There was an introduction to the whole event by Neil Morgan, (Senior Director Digital Marketing, Adobe EMEA) and he explained the morning had been devoted to clients and the afternoon session was devoted to agencies.

What Neil explained was that Adobe is well know for the creative suite of software about 15 at the moment, but since it bought Omniture in 2009 for an eye watering $1.8 Billion they have moved firmly into the search and analytics markets. The combination of creating content and delivering then measuring the results seems to be their current mission. The brands that currently use Omniture reads like a who’s who of the biggest companies in the world, BBC, Oracle, Nike to name a few.

Neil went on to introduce Jeremy Spiller (MD of white hat media and senior trainer for Econsultancy) who gave a wide overview of the way in which data is being used currently and what we should expect in the future. Jeremy’s voice sounds a bit like Barry White so his words seemed to carry even more weight in the confines of the cinema.  It was a great insight into the ideas that data and then action is an old way of reacting to events, the whole process has to have information gleaned from the ‘data’and intelligence focused on the information to then employ intelligent actions. One slide I particularly enjoyed read:

“Data is not information, information is not intelligence, information is not always useful”

I suppose we can all take away the idea that without making the data useful and informative it’s very hard to utilise it in an intelligent way. The mass of information that we are bombarded with on a daliy basis can be overwhelming to say the least.

Jeremy went on to explain that the way that people arrive at a purchase can be a very varied road, buyers making numerous ‘touch points’ on their search.  One might start with a Google search but then ask a question on Twitter and then watch a video of the product on Youtube and so for a marketer it’s hard to know which site to attribute the sale to?  Jeremy also explained that the way that we search is changing as well, that people are inputting txt speak into search engines to save on space on their smart phones.

Attribution is going to be an area that is ever expanding, how do your customers get to you and on which devices do they arrive?  It’s seems to be invertible that the desktop PC won’t be the number one point of access to the internet in the future. Jeremy had a slide predicting that devices (tablets and Smart Phones) would over take desktops by as early as 2013, although these are estimates.

The talk then moved onto the relationship between Paid search and organic search and where these two sources working in synergy or where they cannibalistic to each others objectives? A few simple examples where thrown up for us to see the way a SERPS page was displaying for keywords such as ‘Apple’ and ‘windows’. Below is the results you get from entering ‘windows’ into Google  (you too can try this at home!)

You can see that all the organic results relate to Microsoft Windows and all the paid results relate to window companies like Zenith. It’s interesting to see the overlap of products and the confusion that can arise. Apparently users stay on a SERPS page for about 7 seconds and either go back and refine their search or move forward from the results.

Jeremy went on to tell an anicdote about a client in a Telecoms company that had 19 different brand managers all wanting to target the same key phrases and how this showed the disjointed approach that some companies had it graphically highlighted that one part of the company can end up competing against another part of the same company.

One of the key points I took away was to be a futurist and learn from the past, obviously there is the data of the past to work from and plan for the future. An interesting statistic was that only 24% of business websites were optimised for devices leaving the majority unprepared for what’s around the corner.

Jeremy finished with some predictions that were soon to be upon us, like the convergance of the internet onto TV and the steady march of geo location technology. We all move about and depend on our smart phones more and more and will see the rise of the QR codes maybe playing videos of products you scan in the store? He also mentioned the mobile technology that allows you to pay using your smartphone wirelessly. It all seems to be coming to a shop near you anytime soon.

The final part of the seminar was dedicated to Search metrics and was presented by Dr Horst Joepen CEO of Search Metrics, a very smartly dressed man who gave an insightful and enlightening overview of his analytics product and how it interfaces with the Adobe Omniture software to give quite stunning insights into both paid and organic keyword performance.

I must now raise my hands and admit that things got quite technical quite quickly and although I understood the principles involved it’s hard to judge the software without trying it, which I will do in the near future. The basic overview is that using this software can give you insights into where your competitors are bidding on the same keywords that you are and where you overlap. There are a multitude of other features that you can dig into but I will leave you to search out and try these.

We were given a demonstration of the software and how you can manage both your paid and organic campaigns under one roof. The ability to really gauge what your competitors are doing in terms of keywords is what really shone through.

“90% of clicks go into organic results and 90% of budget goes into paid search”

I suppose what I really took away from the whole afternoon is that the raw data the we have at our finger tips is ever expanding and it’s knowing how to use and formulate that data into actions that see results is the key. The world of search is ever changing and it’s moving onto devices at a quickening rate. So if your clients haven’t thought about how this will effect their business they should do sharpish because if they don’t you can be sure that their competitors are.

