1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I work as the VP Online Marketing Strategy at Page Zero Media and have been in the online marketing space for 10 years. I work with several clients and develop PPC strategies related to search, display, remarketing/retargeting, PLA, mobile, geo specific, etc. I also do work related to conversion rate optimization (CRO), landing page optimization (LPO) and develop integrated online marketing strategies. I also write for online publications like SearchEngineLand.com and the HuffingtonPost.com to name a couple.

2) What are some of the most common PPC “Fails” that you see in self-managed (or agency managed) accounts?
There are quite a few fails in campaign settings area of Google AdWords. The default settings are not always obvious so it can take a little digging to get there. One such default setting relates to ad rotation and the default option is to “optimize for clicks” With this, Google will selects the ad that has the highest CTR (not the ad that has the best ROI/CPA) and serves it more often. My advice is to select “rotate indefinitely” so that all ads show more evenly. With this option, you’ll be able to select the best performing ad in terms of CPA & ROI.

Another default option is relates to keyword matching options. The default in Google for phrase match and exact match to include plurals misspellings & other close variants. We opt out of this as we expect misspellings, plurals, etc. to factored in with our broad match strategies that involve precise bidding, negative terms, etc.
My advice is to choose “do not include close variants”. With this, you should have a specific broad match strategy and include specific keyword terms and match types in your accounts.

I’ll cover many more PPC “fails” in my SearchFest presentation.

3) Please share with us some Enhanced Campaign functionalities that most people should be using but aren’t.
There are a couple of functionalities that are not well utilized. The first is advertisers not making bid adjustments to mobile. With Enhanced Campaigns, advertisers are automatically opted into mobile advertising and the mobile bid is equal to the desktop bid. It’s worth noting that it’s not possible to make this change while setting up a new campaign. To change this, advertisers must go to setting tab -> devices to make mobile bid changes.

The other is not modifying bids by geographic region. A very obvious way to improve ROI is to focus on geographic areas that are performing well and/or not performing well. Here’s an example:

New York

Ad spend = $2000
Conversions = 2
CPA = $1000

Chicago

Ad spend = $1000
Conversions = 100
CPA = $10

In the example above, it would make sense to ramp up bids in Chicago and decrease bids in New York. Note: the above example is for illustrative purposes only and there are a lot of other factors that go into increasing/decreasing bids.

I’ll also be covering Enhanced Campaigns in my SearchFest presentation.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Mona Elesseily appeared first on SEMpdx.

14. It’s Portland. Duh.

13. SearchFest tickets are affordable. We can deliver a top notch search experience for a fraction of the price as the major search conferences.

12. Members get to attend a Members Only reception the night before SearchFest with our speakers.

11. Our speakers are amazing. They’re going to deliver a ton of useful knowledge to the attendees.

10. Marty…Weintraub…Live…and…Caffeinated!

9. All attendees will get a free scarf.

8. 2014 is our 8th year. We must be doing something right…right?

7. SEMpdx always throws great parties and we have a Happy Hour and an After Party! Moz is sponsoring the Happy Hour again.

6. Six sessions/keynotes throughout the day. Check out the agenda and speaker line-up.

5. Breakfast is included…a real breakfast with BACON thanks to PSU’s Center for Executive and Professional Education (CEPE).

4. Four Tracks to choose from including Old School, New School, Social & PPC and a Deep Dive Track. See the full SearchFest agenda.

3. Beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of content! There are also ample networking opportunities throughout the day. Just ask our Afternoon Networking Sponsor ethology.

2. Bookend Keynotes! Start your day with Joanna Lord and finish listening to SHOEMONEY!

1. The chance to party with @toddmintz.

What are you waiting for? Register Now!

The post Top 14 Reasons To Attend SearchFest 2014 appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’m a full blown web-net-mobile-search-social-aholic.

I was at a small company 15 years ago and since I had an email address (the only person on staff with one) they thought I should build a web page for the company. I started designing and coding sites and the addiction only increased moving forward from there. I’ve spent the last 10 years helping build 3 different digital shops, creating better and bigger organizations along the way.

I’m currently the COO of Spyder Trap in Minneapolis for the past 3 years. We are a full service digital firm creating responsive websites, mobile apps, search, social and email campaigns. Our team of 35 creates some amazing platforms and strategies for a client list that includes brands big and small. My daily role is wide ranging, but you’ll usually find me developing strategy, meeting with clients, solving problems, honing process and thinking forward.

