Information is Addictive (And 9 Other OMS Minneapolis 2011 Insights)

Last Tuesday I had an opportunity to attend Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis 2011 in Edina. Aaron Kahlow and the Online Marketing Connect crew put on a great event, full of education and networking opportunities. 

Most exciting to me about OMS were the insights gleamed from countless case studies and concepts within the presentations of the day. Here are 10 of my favorites:

1. Social Media is Not a One-Woman Show. The trick to great social media at large companies is scale. Best Buy's Gina Debogovich mapped out a complex system of communities, business units, and the tiered social media training that has helped the retailer achieve an excellent social media presence.
2. Community Managers are Not Interns. Many companies hand the responsibility of social media engagement to interns or junior team members without much forethought or oversight. Debogovich explained that it takes a rigorous four weeks of intensive Best Buy culture and policy training followed by another week of social media training before budding Best Buy community managers take stride. And even then, every community post they make is reviewed for 90 days into their new role.
3. Anticipate the Conversation. The first breakout session I attended was How to Convert More Visitors to Customers, presented by Clixo's Matt Dombrow. He explained great conversion optimization as a process of anticipating the mental conversation a potential customer has when evaluating a product or service. Dombrow's presentation highlighted this conversation as it related to six key concepts in his conversion optimization (CO) model: Catalyst, Value, Usability, Persuasion and Confidence.
4. Subconscious Economics Drive CO. Your customers weigh the costs of any web transaction in their brains (e.g., a purchase, a subscription, even clicking on a link) against the perceived value of what they will receive. Asking for a few fields of information is better than asking for a lot because it keeps the perceived costs down. Giving a free iPad away will generate a lot more buzz than flimsy eBook. Conversion optimization is about maximizing perceived value and minimizing perceived costs.
5. The Dawn of QR. Until recently, I've been dismissing QR codes as a speed bump on the digital highway, a fad that may not be worth my time and effort. But Angie Schottmuller's presentation on two-dimensional barcodes (the "non-Kleenex name" for QR codes) got me excited about the potential. From Diesel's awesome Facebook Like campaign to Best Buy's coworker sentiment analysis, the industry is doing some clever marketing with QR, regardless of how long the technology will be around.
6. Social Videos are about the Why. Casey Zeman's presentation on Social Video Marketing provided a mental framework for developing ideas for social videos on the web. Each video should begin with a solid examination into why you're making it. 
7. Great Social Videos are Informative or Entertaining. Zeman pointed out that the best web videos are either informative or entertaining. How-to videos are a no-brainer for informative content. Entertaining videos cover a broader spectrum. Many entertaining videos are funny, but they don't have to be. Some of the most entertaining videos are more inspiring or surprising than funny.
8. Information is Addictive. Perhaps my favorite session of the day was The Top 10 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, presented by Dr. Susan Weinschenk, HFI's Chief of UX Strategy. Dr. Weinschenk described how dopamine is released into our brains when we seek new information, making it a powerful motivator. From the days of wondering how fire works, to the modern times of checking our mobile devices for new nuggets of information in the form of notifications and alarms, we humans have a strong desire to be in the know.
9. First Impressions Include the Periphery. Another insight from Dr. Weinschenk was that people pay attention to the information in the periphery of a website in the first moments of their website visit. Your website's main content is critical, but your side navigation bar(s) are great places to include marketing elements to promote a positive first impression and the trust that comes with it.
10. The Twin Cities is Confused about White Hat/Black Hat SEO. At several points throughout the day, questionable tactics/opinions regarding SEO ethics reared their ugly head. Even in the day of Overstock and J.C. Penney, I was shocked by the number of times that black hat/spammy tactics were mentioned. This white hat will be avoiding paid linking, content spinning and other spammy tactics and suggest others do the same, regardless of what you heard at OMS.

With three tracks and around 20 total sessions, there's no way this post even begins to cover what people learned from the presentations of the day. What did you learn at the OMS Minneapolis? Use the comments to share your favorite new tips from OMS and who presented them.

How to Add the Google +1 Button to Squarespace

Google just announced their latest initiative to improve the quality of search results. Taking the shape of a social voting button, the Google +1 button allows users to vote for pages on the web they found useful. The +1 button is just one more sign of social media's growing influence on SEO, so naturally many bloggers will want to add it to their sites as a way to boost the reach of their blog.

You've probably already added the Like, Tweet and Share buttons to your Squarespace website. Now you can add the Google +1 button to Squarespace as well.

