Search Engine Optimization Resources

My friend launched a website a couple weeks ago and was looking for search engine optimization resources. These are the links I sent him. The nuances of SEO change when Google updates their algorithms, and the last three links do a good job of covering those nuances. But the core of SEO is good content, and the first link does a good job of covering that.

• How to Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well n Search Engines (PDF) – This gives a broad overview of SEO and emphasizes quality content, which is really what SEO is all about.
• SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – They do weekly videos explaining basic and advanced SEO techniques.
• Search Engine Land – Danny Sullivan, one of the most well-known SEO people out there, is in charge of this site. Check out their What is SEO? page for a comprehensive list of resources.
• Search Engine Roundtable – This site aggregates popular posts from other SEO forums. 

Matt Cutts heads Google’s webspam team and is a good person to follow on Twitter and Google+ for SEO-related news. The official Google blog, their Webmaster blog, and Bing’s webmaster blog are all good sources for official information.

Recent Social Media Research

The noise surrounding social media is beginning to get filtered out. Being a "social media guru" holds less clout now that social media is demystified and everyone's parents are on Facebook. Most businesses acknowledge social media's potential, and the writing about it has improved as a result.

The articles below, which I used for an upcoming article about commercial real estate and social media, are examples of this improvement. They are either quantitative surveys about the business usage of social media or qualitative articles about social media models for businesses.

• Social Media: The Three Big Myths (Gallup Management Journal, Sept. 2011) – One of the myths of social media, according to the authors, is that it can be used to drive customer acquisition. They point out that our friends and family are far more likely to influence our purchasing decisions than branded social media pages (see image). The other two myths debunked in the article: Social networking is an online-only phenomenon; all social networks are the same. 

• Putting Social Media to Work (Bain & Company, Sept. 2011) – This article offers the most actionable information. It also complements the Gallup article, which makes the case for engaging your audience. According to the Bain & Co. authors, customers who are engaged with companies over social media are more loyal and spend 20 – 40 percent more with those companies.
• Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media and Marketing 2011 (Booz & Co., Oct. 2011) – This quantitative survey has 15 pages of stats on how "North American marketers" are using social media. Among the findings: 96 percent of companies plan to allocate "substantially more" or "somewhat more" resources to social media.

I was interested in seeing how analytics and measurement would be covered. The articles generally make the point that measurement is important, but there’s not a new and valid measurement technique for social media. Sentiment and influence scoring tools show some promise, but their accuracy is debatable and they offer only a partial picture.

I think companies that already had techniques for monitoring their KPIs will most easily be able to monitor social media’s impact. For example, the Bain & Co. article shows how the Net Promoter Score—a customer satisfaction measurement they developed before social media was big—can be applied to social media. Companies that don't have monitoring techniques can use this as an opportunity to begin measuring all marketing initiatives, not just social media.

Recognizing When to Cut Marketing Investments

Cutting a marketing budget when consumers are spending less makes sense if another condition exists. The product has to be a matured.

Companies will use defensive marketing strategies when a product is near the end of the product life cycle. Consider DVD players. You never see advertising for these because they will be obsolete soon. DVD manufactures are trying to maximize profit, which requires lowering marketing and advertising spend.

It’s important for companies to understand why sales are declining. Are they declining because the product has matured? Or is it because consumers are generally buying less?

If consumers are buying less of your product because they’re buying fewer products in general, companies shouldn't cut marketing. John Quelch, a professor at Harvard’s Business School, argued that point as the U.S. was entering a deep recession in 2008:

This is not the time to cut advertising. It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.

Companies need to understand why consumers are buying less of their product. If it’s a result of economic conditions and the product is still early in the product life cycle—a determination that is not easily made—companies should refine their marketing strategy but not cut marketing and advertising. If sales have slowed because the product reached the end of the product life cycle, companies should reduce marketing expenses in order to maximize profits.

Best Events for Meeting Creative People in Chicago

All the great connections you can make over social media can’t replace a solid in-person event. Here’s a list of Chicago events that I like to attend to get new perspectives, ideas, and inspiration. Aside from the Kellstadt Marketing Group, all events are free.

• Creative Mornings – On the last Friday of the month, Creative Mornings organizes a short presentation by someone local who’s in the creative, tech, or start up world. Threadless co-founder Jake Nickell talked about the importance of making things and how that lead to Threadless.
  
• Kellstadt Marketing Group – KMG’s biggest event is in the spring when they host an annual symposium. Other smaller events are hosted throughout the year, including the upcoming event about marketing jobs.
  
• Energy BBDO Creative Salons – This monthly event is hosted in Energy BBDO’s Wrigley Building office. The series “features informal discussions with talented folks in all types of creative industries.” Dan Sinker, the man behind @MayorEmanuel, was their latest guest.
  
• Chicago Drupal Group – The presentations and discussions span topics beyond Drupal. Speakers will cover topics like responsive web design, site architecture, data migration, and coding. The Drupal community is full of good thinkers, and this is the best place to connect with them in Chicago.
  
• The Paper Machete – The other events are aligned with job functions—tech, creative, marketing. The Paper Machete is more informal and has people you’d see on the arts and entertainment pages. It’s not all fun and games though. One of best presenters I’ve seen there is 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar.

What are your favorite creative-people events? Leave a note in the comments.

10 Seconds to Convince a Website Visitor to Stay

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox newsletter is one of the best sources for trends in web usability. In a recent issue, he discussed a study by Microsoft Research. They researched a model to demonstrate how long users stay on a web page, and what they found is that a Weibull distribution showing negative aging effect is the correct model. As the graph shows, the first couple seconds are critical to determine if a user stays on the page.

The full report describes the "screen-and-glean" browsing behavior users demonstrate when visiting a page. We screen pages before giving them a more detailed examination. We make a determination during that screening process to decide whether to spend more time on the page.

The post reminded me of Jared Spool's keynote at DrupalCon this year. You can still watch the entire presentation, which I'd suggest not just because it's full of great usability insights but also because he's a really entertaining speaker. At about minute 50 he explains the 5-second test, which is a good method recreating the screen-and-glean behavior. This test is a helpful--and inexpensive--way guide design decisions.

Spool's presentation makes intuitive sense, and the Microsoft study provides the data to support it. I think DePaul's recently redesigned homepage puts these ideas to good use.

Your eye immediately goes to the text to the right of the picture (both the text and pictures rotate). In less than ten seconds, you'll decide whether you want to spend more time on the page/site. The design effectively facilitates the screen-and-glean process.