Keeping up to date with the ever ending advances in the way that we search seems half the battle, but it’s what I love about this industry, you adapt and develop, “always be in beta” as Jeremy said. Just keep on testing people!

Adobe Seminar September 29 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

The speaker line-up is as if SMX has created it’s very own Audioslave or Velvet revolver, bringing together the very best local search minds out there… It’s all set to be a cracker!

I thought it also worth noting that if you want an audio Google Local treat; David Mihm, Martijn Beijk and Lisa Myers were on a webmaster radio show on which they discussed in detail some of the points below and more… Listen to it right here (well, from Webmaster Radio really), right now.

Philippe Huysmans – Director, Microsoft

Philippe starts of and immediately it sounds like an interesting and insightful plan. He gives us an insight into how Microsoft looks at local; when they discuss local they are talking about both PC & mobile. Even more interesting is how Philippe & Microsoft look at local search as if it’s a dating cycle:

-          1^st date – tentative searches

-          Dating – refine query

-          Marriage – found your product, make a decision

I personally love the association with romance, nothing better than a feel good local search eh. When you are on your 1^st date, you are influenced heavily by outside influences.

-          37% of those exposed to outdoor ads will turn to mobile search.

-          38% of those submitted to T.V. ads will move to mobile search.

Don’t know about you, but I think those are pretty decent percentage figures!! I guess figures like these definitely give a holistic marketing approach a pat on the back.

Bing business portal – launched last month in US. Free of charge, a definite must for anyone with Local profiles & definitely one to watch in terms of market share when it’s launched in Europe…

On to the dating phase, a good phase in any relationship I might add. In this phase you are communicating with your friends, which has resulted in a 50% increase in consumers trusting their social network for product recommendations… Don’t recommend anything bad peeps, I just might buy it. A couple of great percentage points followed:

PC & Mobile Query intent – 70% of consumers on pc will complete their purchase in 1 month

Mobile – 70% complete a purchase within an hour!

Thought – Does this mean considered purchases aren’t made on mobile devices? Or is it that mobile customers are more promiscuous?

78% of customers want deals or promotions. Not only then should you always have a promotion running; but this also works well with the promotions section on your Google Local profile & I would guess the Bing Business Portal (speculative).

-          Beta – Store logos are in the process of being added to Bing Maps. Giving you another search angle.

Marriage – time to put up or shut up. A lot of interesting figures came out of this part of the relationship, the notable ones being:

-          90% of smart phone users utilise mobile search

-          84% use search as part of their shopping activity

-          46% of smart phone users compare prices in stores – meaning that mobile customers like off-line ones have doubt/commitment issues.

I guess this compounds the importance of being price competitive, including reviews and importantly offers!

Philippe leaves us with the underlying message that local and mobile are intertwined and that in the foreseeable future this is going to be the case. He and Bing are going to be focusing on it and I think Google will too.

David Mihm – Getlisted

A lot of anticipation surrounds David’s discussions on local and for very good reason indeed. If I may also add that David does go through slides like they are going out of fashion, hence the shorthand nature of this recap.

New to local

-          Local listings

-          Places reviews

-          Local PPC

-          Facebook

-          Twitter

-          QR code

-          Mobile apps

David suggest that the USA does Google local better than those in the UK. From the information I have read I would definitely agree with that. But why is this? David asks. He also answers:

-          The ability to convert pre-website

-          Data accuracy

-          Date completeness

He goes into more detail about some of the cool advancements which have happened to Google Places lately such as;

-          Google Products results being localised

-          Being able to book or order items directly from the page

-          The addition of sentiment snippets underneath photos

In general it seems that Google are really trying to up the functionality of Google Places.

David also believes that Google are seriously looking at user behaviour data in their Places ranking algorithm. These could range from CTRs to number of comments (not sure sentiment is being analysed though).

A VERY COOL TIP – using Insights for search – allows you to drill down by geography, allows you to get local volume and find out what people are talking about.

David re-iterated what he has seemingly always said that; citations continue to be the essential factor for ranking well – it’s the local equivalent of a link!!

Local search ecosystem is a mad looking load of different citation sources. It is extremely important that you submit to the relevant citation hubs for your business. In the UK geographic citation links are more valuable from anywhere else.

Look on competitors places page – figure out which are ranking well and use this information to your advantage.

Tool – use the Whitespark!