Getting Started with Google +1

As you can tell by their promo page, Google is pretty excited about +1. Appearing in both the search results and on individual web pages, the +1 button is Google's answer to the recent deal between Facebook and Bing to bring Likes to Microsoft's search engine results. 

Google +1 isn't available to everyone just yet. Join the Google Labs +1 experiment to get started. Once you've signed up, you'll start seeing +1s from friends in the search results.

Adding Google +1 to Squarespace

Signing up for +1 is the first step, but you'll also want to add the new +1 button to the posts on your Squarespace blog. It's a pretty simple process. (Note: This post has changed since its original posting because Google upgraded the +1 button code.)

First, you'll need to head over to the Google +1 button code page. Step one is to configure the way you'd like the button to appear and your langauge preference.

Next up, select the Advanced options to get at the URL stettings of +1. Enter "%PERMALINK%" (case sensitive) as your URL to +1. The permalink is a placeholder for the actual URL of your blog posts. When the +1 button loads on your website, Squarespace swaps the permalink for the actual URL of your blog posts automatically.

At this point, you're ready to install Google's +1 button code on your blog. Unlike most social buttons, Google provides you with two code snippets. The first code snippet belongs in a HTML snippet on your blog. Select and copy the code highlighted below.

Navigate to your blog (Journal) main page and enter Structure Editing mode.

Click the configure this page link to enter the Journal Page Configuration menu.

Scroll down to the Post Display Configuration section and click on an unused HTML Snippet (or add to an existing one) from the list of Squarespace journal components.

Paste the second Google +1 code snippet into the HTML editor and select Hide and Save.

Arrange the snippet within the blog post layout and save your changes. You can place the code snippet at either the top or the bottom of your blog template.

Next up, go back to the +1 button code site and grab the second code snippet.

Make sure you're still in Structure Editing mode and scroll to the bottom of your website to find the edit website footer option.

Paste the second part of the Google +1 button code within your website footer and save your changes.

You should now see the Google +1 button show up alongside the rest of your social buttons on your Squarespace blog. Adding the +1 button is a smart move along the way to SEO and social media convergence.

What do you think of Google +1? Are you looking forward to the button like I am or does it seem like button overkill at this point?

5 Reasons Social Media Belongs in Your SEO Strategy

When you think of search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, keyword research, meta tags and inbound links come to mind much sooner than engagement via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But many recent search engine industry reports paint a picture of the near future in which links, likes and tweets become equally important to your overall SEO efforts.

Why is social media becoming so imporant to SEO? Here are five reasons why social media belongs in your SEO strategy.

5 Reasons Social Media Belongs in Your SEO Strategy

1. Google and Bing Algorithms - In a December 2010 Search Engine Land interview, Google and Bing both admitted to using signals from Facebook and Twitter to calculate a part of their search algorithms. They take note of how many times a page is shared and the importance of those doing the sharing to calculate a portion of the ranking process.
2. Liked Pages Rank Higher - SEOmoz recently reported that content shared and liked on Facebook correlated more highly with higher search results than did the number of links on the web. Until now, links have been the bread and butter of SEO. This research suggests an important role for social media in the future of SEO, a development that should drive a major fundamental shift in most SEO strategies.
3. Social Media in the Search Results - Google's new +1 button gives search engine users a chance to note which web pages were helpful. If you're logged in to your Google Account, you'll start seeing pictures of your friends near the search results they found helpful. The first result on a search results page typically receives the most amount of clicks. With the +1 button, click patterns will shift towards the results that carry the recommendations of your trusted network. This is only the beginning of search engines using social media signals to increase the quality of search results.
4. Bing Results and the Facebook Like - Not to be outdone by Google's new +1 button, Facebook and Bing announced a deal to show Facebook likes in Bing's search results. Likes should now be considered a primary tactic for Bing Social Media/SEO strategy, as they have a direct impact on both the ranking factors and the resulting click-through rate patterns within Microsoft's search engine.
5. The Power of Social Proof - We often take the suggestions of others before making decisions. Web pages are no different. A web page that has been liked or tweeted many times subtely persuades us that we have found quality information. We notice the sharing counts in the margins or the headers of the articles we find and read the ones that impress us. Social proof increases the chances visitors will stay on your site, thus increasing the value of traffic you fought so hard to get through SEO in the first place.

Approaching search engine optimization and social media from separate angles is not a long-term strategy at this point in the game. If you're operating search and social strategies in silos, it's time to rethink your approach and combine some of your efforts.

