OneSearch

SES Toronto was June 16-18, and while I didn’t attend, I have been reading up some of the reviews and feedback from the event. I found a review of SES Toronto by Andrew Goodman. In his review, he discusses things that he learned during the conference.
Some questions that were discussed while putting this year’s program together were “are many of the core search marketing tactics old and tired? Is a new approach needed? Should the focus on search be abandoned in favor of Web 2.0—with more emphasis on social media?
Andrew Goodman’s main point is that the fundamentals still really work. The “core stuff works” and has tremendously evolved, and it is still extremely important. He said that session after session proved without fail that we are underinvesting in and underestimating the enormous power of the core search tactics—linking campaigns, content strategies, relevant analytics, paid search, conversion optimization, etc.
He’s basically saying not to quit the traditional search engine optimization techniques that really work in favor of the Web 2.0 buzz that’s been floating around lately. Many search marketers are jumping ship and experimenting with social media—Facebook, MySpace, YouTube videos, etc. Goodman says in his article, “Building the marketing sprinkles on top of your meatball sundae won’t get customers into the basic navigation towards key objectives.” This isn’t to dismiss the huge influence of social media, but it probably won’t get conversions from your customers the way a properly optimized web site would. There’s a reason these tactics have stood the test of time.—they work! Don’t discount proven techniques.
Sounds like SES Toronto was a really great experience with much offered and much learned. Hopefully, I get to attend this conference next year! 

Hello. I just finished reading a very interesting article about Google’s AdWords and the 2008 presidential election. This election year, more than any other previous election in history, search advertising will influence the vote. Some even say that spending on ads will either make or break the election.
Peter Greenberger, Google’s political ad man was interviewed about this presidential election’s tie to paid search ads. He believes that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was actually hurt by failing to consitently use search advertising through the primary season. He also believes that the success of both Barack Obama and John McCain winning the primaries for their respective parties was due in large part to savvy search advertising. The McCain and Obama campaigns have driven users looking for information about the candidates to their official Web sites through sponsered links. Once these users are taken to the official campaign Web sites, they donate money, volunteer, or register for newsletters.
So the two candidates for president are set to spend more money on search advertising, than any other political campaign in history.
Every presidential candidate in the 2008 primary election season, on the left and on the right, used Google AdWords. Certain candidates understood the importance sooner and began using it much earlier than others, but they all used it. Obama was very early to start this stategy. He stuck with it and was able to build a huge list of supporters. Hillary Clinton’s campaign started it later on in the season, and ending up cutting it off during the last two quarters of 2007, during which time both Obama and McCain’s campaign continued to use Google AdWords. The Clinton campaign then decided to relaunch their AdWords campaign once the primaries were already well underway. This, argues Greenberger, had a huge effect on how many smaller donors they could count on. He says they “had already dug themselves into a huge hole.” Clinton stopped and started her AdWords campaign several times before she really realized the benefits of it. By that time, could it have been too late? Both McCain and Obama understood early on the importance of using paid search ads. It is not a coincidence that the two savviest presidential campaigns with Google have won the primaries for the party and are now the candidates for President of the United States.
Even when John McCain’s campaign seemed over and during his darkest days, his campaign continued to spend money on Google Adwords. Even when the polls showed that interest in his campaign had slowed, he was still ready to capture interest through paid search ads.
Both candidates have used a very aggressive keyword strategy. There has been a deliberate attempt to geo-target and expand the electorate. Obama’s campaign used geo-targeting to users in Texas during the Texas primary. When users searched for voter information, they were shown an Obama ad. Greenberger believes that this stategy will be used often during the general election, especially in the swing states.
It’s going to very interesting to watch!!

I just came across this article on searchengineland.com this morning on landing pages, and since I just attended a conference on landing page optimization last week, I found it quite interesting and thought I would write about it a little here. It talked about how most landing pages are created and managed like it is part of the web site alone, when in actuality it should be thought of as a part of your web site AND as a part of your ads. So people should think of their landing pages as little of both instead of one or the other. This doesn’t always happen, but there should be some kind collaboration between the people creating the landing pages and the people creating the ads. This way there is some sort of connection between what people see in an ad and what they see after the click. The problem occurs when ads are developed and created at a much faster rate than new landing pages are developed. So companies have many ad creatives but a minimal number of landing pages. Your thinking of landing pages should be shifted to be more a part of your advertising. This article suggests changing your perspective from site landing pages to advertising landing pages. When you create your ads, you create your pages–you try to match them very closely so the ad placements now correspond to the landing pages. This way, the ad is view as the first step of the experience-one step in a sequence that has been carefully designed and executed. A good example given is snail mail. The outside envelope has limited creative space, just like text ads do. The goal of the envelope is to get you to look inside–this is sort of the equivalent of getting the click. The outside envelope and inside envelope are most usually designed together. They are part of the same marketing objective. If landing pages are thought of this way, building them as part of the advertising, this can help with your online marketing. The people creating and executing your ads ideally should be have the power to create, test, and analyze your landing pages. The goal being to launch a new landing page as easily as creating a new Google Adwords ad. Maintaining a high brand of standards in your landing pages is important, as well as making it quick and easy for a marketer, not a designer, to produce a quality landing page experience. Changing your thinking for site landing pages to advertising landing pages is a new way to think of both your landing pages and your advertising. Interesting stuff!

On another note, we want to congratulate our co-worker, Karen, who just gave birth to beautiful twin baby boys on Monday night. Congratulations, Karen!!!

Hey-I just wanted to write a quick blog about my recent trip to Jacksonville, Florida. I attended a workshop on landing page optimization put on by MarketingSherpa. It was a day and a half conference (all day Monday and half a day on Tuesday). I’m not going to lie–it was a LONG day on Monday with a ton of information thrown at us, but it was such great information that it was well worth it. I learned so much in a day and a half! The team from MarketingSherpa and Marketing Experiments that put on this workshop were so knowledgeable, informative, and helpful–they really made sure everyone was understanding what they were teaching, and if people weren’t, they went back over it. There were always people walking around to help someone with their own landing pages, if needed. Some brave people asked to have their landing pages optimized in front of the group, so we worked on live optimization of several landing pages together. They gave out such great information–of just changing one or two things on their pages–that could help increase ROI significantly.
We even had a test at the end of the workshop (I passed! WOOHOO!!) and became certified as a landing page optimization expert!
So even though this was a long day and half and a lot of work, it was so worth it, and i would recommend this conference to anyone who wants to learn how to improve their landing pages and in turn increase your revenue stream. It was fun, too!