Outside of the office I’m a faculty speaker for Local University, getting to speak at 8 to 10 events per year around the country on web design, SEO, local search and mobile. I was a founding board member of the Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association and continue to serve the organization on it’s Advisory Board. This is my second SearchFest and I can say it’s one of those events that others in our industry should aim to model theirs after, it’s so solid.

Most importantly I’m a husband and father of 3 daughters that make the world right with me at all times.

2) How would you choose an optimal mobile bid modifier for a PPC campaign?
Of course every account is going to act and perform differently based on it’s components. The no brainer is to start by asking “does it even make sense”? If it does here is a sampling of places to start.

1. Is your site optimized for mobile and is it already converting mobile users? If it isn’t, test cutting the bid in half with a modifier and then review the results.
2. Segment your mobile traffic out in analytics and look for pitfalls or opportunities in the behaviors. Can you find intent or behaviors that would suggest a test of a modifier?
3. Look at patterns in the time of day of you mobile traffic. If you see certain mobile behaviors at specific times, then test an increased modifier during those times. An example would be towing services and auto collision repair increasing mobile PPC during rush hour times.
4. Analyze differences in CTR and CPC. If mobile is pushing a strong click through rate at efficient levels, start to test the modifier to find a sweet spot. You might be able to lower your bids and still capture results.

It’s just what you’d except in process: ideate, test, analyze, refine and start the whole loop over again.

3) What is the state of tracking cross-channel attribution in 2014 and how can businesses deal with the issue of visitors using different devices in various parts of the sales funnel?
Cross device tracking is evolving, but still imperfect. Google’s Universal Analytics is the strongest attempt to reach that point. One of the main issues is companies/brands not meeting the customer where they are and delivering a strongest experience regardless of device. Cross channel experience needs to improve for many and the hope is that the ability to track follows suit. I’m excited to see the continued development here.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Aaron Weiche appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’m the Founder and CEO of Define Media Group, specializing in enterprise search marketing and strategic audience development. I’ve been involved in search since 1997, was the Chief Search Strategist for About.com from 1999-2011 of which the last five were spent quarterbacking all search strategy initiatives for the New York Times Company portfolio. Define Media Group started in 2005 and officially spun off from the NYTCo in January of 2011. Define manages key components of audience development initiatives for the most influential brands and publishing networks in the world.

2) Can you give me the top reasons why website content should be “marked up”?
In a word, opportunity. In working with enterprise sites, typically our biggest obstacle early on is indexation. Essentially opening up the site to maximize crawl budget, bring approximate parity to content offered versus content indexed by the engines and, depending on the site, decreasing time spent downloading pages. Getting Google et al to effectively index a site is hard enough for a number of technology reasons both internal and external.

In addition to raw extraction and subsequent contextual analysis, structured data refines that signal, much like good SEO is intended to do. Schema offers yet another means to specify content elements for advanced markup. Anything that aids Google’s interpretation of, what can be, massive amounts of data is a good enough reason to put resources behind the effort.

The most important aspect to enterprise SEO is fast, efficient, execution of best practices and emerging technologies to support a brand. This means monitoring the opportunities, assessing viability of new releases and being able to lobby an organization for inclusion. Not necessarily an easy or quick task, especially with roadmaps established months in advance. However those that are quick to adapt and adopt are typically rewarded. It’s also good career management to error on the side of ‘innovative’ and avoid the difficult conversation with your boss about why your competitors beat you to it.

3) How do you think technical markup will evolve in 2014?
Honestly, that’s why I’m excited to present with and see Aaron Bradley speak. He’s the thinker and in my opinion the ultimate expert in this field. My job is to locate the opportunities for our clients. Schema is, dare I say, vast. There are a lot of objects to consider, some that even though Google says are supported haven’t really proven to be worthwhile unfortunately. It’s a trial and error process so my WISH for 2014 is Google will update and fully support (*see ingest and display) all objects featured at Schema.org.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Marshall Simmonds appeared first on SEMpdx.

1)Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I was once a ballerina, spent a few years working in neuropsychology, then started a few projects of my own that led me to Wistia. I’m their Community Manager (and frankly, just a huge fangirl. Shh, don’t tell them!)

