50 Tips & Takeaways from BlueGlass LA

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50 Tips & Takeaways from BlueGlass LA Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:38 AM PDT Last week I got the chance to attend the latest BlueGlass conference in LA. I’ve got to admit, when heading out to the US I had high expectations for this event having heard a lot of buzz around previous conferences they’ve held and you might have seen my interview with Chris Winfield ahead of the event. But I’d have to say, they exceeded expectations way beyond what I ever expected! This was quite easily the best search event I have ever attended (and there’s been quite a few now!), the sessions were packed full of great content – once you’ve been to a lot of conferences you find yourself skipping quite a few sessions, but this conference was the exception – and every session was full to the back of the room! But as is normally the way, the highlight was the networking – you really could just sell tickets for “an audience with Greg Boser” show! Getting the chance to meet everyone before the event at Mike’s SEO BBQ was a great way to kick-off the conference – and the intimate feel of the event by having a limited number of 125 attendees and all staying at the amazing Standard Hotel in Downtown LA with a free bar and rooftop party is always an appreciated nice touch! Anyway getting into the content, I’ve organised my tweets and notes so that hopefully you can pickup a couple of useful tips even if you weren’t able to attend the event: Google A writer who has the biggest reach is who @GregBoser recommends hiring. This person can influence people in search result … Start removing title tags and see how Google rewrites them. Let Google give you hints on what they think is best. @Gregboser Great tip from @GregBoser 450 character descriptions give #SEO experts more control over SERP descriptions Conversion Rate Optimisation Use descriptive words on buttons – ‘create a gift’, not ‘buy now’ @hnshah Design for conversions tips; CROToolkit, lightbox promotions, cross-promo ad banners, promote top posts @hnshah Stick to basics on Twitter, share great, relevant & interesting content. @KISSmetrics grown to 88,000 followers @hnshah Use aweber & WordPress for drip email marketing on blogs @hnshah CRO tools; whichtestwon.com, usertesting.com, 99designs.com for landing pages, visualwebsiteoptimizer.com @hnshah Great CRO landing page examples; RipFire, DollarShaveClub @jasonnazar Can also have social proof on purchase page…’verified by’, better business bureau, etc.@jasonnazar Use social proof CRO – client logos (e.g. visualwebsiteoptimizer.com), as seen on, customer testimonials @jasonnazar Call-to-action; size, colour & text biggest CRO quick win. Dark forest green button converts well – agree, green means go!  @jasonnazar Single biggest CRO tip; headline most important text on page – not call-to-action or on-page text. Great example; Square @jasonnazar On-Site SEO Evaluate those low performing pages. Good reminder to either optimize them, or 301 to higher value sections. @alanbleiweiss Are your highest visited/stickiest pages converting? A/B test your call-to-action & content wording. @alanbleiweiss In Page Analytics in GA recommended by @alanbleiweiss to determine phrases people find relevant, based on internal CTRs 400% increase in organic visits shown by @alanbleiweiss as example of why you don’t need to look at granular kw level Smart bet is keyword data could go completely & not provided to =100% – interesting prediction by @alanbleiweiss ‘SEO is organic ad writing’ great quote by @aimclear @aimclear As far as KWs go, (not set) means the URL, GATC , or AdWords wasn’t set up correctly. ‘Within analytics work on the short-tail first because it helps you understand the long-tail.’ @aimclear GA not provided tip; segment landing page data by keyword & map to GWT to compare no of kw visits @aimclear @alanbleiweiss: So many finally validating what i was advocating last spring abt schema as the 2012 big opportunity in SEO Link Building Buy traditional advertising then use that relationship to get free editorial links that last forever. @RavenJon Build private lists & set auto reminders to interact w/ people you want to connect w/ on Twitter @RavenJon Position yourself or your client as an expert source. Recommends @helpareporter to help them find you @RavenJon FullContact, BuzzStream & Tout recommended by @RavenJon to find contact details & manage relationships Great answer from @jamies to my question; how do you value how much a link is worth? Measure attention & traffic it generates @jamies Is tearing up , fantastic realtime ideas, highlighting TheVerge CMS, also likes AtlanticWire Great tip by @jamies: Google Analytics Query Explorer can be used to map traffic alongside links in @seomoz Content Marketing / Infographics Infographic tips; work with a great publishing partner, capitalise on previous success & tap proven ideas @danieltynski Serve needs of business & potential customers, once you’ve targeted audience, by creating remarkable content @danieltynski Build a content team: Community Mgr, Content Strategist, Moderators, Guest Authors, Video Producers, Graphic Designers 43% of online news is shared via social networks, 27% of ppl who share are frequent sharers & responsible for 87% of shares Blogging / Cultivating Visibility Email marketing tips from @chrisbrogan Brevity – 250 words max, don’t start with view in browser, don’t use dontreply@ address Nice tip from @copyblogger @chrisbrogan unsubscribe your annoying email subscribers, e.g. grammar nazi’s who always reply! Plain text emais have better delivery rates, take people to landing pages, healthy ratio of value vs promotion @copyblogger ‘We don’t buy lists, we build audiences.’ ~Brian Clark @copyblogger ‘never invest in the carpet, invest in the people who are walking on it!’ @chrisbrogan  ’Don’t be an artist. Be a business person who makes art.’ – @chrisbrogan There’s so many bloggers out there, but lack of real quality in most niches – still lots of big opportunities @copyblogger Thanks for the @copyblogger 10 landing page commandments @JasonNazar WordPress Understand WP version numbers: .1 is a major release, .2 is a security update @yoast Trusted Recommendations & New PR ‘always take your work seriously, don’t take yourself seriously’ great advice from @soniasimone Best pitches in the world are 7 words that describe exactly what you’re pitching @petershankman We tend to think more ass in chair time produces more. Take breaks. @soniasimone I never write unless I’ve just gotten a workout in. Working out spawns creativity. @petershankman Don’t just sent out press releases, have conversations @soniasimone ‘if you’re not making money from it, you’re doing it wrong’ on PR @petershankman ‘Personal recommendation is the new PR’ – absolutely true! @misswetapatel There’s also been some great write-ups on the sessions, checkout the BlueGlass blog where Kelsey Libert did a great job on covering the key points from each. And if anyone else has tips to add or questions – please feel free to do so in the comments and I’ll keep an eye on these. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 50 Tips & Takeaways from BlueGlass LA Related posts: 154 Awesome Pubcon 2011 Takeaways, Tips & Tweets BlueGlass LA Interview with Chris Winfield Conversion Conference London: The First 58 Takeaways