Where are you taking your search and social strategies? Have you found any tactics or synergies in utilizing social media within your SEO strategy that have worked particularly well? As always, I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Most Important Squarespace SEO Setting

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a big part of my life. Making a few small changes to your website here and there can result in a significant and real boost in website traffic. And even though Squarespace goes a long way to address many of these factors, there are still a few settings in Squarespace that can affect your search engine rankings. Today we’ll take a look at the greatest single opportunity to boost your SEO efforts on Squarespace.

What’s the single greatest SEO change you can make to your Squarespace blog? In short, it’s the Optimize Title Ordering setting within your Squarespace website settings. Simply navigate to Website Management -> Website Settings -> Search/Indexing. Scroll down to the Search Engine Parameters section and check the box in the Optimize Title Ordering option. Mission accomplished. Read on to see why this simple change was so important.

Why are Page Titles so Important?

There are over 200 individual factors that search engines such as Google look at when they’re deciding which page should appear in the coveted #1 spot in the search results. The meta page title is generally recognized as the strongest opportunity on a given page to influence where the page shows up on in the results. Let’s take a closer look at this important field.

Your meta page title is the text that makes up the blue links in the search results. It's also the text you see in each web browser tab. Much like a title of a document or a file, the meta page title tells Google what it can expect to find on each page of your website. As a result, it plays a big part in the search engine optimization process.

The Effect of Optimizing Page Titles

In general, search engines only look at the first ~60 characters of the page title. When your page titles are not optimized, your brand name ends up taking up a large portion of your page title. This can fail to send the appropriate signals to Google regarding the topic of your page.

This brand takes up the first third of the page title in the search results.

In addition, Google bolds instances of keywords in the search results when they match a user's search query. People tend to click on results that are bolded more than results that aren't.

Bolded search results increase clicks to your web pages.

Optimizing your page title places the individual page's title prior to your brand's name, giving your keyword-rich page titles a chance to tell search engines what your page is all about. This setting also increases the chances that parts of your page title will be bolded for users. It's clear that the Optimize Page Titles is a great setting to utilize within Squarespace's website management settings.

It's nice that most of the on-page factors of SEO are addressed by Squarespace, but it's also good to change a setting here and there if it can make a big difference in traffic. What easy SEO tips have you discovered on Squarespace? If you use a platform other that Squarespace, are there non-platform-specific SEO tips you can suggest?

The Little Things are the New Big Things in Customer Service

Excellent customer service only comes around so often. Most companies focus on good enough, making infrequent examples of great customer service really stand out. I recently had one of these encounters. And let me tell you, it was a series of little things that led to an overall excellent customer experience.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a large part of my job. Every trade comes with its own tools and SEO is no exception. One of my favorite tools for SEO is Raven. Raven helps me keep track of where I rank for the keywords I'm targeting, in addition to many other vital SEO tasks. It's grown to be a central tool in my week, and when it doesn't work, I can't do certain aspects of my job.

Raven was having some difficulties last month, making it a rocky few weeks for some of Raven's features. Upset, I did what any frustrated social consumer does. I tweeted about it. Enter the Raven customer service experience and Alison Groves.

Alison Groves is Raven's User Experience Manager and Social Princess, and she was quick to respond to my disgruntled tweet. Alison responded quickly to my frustration, acknowledging my problem with a quick explanation and an expectation of when the issue would be resolved. 

Text book social media customer service right? It didn't end there. What happened next made the difference between me being a satisfied Raven customer and bonafide brand advocate.

A few days later, I received a package in the mail from Alison. In it was a snazzy Raven t-shirt, a hand-written note from Alison, and her business card.

The note further acknowledged my frustration and offered an apology for the disruption in service, reinforcing our Twitter conversation from the week before.

Alison could have left things the way they were with the Twitter conversation, but she didn't. The extra time she took to write and send me a note made me feel extra special as a customer. Another stroke of brilliance in Raven's customer service experience is the t-shirt. Not only do I get a nifty t-shirt, but Alison has also given me a tool to be an consumer advocate for Raven.

The day I received the package I tweeted about it, happily thanking Alison for her customer service. As a final stroke of brilliance, her response referenced our initial Twitter conversation, providing a great finishing touch to a seamless customer service experience. Thank you, Raven. (And thanks for hiring good people such as Alison).

In the end, it wasn't just one thing that Raven did, but it was a series of well-planned, graciously excecuted steps in their customer service experience. It was all the little things that ended up having a big impact. When was the last time you received excellent customer service, and what about the customer service do you remember the most? Leave your great customer service stories in the comments below.