2) How can video be effectively used to grow and maintain communities?
Video creates a depth of relationship with people unlike any other form of content I’ve seen. Any video you make, no matter how scrappy, is going to let your audience get to know you as people. The scrappier the better, actually. Behind the scenes footage is especially popular, as well as videos that directly respond to customer questions or concerns.

3) What part of the sales funnel is video most important?
While there’s no one magic step at which to use video, we’ve had the most success with using video to nurture our core audience. Listening to our existing community and providing them with consistent value and personality helps us learn a lot and motivates our community to spread the word for us.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Elise Ramsay appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
You know I actually thought about it, and this is my 7th year speaking at Searchfest. Pretty amazed to have been involved that long, and it’s all due to you, Todd, giving me my first shot back in 2008. Thanks for that.

Since we’ve done at least six of these over the years, I thought it would be fun to link to each of them here:

Adam Audette Searchfest Mini Interviews:

2008
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2008/sempdx-searchfest-08-audience-mini-interview-adam-audette/

2009
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2009/searchfest-2009-interview-adam-audette/

2010
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2010/searchfest-2010-mini-interview-adam-audette/

2011
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2011-blog/searchfest-2011-mini-interview-adam-audette/

2012
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2012/searchfest-2012-mini-interview-adam-audette/

2013
https://www.sempdx.org/blog/searchfest-2013/sempdx-searchfest-2013-mini-interview-adam-audette/

Online marketing is in my blood! I’m a digital marketer who focuses a lot on search, especially SEO and social. I’m chief kitten knowledge officer at RKG. I’m a father of two and happily married.

At RKG I work on the overall strategy of our SEO, social and content offerings, on partnerships, and special projects. I’ve been distracted the last several months with some other priorities, but in 2014 I plan on doing a lot of writing and speaking, which has been a big focus of mine the last 8 years. I also work closely on one or two SEO projects to keep my sword sharp.

RKG is fast approaching 250 people. We’re best known for paid search and SEO, and work with amazing clients like Google, Zappos, Walmart, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Walgreens… many more and lots of interesting projects.

2) What are some scalable SEO Practices that can positively affect 100K+ page E-Commerce Sites?
Scalable SEO practices for ecommerce sites… it’s a great question. First, technical. It’s important to create efficient, canonical crawl paths for bots. The most important thing is consistency: canonical annotations, internal links, XML sitemaps – they should all be consistent and reference the same set of canonical URLs.

Next, smart keyword mappings. It sounds really, really basic, but mapping the right terms to the appropriate pages is significantly important. It means understanding who your target audience is (on big ecomm sites, there are lots of personas), and knowing the kind of search queries they’re using to accomplish their tasks, and lining those up on the site. Not only keyword mappings, but also that customer journey – when they come through from organic search, what’s their path? How can you make it easier for them to find what they want, and to convert? This is where content strategy and site architecture come in, which are first-order priorities before even considering SEO.

Finally, good mobile experiences. To me responsive design really is the way forward, especially if it’s done right it can be really fast and seamless. You can still create mobile-specific experiences, too, in addition to RWD.

Then there are all the other things: thinking about SERP presentation and CTR, microformats for rich snippets, the Knowledge Graph and G+ and authorship.

3) How would you “site architect” a massive e-commerce site for efficient spider crawling?
Not sure I would architect the site from an SEO perspective. Actually, I know that I wouldn’t. I’d first understand the reasons why and how the site is architected from the UX and front end teams. Once I have that understanding, if there are big areas I see as SEO issues, that can be covered. But SEO crawling comes after the site is architected from a user perspective. In some cases, there can be SEO insight prior to the IA being developed, and that’s beneficial if possible, but it’s more frequently the case at large brands that the site is developed with very little SEO insight. That can actually be an okay thing. As long as SEO input can be fed into actionable implementations, we’re good. We just need to get things done, and that means having a seat at the table, but importantly having a resource allocated to execute on our recommendations.

Last a little nugget: the key to internal linking on a large ecomm site is the category (and possibly sub-category) level. That is where your focus should be, not at the product level. I’ll talk more about this at Searchfest.

Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/audette

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Adam Audette appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’m CEO and partner at WebRanking.com and President of MnSearch.org, the Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association. I’ve been a search geek since 1999 and love all things digital, especially 3 letter acronyms like SEO, PPC, CRO, etc. I remember my brother Tony teaching me how to code HTML websites by hand with a little help from an HTML editor called HotDog, which is how we built the first few versions of WebRanking.com. You can even find a few old versions in the Internet Archive’s wayback machine. Learning HTML code was an important part of SEO in the early days since Content Management Systems were rare and most sites were built 1 page at a time. The Internet sure has evolved since then!

