficult to read on a tablet and almost impossible to read on a phone
• Instead of a site map page, use a site index page. CDC has a great example: http://www.cdc.gov/az/a.html
• Findability is a combination of browse, search, and ask
• Findability has to be resolved before usability can be
• Cool tool I had read the $300 Million Button before but forgot about it: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/
• When it comes to deciding what content to create, just ask your customers. They’ll tell you! Really, ASK them
• The Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility remains highly relevant.

Improve Lead Quality to Increase ROI: Unclog Your Pipeline of Poor Leads

Mike Nierengarten, President, Obility Inc.
Jamie Rowe, Lead Generation Program Manager, ABM

This turned out to be 100% B2B, with a strong Salesforce.com component. Nevertheless, it was good to attend and provided value.

• Add a “contact me immediately” option to contact forms to fast-track hot leads/prospects
• VERY cool keyword research tool/toy: http://soovle.com/
• Another one: http://keywordtool.io/
• Competitor targeting is one of their best-performing campaigns
• Target competitor domains in Gmail Promotions
• Target compeitor’s followers on Facebook and YouTube

That’s all for today, friends!

ClickZ Live – Chicago