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F R O M T H E E D ITO R With Peter Prestipino
Inside the Online World
If you were to go back in time 10 years and explain the current state of search engine marketing to a
website owner, they would likely be in awe of how far the practice has come. It’s no longer about simply
pumping out meaningless content and tossing out meta data.Today, elite SEO professionals make content
the most valuable asset.They develop sites with meaningful architecture, and know how to leverage audience
relationships to earn inbound links, among many other progressive SEO methods.
Our April issue addresses how the modern elements of SEO — from the opportunities presented by universal content
to on-site optimization practices — influence how sites are positioned on the search results pages and the tactics Internet
professionals can employ right now.
This edition of Website Magazine also features content on a variety of topics to ensure your website’s success. You
Visit these Upcoming will discover practical guidance about producing Web video for optimal profits, current Web design trends, heat maps,
Internet Industry live chat solutions, check-in services and reducing e-commerce fraud. Website Magazine is also once again excited to
Trade Shows: feature its monthly columnists including Tim Ash on homepage
conversion rates; Dante Monteverde on translation and SEO;
SMX West
March 8-10, 2011 and Heather Lutze on how Web professionals sabotage their
San Jose, CA own websites.
Enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and remember to
SXSW share your stories of ’Net success with our editors at
Web 360:
March 11-20, 2011
Austin, TX WebsiteMagazine.com.
Search Engine
Strategies
The Fundamentals
March 21-25, 2011
Best Web Wishes,
of Web Success
New York, NY
Request or renew a professional-level subscription to Website Magazine
ad:tech and receive the book absolutely free. Learn more at Web360Book.com.
April 11-13
San Francisco, CA
Peter Prestipino — Editor-in-Chief, Website Magazine
Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com
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net briefs
Want More Net Briefs?
SEARCH AND SEIZURE Click on the links below
Two of the world’s most powerful companies Out with the Old
Responding to ongoing criticisms of its
are embroiled in a riveting Web controversy, e-commerce business, eBay formally announced a
and the fallout will likely impact the future of three-year plan to make significant changes.
Link: What to expect with The New eBay.
search. Suspicious that Microsoft’s
Bing was “stealing” its search Technology on Display
results, Google conducted Website Magazine’s January issue predicted bold
changes in the display advertising space. It’s
an undercover investigation happening.
designed to catch its rival red- Link: What Leading tech companies are doing
handed. The ruse actually worked,
Mark Your Calendars
as Bing produced identical results to the nonsensical queries that
Is the Internet running out of addresses? Sort of. In
Google had planted as virtual bait. Adding insult to Google’s the near future, the IPv6 protocol system will take
over to ensure everyone gets their piece of the
injury, Bing seized another 6 percent of the overall market share Internet real estate pie.
while the sides continued to launch accusations at one another. Link: How to get prepared
Google still dominates the market with 68 percent of the share but Back on Track
2010 e-commerce data from comScore shows that
the real winner will likely be users, as both companies put even the industry is healthy, once again. But we’re not all
more focus on the quality and accuracy of their search results. the way back from pre-recession times.
Link: Find out just how far
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net briefs
Help WANTED
Want More Net Briefs?
Another strong indicator that the Web economy is gaining Click on the links below
traction is the improved employment outlook for 2011. In a
survey of nearly 700 brand marketers, agencies and technology Second-hand Coupons
Looking to duplicate Groupon’s wild success? The
firms, 68 percent of respondents said they intend to expand their
answer might lie in the secondary market.
digital staffs this year compared to 57 percent in 2010. The most Link: The second-hand market for
used daily deals
sought-after Web professionals are going to be designers
and developers as well as social media marketers and
The Open Road
social community managers, according to the Society of Open-sourced software is being used by more
Digital Agencies study. Additional online skills that businesses than ever before. Just how much? Read
more to find out.
companies will be looking for most in 2011 Link: Some of the most popular open-source
business software
include research and strategic planning,
blog writing and editing, mobile app Box-office Bombs
Retailers are producing flops when it comes to online
development and video production. video. At least, that’s what the numbers say. But it
might be due to lack of optimization.
Link: Retailers need a video SEO education
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w m m o b i l e [ minute ]
Stuck in Mobile
Video Traffic? Want More Mobile Minute?
Click on the links below
Cisco has predicted that worldwide mobile data traffic will increase
by more than 25 times between now and 2015, largely due to The Local News
the rapid escalation of video consumption on smartphones and Yelp, one of the Web’s most popular destinations
for online reviews of local businesses, recently
tablet computers. Analysts estimate that video will account for released some powerful data for would-be mobile
marketers.
about half of all mobile data traffic this year and that by 2015 it will Link: Powerful data for mobile marketers
be responsible for two-thirds of the world’s mobile data usage.
All Hail the Kindle
Companies worth watching closely in the space right now are Kindle ebook sales on Amazon recently surpassed
those that offer solutions to the impending data traffic jam that will those of paperbacks, barely six months after they
had eclipsed all hardcover sales.
be caused by the unrestrained growth of mobile Link: The ebook market is booming
video. SkyFire and Bytemobile, for instance,
have developed mobile video transcoding There’s an Ad for That
Revenue from mobile applications will soar from
and optimization software that can $5.2 billion in 2010 to $15.1 billion by the end of this
significantly reduce traffic congestion year.
Link: What’s driving mobile revenue?
and allow users and vendors each to
breathe a little bit easier.
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Check-ins
This seemingly simple feature may
have an enormous effect
By Linc Wonham, Associate Editor
Shopkick and Loopt to receive deals from
Some recent announcements from Google have participating businesses, and check-ins
put companies such as Foursquare, Yelp and through apps from Yelp and others offer a
Gowalla on alert, while others including Facebook platform for users to rate, recommend and
review local restaurants and stores.
and Groupon are also watching very closely. So despite being a latecomer to the check-
ins arena, Google can significantly alter the
LBS space in a virtual heartbeat. According to
Google has been systematically maneuvering Check-ins have long been an immensely a December 2010 Microsoft-sponsored study
different pieces of its mobile, local and social popular feature for location-based services entitled Location Based Services Usages and
strategies, and the way those pieces are lining (LBS) because users can share their locations Perceptions Survey, Google Places is the most
up poses a significant threat to a number of with friends via mobile apps when they widely used LBS ahead of Facebook Places
Web businesses. One of the biggest and most arrive at local businesses and establishments. — and that was before the addition of check-
recent moves has been the addition of check- Companies like Foursquare, Gowalla and ins. Also, Google’s new check-ins feature is
in capabilities to Latitude, the social and SCVNGR have built their check-in services unique in that it gives users the added options
sharing feature of Google’s location-based around social rewards such as badges and of setting notifications and checking out from
service Places. stamps. Users check in to Facebook Places, a location.
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In rate and review local businesses, all Assuming for the moment that Facebook
via Google’s services and across all and Groupon can withstand the competition,
mobile platforms. The only thing what about Foursquare and Yelp? Gowalla
missing is a local deals component, and SCVNGR? Shopkick and Loopt? Or the
right? dozens of other lesser-known services?
Wrong. That’s our guess, at least. For businesses that use Google Places
Shortly after its $6 billion acquisition to build awareness for their products and
attempt was spurned by Groupon, services, the convergence of these services
word spread that Google was creates the perfect storm of mobile, local
preparing to launch its own entry and social marketing. Between check-ins,
into the daily deals space — Google coupons, ratings and reviews, merchants
Offers. The company addressed have everything they need right on the Google
addition to the Web’s predominant search the rumors by saying that it was homepage — not to mention Google Analytics
engine and the massive user base that goes exploring several new ways of connecting to gauge the individual performances of each
with it, Google has something else that the local businesses with mobile customers, and service.
other LBS do not — the rapidly growing that a daily deals model was, in fact, one of All that’s going to be hard to beat.
Android mobile platform. Though an iPhone them. But there were others.
app for check-ins is said to be forthcoming, Which brings us to Offer Ads, another
Google Places already has apps for the iPhone mobileinitiativeofGoogle’sinwhichadvertisers
and Android devices that integrate with its send coupons to users through email or SMS
other location-related services such as Google to drive customers into their physical store
Maps and Navigation. locations. The combined synergy of
And Google also has its new HotPot all of these individual Google products
local ratings and recommendations engine, is downright frightening, especially if
for which it announced a global expansion your business relies on mobile apps Follow WM on Facebook!
shortly after the addition of check-ins. So, — particularly for Android — to
users can share their locations with friends, provide competing services.
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WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S
SMALL BUSINESS LAB
Video for ‘Net Success
Part II: Video Production Strategies
By Linc Wonham, Associate Editor
The previous installment of Website Magazine’s Small Business Lab for expensive equipment and software, but no
provided a guide for researching, planning and developing effective amount of technical support or expertise will
offset lackluster preparation.
online video content. The next issue, our May edition, will identify To guide you in that preparation, we have
the best methods for marketing and promoting that content and identified the four key production strategies
measuring the results of a video campaign. that will result in better Web videos for your
business.
That leaves this space to address perhaps the Few businesses today have the resources
most important aspect of the discussion — available to Hollywood production studios,
online video production. Whether a company but if you choose to produce your own Establish a method
elects to outsource all or some of their video videos you will have to start thinking like a We explained in the previous issue how
production needs or keeps all of the work filmmaker. The first thing to understand, to research your niche for the videos that
inhouse, the attention given to this part of the then, is that there is no substitute for a carefully resonate most with viewers. You will likely
process will greatly impact the quality and conceived approach to video production. A come across a variety of methods being used
performance of each video. well-diagrammed plan can eliminate the need by competitors in your market, whether
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WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S
SMALL BUSINESS LAB
their videos are designed to entertain, Regardless of your choice, this is a vital An example of a poorly conceived video
educate, provide instructions, testimonials or production strategy as it will determine the script that obliterated a company’s intended
promote their businesses through some other path your videos take from this point forward. message was Groupon’s ill-fated television
means. You will be establishing your own Spending the time to get this decision right advertising campaign first viewed during
method based on this information, much will serve you well throughout the entire February’s Super Bowl. While technically not
like a filmmaker knows well in advance of production process. Web videos, the TV ads still serve as important
production under what category or genre a reminders that effective online messaging does
film is going to be classified. not automatically translate to video without
Determine the most effective methods Pinpoint the message the right script. Because Groupon’s intended
that are currently being employed and This is akin to writing the script in filmmaking message was lost on millions of television
which ones your audience is responding to terms, and few elements of video production viewers who found the ads offensive, the
most favorably. The wisest route is to select a are as important as the script. The message spots were quickly taken off the air and the
method that is already working in your niche you want to convey to your audience is your company suffered significant damages to its
and then produce your own video of a higher company’s greatest asset in video production, image and creative budget.
quality using that same method. But if your and it is critical that the delivery is both crystal
competitors are scoring points with comedic clear and appropriate for the audience.
videos and you are certain that your own Best practices in terms of production Cast the right people
efforts using that method will fall short of the can include keeping the video as concise as Most Hollywood films today rely on their star
mark, it might be best to establish a method possible; a 30-second spot can be every bit as power to drive success, and Web business
in which you have more confidence. effective if not more powerful than a fiveminute videos should be no different. That’s not to
If that’s the case, try to separate yourself video. Close-up shots are also recommended say that you must go out and hire professional
from the competing methods as much as if a single person is delivering the message actors to recite the company line, but whom
possible. Where funny videos are going to on camera — or if the product itself is the you select to deliver your business’ message is
be a competitor’s hallmark, perhaps a series message. It all depends on your message, the critical to the success of your videos.