2) What factors should be considered in setting the appropriate mobile bid modifier?
Does the business accept phone calls as a qualified conversions? Since we see mobile campaigns generate a significant percentage of conversions in the form of calls, from both from the SERPs and landing pages, it is important to understand how they fit within the business sales funnel.

Does the landing page utilize a responsive design or a unique mobile environment? If the site does not render well on a mobile device it will affect conversions and this should be considered.

Is there flash, large images, PDFs, or some other form of content that will be difficult for mobile visitors to interact with on a smartphone?

How to conversion rates, ROAS and conversion types vary from desktop/laptop, to tablet, to mobile phone? If you generate lower sales levels or smaller ticket price items from mobile devices, then you should consider setting your mobile bid modifiers lower.

3) What are the top 3 mistakes you see in self-managed PPC Accounts?
Combining to many keyword themes into one ad group. Your ads will only be targeted for 1-3 keyword segments and having more just dilutes you CTR for your ads, which will lower your keyword Quality Scores. I recommend using 1 keyword segment per ad group. This way you can have ads that speak directly to those keywords. They will receive higher click through rates, Quality Sores across the board, and you’ll have an easier time identifying keyword and landing page matching issues.

Not utilizing proper keyword match types to control search query matching. Most self-built PPC accounts I’ve audited have solely relied on Broad Match keywords. Since broad match keywords only have to loosely map to one of the words in your keyword, the actual search query matching is not what the manager had intended. This leads to paying for unintended and poorly targeted keywords that often drain PPC campaign budgets. I recommend using a tiered bidding and keyword matching process. This is one that I created several years ago that is a solid blueprint for building a tiered structure: https://www.webranking.com/blog/pay-per-click-keyword-match-types-exact-phrase-broad-and-modified

Not sending traffic to specific landing pages. Too often I see PPC traffic going to a homepage or loosely related internal page. This usually produces higher bounce-back rates and lower conversion rates. The higher bounce-back rates is a signal to AdWords that you are not as relevant to the searcher and will lead to lower landing page Quality Scores. Creating an environment that produces lower conversion rates is a poor business practice. By directing traffic to a relevant and custom landing experience, you can increase conversions and ROI. I like to relate it in this manner, if someone searches for “Womens Nike running shoes” would they be better served by going to 1. the homepage of a shoe website, 2. A category page with several different brands and shoe types, or 3. A page listing running shoes, in women’s sizes and styles, featuring your available offering of Nike’s?

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: James Svoboda appeared first on SEMpdx.

1. Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’m the CEO and a partner at Kick Point, a digital marketing firm based in Edmonton, Alberta. I’ve been working with this web stuff for a little over 10 years. I started working on my own with a web design business and clients kept asking why their sites weren’t immediately on Google, so I began looking into this SEO thing. I attended SES Toronto in 2004 (thanks to Jill Whalen, who gave away a ticket) and then have been doing more and more digital marketing since then. I founded Kick Point in 2012, a few years after I moved to Edmonton, and we only do digital marketing – no more website development. But lots of technical audits. Mostly my role here is those aforementioned technical audits, but also sales, social media strategies and helping out with organic and paid search when I can. Plus all that business stuff, going to conferences, etc.

2. For a newbie filling out their Google Places listing for the first time, what are the top 3 pieces of advice that you’d share with them?
Double-check your address against Canada Post (or USPS or your country’s postal service) to make sure that it’s totally right and you have everything you need. Use Mike Blumenthal’s Google Places for Business Category Tool (https://blumenthals.com/index.php/Google_LBC_Categories) to choose the right categories for your business. Take the time to write a really great business description – don’t rush it.

3. How can a business move locations without harming their local search listings?
Plan ahead. Find all of your current citations using a tool like Whitespark or by Googling your phone number. Make a spreadsheet with all those citations, then figure out exactly what you’ll need to do to change them when the time comes. When it’s time to move, change your citations in order from primary sources to tertiary, according to David Mihm’s local ecosystem chart. Do lots of Googling to make sure you caught everything – Google your old address combined with your business name to make sure that more citations don’t pop up after you move.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Dana DiTomaso appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I am the proprietor of LocalSEOGuide.com, a blog and SEO consultancy. We specialize in SEO for enormously complex enterprise clients, multi-location businesses and good old-fashioned mom & pops who have had it up to here with Google Places. This is our 8th year in business. In other words, I have been doing this stuff way too long.