Top Takeaways from the Search Firestarters Event on Attribution Posted: 30 Apr 2012 05:59 AM PDT Last Thursday was the first Search Firestarters event, hosted by Google and Only Dead Fish – and we were lucky enough to get an invitation. Here are our top takeaways! Martin McNulty, from Forward3D Don't try to attribute your way out of a rubbish marketing campaign. If your marketing is rubbish no attribution model will fix that. Modelling is not measuring – it's about statistics and odds. Concentrate on what you can control – it's all very well finding out the volume of search depends on cloud cover, but you can't control the weather so you can't do anything about it. Some companies will get most conversions from just one click – there's not much point doing attribution modelling if it's only for a couple of conversions. Helen Southgate, from BSkyB Attribution has flaws: People buy and research on many devices, and you can't track them between these – this is only going to get worse in the future Tracking is based on cookies, and assumes one person only has one cookie. There are several objectives: Want to understand advertising and justify spend. Want to prove worth of the brand. Want to understand customer journey and message differently depending on what stage the customer is in. At Sky they're using a staged approach: Getting all the data sorted (so everything can be meaningfully compared) Working out the objectives of the stakeholders Get top line information – what the channels are doing Look at different media partners, keywords – deeper level stuff Test different combinations of different channels, and different ads at different stages David Richards, from ZenithOptimedia Attribution does provide a wealth of insight. Generics can influence people and push them to the brand Look at different behaviour of people from different sources. But it isn't a silver bullet. You should only do it if it makes sense for your business. There are lots of things you can fix before it's worthwhile doing attribution modelling (such as getting the best website possible) We're missing so many things, such as TV and radio advertising, or the effect of competitors' advertising pushing generic searches. Tom Cull, from Carat Manchester There are two levels to attribution modelling The macro scale (with econometrics) – for looking at the channel mix The micro scale (with clicks and conversions) – for optimising at a finer level There's no single standard model. Tom starts with a standard model and customises for each client as they get more data. Beware the "so what?" trap: some clients ask for attribution data but then don't do anything with them. Take action based on your data. Eliminate non-converters Change the channel mix Build an engagement model, based on on-site activity, and feed that into the attribution model Process has to be collaborative – you have to involve all the right client-side data holders. Don't rely solely on attribution modelling – the tools are getting better but the data are getting worse. You could optimise yourself out of important keywords your model can't assign the correct value to. Accept the limitations of the data. From the Q&A How do you choose the right model? Martin starts with big chunks of data and working out the relationships between them, and doesn't get more complicated. He suggests looking at Google Analytics with different attribution models and seeing if there's a difference between them. How do you line up everyone in a large organisation? Helen said that it was a challenge, but she got buy-in by having an unbiased and holistic view of attribution, and sold it as it could drive a lot more high quality sales. Doesn't last click work best for many real world situations? "Yes", said Martin. Helen said that it was still worth looking at last click attribution, but using the more complicated models could help understand and optimise. To round things up, the panel were asked for a single recommendation: Martin – Keep it simple. Helen – Know your objectives. David – Work with the things you can change today. Tom – Don't fall into the "so what?" trap. Don't do attribution unless you're prepared to do things on the back of it. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Top Takeaways from the Search Firestarters Event on Attribution Related posts: 154 Awesome Pubcon 2011 Takeaways, Tips & Tweets 50 Tips & Takeaways from BlueGlass LA Conversion Conference London: The First 58 Takeaways