of compelling testimonials from clients audience and the tools you have to work with, If your pre-production research has steered
will be yours; or a serious public service and your pre-production research should you in the direction of an instructional video
announcement from the company’s CEO. provide some valuable guidance. on how to use a certain product, casting an
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WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S
SMALL BUSINESS LAB
LIGHTS
actual customer in the starring role may make If you are not satisfied with the overhead lighting in your
for a more powerful video. That strategy might company’s conference room or the natural hues of the outdoor
seem obvious when producing a testimonial- picnic area for your videos, consider something like a Tungsten
based video, but perhaps a company’s CEO Light Kit for about $100. Rules of thumb when going this route
is better suited for delivering an altogether include keeping backup bulbs on hand, even for short filming
different message. Common sense also tells sessions, and turning the lights off when not in use so as not to
you that if your company’s ambition is to fry your leading man or woman.
produce a comedic video and the CEO is
anything but funny, then maybe that’s when a
professional actor make the most sense. CAMERA
The point is that casting is another essential
video production strategy, heavily dependent There are thousands upon thousands of great Web video
on the chosen method, the intended message cameras on the market today, which means it is pretty difficult
and the core audience. They all relate to one to get stuck with something that won’t get the job done. The
another and affect each other in different ways bigger challenge is matching the best price with the highest
throughout the production process, which is functionality, but Sony and Canon provide some excellent
why preparation is so important. options for around $500 or less. The Kodak Zi8 pocket video
camera is also a great alternative for less than $200.
Produce a winner
The technical side of online video production
includes location choice, lighting, camera ACTION
angles, sound engineering, editing and more,
which is why big-budget Hollywood films can Once the cameras are rolling, the best online video can be
take several years before they make it to the rendered useless by a lousy audio feed. Most cameras today
big screen. But a two-minute Web business will pick up sounds from across the room or farther, but many
video shouldn’t require an inordinate amount directors opt for wireless microphones. Lavalier and Sennheiser
of technical work, especially if you have taken are among the most trusted names in the business, and prices
the steps outlined above. start at about $100 for anything worth the investment.
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WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S
SMALL BUSINESS LAB
However, this is usually the phase of production where the highest
quality rises to the top and lesser quality and inexperience reveals
itself. There are some basic guidelines to follow such as avoiding noisy
and poorly lit locations, shooting close-ups of all of your subjects,
ensuring that the audio is — well — audible, and there are also some
common technical pitfalls to avoid.
A costly one is creating your video on a platform that won’t be
seen by the core audience you are trying to reach. Say, for example,
that your message has major significance for the mobile community
at large, and you have just created an Academy Award-worthy video
using a lot of Flash technology. Because of the fact that most users
will try to access your video on their smartphones, and that most of
them will be unable to view anything created in Flash, you have just
committed a Groupon-Super-Bowl-ad-sized error.
But with the proper research and planning mentioned above and in
the previous issue, many of these pitfalls can be avoided. Pre-emptive
strategies for finding the proper method, message, cast and technical
execution can head off any potential problems during the Web video
production process.
Next up, in our May issue, we will discuss online video marketing
and measurement for businesses.
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50 TO P EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDERS
Attention-grabbing headlines aside, email is not dead yet. It’s true
that text messaging, instant messaging and social networking
provide an alternative means of communication to email for many.
Attention-grabbing headlines aside, email is not ,
and brand loyalty it is no doubt an evolving might think that all ESPs are the same. They are
dead yet. It’s true that text messaging, instant industry that demands attention from Web not. When evaluating potential providers be
messaging and social networking provide an professionals. sure to ask plenty of questions – including how
alternative means of communication to email deliverability is optimized, targeting options
for many. Web-based email usage is actually Mobile email presents challenges, in the form of and analytics capabilities. And one element in
declining, in fact, according to some recent data smaller screens and even smaller attention spans particular that should never be overlooked (but
from comScore. However, most of that is due to from busy users. Advertising within emails often is) is ease of use.
the increase in mobile email usage. Smartphones has become common, opening new channels
have made email-on-the-go not only accessible for promotion. Email targeting capabilities are *Based on 10,000 customer surveys.
but even convenient and practical. more advanced than ever. Even multimedia is
making its way to email. In other words, email
Still, email is a top-performing marketing is no longer simply a message. Increasingly
channel. A survey by Foresee Results examining email is becoming a full interactive environment
the top 40 retailers over the 2010 holiday season in itself, which is trackable, optimizable and
found that 19 percent of respondents* visited a directly attributable to a company’s bottom line. ABOUT THIS RANKED DATA
retailer’s website because of a promotional email. Website Magazine’s Top 50 Rankings are measures of a
Compare that with just 8 percent who said the All of this means that it is more important than website’s popularity. Ranks are calculated using a proprietary
method that focuses on average daily unique visits and page
same about a search result. According to the ever to realize the full value in an email service views over a specified period of time, as reported by multiple
study “Only about 5 percent of online holiday
, provider (ESP). Today’s Web professionals need data sources. The website with the highest combination of
shoppers report being primarily influenced to morethanaplatform,theyneedapartner.Website factors is ranked in the first position. Conducting research,
making formal comparisons and talking to existing clients
visit top retailer sites by social media channels…” Magazine’s Top 50 Email Service Providers is and users before making any purchase decision is always
But while email still drives traffic, conversions here to help your business find that partner. You recommended.
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Continue to the next page to view graphs
1. ConstantContact.com Monthly Traffic Rank of icontact.com 26. icontactplus.com
2. icontact.com .
27 cooleremail.com
3. getresponse.com 28. lsoft.com
4. VerticalResponse.com 29. ipost.com
5. exacttarget.com 30. sendfree.com Monthly Traffic Rank of knotice.com
6. streamsend.com 31. massmailsoftware.com
.
7 ratepoint.com 32. eliteemail.com
8. campaigner.com 33. yesmail.com
9. bronto.com 34. reachmail.net
10. Benchmarkemail.com 35. knotice.com
11. lyris.com 36. boomerang.com
Monthly Traffic Rank of strongmail.com
12. topica.com Monthly Traffic Rank of mailchimp.com
.
37 strongmail.com
13. netatlantic.com 38. arialsoftware.com
14. mailchimp.com 39. blueskyfactory.com
15. silverpop.com 40. delivra.com
16. mailermailer.com 41. emfluence.com
.
17 myemma.com 42. responsys.com
18. interspire.com 43. easycontact.com
19. mynewsletterbuilder.com 44. savicom.net
20. graphicmail.com Monthly Traffic Rank of listrack.com 45. loopfuse.com
21. listrak.com 46. emercury.net
22. jangomail.com .
47 goldlasso.com
23. resultsmail.com 48. touchpointec.com
24. aweber.com 49. activetrail.com
25. bighip.com 50. mailworkz.com
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SEO CORNER
With Dante A. Monteverde
LOST IN SEO TRANSLATION
Practical guidance for SEOs on going multi-regional is scarce, so let the following
act as a way to learn some basic, intermediate and advanced tactics to avoid being
.
“lost in SEO translation”
W
While extending a product line is one way
companies can grow, another is to expand
their service area to include more geographic
regions. Of course, doing so presents several
serious challenges for these businesses and
the search engine optimizers who serve them.
The first thing to understand is that there
is a big difference between making a site
more is required of those going multiregional.
Clarifying the business objectives at the outset
will ensure SEOs use the appropriate strategy.
Breaking the Language Barrier
Fortunately, managing multiple language
versions of a website and making sure
localized content appears in the search results
language version is discoverable and perhaps
above all else, paying particular attention to
URL naming.
Search engines use the content of the
page and navigation as primary signals to
determine the language of that page. So, it
would only make sense that page content
and navigation be accurately translated.
accessible in multiple languages and taking pages is pretty straightforward — really, it’s Researching language-specific keyword
a business to new regions entirely. Basic no different than optimizing any site. When search volumes will ensure the terms you are
organization and a thoughtfulness toward it comes to leveraging translated content using are those that provide the most value
how users in languages other than your own for SEO, basic suggestions include making to your users and your overall SEO efforts.
react to content (and design) is useful; much sure the page language is obvious, that each Remember that several different dialects can
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be in use in the same region, country or even if necessary block it from the search engines), The only downside is that users might have
the same city, so research accordingly. we can start targeting the site content to a trouble recognizing the abbreviations, so
For the sake of organization, it is important specific country. investigate how different regions or countries
for SEOs to establish the site architecture or abbreviate their individual languages and use
at least play a role in its development. The Making Local Sense those.
ability to separate the site into languages or Content optimization and site structure are While server location is a signal to search
regions of similar languages (German and only a few of the tasks that international SEOs engines about a site’s intended audience, it is
French, for example, if targeting the French are forced to contend with — there is also the in no way definitive, as many websites use
Alps), will enable SEOs to create language- issue of raising awareness for both users and distributed content delivery networks or are
specific sitemaps that, in turn, enables the the search engines. hosted in a country (not the one being targeted)
search engines to discover more of the site. While the initial reaction for many with a better infrastructure. Should you really
When appropriate, interlinking the various would be to purchase as many relevant want to cover all of the potential SEO areas
languages will also provide search engines ccTLDs (country-code top-level domains) or of importance when it comes to going multi-
with cues that additional content is available internationalized domain names (IDNs) as regional, consider mapping a subdomain that
for indexing. possible, many will find that the acquisition includes translated content to a Web host in
While it is best to actually have a qualified requirements are too demanding and the that particular regional area.
dual-language speaker translate content, investment too costly. That being said, ccTLDs Search engines do provide a way for SEOs
it would be naïve to think that automated and IDNs provide a strong signal to users to designate that a site is intended for a specific
translation does not occur. It should be clearly and search engines that the site is explicitly country and its users. Google Webmaster
stated that if you fall into that category, seriously intended for a specific country. Tools provides geo-targeting capabilities — all
consider blocking automated translation The majority of businesses are satisfied to that is required of SEOs and webmasters is to
(through the use of robots. txt); as they do not use a subdomain or subdirectory for translated select the appropriate country. This feature can
always make sense, and could harm a user’s content, however — and there is little in the only be used for sites with a generic top-level
perception of the website, brand and business. way of evidence to show this negatively affects domain however, such as .com or .org. Sites
Now that we understand more about rankings. These two approaches are both easy with country-ccTLDs (such as .ie) are already
the importance of keyword research for to set up and manage. For example, instead associated with a geographic region; in this
translation and SEO, and exactly how we of acquiring domain.fr and domain.de, we case, Ireland. If no information is entered in
should organize our translated content (and could use fr.domain.com or de.domain.com. Webmaster Tools, Google will simply make
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geographic associations based on the top-level
domain (.co, .uk or .ca) and the IP address of
the Web server from which the context was
served.
Perhaps the best means to inform users
and search engines that a website is intended
for a geographic area and a particular language
(or two), is to actually be local. Use addresses
and phone numbers, acquire links from local
sites, and set up local profiles (through Google
Places, for example).