2) If a small business were to ask you for the top 3 places online to focus their local marketing efforts, what would you tell them?
The first two things I often tell local clients is to focus on remarketing to your current customers while also improving the conversion process on their websites. These two areas are typically the lowest-hanging and cheapest fruit there is. If we are talking just SEO, the first orders of business is to make sure your site is targeting the right search terms, make sure you have a fully optimized Google Places page and make your business data is up to date and consistent on the major websites for your niche and the big business data aggregators – InfoGroup, Neustar Localeze, Acxiom and Factual.

3) If a local business had $1,000 to experiment in Paid Local Search, where would you tell them to spend the money?
I’d tell them to put $500 in their kids’ college savings fund and take their family and friends out to an amazing dinner with the other $500. I have seen a lot of SMBs and BigBs blow a ton of money experimenting with paid search and get nothing out of it because they just run the ads without any test plan so they never learn anything, particularly when the ads don’t generate any business. With that said, if they still want to do it, I would spend a bit of time coming up with a strategy and an hypothesis to test. I would invest in some cheap landing page optimization software, or just create a bunch of different landing pages designed to test different results. And I would start testing. If you can find someone who has actually done a paid local campaign before who you can afford, you might consider paying that person $500 to run the test and use the rest for the media spend. There are plenty of platforms you can drop your money on: Adwords Express, Yelp, Facebook, etc. but without a good plan, I think most businesses are wasting a lot of money on these services.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Andrew Shotland appeared first on SEMpdx.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’ve been working in the SEO / digital marketing industry since 2003 – right at the beginning I was a “web manager” (managing the rollout of new content management systems, organising content, images, hosting, etc.) who’d arrived at that job via a sales and then a user experience / usability background. From about 2006 I was a full time SEO working in various agencies and in-house roles, notably in a very competitive travel vertical in my last job before I started SEOgadget in late 2009. SEOgadget is my agency, we now have 25 full time staff, we’re based in London and San Francisco and we’re hiring!

Meanwhile in real life I have a huge interest in motor sport (F1, Endurance Racing), race a little myself and I enjoy movies, music and Television! I also have a cat called Mr Keets. He’s made a guest appearance on a Mozinar before, so he’s kind of famous.

2) How can one build links in 2014 without running afoul of the spam police?
You have to avoid the footprint of very low quality activity. That absolutely rules out common every-day activities like guest posting or any other “tactic” that may be working right now – of course this depends very much on the vertical you’re in, but generally speaking 2014 is about getting mentioned because you did something cool, *not* being too artificial or compromising your integrity just in case a link might make a difference. If you’re good, you’re capable of building something of value on your site (to meet the needs of the people you’re marketing to) and then getting them to know about it. That’s link building in 2014.

It’s definitely worth pointing out that if you’ve got something in your backlink history you’ve not been proud of and that you haven’t been caught for yet, that does not mean you’re out of the woods. Disavow and maybe even remove before that penalty warning comes in.

3) What’s the best way to get a link from someone who doesn’t know you?
Most of the people reading this will be SEO people themselves, maybe they have a blog and they’ll certainly all have Twitter accounts and lots of social presence. Why would any self-respecting member of the SEMpdx audience want to tweet something, or link to it?

In my opinion, if you want someone in particular to use your assets, mention them, cite them as an expert source, you’ve really got to play the long game with that individual. Earning someone’s trust is really, really hard. You can’t just email them and ask, you know?

One of the things I do is drop someone a line thanking them for a recent insight or opinion and I share something of value with them in return and leave it at that – building a relationship every tiny step of the way, with a little follow up, a little social interaction, just making it natural and making myself known to them. You can’t force a relationship, not a long term one certainly! We have a group of journalists we’ve built strong relationships with in the past – all of which started by arranging a meeting! We have them come to the office, teach them a bunch of ideas and show a lot of data – generally speaking you can feel the trust starting to emerge as they write down ideas and start asking questions. From there it’s a case of follow up and keeping the relationship alive.

The post SearchFest 2014 Mini-Interview: Richard Baxter appeared first on SEMpdx.