Author Archive

Top 24 Things I Learned at Online Marketing Summit 2010

Friday, February 26th, 2010

 

 OMS

It’s been a long time since I have actually written an entire post for our blog, however I am inspired from the recent Online Marketing Summit (OMS10) put on by Aaron Kahlow and his awesome crew. I spoke on the "Why Your Online Strategy always starts with Content" panel and one of my pieces of advice was to commit to your blog. So call it eating your own dog food if you like, but I am long overdue for authoring my own post.
 
I am not going to be able to give specific credit to the appropriate parties below (see #1), so I apologize right upfront for that shortcoming. If any of you reading this know who deserves credit for items listed below, please feel free to inform us all in the comments. It should also be noted that my schedule only allowed me to be there for Tuesday and most of Wednesday, so these observations do not include the preconference training or the SES Forum on Thursday.
 
1).  I learned that speakers should have name cards in front of them (and even twitter IDs) to easily identify the speakers and panelists so that everyone tweeting and documenting the presentations can give credit where credit is due. I am also the president of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association (AZIMA) and will make a note of that for our future events.
 
2).  I learned that if you want to ramp up conversion optimization you should check out WhichTestWon.com from Anne Holland.
 
3).  I learned from Anne that you’re guaranteed to increase your conversion rate if your landing pages include the logo or recognition from the site that sent the visitor there. For example "Welcome, ABC Website readers". 
 
4).  I learned that Keyword choices are critical for breaking news. Pay attention journalists!
 
5).  I learned from Michael Stelzner (founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com) that you can add a Retweet button inside of a PDF file.
 
6).  I learned from Lawrence Coburn (founder of, RateitAll) that simple steps like adding a like or dislike button to your blog comments or other UGC can greatly improve engagement.
 
7).  I learned that the RateItAll dog that I met at their offices 10 years ago is no longer with us. :(
 
8).  I learned that Steve Ennen (Director, Wharton Interactive Media Initiative) and Eric Bradlow (Vice-Dean and Director, Wharton Doctoral Programs) have incredible skills and resources as they presented some of the best data regarding interactive marketing I have ever seen. For example: Companies’ stock prices are correlated with negative online chatter.
 
9).  I learned that it is a fact that popularity and activity of your social media has been proven to correlate to more sales.
 
10). I learned that only 2% of businesses (from upcoming OMS survey) feel they are experts at social media. And that Rebecca Lieb tells us all that it’s okay, we shouldn’t feel pressured to be experts yet as this is all brand new stuff.
 
11). I learned that if you have built a cool Facebook page, have a 1000+ Twitter followers and have an awesome LinkedIn profile, that does not qualify you to be a Social Media Expert. (I actually knew that.)
 
12). I learned that many leaders in our field feel the same way I do: the amount of change in the online space is daunting for both brands and agencies.
 
13). I learned that the social experts all agree: "hire excellent headline writers" especially when you are working with 140 characters.
 
14). I learned about Chartbeat for real time website analytics and uptime monitoring.
 
15). I learned from Ravit Lichtenberg (Founder and Chief Strategist, Ustrategy Consulting) that companies should have: 1) Vision driven strategy. 2) Campaign driven implementation plan. 3) Own your content. 4) Leverage the right resources the right way 5) Build alignment process across the organization 6) Evolve and adapt 7) Pay attention to women.
 
16). I learned that Tim Ash has an awesome haircut. Oh and he recommends these tools for conversion optimization: crazyegg.com, clicktale, usertesting.com, crossbrowsertesting,and attentionwizard.com.
 
17). I learned that Scotland is not a Scandinavian country. Thanks for clearing that up for me Rand :-)
 
18). I learned that "Marketers must understand that we no longer control conversations. The consumer does." from Joel Book from ExactTarget.
 
19). I learned that you need to create content to attract and retain customers… Without a Content Marketing Strategy nothing else works (okay I actually said this one).
 
20). I learned that marketers should be focusing on their customers’ pain points, not their own capabilities/services.
 
21). I learned that when you send a new subscriber the "thank you" email, that email will have the highest open rate of anything you ever send them, so make the most of it!
 
22). I learned that the Obama campaign raised over $10 million in less than 24 hours by capitalizing on an emotional moment with their constituency.
 
23). I learned that Brian Ellefritz doesn’t seem to age. It had been almost 20 years since we had last seen each other (yes 20 years!) and wish we had more time to catch up. He also had one of the funniest lines of the day: "Global is ALL 50 states not just the lower 48."
 
24). I learned one big link building secret that I will never divulge publically, this one is for our clients only. (Thanks LC)
 
Again, if any of you know who should deserve the credit for some of the statements above, please let us know below. And if you have any additional “things you learned” at OMS10 we’d love to hear those too. Looking forward to being a part of OMS 2011. 

 Follow me on Twitter @ArnieK

 

Signs for Irregular Links?

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

At this point in my life, there are two things I truly enjoy and spend a lot of time doing. One is hiking and the other is link building. That’s right I said link building. I know – it’s a sickness.