There are some things to avoid or ignore
‘‘ ,,
While it is best to actually have a qualified duallanguage
speaker translate content, it would be naïve
to think that automated translation does not occur.
as you are tweaking the site structure or page
names. For example, stay away from URL-
based parameters such as s.ite.com?loc=cn.
As far as location-specific meta tags (like geo.
position or distribution) or HTML attributes
— they are rarely if ever used for geo-targeting.
Extending a businesses’ service area is
not an easy task — particularly for those
responsible for search engine optimization.
When going global, just remember that
creating a Web destination that is appealing
to users and accessible to search engines is the
ultimate aim.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dante A. Monteverde is a search strategist specializing in
Search Engine Optimization. He founded SpiderBait.com
in 1996 and has more than 12 years of SEO experience.
Contact Dante at dante@spiderbait.com.
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CONVERSION CACHE
With Tim Ash
Is Your Homepage
Killing Your Conversion Rate?
Your homepage carries a heavy burden. It often holds brand strategies,
corporate communications initiatives, and every marketing and sales
message in your company.
H
However, by trying to serve the needs of all of
your constituencies, the homepage is failing to
serve any.
More likely than not, you see your
homepage a red carpet of sorts; inviting
visitors and prospects into your company and
service. But the view from a visitor perspective
is much different. Everyone who comes to
Awareness (attention) is the first step
in the decision process
In 1898, Elias St. Elmo Lewis pioneered a
framework for describing stages of consumer
interest and behavior, designated AIDA.
• Awareness (Attention)
Your homepage, in many cases, will be
your visitors’ first step toward conversion, or
Awareness. It needs to capture the visitors’
attention then quickly move them down the
next steps in sequence. The sooner they get
closer to their specific reason for visiting, the
better.
Let’s look at the mind-set of visitors
your website has a specific task in mind. But • Interest during the awareness stage. After first arriving
when your homepage is too cluttered, cute or • Desire (Decision) at your site, their level of commitment is very
confusing, consumers become frustrated, low and they may click away at any moment.
annoyed and lost. That leads to missed
• Action They are looking for reassurance, recognition
opportunities. of their needs and a clear path to follow.
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‘‘
‘‘
Once you have determined the primary goal of your
homepage, look at all the other content that is cur-
rently there. Does it support the primary objective,
or is it offering alternative messages?
Consider these three rules of Web Serving too many masters
awareness: Homepages often have multiple objectives • Does HR really need to have job listings
stemming from a company’s many on the homepage?
• If the visitor can’t find something easily, it departments — highlighting products, • Does PR really need a ticker showing
doesn’t exist. partnership announcements, press releases, the latest company press releases to every
• If you emphasize too many items, all of job opportunities, marketing copy, positioning visitor?
them lose importance. statements, special offers and welcome • Does a new product launch aimed at a tiny
• Any delay increases frustration. messages; in addition to global navigation and percentage of your audience merit homep-
menus, email signup forms and, of course, a lot age featured status?
Often, too many internal company of distracting graphics, videos or animations
interests compete for prominence on the to emphasize “key” content even more. Some of these messages might be very
homepage. And once something is put on Take an inventory of your homepage important to the site’s overall success but are
the homepage, it never gets taken off — design. What are all the things you are trying not mission-critical content, from your visitors’
new items are simply added to the mix. to communicate with your homepage? Then perspective.
The resulting homepage is a confusing and think of your business model. What is the Ultimately, the main focus of your
jumbled mess. Unfortunately, this often leads single most important thing you are trying to homepage should be on key conversion
to a phenomenon known as the “tragedy of accomplish with your business? How is that actions with a measureable impact on
the commons.” If you emphasize everything, reflected on your homepage? It should be company revenue. Other objectives that are
nothing will be important. your top priority. Once you have determined identified as important can then be simplified
By featuring too many items on the the primary goal of your homepage, look at so that there is a logical flow to how they are
homepage, we destroy visitors’ ability to find all the other content that is currently there. presented. You first want visitors to focus
key information and paralyze them from Does it support the primary objective, or is it on the primary goal of your website. Their
making a decision. offering alternative messages? attention should then follow a streamlined
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flow to other priority content on the page. landing page optimization: Unless a visual on a short leash; their creativity should be
But be sure to reduce the number of available element directly supports a key conversion subordinated to the business purpose of
options so that users stay focused on their action, it should be removed. Use visual the site.
intent, and that the homepage design mimics elements only to focus visitors on a small Your goal is to lighten the load of your
their thought sequence. number of initial objectives, so they are not homepage. Make it accountable to fewer
confused about what they can do on your people in the organization by creating a very
Forget cool. Design to convert. site. simple environment for visitors to absorb
Graphic designers are rarely trained in You should also consider, from a your message and take action. Stay focused
maximizing conversion. The best ones business perspective, whether using cool on getting more people through the first
pride themselves on their ability to be non- multimedia graphics or video is the best way step of the AIDA sales funnel, Awareness.
conformists, challenging themselves to to communicate your message. Instead, try Ultimately, conversion will always trump
something new and interesting on every to use brief text to tell your brand story while cool, and a clear and simple homepage
project. That can be deadly to homepage focusing your layout on getting visitors to design will generate an increased conversion
design. the content that they need. If you have a rate that will translate to measurable bottom-
Common over-the-top visual elements splash page, remove it. It keeps the visitor line increases.
include vivid background colors and from getting to the desired information and
giant photo billboards, distracting text you could be losing a good number of your
treatments in headlines and buttons, visitors to the “back” button while they wait
visual embellishments and flourishes for your site to load.
on unimportant parts of the page and There is an important principal called ABOUT THE AUTHOR
unnecessary animation or video. Photos of the Platinum Rule that is an excellent motto
people can be especially distracting, because for your homepage design process: “Do Tim Ash is CEO of SiteTuners.com, a landing page optimization
they immediately draw our attention and unto others as they want done onto them” firm that offers conversion consulting, full-service guaranteed-
can easily overshadow the conversion (Dr. Tony Alessandro). improvement tests, and tools to improve conversion. SiteTuners’
interactive Express Reviews of a landing page can quickly iden-
action. Anything that moves (like a Flash Get out of your own head and look tify major conversion issues. Ash is a frequent speaker at Internet
animation) will have the same effect. at your homepage from your visitors’ marketing conferences. He is a contributing columnist to several
When it comes to your homepage perspective. Even good pages can be industry publications and websites, and is also the author of the
design, borrow this important tip from improved. And keep your graphic designers bestselling book Landing Page Optimization.
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F I N DA B I L I T Y M A K E OV E R
With Heather Lutze
HOW TO SABOTAGE YOUR OWN
FINDABILITY
Recently, I had a very interesting conversation with a company who had
spent thousands of dollars on a website redesign; including new navigation,
T
site structure and optimized content.
The site was bringing them quite a bit of traffic As a business owner, your instincts are Problem:
and revenue. However, the organization probably very solid. But you might be tired How does a website owner satisfy their desire
decided that a brand-new look and feel was of the site because you look at it every day. for change and innovation without sabotaging
needed, including new navigation. They were Realize that most of the searchers and visitors what is already working?
tired of the “old” look and feel, and wanted to your site are first time visitors. It’s important
something more up-to-date. to ask yourself: Action Plan: data, data and more data.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across Will a first time visitor think this is stale or 1. Delete emotion and look at the facts only.
this scenario. Having worked with hundreds outdated? If the answer is no (and sales are 2. Use tools that will give you the data to de-
of large corporations over the past 10 years, I humming along), then keep your site as is. If termine the difference between your bore-
know that leadership teams fall into the “what’s the answer is yes, and you honestly believe dom as a website owner and the boredom
new” trap. What companies fail to realize that your website needs improvement, take of your visitors.
is their website is like any other marketing the time to back up your instincts with data 3. Do not make your homepage the end-all,
campaign and the obvious “if it isn’t broken, and facts — especially if your website is be-all of every piece of information on
don’t fix it” adage comes to mind. currently performing well. your site.
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1. DELETE EMOTION the hot spots and ask yourself: Will the new traffic, a change in design or site structure
There are times when I grow tired of the site provide a lift in traffic and conversions that could be disastrous. If, after revealing this data,
word “Findability.” That’s when the author we want? The heat map overlay will quickly a change is still desired by those in charge,
of Guerrilla Marketing, Orvel Ray Wilson, show where users will click and take action proceed with extreme caution by suggesting
tells me, “Just about the time you are ready to and where they will not. one small change at a time until you have the
throw up when you use your brand one more If you need a free solution, look no further opportunity to review the data after a
time, that is the time that your audience starts than Google’s Website Optimizer. You can change has been made.
remembering and connecting to it!” run A/B split tests and multivariate tests on
As business owners, we get weary of our proposed designs. Keep in mind, however,
own material. Our audience, however, does that you will need a decent amount of traffic
3. USE LANDING PAGES
not. Similar to traditional A/B testing for to your site (around 1,000 hits) before results After doing some research you might be
landing pages, we must learn what is working, from multivariate testing will be accurate. In convinced that making a change to your
then improve on those elements and remove our scenario above, simple A/B split testing site will produce results. The next step is to
the rest. Even after adding a brand new widget would have sufficed to determine what create two versions of your homepage —
or another function to your site, you might homepage worked better for the business. one stays the same and the new one is put in
find that the audience still connects best with Before making any changes to your website, active rotation and split tested, 50/50. Using
some of the more traditional elements of your perhaps the easiest measurement of “need” is analytics, you can determine if the changes
brand. simply your own analytics. Check your data to the new page have produced the desired
on Google Analytics or whatever tracking result. Landing pages can also be applied to
tools you use for measuring visitor behavior interior pages of the site and those pages to
2. USE TOOLS TO TEST, NOT GUESS on the site. Some items to look for include which you drive specific segments of traffic,
There are many tools available that will test increased bounce rate, decreased time-on- from a PPC ad, for example.
and provide solid evidence as to what is site, or a dwindling number of traffic sources. Changes might include color, different
working well and what is purely based on ego These are all good indicators that a website is images or new calls to action. Then, only once
and emotion. in need of a change, based on empirical data. the data clearly states that your suggested
Sitetuners.com has a tool called However, if the data shows increasing time- improvements have worked, do you add
TuningEngine, where you can run your current on-site, decreased bounce rates and more anything permanent to the homepage or
site through the tool, then new designs. See variety between organic, paid and social media elsewhere in the site.
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Beware of Death by Homepage
Over the past 11 years, I have seen many leadership
teams use the website homepage to announce the
latest flavor of the month in an organization. Everyone
on the team wants their moment of glory and insists
on exposure on the home page.
Always beware of the “homepage exposure makes
me feel good” syndrome. There is no better way to
sabotage your branding and Findability. It’s always a
good idea to save images and graphics, calls-to-action
and overall site structure from before a change — just
in case disaster does strike and a backpedaling process
is needed.
Discover the ‘Net’ popularity of the top 1 million websites with Ranking.com and leverage
one of the largest databases of FREE Web metrics available. Review traffic history, detailed
website information and search by country, language and category absolutely FREE. What
possibilities does your website have? Visit Ranking.com today!