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Seth's Blog : Volatility and value

Volatility and value

The fine art market continues to generate headline-making sales. This year, paintings by Warhol and Munch are expected to sell for more than $50 million each.

What makes a painting famous enough to sell for that much money?

Consider the Mona Lisa. The reason that it's the most famous (and arguably the most valuable) painting in the world is that it was stolen in 1911. (Even Pablo Picasso was questioned as a possible suspect). For two years, it was a media sensation--precisely when newspapers were coming into their own. For two years it was front page news. As the world media-ized itself, we needed an icon to stand for "famous painting" and the Mona Lisa was it.

Media cycles have gotten shorter and shorter since then, and ironically, it was Andy himself who predicted that one day we'd all be famous for fifteen minutes. The thing is, being famous for fifteen minutes isn't sufficient to make your painting worth $80 million.

Andy never had his own tv show, wouldn't have had the most viral video on YouTube and wasn't focused on the fast pump of fame. It turns out that get big fast (and then fade) doesn't build a reputation that pays.

Media volatility makes more people and more ideas famous for ever shorter periods of time. What the fine art market shows us, though, is that real value isn't created by this volatile fame. Consistently showing up on the radar of the right audience is more highly prized that reaching the masses, once then done. This works for every career, if you've never touched a brush.

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Fed ‘Reckless’ to Allow High Jobless Rate, Say Krugman; "Mission Impossible" says Mish
• Ludicrous Proposal by Harvard Economics Professor to Force Taxpayers to Buy Spanish Bonds; Mish's Five-Point Alternative Proposal
• Illinois Borrowing Costs Rise by 22.5%, Expect Conditions to Worsen; Sideline Cash Nonsense From Nuveen

Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Fed ‘Reckless’ to Allow High Jobless Rate, Say Krugman; "Mission Impossible" says Mish Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:54 PM PDT I listened to the debate today on Bloomberg between Ron Paul and Paul Krugman. Link if video does not play: Krugman Says Fed 'Reckless' to Allow High Jobless Rate I do not feel Ron Paul did a very good job at making his points, and I certainly wish Ron Paul was a more charismatic speaker. However, Paul Krugman made at least one preposterous statement. In contrast, Ron Paul simply failed to drive home his points clearly and precisely. Said Krugman "The reckless thing is to allow mass unemployment to continue". The statement is absurd. Although the Fed does have a dual mandate on employment and inflation, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the Fed's Dual Mandate Is Mission Impossible Here's the deal. 1. The Fed can control money supply but it will have no control over interest rates (or anything else). 2. The Fed can control short-term interest rates, but then it would have no control over money supply (or anything else). That is the full and complete extent of the Fed's "control". Note that neither price stability nor unemployment is in either equation. The reason is the Fed controls neither. The result of all the recent Fed printing is a big yawn, otherwise known as excessive reserves as the following chart shows. Excess Reserves of Depository Institutions Does that chart look like the Fed is in control? If so, control of what? Excess Reserves Then and Now The above "Mission Impossible" snip was written August 27, 2009. Excess reserves now look like this. Printing More Money Likely to Cost Jobs The Fed could print another $trillion tomorrow and I highly doubt if it would do anything but cost jobs. Yes, that's right "cost jobs". How so? It would likely increase speculation in food and commodity futures, especially energy. It would drive down interest rates on CDs further robbing those on fixed income who would have less to spend. If commodity prices rose  but demand did not (which is what I expect would happen), it would add to cost pressures at businesses which in turn would likely fire workers. The idea that the Fed can create jobs is ludicrous (the housing bubble and subsequent crash are proof enough) but that does not stop fools from preaching the message. For more silly debates involving Krugman, please see Bernanke Calls Krugman "Reckless"; Krugman and Bernanke Both in Academic Wonderland Somewhere Deep in Outer Space Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Ludicrous Proposal by Harvard Economics Professor to Force Taxpayers to Buy Spanish Bonds; Mish's Five-Point Alternative Proposal Posted: 30 Apr 2012 12:20 PM PDT As the economic crisis lingers on, the number of ludicrous proposals to deal with the crisis rises every month. I have lost count by now of preposterous ideas and who made them (does anyone have the complete list?), but a proposal by Harvard Economics professor Martin Feldstein to force taxpayers to buy Spanish bonds surely makes the list of top-five ludicrous proposals. Martin Feldstein, writing for the Financial Times says Taxpayers must backstop Spain's budget Spain is rapidly approaching a liquidity impasse. Markets are nervous because it's not clear how the government will finance its budget deficit and the rollover of its maturing bonds. To meet its financing needs, the Spanish government needs the confidence of foreign and domestic investors. Building investor confidence during this process requires a plan to avoid a Greek-style default. One part of such a plan is to negotiate access to the European Stability Mechanism, the €700bn fund created to protect member governments from default. But if the refinancing shortfall from private sources is very large, Spain will need to supplement the funds from the ESM. Raising those additional funds by increasing taxes would push the Spanish economy into a deeper recession and would weaken the supply-side incentives needed to stimulate long-term growth. An alternative emergency approach would be to mandate, on a temporary basis, bond purchases by Spanish households and businesses. Here's how such a plan might be implemented. The Spanish government could use the income tax system to levy a temporary "lending surcharge" on individual incomes. In exchange for those surcharge payments, the households would receive an interest-bearing government bond with a maturity of five to 10 years. A similar surcharge could be levied on businesses based on corporate profits or the businesses' value added. The Spanish government should therefore move quickly to enact such a plan before it is overcome by its current liquidity problems. Earth to Feldstein For starters, Martin Feldstein correctly points out that "increasing taxes would push the Spanish economy into a deeper recession". Unfortunately, Feldstein then left planet Earth with his proposal for "Spain use the income tax system to levy a temporary lending surcharge on individual incomes", as if that would not have precisely the same effect as a tax. Highway Robbery Feldstein's proposal would take money out of taxpayers' pockets to feed government programs just as a tax would, yet amusingly he warns against weakening "supply-side incentives needed to stimulate long-term growth". Feldstein proposes