Normally I hike so that I can totally remove myself from the day-to-day concerns of running an SEO & link building agency. In fact, I have been building links for as long as LinkMoses (he just does a better job at the whole self-promotion thing than me), and I have been hiking for even longer. Last week those two worlds finally collided when I ran into the sign below. I wonder how may other hikers have seen this sign and immediately associated it with backlinks! I know – it’s a sickness.

Actually my first thought was "what in the world is this supposed to mean?", but my next thought was "take a picture and post to TwitPic, tweet about it and write a blog post". I know – it’s a sickness.

I asked my Twitter followers what they thought when they saw this picture. I received three pretty funny responses.

@dougfeeney Odd shaped sausage??  (not a link builder)
@frank_in_oz confusion… (a hiker)
@Matt_Siltala is that trail no followed? :-)   (bingo!)

So what comes to your mind when you see this pic? Please let me know below!

Signs for irregular links

Webinar: How Social Media Builds Inbound Links and High Search Rankings

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others are all the rage now. But what effect do they have on your search engine rankings? During this informative presentation by link building expert Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures, you’ll learn how you can significantly improve your search engine rankings using social media.

Please join us for this free webinar on September 2nd at 4:00pm EST/1:00pm PST.

Click here to register for this informative webinar today!

In conjunction with Right On – No Bull Marketing.

Yes, Meta Tags ARE Important!

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

meta tagsAs an internet marketing company that specializes in offsite optimization, we are often confronted with clients that are struggling with their onsite SEO. Onsite SEO, meta tags in particular, have such an impact on what we do offsite, that we now offer website audits to our clients as part of our service offerings to help them with their onsite SEO. We also include the creation of meta tags for our content development service.

We keep hearing from the "experts" that meta tags are not important. Try telling that to our clients who temporarily lost their rankings because they were messing with their meta tags!  We have seen time and time again where changes to just the title tag can change your rankings.  We have seen dramatic rankings increase when we go in and optimize our clients’ pages.   We’ve even written a few articles on optimizing web pages and what to look for so clients can troubleshoot their site themselves. It’s that important.
 
Title tags continue to be the most important meta tag to consider. Each page should have its own title tag. Include one complete instance of your keyword phrase in your title tag. Why? Well, two reasons. First, this is important to all three major search engines. Second, this is what normally shows up in the listings displayed on search engine results. 
 
Even alt tags are important, yet often overlooked by those creating web pages. A good alt tag is very important and easy to include in your website. In this article in particular, a test revealed that an image link with an optimized anchor text is more valuable than a text link with an anchor text that is not optimized very well.
 
While there are programs out there that will help you generate meta tags for your sites, we feel its best you do this manually to make sure you are fully optimizing all components.
 
Remember, search engine optimization is about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like nominal improvements, but when combined with other onsite optimization tactics, they could have a notable impact on your site’s performance in organic search results. And doesn’t everyone want that?

 

 

Search Engine Optimization Spam

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

All of us receive spam every day. Some trying to make us better lovers, some promising we will get rich and others that will keep us from going bald. And all of us in the SEO industry have been pitched SEO services via spam. Normally I just laugh and delete, after all we are an SEO link building company. But the one below was just too amazing not to publish.

Of course we removed all the confidential information. But it is important to note that the spam (notice I just can’t call it an email) we received actually did list their clients’ domains below. I find it very hard to believe that these clients allowed them to spam the world using them as references.

I know it is tempting to just skip reading the rest of this post, but if you have 2 minutes, you just have to read this one. I am not sure if they were trying to sound unique, intelligent or what, but it is a real hoot. Again, we did not change a word, only protected the innocent (sort of). Enjoy…

==================================
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:31 AM
To: info@verticalmeasures.com
Subject: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Dear Sir/Madam,
COMPANY X is the name to reckon with for radiated and productive marketing techniques, possessing successful years of exposure with client gratification. We have the expertise and infrastructure carrying most advanced technology required for development and management of a large scale search program.
 
Our in-house SEO experts have achieved glorious search results for various search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN for our clients.
 
We use white hat techniques for the web promotion and marketing strategy so to maximize the return of investment for our clients.
 
Have a look at few of our clients along with their achieved rankings:
 
1. XXXXXpro.com
Keywords                                                   Google Ranking
SEO Philadelphia                                              5
Search engine optimization expert                       5
Web site marketing specialist                             9
Website optimization expert                               1                                     
 
2. XXXXXRoom.com
Keywords                                                    Google Ranking
Clean Room Janitorial Cleaning Service                 1
Cleanroom cleaning services                                1
Cleanroom cleaning contractor                             1 
 
3. XXXXXCustoms.com
Keyword                                                    Google Ranking
Custom Knife                                                     7
 
4. XXXXXMarketing.org
Keyword                                                   Google Ranking
Seminar Marketing                                             1
 
Kindly let us know if there is any disconnect to this regards.

Do let us know your SEO requirements and we would come up with action plan accordingly.
 
Looking forward towards a fruitful business relationship.
 
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Business development manager
======================================
 
If you have any other great examples, feel free to paste them into the comments below.