Visit Ranking.com to check out Access full website details such as
YOUR website ranking phone number & address
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Research websites by country, View website trust scores from
Heather Lutze has spent the last 10 years helping business owners get language & category TrustGuageTM
their enterprises noticed on the Web by their target audiences. She is FREE ranking report by e-mail Submit and modify your website’s
the author of “The Findability Formula: The Easy, Non- Technical listing anytime
Approach to Search Engine Marketing.” Visit FindabilityFormula.com
for tools and resources to increase your site’s findability.
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SEO
The Modern Elements of Optimization
By Peter Prestipino, Editor-in-Chief
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), Web professionals
have two choices – adapt their approaches and practices or sit idle and
watch their websites disappear from view and their businesses become
obsolete. Now more than ever, new demands have been placed on those
responsible for the success of SEO campaigns by both consumers and
the search engines; which are constantly evolving, and at a pace faster
than any point in the industry’s history.
The good news is that today’s Internet and make SEO as a practice much more Design platform SiteKreator’s Small
search marketers have an advantage over their approachable. Business Usage Study from early February
predecessors. While many of the traditional Still, businesses both online and off, and 2011 indicated that there is a strong
elements of SEO are still useful, there are new particularly those of the small and medium correlation between success and the level of
elements that are relatively easy to deploy and variety continue to struggle with SEO. the business’ engagement. Unfortunately, they
can positively impact any SEO strategy. The Fortunately, one of the best ways to improve also found that more than half (54 percent)
result is more options and opportunities that any website’s SEO is also one of the easiest. of small businesses update their website just
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once a month. According to the study, even as for future success? Structure, Speed, Social as it relates to SEO today, it is that every
few as five updates per month could increase Connections, Data … there are many. Keep department within a company is responsible
Web traffic by 300 percent. Says SiteKreator reading. for SEO.
Founder and CEO, Ivaylo Lenkov, “We see it In 2007, Google (followed quickly by
over and over again; small businesses who are New Approaches to others, including Yahoo) rolled out universal
either disengaged online or not online at all do Content Development search – breaking down silos of information
not grow at the same rates as those who have Every business needs a point and giving users more of what they want
invested in an online presence.” Now, imagine person, a manager for SEO. in one convenient location. What many
the effect of going from 10 new content items But reporting to that manager organizations failed to realize is that alternate
each month to 100. What about 1,000? should be a team of content specialists content like videos, images, news and other
That’s but one element of SEO success and providing their expertise in producing video assets were also getting ranked and in many
has not changed much in the past decade — or audio, developing images and infographics, cases, ranked above the fold. “The algorithm
content is still “king.” But what about new and even drafting sales and marketing changed but the organizations did not,” says
forms of content? What else moves your site material to use on Web pages, applications Greg Jarboe, of SEO PR.
up the search engine results pages (SERPs), and everywhere else in every possible format. A customer service team might have a set
and what should a business concentrate on If there is one important organizational trend of videos explaining how to use a product or
1993 1994
The History of SEO
Understanding how SEO has Pre-1997 January 1993: April 1994:
evolved provides a meaning- In the beginning, SEOs’ focus Netscape Navigator Yahoo Directory is
ful framework for the future. was primarily on directory launches and the released. WebCrawler,
submission. As more Web modern Internet is one of the first full-text
Throughout the following pages
crawlers came into existence, born. indices of the Web,
you will be able to see how the on-page SEO became the fac- launches shortly
search industry and those who tor of greatest importance on thereafter.
aim to optimize their websites the few engines available at
have done so over the years. the time.
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service, or the sales department could have public relations and make them responsible
several infographics detailing how certain for appearing in news and blog results, tap Video and Search
systems work. This information can be used the customer service department to deal Video is one of those content
to a positive SEO effect — but only if every with external social forces (e.g. feedback or assets that has a major presence
team member and department knows that complaints on Twitter) and even sales to play on the search results page and
this valuable content exists and is made an advisory role in content development. its importance can no longer be
available. The simplest way to minimize the inherent denied by any department in the organization.
siloing occurring in any organization is to How can video assets be leveraged to influence
Universal SEO form a cross-functional team or appoint an position and exposure on the SERPs? Greg
The most likely item to appear individual (ideally someone knowledgeable Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing:
on the SERPs still remains an about SEO) to manage the de-siloing process. An Hour a Day, provides some helpful insights.
organization’s core website. But If search engines are indexing and blending He notes that if YouTube were classified as
video, news, images and photos, “all the world’s content,” individuals and a search engine (instead of a video portal) it
blog content, local and real-time updates departments in organizations must follow suit would be the second-most used search portal,
(social) are absolutely receiving their share and work collaboratively, in order to meet the behind parent company Google. In fact,
of attention. Therefore, companies need to demands of search engine users hungry for a YouTube has more searches than either Yahoo
leverage their entire organization; bring in variety of content. or Bing. Consumers don’t search YouTube
1995 1997 1998 1999
February 1995: September 1995: December 1995: April 1997: 1998-2002: October 1998: October 1999:
Infoseek launches Hotbot launches, Altavista appears, Ask Jeeves In 1998 Google and DMOZ MSN makes its Altavista changes
and becomes powered by the with the largest is born. arrived — a turning point for debut, powered by to an Internet
Netscape’s default Inktomi engine. index of sites for SEO. The term “PageRank” en- Inktomi results. portal after losing
search engine. the time. Yahoo tered the SEO lexicon for the share to Yahoo
re-launches its first time. On-page optimiza- and Google.
August 1995: search engine in tion and directory submissions
Microsoft Internet early 1996, with were still important to the suc-
Explorer is introduced Altavista results. cess of an SEO campaign but
and the browser for the first time, links became
wars begin. a determining factor.
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in the same manner as they do Google or own video player, on your website and other individuals, don’t rule out those managing
Bing, however — they use different search pages as it counts toward the total number of paid search advertising either internally or at
queries. Conducting research via the YouTube views on YouTube. an agency. They too can support your SEO
Keyword Tool will provide insights into the Using these strategies and others, one of campaigns, and rather effectively. How can
variance in search volumes for keywords Jarboe’s clients (The Voyage Channel, Voyage using these agencies’ or departments’ insights
and key phrases versus those same queries TV) went from a paltry 1,500 views in more and material support help?
on a traditional search engine. Armed with than nine months to well over one million “Using SEM to support social is a good way
this information, appending video meta data views today. The care and consideration to to drive traffic but it may only drive clicks and
in titles and descriptions will increase the keyword-focused optimization specifically activity, not so much sales,” says Ben Kirshner
likelihood that your videos get seen. for YouTube resulted in 40 percent of views of SEM Elite. “In the long term, however, it
What many also fail to grasp in terms of coming from YouTube search and 20 percent obviously gets [users] to the site, giving you
promoting on YouTube specifically is that from the “related videos” feature. longer term value.” In other words, using
instead of using links to determine relevance, paid advertising to drive traffic and brand
YouTube uses the number of video views to Agency Support of SEO awareness can lead to increased interaction,
determine placement on the results pages. (and SMO) and perhaps even a nice inbound link to a
Outside of increasing distribution, the quickest When the demands of SEO piece of content.
and easiest way to increase the number of require greater collaboration Kirshner provided a practical example of
views is to use the YouTube player, not your between departments and how his firm orchestrates marketing support
2000 2001 2002
June 2000: October 2000: December 2000: October 2002:
Yahoo! begins using The Teoma search PageRank mania Yahoo acquires Inktomi but
Google search results, engine is revealed; hits fever pitch as continues to use Google
dropping Altavista, Ask Jeeves acquires Google releases a results, while MSN is using
and the end draws the company one toolbar, showing Inktomi results.
near for a once domi- year later. SEOs a record of
nant search engine. the PageRank.
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for clients on both SEO and SMO campaigns. still provides the best possible opportunity to worthy of the same attention, is the use of
“Companies with social media followers and secure competitive SERP positions. keywords everywhere else – from the headline
friends can ask their community to send Most successful SEO relies on the presence tags (h1 or h2) and using them in the first few
testimonials for a chance to win a prize or of keywords — and why not? Keywords are a hundred words of the HTML, to alt text and
sweepstakes.” Continuing, he says that the meaningful indicator of relevance. Visit a few image file names. Keyword use in format tags
content from “ratings and reviews has helped high-ranking sites on your own today and it (in bold or italics) also play a role, as does the
boost the SEO efforts, for long tail keywords won’t take much mental processing power to use of keywords in meta tags (keyword tag
particularly.” understand, by and large, why those sites are and description tag).
ranked so highly — keywords, lots of them.
Keyword-Centric Some variety in what those keywords are and Combination of Keywords
Content Optimization how they are applied matters, too. and Links
You can’t execute a successful SEO Based on Website Magazine’s review, the You might be the best keyword
campaign by turning a blind eye factor of greatest onsite importance is keyword researcher on the planet but
to the role that keyword-centric use in the title tag. Most frequently advised even the right keywords mean
content development and optimization plays is to include those keywords in the first few little without links pointing to your website.
in search engine marketing — the website itself words of each title. Of less importance, but Keyword-focused anchor text from external
2003 2004 2005
2003-2007: February - March November 2003: February 2004: January 2005:
Google matures into one of the most dynamic 2003: Google’s first major Yahoo uses its own Google, Yahoo and
companies in the world, fronting one of the Google acquires algorithm update algorithm, based on MSN join to support
most exciting eras of the Web for SEOs. The Blogger and releases (known as Florida) its Inktomi acquisition. the nofollow tag;
undisputed search leader goes on an AdSense in a signals the impor- in late 2006 the
acquisition spree, refines its algorithm and two-month time- tance the search same companies
reaches out to SEOs to help shape the search frame. engine has to SEOs. announce joint
experience with a strong vision for the future support for XML
— that “authority” and “diversity” of links is a sitemaps.
weightier measure of value than links alone.