giving taxpayers interest on their forced loans to the government. Let's assume 4%. Under Feldstein's proposal (highway robbery is a more apt description than a tax), taxpayers would have access to at most 4% of their money deposited into the scheme. Somehow "using the income tax system" to take money away from consumers (with a promise to pay it back later) will not cause a drop in consumption, but a tax would. With that idea, Feldstein left planet Earth for some unknown, academic wonderland, alternate universe. Unfit to Teach Precisely why should taxpayers bail out banks that made stupid loans? Feldstein never bothers to say. Are bondholders never, ever to take a loss? Feldstein's proposal is so preposterous and so devoid of rudimentary thinking about taxes (by whatever name) that it should be clear that he is unfit to teach. Mish's Five-Point Alternative Proposal Spain should plead for emergency funds from the ECB, IMF, EMU, wherever it can get them. Spain should declare a bank holiday and announce a return to the Spanish Peseta Spain should issue a statement to the ECB, IMF, EMU to the effect "anyone stupid enough to lend us money deserves to lose it at least two-thirds of it. All debts in Euros will be repaid 1-1 in Pesetas." Spain should then devalue the Peseta by 65%. Should Europe, the IMF, and EMU threaten sanctions, Spain would counter with a threat of 100% default on all external debt rather than 65% of it. Spain should lower the VAT, lower corporate income taxes, and make it easier to hire and fire workers. Point number one is a bit tongue-in-cheek as it is tantamount to purposeful fraud. However, the rest of the points can easily stand on their own merits. In regards to point number three, Spain can be much more diplomatic in its statement to the ECB, IMF, and EMU, but the bottom line would be the same regardless of how Spain phrases the statement. Results Spain would immediately be relieved of 65% of its foreign debt obligations.  The threat to not pay back any of its external debt if Europe of the IMF retaliates (perhaps coupled with a promise to pay back another 15% if everyone plays exceptionally nice) would prevent retaliation. A lower VAT and lower corporate income taxes would encourage growth At a huge discount to the Euro, Spain would become a tourist mecca Spain's products would be far more competitive on the global economy Effectively, I propose Spain do what Iceland did. The Icelandic economy is in recovery now, while Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy flounder. In contrast, Feldstein proposes more bailouts of banks by taxpayers, while playing preposterous word games with the definition of  "tax". Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Illinois Borrowing Costs Rise by 22.5%, Expect Conditions to Worsen; Sideline Cash Nonsense From Nuveen Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:27 AM PDT Illinois borrowing costs are poised to rise about 22.5%. The nominal increase is about .34 percentage points as reported by Bloomberg. Illinois plans to sell $1.8 billion of general-obligation debt tomorrow as its relative borrowing costs may increase by almost a quarter. The tax-exempt deal for the state, rated lowest by Moody's Investors Service, includes a 10-year segment that underwriter Jefferies & Co. plans to offer to investors at 1.85 percentage points above benchmark AAA securities, according to a person familiar with the sale. Illinois's last general-obligation sale was on March 13 for $575 million, with 10-year securities priced to yield 1.51 percentage points above benchmark tax-exempts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's 0.34 percentage points below tomorrow's tentative pricing plan, or a difference of 22.5 percent. The state has the lowest-funded pension in the U.S., with assets equal to 45.5 percent of projected obligations, Bloomberg data show. Its backlog of unpaid bills to vendors and Medicaid obligations is more than $9 billion. Investors should get more yield than 1.85 percentage points given those fiscal challenges, John Mousseau, a portfolio manager at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors, which has $1.2 billion of municipal debt. It doesn't own Illinois general-obligation bonds. "The state's debt should be trading even cheaper," Mousseau wrote in a report released today. "At some point it is a buy. Not yet." More Sideline Cash Nonsense I side with Mousseau expecting much higher yields. However, Tom Spaulding at Nuveen Investments Inc. in Chicago says "With a lot of cash out there, I just don't see it having a problem getting done at these levels, and can probably get done a little bit better," he said. Pray tell where is that cash that Spaulding speaks of? Certainly corporations like Apple have a lot of it, but most of that alleged "cash" is nothing but debt on the balance sheets of corporations.  Sorry Tom, but counting cash that is spoken for is simply wrong. There is also $1.5 trillion of excess reserves at the Fed. However, those reserves, have an associated liability as well. Even if that was not the case there would be a problem of duration match. Do investors want to load up on Illinois debt at 1.85% for 10 years. Nuveen might, but that does not make it an intelligent thing to do. I see no value here at all. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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