David also suggests looking at the sites which are ranking organically for your search term, and try to focus building citations from them. Look for high authority sites, the .govs etc if they reference citations

A great list of best practise tips:

-          Create a unique indexable page for each location

-          Make sure the address is coded in HTML

-          Use HCard to send super signals

-          Use geographic terminology in sitemap and internal links

-          Use the location page as the page you submit to Google Places

-          If you have multiple locations try to keep the IA as flat as possible

-          Cross-link nearby locations

-          Submit a KML sitemap – uses latitude and longitude information!!

Martijn Beijk

Wow, this is a full service local session. Martijn is going to be talking about how to track the tips which David suggested you apply to your Google Places page.

Martijn breaks it down into a hierarchy or information from Local information. He says that all those using Google Places should continually refine and optimise their listing. Martijn discussed the fact that data can be pulled from the Google dashboard – could be some really interesting angles to work there.

He explains that the traditional tracking method requires using 301 redirects with a campaign tracking URL appended to the redirect.

He goes on to explain that blended search has resulted in some links dropping the tracking code, making us all ponder what source to trust. Consensus is they are added to ‘organic’ traffic.

Martijn says we need to dig deeper, and I agree. You need to look at GA visitors and segment them via a number of angles:

-          Segment via customVar

-          Segment via those which have visited local pages

-          Visited store locator pages

-          Detect behavioural differences – mobile users?

Martijn advocates the use of advocating tools; I am in fact an advocate for advocating the use of advocating tools! He recommends you find a way of qualifying the visits. Maybe create a survey and find out for definite how they got there.

Darrin Clement – Maponics

OOoooh a term I haven’t heard before… Geofencing. Ears prick up.

Darrin explains that a geofence is a virtual polygon fence which when entered results in an actions happening.

Apparently there are 3 types of geofence:

-          Static – geofence does not change

-          Dynamic – when data range is changing – i.e. Car parking space available

-          Peer  to peer – social networking platform, i.e. you want to know if your mates are in the fence

You can cross into a geofence, you can be there or you can leave after a certain time. Thus you get the check-in, check-out model – which will be re-invigorated as companies figure out how to market with it.

Darrin shows a map of Chicago – which doesn’t look as cold as I was told it would. The concept of geofencing has been around for decades, but data has only been made available for the last couple of years.

One way of looking at it is – Imagine you set up a bubble around a shop, every time a customer comes into that fence they are prompted with an offer (or some action).

Potential downsides:

-          How do you know customers will be receptive

-          How do you know how big it needs to be – too small already there – to big don’t care.

The method of combating these negatives is to set- up a pre-defined Geofence – using actual geographic areas to target. For example; a shopping district or known shopping area. If you use a radius you might be targeting areas which doesn’t contain potential customers!

Q&A

Tracking as completely as possible? In store surveys, requesting emails, making them purchase from in the store. Coupons are also a great way to incentivise and track local ads. By the sounds of it though it is all about ensuring the business strategy encourages the tracking.

Use of 0800 numbers – Must have a local number and potentially use as an additional one, but never the primary version.

How to claim all your local places– David states getlisted.org, where you can enter your details and theoretically claim multiple site variations.

Mobile SEO best practises – make it immediate focused, but use the same theory as you would for local. Be xhtml compliant and have as usual a focus on user experience.

Geofences – in order to set up campaigns use a company like Placecast, it’s not something which can be set-up on a whim.

Final thoughts – Search is not often explicit in mobile devices it is applied by what they are doing and where they are.

Final Thoughts – Clean up data & make sure your data reflects the information on your locations page.

Whats new in local & mobile search– SMX 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

This is the second group of presentations I attended on day 2 of SMX London breaks down keyword research, to a degree which most of you should find very interesting. Watch for the tips, they are worth a takeaway or two.

Richard Baxter – SEO Gadget

How does anyone make the data they get actionable? How does one get from a data set to a design and more importantly into SEO. The key with research is finding a way of grouping the findings, creating plans and actioning it.

You need to look at long tail keywords to figure out how users are searching for other products. By grouping and identifying segments of a long tail keyword you can quickly create groups and segment again based on these. An example is:

Black Audi A3 Greater London

Most of our most important traffic comes from the longest tail traffic 70th percentile.

- Datasets allow you to filter and categorise keywords
- Allow you to work out and create an order for how people search
- Allows you to make decisions about how your pages and on-page information is categorised.

Richard goes through awesome excel set of excel queries:

- Find
- Iserror
- Not

Man I love excel, and am always so impressed by the stuff that comes out of SEO gadget. It seems array formulas are the key for dissecting a number of queries. There is definitely a skill to learning excel in a presentations, a great number of people are scrambling around trying to get those cogs turning.