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links remains immensely important. Of equal difficult to tell but it is better to be safe than very least, a quality user experience can result
and obvious importance is the link popularity sorry. in obtaining quality inbound links.
of those external sources, as determined by
the number and quality of its own external Other SEO Elements of Ranking For example, sites employing
link graph and its diversity; consisting of links We have successfully outlined a few of the intelligent, useful hierarchies
from many unique root domains. When all most important factors in ranking but there for content organization (site
is said and done, keyword use in external are many others. architecture) will generate more
link anchor text is one of the top SEO factors, While perhaps indirectly related to how page views and time on site. Those
overall. In fact, you might even find sites Google will score a domain and its pages Web professionals paying close attention to
ranking for competitive keywords without a for ranking, the following elements have the recent Google/Bing sting operation can
single reference of the keyword on-page — been shown to carry some influence. In the draw their own conclusions about whether
simply because of external link text. end, the following suggestions could simply click stream data plays a role in ranking, but
Based on rather frequent monitoring be considered a best practice to ensure an it is easy to see how it could. If the engines
of the industry and the SERPs, it is safe to optimal user experience — something the are following users from their search results
assume that many of the tried and true onsite search providers have been requesting from (or via their toolbars), they are able to see the
optimization practices, such as accurate and the community of Web professionals for a levels of interaction of those users. Not that
descriptive anchor text, still play a positive long time. Don’t think that search engines they would, but it makes sense that this would
role in positioning. How much they matter is aren’t paying attention, in some way. At the be very valuable information, as they identify
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
October 2006: July 2007: 2008-2010: June 2009: July 2009: July 2009: April 2010 - Present:
Yahoo! begins using The Teoma SEO has changed Google gets a Google rolls out Google and Site speed becomes a for-
Google search search engine dramatically in just worthy oppo- an infrastructure Microsoft both mal factor in Google’s algo-
results, dropping is revealed; Ask the past three years. nent in Mi- update dubbed sign deals with rithm as Caffeine rolls out to
Altavista, and the Jeeves acquires We are seeing strong crosoft’s Bing “Caffeine”, aiming Twitter for access all users. Later in the year
end draws near for the company one signals as to the future search engine. to improve its to the full “fire- (November, 2010) Google
a once dominant year later. of search and SEO. indexing and hose” of tweets. Instant (real-time search)
search engine. search speed. The rise of user and Instant Previews are
signals comes launched, showing the
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into play. power of the new index.
the site with the best user experience — as to Twitter and its presence is obvious — its engagement happens). To spur this activity it
determined by the number of page views, impact even more so. Sharing content items is essential to include sharing options on your
time-on-site or the sites they visit next. on Twitter and other social destinations such website.
as Facebook (and having those items shared “In terms of the actual strategy of getting
Another SEO element of success, by friends and followers) has been shown to visitors to share, make sure options including
of some debate of course, is the guarantee inclusion in the major indices. Facebook ‘like’ buttons and T witter retweet
influence of domain names on buttons are available,” says Noricks. Too often,
rankings. Factors such as the Getting Social for SEO Noricks suggests, Web marketers elect to
length of the current domain Social media activity helps provide all possible sharing options which can
registration, the domain’s registration history search engines identify the be off-putting to site visitors. Instead, provide
(how long it has been owned by the same quantity and quality of user access to only a few (Facebook and T witter,
entity and the number of times it has been signals surrounding your for example). Include any to which you are
renewed) are good if not classic indicators brand. Search engines are actively working encouraging participation — for example, a
of how much a site could be trusted. The to identify who tweeted or shared what and niche such as fashion or design — only if it
influence of domain names on rank or the public association between them. So how holds some value for users and is respected by
position remains questionable, as there are far does one take a more social approach to SEO? search engines (indicated by its presence on
better indicators of the degree to which a site “The social media strategist in me tells me the SERPs).
can be trusted. to provide content around what my followers If you’re looking for a shortcut to SEO
Factors that might indicate the particular are talking about, but the SEO in me forces success there are no guaranteed strategies.
relevancy of a domain and its pages could me to ask what content can be included to What we do know from looking at the SERPs
include signals such as inclusion of a site’s feed address trending topics,” says Crosby Noricks, and conducting some competitive research
in trusted news sources and how often a site Red Door Interactive’s Senior Social Media is that the search engines are rewarding
appears in local listings. Much like directories Manager. The solution, according to Noricks, those sites that, over time, have created and
once provided a measurable boost to rankings, is to look for opportunities around a particular established some authority (through credible
the distribution of links matters greatly today. subject for which you have existing content link citations), that send and respond to user
That brings up the matter of user signals — then provide social access to that content. signals (social), and make every effort to create
a good, consumerdriven indication of how Social media is not about content alone but an experience as meaningful to the user, as
important a piece of content might actually the activity surrounding that content (how well much as it is designed to attract links and
be. Both Google and Bing have full access content is distributed and the degree to which appeal to the search engines.
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Avoiding SEO Death
It doesn’t take a Google search engineer to identify
factors that threaten the ranking position and
placement on search results. A few of the more
traditional black-hat approaches include cloaking with
manipulative content, acquiring links from known link
brokers, outbound links to pages and sites identified
as SPAM, and frequent server downtime and site
inaccessibility. Other factors include hidden text,
excessive repetition of keywords, excessive numbers
of dynamic parameters, hiding text with CSS and
excessive links from the same IP address block.
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off total cost of
the first year
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LINK DEVELOPMENT:
BUILDING LINKS
THAT MATTER
By Prashant Puri
Gone are the days when adding multiple links from any website would
immediately bump your own site to the top of search engine results
pages (SERPs).Today, Google and other SEO-centric search engines
(like Blekko) are spending a fair amount of time and resources figuring
out the differences between an organic or natural link and those links
.
that have been “built”SEOs need to adapt. Link development — the
practice of building deep links — is the new link building.
The Basics of Link Development 1. Site placement matters
Link development is not the same as link
building. Unlike traditional practices of • Links that are part of the content are
acquiring links — any links — by whatever more valuable than footer links or blog
means necessary, link development is based roll links.
on strategy to build organic backlink growth.
Developing links of the highest quality (and • Links on the left side of a Web page (be-
best value to search engines) requires that lieved to be indexed first) are more influ-
we follow some basic guidelines. ential than those on the right side.
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2. Anchor text
time to look at some ways to build highly Explorer, 50 percent of Bizrate’s backlinks
• Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta recently said that valuable links through more intricate means. are attributable to the widget.
one of the factors search engines can most The following tactics might take a little more
easily detect is anchor text frequency. effort, but they will provide extreme value • The Yelp Review Widget provides small
Constantly link building for one or two now and for a long time to come. and local businesses with quality, trusted
keywords and using those terms repeatedly third-party content, including a map to the
in anchor text will set off red flags with the business’ location. Many businesses use the
search engines as nonorganic link building. 1. Building widgets Yelp widget to add legitimacy to their brand
Building useful widgets is a powerful link and functionality for users.
development technique. However, it’s a
3. No-Follow/Do-Follow tough nut to crack. Creating a widget is
Blog comments simple. Getting mass adoption is much
2. Infographics
• Spammy blog comments are simply a waste tougher. Make sure the widget has a strong Infographics are a great way to develop
of time. value proposition — strong enough for topically relevant links to your website.
hundreds and thousands of other owners to The sole purpose of the infographic should
• However, if your vertical is heavily influenced add to their own websites. In the age of niche be to create viral-worthy content and gain
by blogs (fashion, tech gadgets), it is beneficial advertising options remember that you are user adoption. Of course, to succeed,
to engage with these blogs as an enthusiastic competing for website real-estate with the the infographic must be useful and/or
user and consumer. Do this regardless of likes of Google AdSense and a plethora of entertaining.
whether the links that point to your site are different retargeting/remarketing display
follow or no-follow. The cumulative effect of advertising agencies offering anywhere Tracking/Reporting
participation will benefit your brand and between $0.50 - $5 CPCs. Tracking your link development process
SEO efforts. Here are a couple of examples of widgets is extremely important — you are driving
that have had great success in being adopted. blind without measurement. Tracking SEO
Powerful Link Development campaigns will help you put a finger on
Techniques • Bizrate provides e-commerce websites with a which strategies are working versus those
Now that we have a grip on a few basic but “stamp of approval”, which helps with on- that are not. You can then double your
essential link development techniques, it’s page conversions. According to Open Site efforts the winning strategies for even
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greater link development. Here are some ranking, visits and click-through data. This
ways of tracking your link graph. is extremely powerful data for all SEOs.
Some of the most useful features are:
1. Open Site Explorer
(opensiteexplorer.com) • Monitor internal links
Open Site Explorer is a robust tool (if you • Monitor external links
use the API) that gives insight into your site’s • Evaluate site performance
link graph, anchor text distribution • Project traffic/revenue based on search
and trustrank. query analysis
• Track duplicate Title/Meta Tags
• Link Graph: You can plot your very own • Track crawl errors
link graph by tracking changes on Open Site • Submit sitemaps
Explorer’s “external followed links”. By
plotting the number of links that point to Out the features above, my personal favorite
your site each week you can keep a close is the Search Query Analysis. This tool can
watch on your link graph. be used to predict the effect of increasing a
keyword’s rank, on traffic and even revenue.
• Anchor Text Distribution: This metric helps
with competitive sizing. You can compare Overall, link building as you knew it has
the amount of keyword-specific anchor texts changed. As SEOs, we must evolve and
that are pointing to your competitor versus adapt with the practice of link development.
your own site. Although anchor text volume Building value and not just volume will
is not the only ranking factor, it helps provide sustainable SEO practices and — ABOUT THE AUTHOR
benchmark yourself against the competition. most important — relevancy, in both the
Prashant Puri has more than eight years of online marketing
virtual eyes of the search engines and with experience and has successfully built numerous sites into multi-
2. Google Webmaster our users, who are increasingly influencing million unique visitor sites through a combination of SEO and
The Google Webmaster Tool has come a SEO. SEM. Puri is the Co-Founder of AdLift.com (an SEO firm).
Previously he was Head of Global SEO for Shopping.com (an
long way since it started — it now offers
eBay Inc. company) and guided display advertising and Inter-
day-by-day updates on your site’s health, net marketing teams at Yahoo! and AT&T Interactive. Follow
internal and external links, keyword Puri on Twitter, at twitter.com/puriprashant.
| A P R I L 2011
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Let’s Talk
Does Live Chat Provide the Answers?
By Linc Wonham, Associate Editor
Few resources available to
companies on the Web evoke Vendors in the space abound, as do a growing number of retailers and service
providers making chat available to their website visitors. Strangely, there also
as much discussion as live chat. exists some hesitation on the part of many would-be adopters.
Ironic as it may be, chat is one of To help eliminate some of the confusion, we will examine the statistical
the most talked-about Internet evidence linked to live chat implementations, address the most common
misperceptions surrounding the technology and provide a guide for evaluating
business tools of the day. its benefits as they relate to the immediate needs of your own business.
| A P R I L 2011
The facts Diane Buzzeo. “Once they see the conversion both economically and in terms of customer
Most of the data compiled about live chat rates with chat and without chat, there’s no perception and company image.
technologies point to increased conversion question whether or not it’s the thing they “Many businesses don’t see it as being
rates, average order values and customer should be paying the most attention to. But that important,” says Buzzeo. “They think
loyalty, as well as reduced shopping cart not everyone is all that keen about it until we a customer can just as easily call the 1-800
abandonment and return rates. The e-tailing can show them the results. Sometimes we phone number listed on your website. But
group, commissioned in 2010 by leading chat have to push them a little bit, and after they this is a person who wants to be looking at
provider Bold Software, reported that online see the results they tend to get very serious your website and not making a telephone call,
retailers adopting live chat were experiencing about it.” so not having chat is the same as not having
as much as 15 times higher conversion rates, an 800 number. And this person is already
30 percent higher order values and 8 percent engaged on your site, so why interrupt their
lower cart abandonment rates as a result. The myths pattern by forcing them to make a phone
A more recent study of the 2010 online Most Web companies’ uncertainty about call?”
holiday shopping season determined that live chat is founded in misinformation, Many businesses also fail to realize that the
nearly a quarter of the e-commerce sites despite the statistical sup port of its value cost of an 800 phone call can be significantly
surveyed experienced 40-percent or better
conversion rates among live chatters, and
that more than half the retailers reported
20-percent or better conversion rates for their
chat users.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence
for live chat can be found in simple Google
Analytics. The conversion rates and average
order values shown here are significantly
higher for customers that chat, according
to these reports from the clients of live chat
provider Ability Commerce.
“Google Analytics has been the best way for
us to show our clients what a great investment
live chat is,” says Ability Commerce CEO
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higher than a live chat conversation that takes How to choose the potential investment into the live chat
place right on their website. channel — which will include labor, training,
“When you shake out all the variables, live So how do you know if live chat is the management and other operational overhead
chat costs about one-third of a phone call,” answer for your business? Key metrics to costs — and the bigger picture will start to
says Bold Software CEO Steve Castro-Miller. consider include the previously mentioned develop.
