Web 2.0 Expo: Optimize Your Organic Search Results Leveraging Social Media & Blogging
Session Description: I’m all a Twitter ‘Cause your MySpace hurts my Facebook when I’m Linked-in – Learn how to leverage social media and your current website to DOMINATE search engine results and improve your organic rankings! Sponsored by Verio.
Industry expert and published author Heather Lutze gives you the rundown on her social media strategies from her new book, The Findability Formula. This breakout will give you actionable tactics you can implement immediately to get your website ranked higher in search engine results. Social media is HOT and delivers results if you know how to use them to their fullest potential. Learn how to use keywords effectively with Twitter, Linked-In, Youtube, Facebook, as well as your own company website to increase your search engine rankings. It is all about knowing and understanding the Findability Formula – and that is what you’ll learn in this workshop!
This session took place Thursday, April 2, 2009. The speaker:
- Heather Lutze, Lutze Consulting
Heather had a lot of great things to say; it was a shame that she didn’t have enough time to really go over it because of such a long pitch by Verio, the sponsor of the session. One thing Verio did that was annoying but I can’t really fault them for, was parking someone at the door and using the leads scanner to scan the name badges of the people coming in. Annoying, but since they were sponsoring the session, I can’t really fault them for it.
Bullet Point Review!
- Social media gives you a platform to position yourself as an expert in your field.
- Strategy:
- Connect with the right search keywords.
- Edit your social media profiles and elements with keywords.
- Track the results in Google search results.
- Know how users search:
- 15.2% are 1 word search phrases
- 31.9% are 2 word
- 27% are 3 word
- 14.8% are 4 word
- 6.5% are 5+ words
- The longer the keyword, the faster you’ll show up.
- Longer search terms are looking more to purchase, less informational or shopping.
- Resources: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug and The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
- Tool: Google External Keyword Tool
- Tool: Keyword Discovery
- Connect with the customer when they’re ready to take decisive action.
- Misspellings can rank highly (sometimes they convert higher).
- Look at the pages and be sure you actually want to show up amongst that company.
- Anything over 100 searches, long tail.
- Open tool, whats most targeted keyword, then write blog post (put the keyword at the front).
- Recommends All in One SEO Pack, ShareThis for WordPress.
- On LinkedIn, when you put your last name in put a dash and your keyword.
- Start on the long tail and work your way backward.
- Do it for your name, do it for misspellings, rank the whole page to push out the “sucks” terms.
Because of the 20 minute pitch for Verio at the beginning of the session, there was zero time for questions, which was a shame. I was hoping for some more real-world examples that weren’t just about Heather. There was time for one where a woman who is a voice-over talent was looking at it from her standpoint and Heather walked through the practical application, which was pretty cool.
Overall it was a good session once Verio was done talking, and I wish she’d shared her slides with the Web 2.0 Expo folks, but alas it’s not on their website.
Read MoreHow I Got a New Job in Less Than a Week
- Get laid off from your current employer.
- Email everyone you know within your industry. Let them know that you’re on the market and ask that if they see any opportunities, to pass them along.
- Don’t wait for answers; reach out to everyone and look at other jobs in the meantime.
- Don’t change your routine too much to stay upbeat.
- One of those connections pays off in the form of a new job.
- Start new job.
So, yeah. I make it sound easy. To be honest, it kind of was. So, this serves as a semi-official announcement via my blog here that I’m now an Affiliate Manager for Paulson Management Group, one of the most recognized and respectable outsourced program management firms in the Affiliate Marketing industry. I’m excited to join Heather Paulson and the team and keep on truckin’ doing what I do best!
I’m also going to step up onto a soap box for a moment and remind everyone how important it is to network within your industry! If I hadn’t made a fairly decent name for myself within the affiliate world, I’d probably still be waiting for a call back from some entry level marketing job here in the Bay Area. It helps to introduce yourself to people. Don’t forget that at the next industry event you attend; it doesn’t matter what your industry is, it’s important to network. Okay, end soap box.
Read MoreWeb 2.0 Expo: Smart Work: Embrace Change & Empower Your Teams to Drive Growth and Innovation
Session Description: In today’s global business environment, the only constant is change. Organizations who can respond quickly by leveraging agile business models and dynamic business processes are uniquely positioned to win. IBM Web2.0 software can help your organization be more effective and innovate in challenging times. IBM also understands first-hand that connecting with customers takes personalization, collaboration, community and co-creation. Come learn from and ask questions of our IBM experts that support enterprise mashups, social media software and Web 2.0 application development and learn how you can provide a truly collaborative real-time working environment for your employees, partners and suppliers and leverage your customer community. Sponsored by IBM.
This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The speakers were all from IBM:
- Kathy Mandelstein
- Ryan Boyles
- Brendan Crotty
- Tom Deutch
Okay, usually I think of myself as a smart cookie. But this session was way over my head, probably since I’m not an IT person or developer. I walked away with some interesting factoids, but no way to apply this to what I do. Maybe this will help you more than it helped me.