So Richard goes on to explain that once you have your methodology down, it’s time to increase the volume of data – more data = better decisions. Agree, agree, and agree.

Deep dive through the Google suggest API and turn 1000 keyword into 10000, categorise and segment these and drill down again. It could help you find an ‘uncategorised’ group which you aren’t even targeting!!!

Tools
All of Richards tools are listed here, enjoy – http://bit.ly/jai89j

Christine Churchill – KeyRelevance

Always love an overload of macros… which is what just happened here. For all you tool lovers Christine’s presentation is going to get you excited.

We all know about the main SEO tools in the market but I hope that Christine shouts about some new ones. Christine explains that last September’s Google keyword tool change is because Google stopped pulling the data from its partner sites… sneaky.

We all love [exact] match and Christine does too. Christine also suggests using the advanced filtering tool with special focus being on the mobile devices – worth considering if you are optimising in a segment for which mobile searches are prominent.

Christine also likes Google Insights and Keyword discovery, which I whole heartedly agree with. I think a big take away at this stage in the presentation is to never get too comfortable with the toolset you use. New tools are out there, the functionality of which often solve the problems which appear in the gaps left by your existing set. Other tool info worth a mention is:

- YouTube suggest – untapped predictive text tool. Worth an extra special mention for those of you optimising video.
- Google Wonder Wheel – a tool which I personally haven’t used but will definitely worth a look.
- Microsoft’s ad centre – pulls live data… live is better than dead.

Lasse Clarke Storgaard – MediaCom

Searchonomics, a combination of my job and favourite A-level class, a great start! Plus Lasse looks like he fell out of a very cool Indy band, hopefully there is song.

He suggests slowing down; nobody cares about how quickly you do it. It’s all about the keywords that work in the end. He explains that he thinks of consumers as having 3 mindsets; one shelf, on which they look high and low. They are not looking for your product:

- Want to buy – 8%
- Consider – 10-15%
- Research 60-80% – not going to buy, but just want to know about it all.

The main concept is about creating a funnel and massaging a consumer down it – everyone loves a massage.

PPPI – Pay Per Purchase Intent
- Which is a set of concentric marketing segmentation circles around an onion. Making me hungry… but on with the ‘search philosophy’.

I think this presentation again highlights how much general CRM and marketing strategies are finding their way into ‘core’ search presentations. Which again highlight’s how there is an underlying shift towards focusing on content and the consumer… Ponder…

Another segmentation slide from Lasse. I read a text book about this in 2001; it was a good read though.

Kevin Gibbons – SEOptimise

Most searches are long tail, 94% of them in fact, I love long tail. There is more to love about these of a longer tail – they convert better and there is less bounce rate.

Idea – focus on the long tail, focus on it again, and then focus more.

Focusing on the long tail needs to be applied from an entire website perspective; you need to totally submerge the site with a long tail mentality.

For content ideas utilise Google Instant, dig deep into analytics and spot trends within – which can then be applied to KW research. Kev suggests creating bespoke segmentation throughout analytics (removing brand is a must) and creating a PPC campaign solely for keyword research something which we wholeheartedly agree with.

Top tip – Use impression share to figure out full search volume!
Top tip – Wikipedia traffic tool – USE IT
Hitwise – another tool which will help you figure out where to target. One which supports a big budget, but the general consensus is; you get back what you pay and then some in data.

It’s worth using as many references and tools as possible to create an average for metrics such as CTR & bounce rates. We recommend this for ecommerce sites in regards to predicting changes in demand and sales.

Kev also suggests dropping that data into excel and making predictions based on traffic volumes. Why not go one step further and apply CPC AdWords data and try to combine conversion data to make the info even more valuable.

Another take away from Kev – go long tail, but don’t go too far. How far is too far? Turning yourself into a fox!

Top takeaways from the Q&A session:

- Adwords API is a lot more granular than other Google data tools. Be very careful with GKT as it pulls in last month which could be very seasonal.
- Defensive ideas – look to the future, get an idea and make sure you get it up ASAP. Logical really, dragging your heels never helps anyone.
- NSFG – Scraping Google – distribute load via multiple IP’s I guess via a proxy of some kind.
- NSFG – Break load API tool – means you never set alarm bells ringing.