“So it’s not only less expensive to use, but the conversion rates, average order values, cancel One company that underwent a detailed
link between the presence of live chat and the and return rates, as well as the number of study of this kind is ShopNBC, the online
customer satisfaction and trust it can build is returning customers who previously utilized television retailer that uses a live chat platform
significant.” chat services. Weigh those numbers against provided by LivePerson. Research firm
Yet another reason cited for businesses’
reluctance to implement live chat is the
perception of its intrusiveness, when the
reality is that chat provides a level of service
less intrusive than it is unfamiliar to many
website visitors. The importance, then, of
hiring and training the most qualified chat
staff poses another significant challenge for
many companies.
“Probably 50 percent of the businesses that
don’t use chat are afraid of being too intrusive,”
says Reid Manchester of Parker Software.
“And the other half are afraid that if they don’t
do it well enough, it will hurt their business
more than not doing it at all. Both of those
assumptions are wrong. It’s a program that
needs constant revision and testing to make
it work best for your company, but ignoring it
altogether is a big mistake.”
| A P R I L 2011
Forrester Consulting determined that live
The Value of Chat
chat enabled ShopNBC to move customers Live chat as a strategy presents a different way to interact with
through the sales pipeline at a 40-percent consumers. This means that existing support personnel will ultimately
higher rate of efficiency than without chat, need to be trained on how to interact — but much more should happen
accounted for 38 percent higher average before full integration is complete.
order values than non-chatting customers, The way live chat vendor Velaro addresses the client-side
and reduced the website’s combined cart challenges of implementing live chat solutions is through its success
abandonment and return rates by more than
management team. Once a customer is on board with Velaro, the
12 percent.
Furthermore, customers that had
team does a “deep dive into problem areas,” says Velaro CEO Michael
previously completed chat-assisted orders Titelbaum. While some clients use live chat for sales conversion and
on ShopNBC.com accounted for 23 percent others for support, “Uncovering the overall objectives of the organization
more orders upon returning to the website. and making recommendations on whether proactive or reactive
Forrester’s final evaluation was that live messaging is appropriate is fundamental,” he added.
chat accounted for a 300-percent return on It is only through that close contact on both an initial and ongoing
investment for ShopNBC, with a payback basis that live chat provides value for the enterprise. However, no
period of less than two months at a net value technology alone or customized implementation of such should forever
to the company of more than $4 million. remain static. “In terms of innovation, we want to give customers a
“The goal is to continually optimize 365-degree view of their CRM,” says Titelbaum.
the program to increase both top-line and
And so do the more robust live chat solutions. Velaro currently
bottom-line contributions to the company,”
says LivePerson’s Jim Dicso. “Ways of doing integrates with a host of third-party services and applications including
that are by constantly evaluating performance SalesForce, NetSuite, SugarCRM and ZenDesk; the live chat solution
and making adjustments to the labor or the even works with shopping carts such as ASPdotnetStoreFront and will
technology itself.” add others in the coming year. If that were not enough, Velaro also
integrates with Google Translate to help support personnel and clients
communicate in real time regardless of language.
| A P R I L 2011
DATA
is King
How Big Data and Intelligent
Algorithms Are Improving
Display Campaign Results
By Olly Downs
A few years ago, Web professionals started Display advertisers are faced with a growing list of campaign options:
hearing the term “banner blindness.” It referred to
the idea that consumers were no longer affected • Where to advertise, and when?
by advertising banners, summarily ignoring them. • Should we use contextual ads?
Banner blindness then became a catchall term for • Which publishers are the best?
the steady decline of online display advertising • Should we try retargeting?
in general. That has changed. Not only is banner • CPM, CPC or CPA?
blindness hardly spoken of anymore but display
advertising is undergoing a true revitalization.
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This process can become a guessing-game While advertisers are pleased to learn they automated, computational intelligence-based
for advertisers that a) don’t have the time can turn to a DSP partner to build strong, tips are eliminating guesswork and reducing
or money to research their best options; b) intelligent campaigns, some questions linger trial and error cycles, giving even the most
need to get campaigns out the door quickly about how the algorithms work: inexperienced advertiser confidence in
or; c) don’t know where to turn for advice. running display ads.
While the largest advertisers and agencies • Where is this data coming from? DSPs have become a trusted source for
have been successful in short-circuiting these • Why are they needed? data about the display market because they
inefficiencies by leveraging expensive analysis, • How exactly does this all impact the cam work directly with all the major players in
others have not had this luxury. This has lead paign process? the display advertising chain of distribution;
to mixed results, missed opportunities, and including publishers, networks, exchanges
a significant number of marketers who have and others. They are far better equipped
decided against using display campaigns as Listening to the Data than individual large networks to advise
part of their overall marketing strategy. While many DSPs have had access to a breadth advertisers on the various parameters of a
Thankfully, advanced demand-side of detail about display campaigns, publishers, display campaign, since they are able to collect
platforms (DSPs) are improving this outlook networks, sites, audience segments and more, data from a broad swath of Internet sources.
for all sizes of advertisers and agencies. Today, not all have been successful in turning this Offering a global view of display data, DSPs
DSPs are converging “big data” (data from information into valuable recommendations are uniquely positioned to identify campaign
millions of campaigns) with commoditized for individual advertisers. Today, however, pitfalls, and discover and advise on campaign
“big computer power” (cost-effective significant advancements in DSP platforms performance strategies.
computing solutions for analyzing data) to get have closed this gap, allowing DSPs to guide
“intelligent algorithms” (formulas that yield agencies and advertisers with specific advice Algorithms Untangle
a specific result). These algorithms are then at the start of their campaign and throughout Publisher Buys
presented to advertisers in the user interface as its entire lifecycle, improving results and Part of the challenge for display advertising
actionable information as they build, monitor extending the marketing dollar. lies in the fact that access to the market is often
and adjust their display campaigns. Providing Driven by extensive performance and indirect — direct publisher pricing tends to
cheat sheet-like answers to advertisers, DSPs ROAS data, DSPs are now providing be at a premium, and many times subject
give marketers a fast path to increased return marketers with proven campaign suggestions to placement-specific targeting, causing
on advertising spend (ROAS), website traffic, and parameters that help them meet their advertisers to overpay for inventory. Leveraging
leads and sales. individual goals. Provided in real-time, these indirect publisher channels, an advertiser buys
| A P R I L 2011
through a “black-box” auctioning process in shortcomings of indirect publisher buys to Display Campaigns Made Easier,
which rendering of the ad can be dependent give advertisers a clear view of what audiences Not Less Sophisticated
not only on their bid, budget and targeting they are buying and how much they should Managing a complex investment portfolio
parameters, but has a collective dependence pay. Advertisers can therefore invest their can be a lot like managing an active media
on those same parameters for other advertisers advertising dollars more wisely via publishers campaign. Based on the client’s goals, each asset
and campaigns. These black-box processes and avoid competing against themselves. and ad can be invested in different segments.
make it hard for advertisers to determine what DSPs can untangle a multi-publisher, Just like an investor can make investments in
bid is required to achieve delivery of their multi-target buy through learning and similar assets in different markets, like oil in
campaigns at good performance levels. modeling of historical and current publisher New York and oil in London, an advertiser
And, some publishers can require that you behavior by campaign parameters. Consider can buy the same audiences at different sites
fulfill larger budget campaigns earlier in the the example of an advertiser wanting to run using different publishers. In both instances,
campaign lifecycle to maximize delivery. To particular creative through retargeting and careful management and market insights are
the publisher, this helps them ensure revenue, behavioral targeting. Retargeting performs required to drive up ROAS.
but to the advertiser, this is not always an well as it aims ads squarely at pre-qualified For many agencies and advertisers, finding
efficient move. advertisers. This approach often commands the time to closely manage and gain the
Not only does each publisher represent a a bidding premium over behavioral targeting. knowledge and insights necessary to optimize
marketplace with complex dynamics, but a Keep in mind, retargeting inventory is limited campaigns has been difficult. That’s why many
given advertiser campaign run across multiple to the audience with which the advertiser are eager to take advantage of the enhanced
publishers may ultimately run at some of the has had a previous interaction (identified by management capabilities and vast intelligence
same placements at different prices. This means an anonymous cookie), so delivery can be of their DSP partners.
one company may actually compete against limited. So, what is the right distribution of With hundreds of thousands or more
itself in the bidding process. Furthermore, a $1,000 budget, and how should the two campaigns being run across their platforms,
buys from different publishers for the same different targets be bid? In this particular case, DSPs are designed to closely manage and
campaign may not be independent of one a DSP recommends bids 71 percent higher advise on every dynamic element of a
another, limiting how well a given campaign for the retargeted inventory, but due to limited campaign. Using information from previously
can perform. predicted impressions, assigns only 23 percent run ads, like analyzing change-impact data
Using proven performance-based of the budget to the retargeting channel, thus around targeting, creative, placements, bid,
algorithms, DSPs untangle the intricacies and improving delivery. budget and their impact on performance and
| A P R I L 2011
delivery, DSPs can tell agencies and advertisers
— through suggestions — specifically what
to do, where and when.
In Figure 1, an example is shown of
suggested optimizations to a campaign in-
flight, where the DSP has determined that
pausing a particular creative will improve CPC
by 8.7 percent. In addition, by also removing
a particular site placement from the campaign,
CPC will improve by another 6.9 percent. The
agency has the choice to adopt or ignore these
Figure 1 – AdReady Version 3 provides ad creative and placement recommendations for a campaign, together
recommendations. with their estimated improvement value.
In particular, unique cross-publisher, cross-
creative, cross-targeting conditional views
of campaign delivery and performance as a target definition for which the publisher reach as bids increase, probability of conversion
function of key campaign parameters, enable is limited and hence saturated. DSP algorithms increases (but only to a point) and the cost of
DSPs to predict optimal campaign parameters are designed to achieve an “Efficient Frontier” inventory also increases. Beyond that point,
from the very start. of delivery specific to the configurations of buying higher-cost impressions does not
a given campaign with a given publisher, improve click-through-rate, causing CPC
Algorithms Reduce Common automatically mitigating the tendency of to worsen. Within the “Best Performance”
Campaign Missteps advertisers to overbid (see Figure 2). frontier the advertiser is bidding sufficiently
The algorithms created by DSPs have revealed The data also tells us that even at optimum to drive conversions without overpaying for
some simple truths that only a few of the best delivery it is common for campaigns to under- them.
advertising account managers have discovered perform due to over- or under-bidding from
after years of experience and extensive advertisers in the quest to optimize delivery. At
Getting Algorithm-driven Results
research. a low CPM bid, advertisers tend to purchase
The data tells us that advertisers or their inventory that is unlikely to convert, resulting Besides making display advertising more
agencies tend to overbid to achieve campaign in a high spend per click (lots of impressions straightforward, what is the value behind
delivery. This generally corresponds with a purchased with few clicks achieved) then, these new analytics-driven DSPs? On average,
| A P R I L 2011
algorithm-led campaigns, in live testing, have ComScore recently reported that 1.3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
generated an average increase of 53.1 percent trillion display ads were delivered in the U.S.
Olly Downs is Chief Scientist at AdReady, a full-service DSP
in campaign delivery and a 42.7 percent in the third quarter of 2010. DSPs are one key
(www.adready.com).
improvement in average CPA performance driving force behind this 22 percent increase
over static campaigns. over the past year. Algorithm-powered DSPs
To get similar or even better results, agencies can enable advertisers and agencies of all
and advertisers should insist that their DSP sizes to effectively ride this wave of growth,
partner provide all of the following: by drastically improving display advertising
effectiveness and consistency, while
1. Data-driven recommendations on: significantly decreasing the costs required to
• Media Plan drive these improved results.
• Multiple Campaign Configuration
• Budget Distribution
• Bidding
2. Dynamic evaluation and recommended
adaptations to creative and placement
during the campaign
3. Recommended adjustments of bid and
budget to maintain/increase delivery and
optimize performance during the campaign
4. Tools for rapid creative development and
evaluation
5. Granular reporting capabilities down to the
creativeplacement level
Figure 2– Delivery as a function of bid illustrating Efficient Frontier for delivery before overbidding sets in.
| A P R I L 2011
Web Design
Trends
2011
AND BEYOND
By Mike Phillips, Senior Editor
Today’s Web design landscape is dominated by one
principle — design goes far beyond its traditional
definition.
No longer are Web designers simply charged Video and HTML5
with choosing colors and images and ensuring the Any designer or any person in general who might seek information about HTML5
website looks “slick” or that buttons take users to the will quickly discover that most of the buzz is about video. In short, HTML5
proper Web page. The job of a designer now includes provides a means to display video in any format, using any browsing method.
So, where operating systems such as that for the iPhone and iPad will not support
everything from SEO to e-commerce. The increased certain video, HTML5 ensures the video will be seen — whether on a small
demands on designers to create full experiences — screen or a desktop browser.
not just Web pages — are what drive trends; trends Why is this such a big deal? It’s simple — video is quickly dominating the user
that soon become standards. experience and adding tremendous value to businesses of all types.
| A P R I L 2011
A concern many businesses have about on their site, MadWire finally incorporated a The trouble with fonts in the past is that
video, however, is that of resources. Most basic video that simply introduced viewers to very few of them were “readable” by search
businesses don’t have big creative agencies at the company and its services. “Our amount spiders. In essence, if you wanted a cool-
their disposal. The chances of developing the of leads from the traffic we were driving to looking design with fonts you had to sacrifice
next Old Spice Guy series or “Most Interesting our site increased by about 400 percent. Just SEO. Not anymore.
Man in the World” campaign are slim. But that one video saved users the time of looking “If you want to have a custom look, in
every business has opportunity with video through our site. It gave the message to them the old days you had to use an image, which
simply because users are reading less and in about a minute and a half; it was real quick, isn’t effective for search engine optimization,”
watching more. upbeat and cheery … that’s all they needed. explains Kellogg. “You still want that to be
JB Kellogg is Production Manager and They filled out the lead form right there and readable text by Google and Bing. Now,
Creative Director for MadWire Media, chosen started moving forward with the Web design instead of using images to display a custom
as Big Commerce’s top design firm. He has quote process.” font, you can use a Web font — which
seen the power of video. “We’ve lived it,” While the next great viral video hit might search engines love.” Tools like T ypekit allow
says Kellogg. After years without Web video not be in your future, simple video — designers to choose the fonts they want
such as product demonstrations, company (even hand-written fonts) and T ypekit will
announcements or testimonials — can generate the search engine-readable text for
CSS3: The Next result in a big lift in sales, leads or readership. your website.
Generation Accessible video — and therefore, HTML5 —
is now a design imperative.
Inextricably linked to HTML5 is Designing for Every Screen
CSS3, the next generation of cas- Typography and Fonts One of big challenges facing designers now
cading style sheets. It’s an ongoing Spending your valuable time concentrating and for years to come is the complete lack
process but CSS3 advancements on fonts, the actual appearance of words on of a standard screen size — smartphones,
include site-wide effects on text, a page, might sound trivial. But branding on tablets, netbooks and desktop computers
rounded corners on images, gra- the Web is a tricky business — because of the each have different screen sizes and often
dients and drop-shadows, and the low barrier to entry, every industry is already several variances within the same category.
overall ability to make websites competitive. Fonts, and a good designer, can As such, it’s important to make sure designs
more visually appealing with less be an important way to separate your brand are optimized for every visitor regardless of
code and fewer plugins. from the rest. the device.
| A P R I L 2011
Minimalism anchor navigation or jQuery to automatically profits. For these reasons it is important
scroll down a page when the user clicks a that a business’ Web designer is not only up
One of the hottest trends in website design is navigation button. on trends but is a partner in the planning
minimalism, using as few elements as possible As with minimal design, it remains stages of marketing campaigns and product
while still achieving the goal. Varied screen important to place important elements of a development, and communication objectives
sizes will continue that trend. From a page — including calls-to-action and mission so that every possible resource can achieve its
user perspective, the less zooming, pinching statements — as near the top of the page as maximum potential on the Web.
or clicking on tiny page elements, the better. possible.
Another advantage of a minimalist design
is the appearance of being user-friendly in
Designing for Social
previews, such as Google Instant Previews in
search results. If a user hovers over a search Social media has not only changed the way A New Way to
result and the image looks cluttered with
dozens of images and headlines and hordes
business is conducted on the Web, but design,
too. It is rare to see a Web page that does not
Wireframe
of links, it’s an easy decision to move on to the incorporate social sharing functions such as
next listing without ever visiting the website. “tweet this” or “like this page on Facebook,” Web designers are finding a new
However, be very deliberate when using as well as widget that might display recent best friend in Adobe Fireworks
minimal designs. It is crucial that the most tweets or wall comments. CS5. Designers find that when
important calls-to-action remain prominent. But social is not limited to content pages. compared to Photoshop, Fireworks
Perhaps taking a page from the success of
Groupon and other coupon sites, e-commerce offers a better interface for design-
Death of the Fold websites are also getting more social. Kellogg ing across multiple pages and gives
“With so many different browsers and screen gives an example of designing the “Thank You” the ability to create fully-interactive
resolutions now … what is the fold?” asks page to increase sales by offering 10 percent PDFs. Designers are finding that
Kellogg. “If [users] want to learn more about a off if consumers share the product page with
product, rather than clicking something their friends, even offering 10 percent of their Fireworks CS5 can offer function-
people are willing to scroll down.” purchases, too. ing website prototypes with far
Increasingly, “the fold” is disappearing from Trends come and go. But in the Web greater efficiency than ever before.
the design lexicon. Instead, the Web is seeing design industry trends drive transactions,
more single-page designs, often with slide impact SEO, dictate usability and generate
| A P R I L 2011
It’s Getting
Hot in Here
Leveraging Heat Maps for Optimal Customer
Experience, Better Design and Deeper Engagement
By Peter Prestipino, Editor-in-Chief
The benefits of using, analyzing and understanding
heat maps are numerous. The data gathered can offer
proof as to where visitors do and do not click, provide
useful information when designing and redesigning landing
pages, help determine optimal advertisement placement,
minimize shopping cart abandonment, maximize conversions
of online forms and predict how visitors will use your site in the
future. There’s not much that heat maps can’t reveal, really. We just
need to know what to look for and then plan accordingly.
In the case of a traditional heat map, the brighter the color the more clicks (and attention) a specific
area is receiving — that much we readily know (see image A). That is effective, as it shows the degree
to which people are interacting with live elements on a website and how a design and site structure
can be improved by understanding what elements users are truly interested in, as opposed to those
areas where users only consider clicking.
But heat maps alone do not show us all of the information needed for true optimization, as they
tend only to track clicks on links. We can do much more.
Image A: Traditional heat maps offer a visual
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representation of click activity
Coupling heat map data with more detailed such as the referrer (see
analytics lets us track and visualize mouse Image C, next page). For
movement and page or mouse clicks that are example, review the highest
not links (non-clickable elements). In essence, volume entry pages by
we get a deeper understanding of how users comparing the best and
are experiencing a page as a whole, not just worst performing pages.
where they click. Then use heat maps to
Now we’re cooking. determine the relationship
For example, how helpful would it be to between the top referrer of
know if users are hovering over links (often those pages and clicks and
called hover time), and how often? If that lack of clicks. Once the
information were available we might be able worst offenders are found,
to determine how compelling the anchor multiple variables and
text of certain links are, even if users did not landing page approaches
actually click them, and how they might be based on the source of traffic
improved. can be tested.
We can also determine the time from when Reviewing the activity Image B: Heat maps are not just for designers. ClickTale’s Scroll-Reach heat
a page loads until a user clicks a certain link. of visitors from different map, for example, shows copywriters exactly where the fold appears on a
This is helpful in determining if the placement referral sources is but one of Web page, how far down visitors scroll and where users are abandoning the
we’ve chosen for a specific design element is the ways heat maps can be page altogether.
optimal or if it should be brought into greater used. Clicktale, for example,
focus (above the fold, for example) to increase offers statistics to its users based on existing
the number of clicks. customers versus new visitors, and customers
What heat map analytics can show with who made a purchase versus those who did
great clarity is not just how well a Web design, not. “We can segment by absolutely anything.
its layout and structure are performing in terms For example, age, gender, location or compare
of clicks but also help us make modifications specifics such as bachelors in their 30’s versus
based on seemingly unrelated information, mothers versus teenagers,” says Clicktale’s
| A P R I L 2011
Director of Marketing and Communication, The job of a Web designer
Shmuli Goldberg. “Clicktale provides — or anyone responsible for
information on what content a customer really optimizingtheuserexperience
cares about, as well as finds bugs and usability — is to maximize interest in
issues that stop or delay revenue.” the site and its products or
Analyzing data provided through heat content while maintaining
maps can be cumbersome but keep these usability. The challenge is
points in mind during analysis and when to balance aesthetics with
drafting suggestions and recommendations: function. To achieve this you
must give website visitors
• Areas that receive few clicks could be a direction; guiding them
removed. If users don’t find them where you want them to go.
important they may be more of a distraction Too many options, however,
than providing help. If you’re hesitant to and it is easy to confuse and
leave sections empty, simply replace them frustrate users. Not enough
with something entirely different to see if information or choices, on
that leads to more interest on the part of the other hand, could mislead Image C: With CrazyEgg’s confetti report, shown above, each colored dot
users. website visitors. represents a click. Users can change what data is displayed (e.g. top 15
referrers or search terms) or hover on each dot to see the full details of
that click.
• While identifying areas that receive the In the end, understand
most attention is useful, particularly for that no website is perfect.
those responsible for optimizing content, While pairing heat maps
observing the areas after they click to those with analytics is useful, making website
destinations is perhaps even more useful. changes does not guarantee that all of your
For example if users do not click anywhere problems will be solved. Be sure to test, test,
after arriving on a page they may have hit a and retest after making any improvements
dead end. Try to turn those endings into new and modifications to determine how those
beginnings by offering content suggestions changes improved or worsened the user
or product recommendations. experience.
| A P R I L 2011
Cut Affiliate Fraud
Double Your Profits
By Linda Baginski
Affiliate traffic has incredible potential. But it also has significant disadvantages — recruiting, training, managing and
accounting for thousands of individual affiliates are some of the more glaring ones. Affiliate networks can take care of all
those headaches, however, and drive thousands of sales per day. The only problem is the certainty of affiliate fraud, which
can ultimately determine the profitability of an entire campaign.
So what can you, as an advertiser, do about fraud?
First, it is important to understand the dynamics
between affiliate networks and advertisers. Most
networks utilize pixel tracking, conversion analysis
and/or affiliate performance metrics to identify and
eliminate any obvious fraud within their networks.
However, the ability to track and eliminate this fraud
ends at the advertiser’s checkout page.
Affiliate networks cannot see which specific
affiliate ID is responsible for excessive refunds or
chargebacks. They cannot track which affiliate has
the lowest rebill, retention or returned shipped
packages, either. Affiliate networks can only see a
piece of the entire order flow. More importantly, only
the advertiser has access to everything that occurs
post-transaction.
| A P R I L 2011
Post-transaction data analysis, therefore, transactions for every 100 generated. Now, affiliate’s refund ratio is simply the number
is necessary to identify and eliminate any simply rank the affiliate IDs from highest to of refunds requested divided by the total
remaining affiliate fraud. This may sound lowest. The bottom 10 percent are the worst number of approved transactions generated.
complicated but it’s definitely not rocket performing affiliates and most likely to be Eliminate the affiliates that consistently
science —when you know what to look for, driving fraud into your offers. produce the highest refund ratios, as those are
affiliate fraud is almost impossible to miss. most likely caused by stolen credit cards. And
They key to flagging affiliate fraud is to Decline Ratio that can cause problems well beyond a poor-
make sure every transaction is tagged with Decline ratios are especially critical to any online performing affiliate.
the corresponding affiliate ID. For example, offer that involves continuity subscriptions. As an advertiser, the first three ratios should
transaction number 456 was generated by As an advertiser, you might be paying out a be calculated every week before paying your
affiliate ID XYZ. This can be automated $45 or higher CPA but it may take a rebill or affiliate network’s insertion orders. This allows
by passing the affiliate ID along with the two to become profitable on each sale. Even you to monitor the performance of each affiliate
consumer’s billing info when processing any a slight bit of affiliate fraud could drop your and consistently weed out the worst offenders.
credit card transaction. rebill ratios so low that the CPA is resulting on Additionally, most reputable affiliate networks
Transactions to monitor include those a negative ROI. will credit back any obviously fraudulent
approved, declined and refunded, plus any The decline ratio is simply each affiliate transactions, which can help to lower overall
that were charged back. These are the basic ID’s number of declines divided by the total advertising costs.
parameters that can be easily flag potential number of attempted transactions. So, if
affiliate fraud. Just look for the affiliate ID with: affiliate ID XYZ has 99 declines for every 100 Chargeback Ratio
rebill transactions, his decline ratio is 99 percent The final ratio must be consistently performed
1.LowestApprovalRatio(Initialtransactions — grounds for immediate termination. Better in real time. Anytime a consumer disputes a
if there is a continuity model involved.) performing campaigns have decline ratios of credit card order or transaction, it is referred
2. Highest Decline Ratio (Including rebills.) 30 percent or less. Just look at your affiliate to as a chargeback. Think of chargebacks as
3. Highest Refund Ratio. ID’s decline ratios, identify the worst offenders fire — when uncontrolled, it becomes a very
4. Highest Chargeback Ratio. and get rid of them. dangerous situation. Think of each chargeback
as a single match — a very small flame but with
Approval Ratio Refund Ratio the potential to create serious damage if left to
In general, affiliate traffic should be approving Depending on the type of offer, a refund burn. Diligently monitor your chargebacks
at a rate of 80 percent and more. Meaning, each ratio should be in the range of 5-15 percent. and the fires will never get out of control. It’s
affiliate should be in the range of 80 approved Anything over 20 percent is a big red flag. The that simple.
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They key to flagging
There are two types of chargebacks. systems to automatically track data or simply
Operational chargebacks are caused by outsource to any number of reputable vendors affiliate fraud is to
mistakes made in operations. Failing to ship that provide these services.
a product or issue a timely refund are two Using these simple ratios can easily cut any make sure every
types of operational chargebacks. The other potential affiliate fraud in half. And any fraud
type of chargeback is specifically associated you prevent will eliminate the costs associated transaction is tagged
with stolen credit cards. “Customer Did Not
Authorize” and “Card Stolen” are the most
with advertising, processing, shipping and
customer service issues, and significantly
with the corresponding
common chargeback descriptions. increase your overall profitability. Collectively, affiliate ID. For
For each affiliate ID, monitor the number our goal is to eliminate affiliate fraud one
of chargebacks against the total number transaction at a time. Please spread the word example, transaction
of approved transactions. So, if affiliate ID and may 2011 be fruitful.
XYZ had 20 chargebacks on 100 approved number 456 was
transactions, the affiliate has a 20 percent
chargeback ratio. To put things in perspective, generated by affiliate
in the brick-and-mortar retail world, the
average chargeback ratio is about 0.15 percent.
ID XYZ. This can be
For the online e-tail industry, the average is automated by passing
about 0.45 percent. If you have an affiliate
ID(s) that’s consistently generating above a 5 the affiliate ID along
percent chargeback ratio, get rid of them.
All of these ratios and numbers can be with the consumer’s
easily calculated using a basic spreadsheet if
your offer is generating less than 100 orders ABOUT THE AUTHOR billing info when
per day. For more sophisticated campaigns
involving multiple products, offers and
Linda Baginski is VP of Business Development for Total-Apps processing any credit
Inc. & Merchant Account Pros (www.total-apps.com & www.
networks, you can custom build database merchantaccountpros.com) card transaction.
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Website Magazine
>>>Success Corner
MORE RESOURCES TO SPEED YOUR WEB SUCCESS
Throughout each month, the editors at Website Magazine write and report on technologies,
trends and techniques that readers need to succeed on the Web. Here are some of the most
popular items that you might have missed at WebsiteMagazine.com.
The New Reality of Facebook Essential Social Sharing Tools for Five Top-Tier Tech Affiliate Programs
Advertising Facebook has announced a Websites In the past, providing eye-catching As the world’s leading manufacturers compete
new advertising scheme called “Sponsored and functional social profile links and sharing for shares of the explosive tablet computer,
Stories. It is interesting — and risky. Some
” options was a cumbersome process; e-reader and smartphone markets, only one
might even say it is dangerous. Small involving hard-coding and scouring the Web thing in the technology industry is certain at this
businesses in particular should pay very close for usable images. Not anymore. Amateur point — consumers will spend more on gadgets
attention. First, the basics of how Sponsored bloggers can deploy any number of widgets in 2011 than any year prior. Another safe
Stories works, then a closer look at what it with one click. Many of the social widgets assumption is that no matter what the primary
means to your business. also offer developers the ability to modify and focus of your business website may be, few if
Link: http://wsm.co/gDLiHC implement the tools and offer APIs. any visitors this year will be impervious to
Link: http://wsm.co/dBnXie great offers on tech products.
Five Ways to BuildY our Own Link: http://wsm.co/dEWkPF
Groupon Group coupon buying has Trends in Landing Page Design for
overrun the Internet. A $6 billion buyout offer Search Marketers Landing pages are
of Groupon.com from Google should be critical to the success of search marketing
enough evidence of that. Now, Groupon is and advertising campaigns. To ensure that
getting hit from all sides. LivingSocial has the destination where consumers end up
turned up the heat, Yelp.com has introduced post-click presents the best opportunity for
group coupon buying, Google is working conversion, let’s review three current landing
on their own solution, Facebook won’t be page design trends.
far behind and even local websites and Link: http://wsm.co/hQGsYw
newspapers are in on the rush.
Link: http://wsm.co/i9eq7L
| A P R I L 2011
With Mike Phillips, Senior Editor
WHAT’S
UNDERNEATH?
SUPPORTING YOUR BRAND
I think about branding. A lot. In such a competitive space as the Internet,
branding is so vitally important. It is near impossible to launch a product
without a dozen competitors nipping at your heels within minutes.
More likely, your new product already exists.
Which brings us back to branding — it’s of two copper pennies. (Go ahead, look in To be successful, a brand needs
what sets us apart. It’s the reason consumers your pockets.) She’s iconic and beautiful, but unwavering support from top executives
choose us over our competitors. It’s how our would collapse if not for a highly-structured all the way down to customer service reps.
messages are spread. On the Web, branding interior. PR departments must have up-to-date
is everything. Another interesting note: The Statue of information. Every asset of a brand must
The other day, I was again thinking about Liberty’s pedestal and supporting foundation be available and known to all departments.
branding when I came across a photograph is 154 feet tall — three feet taller than the Every employee must be encouraged to
of the ultimate brand. America. More statue itself. The statue might get all the innovate and bring new ideas to the table.
specifically, the Statue of Liberty. Did you attention but it would be half as impressive Most important, consumers need to feel
know that Lady Liberty’s “skin” is only 3/32 — and unable to stand — without many secure that your brand will support them,
of an inch thick? That’s less than the width layers of support. too.
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It’s also remarkably easy to tear down There’s another aspect to every great Liberty to France, where he built a structure
a brand online. A security breach can do brand — it will always come under attack. three-times the height. Of course, that’s the
that. So can a few bad reviews on Yelp, or The Statue of Liberty is no exception. She Eiffel Tower.
a customer service disaster broadcast on was famously attacked on July 30, 1916 in Even your brand’s biggest supporters can
Twitter. one of the largest acts of sabotage prior to suddenly become competitors.
The Statue of Liberty means so many Pearl Harbor.
things to so many people. For some, By the way, do you know who built
she represents freedom. For others, it’s Liberty’s interior? Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel,
opportunity. Search long enough and you’ll who took the lessons he learned building
find dozens of conspiracy theories that claim
she represents much less flattering ideals. The
point is, the symbol is there to be interpreted
however each individual sees fit. Largely,
that’s because every admirer of Liberty also
feels a sense of ownership in his or her own
way.
A good brand is not much different. You
might build yours with a certain message in
mind but that doesn’t mean that consumers
will adopt it in that way. It is very likely that
they will form their own opinions and decide
for themselves what your brand means to
them. Though that can be very powerful,
it’s also why it is of great importance to
monitor your brand. It is highly likely that
your brand resides in corners of the Internet
you’ve never heard of. It’s best to find those
places, and make sure your brand is not
being misinterpreted.
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Meet The Staff 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018
Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518
International: 1-773-628-2779
The Magazine for Website Success Fax: 1-773-272-0920
PUBLISHER: *CONTRIBUTORS: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT/
Susan Whitehurst Tim Ash ADVERTISING:
susan@websitemagazine.com Linda Baginski Troy Pickett
Olly Downs troy@websitemagazine.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Heather Lutze
Peter Prestipino Dante A. Monteverde Kelly Springer
peter@websitemagazine.com Prashant Puri kspringer@websitemagazine.com
ART DIRECTOR: Dave Anderson
SENIOR EDITOR: Jesse Erbach davea@websitemagazine.com
Mike Phillips jesse@websitemagazine.com
mike@websitemagazine.com
PRODUCTION MANAGER:
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Janet Crouch
Linc Wonham www.grafikadesign.net
linc@websitemagazine.com
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| A P L 2011