Bullet Point Review!
- 1 billion transistors for each person on earth.
- $11.5 billion worth of produce is wasted in India because of outdated post harvest infrastructure.
- US health care system loses more than $100 billion per year due to fraud.
- Up to 22% percent of total port volume is empty containers in North America.
- Cost optimization + agility = success.
- CxOs confirmed priorities:
- Processes
- Collaboration
- SOA Adoption (Service Oriented Architecture)
- Business Model
- Lotus live web conferencing, collaboration, and email.
- Jazz is an open collaborative environment.
- A mashup is a light application.
- IBM mashup center WebSphre sMash.
- Resources: Lotus Greenhouse, ibm.com/web20, Project Zero, Jazz Community Site (developers).
Developers will probably be better for reading this, so check out the slide presentation and I hope it’ll benefit you.
Read MoreGoing to ad:tech San Francisco?
I am! This will be my first ad:tech and I’m excited! I’ve got all my sessions picked out on the schedule and logged into trusty TripIt. Want to know where I’ll be? Check it out here. I plan on working the expo hall and sessions to the best of my advantage to pick up some helpful tools and meet some helpful people! Unfortunately I’m still without a permanent position, though I’ve had some promising conversations with a few people. Is it too much to hope that I’ll have a permanent job by then? It’s just a week away… so scoop me up while you can!
Some of the sessions I’m planning on attending look like great opportunities to learn more about spaces that I’m not too familiar with, Danny Sullivan’s SMX @ ad:tech sessions teaching the basics of search marketing. I’m still green on the intricacies of search marketing, although I know the basic concept. I need to get in there and dive into the deep end of the pool to really get a better grasp. Hopefully after this session I’ll feel a bit more comfortable to dive in and do some experimentation myself. There’s also one session sponsored by Media Trust on performance marketing, and a lot of the other session descriptions sound like they’ll be touching on various aspects of performance based marketing. So I can’t wait!
Speaking of conferences, I do have more notes to share with you from the Web 2.0 Expo, I’ve just been a tad slow to get them all banged out. Look for that coming up soon!
Read MoreA Quick Note Regarding My Employment
I’m officially on the market.
That’s right, it’s with a sadness that I report that I am no longer the Director of Affiliate Marketing with New Edge Media. Their clients decided to go a different way with regards to Affiliate Marketing and through no fault of my own, I’m now without gainful employment. That’s all I’m really going to say on the subject.
I have to give huge props to my coworkers and boss who jumped right onto LinkedIn and gave me great recommendations. Thanks, ladies.
In the meantime, are you looking for an affiliate program manager to telecommute? Or if you’re based in the San Francisco Bay Area, work in-house? I’m your woman. I’m also open to any copywriting, blogging, web design, or other freelance or contract work until I secure a permanent position. My resume is available in PDF and on LinkedIn. A small portfolio of my graphic design work can also be found at Blinkstar Media.
I’m going back to job hunting, now…
This makes me a very sad panda.
Read MoreWeb 2.0 Expo: Darwinism on the Web- Surviving and Thriving in a Web 2.0 World
Session Description: Keeping up with what’s new is enough of a challenge, learning what to embrace and adopt, and how to do so cost effectively is the key to leading the pack. Learn how to prepare your organization up to keep pace with the new speed of innovation. Sponsored by CoreMedia.
This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The speaker:
- Sören Stamer, CoreMedia
This was one of my favorite sessions. Sören was a wonderful, engaging speaker, and his accent was not a hindrance in the least. While the other sponsored sessions were often big commercials for the sponsored company, I really appreciated that Sören left the CoreMedia plug for the end and kept it relatively short. I enjoyed sitting through this session!
Bullet Point Review!
- You need to remain agile in this environment.
- Example: RateMyCop.com
- Cirsis is much bigger. Some say we get collectively smarter, but we probably get collectively dumber.
- Web 2.0 is fundamental change.
- 10 patterns that might be useful:
- Websites Evolve: Content used to be king but it’s all about engaging people
- Harley Davidson did a good job of creating a tribe.
- The feedback loops rule.
- Engage in Conversations
- Be Personal
- Make Your Ideas More Contagious
- Personal resonance counts
- iPhone is an example – you touch what you like
- Use Established Paradigms
- Open & focused wins (Amazon)
- Open Up and Do Less
- Evolution is hard to predict
- Let It Go
- People pay for attention
- Provide Ways to Earn Attention
- Yelp is a good example.
- The web withough websites
- Enable Multiple Touch Points for your Service
- Making money because of… (because of search, not with search)
- As soon as you start charging, it’s a barrier of entry and people will go to a free verion
- Find Smart Ways to Offer a Great Service for Free
- Skype
- Don’t be surprised that some things change dramatically
- Websites Evolve: Content used to be king but it’s all about engaging people
Points brought up during the Q&A
Video will be the next big thing.
All in all this was great. Rather high level, and left some people questioning at the end, but I really enjoyed it. It was almost more of an entertainment piece than an educational piece. Bravo.
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