Keyword Research Ninja Tactics – SMX London 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

I would also like to say how great it was to meet loads of new people, of course I met loads of “old friends” again but it was just really cool to meet some new people, I haven’t been to a “northern conference” before and it was loads of people there that I kind of know from “twitter” and blogs but never met in person, and you know it’s true; northerns are SO lovely and friendly. Heck I married a Geordie

“Think Massive Pregnant Woman” at Think Visibility

I was speaking on using Social Media for SEO, in my opinion Social Media and SEO goes very much hand in hand and using Social Media aspects for your off page optimisation can be highly effective. To me social media is not about having a twitter and facebook account, but all about creative ideas and execution, making sure a piece of digital content appeals to the masses and is irresisteble. In my presentation I went through in more depth the dicipline of link baiting and article marketing and gave “real examples” of stuff that we at Verve Search have done. I have had quite a few requests for my slides so please find below my slides on “Social Media for SEO” presentation.

I would also like to thank everyone for the great response and tweets on my session, I really appreciate it. Having a seriously pregnant woman as a presenter didn’t seem to fase anyone in the audience and I was treated exactly the same as the other speakers, well actually better, I got to jump the lunch que It was a fabulous last conference before baby arrives, thanks everyone.

Social Media for SEO – Think Visibility 2010 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

We can offer you the exclusive chance of a sneak preview HERE + in addition we can also offer you a discount of £20 as a pre-publication offer if you order the guide before 31st July (2010 of course)…The totlal cost of the guide is £130 (£150 post 31st July)

When we set about writing this guide we decided that we were going to share as much as possible, this guide gives you an insight into exactly how we (at Verve Search) carry out Search Engine Optimsiation. From keyword research and mapping to link development. We have also chosen to cover aspects such as optimising Video content and how to make the most out of Google Local (now called Google Places). Unlike most SEO guides out there this guide is NOT a promotional piece for our company but a genuine attempt in helping YOU the reader to understand and learn more about all aspects of SEO. Explained in plain English wihtout baffling techy speak to confuse you, we really do believe this guide is educational and useful.

EDIT: If you attend the “B2B Marketing SEO Seminar” on the 8th July you can get the ‘SEO Best Practise Guide’ for 1/2 PRICE!

—————————————————-

SEO Best Practise Guide Contents:

SECTION 1: Introduction to SEO

1.1 Search engine optimisation
1.2 The UK search engine market
1.3 Why use search engine marketing?
1.4 SEO’s place in the Internet marketing mix
1.5 How search engines work

SECTION 2: Technical SEO – The foundation of SEO

2.1 Site architecture
2.2 URL structure
2.3 Canonicalisation
2.4 Sitemap
2.5 Geo-targeting – hosting and domain
2.6 Technical toolbox

SECTION 3: On-page SEO

3.1 Keyword and competitor research
3.2 Conducting competitor research
3.3 Organising your research
3.4 Keyword research tools
3.5 Writing content with the search engines in mind
3.6 Keyword mapping
3.7 Current most important areas for content optimisation
3.8 Anchor text optimisation of internal linking

SECTION 4: Off-page SEO

4.1 The PageRank algorithm
4.2 TrustRank
4.3 Future importance of links
4.4 Link development
4.5 Evaluating link equity and carrying out link analysis
4.6 Link generation methods
4.7 Online public relations
4.8 Link baiting
4.9 Social media marketing as part of link development
4.10 Link analysis tools
4.11 Why link analysis is important

SECTION 5: Universal search

5.1 Optimising image content for universal search
5.2 Optimising video content for universal search

SECTION 6: Google places

6.1 Creating a local business listing
6.2 Optimising your local listing
6.3 Data citations

SECTION 7: Web analytics

7.1 Free and paid platforms
7.2 Importance of analytics when doing SEO
7.3 Setting up Google Analytics
7.4 Tracking the right metrics in analytics

APPENDIX i. Outsourcing SEO services

ii. Unethical SEO practices
iii. Future changes in SEO

GLOSSARY
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Happy reading…and please feel free to feedback what you thought of the guide! To request the guide please GO HERE and submit your details or email dominic.rookeallden[AT]b2bm.biz

Search Engine Optimisation Best Practise Guide is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

A4U Expo – Web Analytics Presentation by Lisa Myers is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

The presentation gives an insight into the key areas of link development strategies:

- Content Syndication (referred to in this presentation as Contentlinkation)
- Link baiting (the process of creating content with the objective of recieving links)
- Site Seeding (the research you do beforehand including competitor backlink analysis)
- Relationship building
- Press releases
- Events and Offline activity
- Social Media

A4U Expo – Lisa Myers “Beyond Linkbaiting” Presentation is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency