Site Load Speed and San Diego SEO

I'm sure you're thinking... "What does site load speed and my search engine rankings have in common?"  Well, the answer is actually related to Google Analytics and site monitoring.  As a successful webmaster with a ton of traffic, I've known for a long time that site load speed is a fundamental component of Google rankings.  In fact, it's been one of the most importants aspect of rankings for many years.

However, Google has not always been vocal about the weight or importance of site load speed as a factor within their algorithm.  I believe this is largely due to the importance of site load speed as a ranking factor.  Admitting just how important it is would be like showing their cards at the table.  

Now that the Google algorithm has been impacted by so many changes (Google caffeine, Instant, Panda, etc.), I believe they are ready to share what they know.  My friends at a well-known San Diego SEO firm have been tracking the importance of site load speed with a number of their clients over an extended period of time and have seen significant improvements in search results when sites render more quickly. 

They've used this experience to build sites like www.rankmywebsite.net to leverage their know-how and help small business owners succeed online. Using real data is truly the only way to see the impact of this ranking factor and these guys are industry experts who know what works because they’re testing around the clock.

So, how does this affect your site? Two words: Google Analytics.  Eight out of ten of the world’s leading sites run it and if it’s free. Google Analytics provides invaluable insight by measuring every metric imaginable and delivering the data in a format that’s easy to understand. Recently, Google added Site Load Speed to the analytics category available through your account.  The video in this post will teach you to access this information and make use of it for analyzing the speed of your site.  A good measuring stick for site speed is to see how your site measures up against the frontrunners in your niche, which this software does for free (and pretty accurately). The faster your site loads in comparison to competing sites, the greater weight Google will give your site.

Finally, an important caveat to always consider when trying to improve your website visibility is that Google will never publish their proprietary formula for delivering search results; if they did, they would reveal the secrets that make their search results so accurate and most of what you’d see would be spam or low quality content. The best determinant of what works is simply testing everything you do. Keeping good records and regularly analyzing your on-site and off-site search engine optimization efforts will pay dividends that far outweigh the extra time it takes to do so. 

Growth In Mobile Marketing

We've heard about it for years, but it seems that 2011 might be the year that mobile marketing finally grows up and plays with the big boys.  Over the past year, growth in mobile marketing has risen dramatically on many fronts. With apps, mobile search advertising and now retail, the mobile marketing space is delivering the numbers (and revenues).

In today's guest post, Pavel Webb from TextMagic gives us some global insights into mobile marketing.  If you're not using mobile as a marketer just yet, consider how quickly this marketing channel is moving.

Let's have a look at what's happening in mobile marketing.
Everywhere you look you see more on the power of mobile marketing.  As a field, mobile marketing has been growing faster than almost any other marketing segment from both a user and advertising standpoint.  Until now yo may have been considering mobile marketing but haven't yet integrated it into your marketing mix.  There are a number of ways to get started and the best way is to see what industry leading brands are doing.

Brands are creating their own apps
With over 300,000 apps developed in the last three years and with a predicted 29 billion app downloads this year alone, the demand for apps is rising and is expected to peak around 2013.  Brands have realized the power of being able to push their content out to mobile users with many well-known retail companies, utilities and restaurant chains jumping onto the handset with their own branded apps.

Mobile advertising
Mobile advertising spend worldwide is expected to break US$3.3billion by the end of 2011 and is predicted to rise to a massive US$20.6 billion by 2015. The main gainers here are in mobile paid search advertising and local mobile ads. In the US, over half of all mobile ad spending is on local search ads.
Of course, Google is at the forefront of pushing this growth, recently announcing that mobile website quality is now a ranking factor in their AdWords mobile ad ranking. They have even gone so far as to invest in a whole site dedicated to helping businesses 'go mobile' (HowToGoMo.com) by optimizing their websites and advertising.  Interestingly, in Germany mobile web advertising remains the most effective form of mobile advertising.

SMS marketing
2011 marks a banner year for SMS, with over 8 trillion SMS messages predicted to be exchanged by the end of the year. For marketers, SMS remains a popular choice, especially as it reaches nearly all the 4 billion handsets out there.

SMS marketing is most effectively used as a way to engage customers by offering a level of service via reminders, notices and coupon codes. As well, various countries show a preference for opt-in SMS marketing, especially the UK and France.

Retail now biggest growth category
Although not specifically advertising, we thought it was worth mentioning the massive change in user behavior, because this is where the advertising spend in 2012 will likely focus. According to eMarketer, mobile retail use over the past year has risen an astonishing 95% rise among US mobile users.

What's more important for retailers and marketers to pay attention to is why those users are visiting mobile retail sites. The same study revealed among mobile users visiting retail sites:
-  46% are researching prices 
-  36% are looking for coupons or promotions 
-  28% are researching new products 
-  13% purchased a product
No doubt that tablet use, like Apple's iPad, are pushing these numbers upwards and it's not going to slow down any time soon as mobile internet use is predicted to surpass desktop internet use some time in 2014.


About the Author: Pavel Webb is the affiliate manager at TextMagic, a company based in United Kingdom, which provides SMS API for businesses and developers.

10 Steps to Succeeding With Product Videos

Video is everywhere we look today.  Youtube, Vimeo, and other video sites are becoming larger than Google itself and even appear in search results.  That's why, when I wanted information on how to create an amazing video to promote my products, I turned to Dan Clark, a friend and Creative Director of InterplayAgency, a leading product video production company in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In this guest post, Dan share's his best strategies for creating effective product videos.  Special thanks to Dan for sharing these amazing tips...
 
Building an effective product movie can at first seem like a daunting task. Where do you start? What should go in it? How long should it be? For answers to those questions and more, I’ve assembled a step-by-step process that you can follow to make better online videos…

1. Understand your audience.
Who are they and what do they need? What makes you think your solution is what they want? Understanding the audience is paramount to providing a relevant product video. To successfully complete this step, you need to think “from the outside in”, put yourself in their shoes.


If it’s an enterprise solution…

-Think about the people in the buying group and with whom you most want to speak. For instance, decide which level of the organization (role or title) is most likely to be seeking information about your solution and speak directly to them and get them excited. As the movie progresses, you can describe how the solution impacts other roles so the movie gets shared and everyone is driven toward your way of thinking.

-Think about how they encounter the video (where they learned about it), which will influence how you introduce it. For instance, if your product helps them to accomplish a specific task, and they’ve likely searched Google using terms about that task, you can dive right into how the video helps to do just that. But if they hear about your new way of tracking sales via mobile phone (or some other similarly vague frame of reference), you might need to step back a bit and talk about the overall business challenge first, then describe how your solution helps to overcome it.

-Think about what they might be most interested in, which will influence what you highlight in the movie. For instance, if you’re pretty sure they’re going to find you via keyword searching, you can probably dive into the product and how it helps them to accomplish a task. But if they are simply clicking around, reading blogs about your space, linking from social networks, etc. then you might need to frame the story from a high level before going into specific accomplishments that the solution delivers. Once you’ve described the overall context, you can drive them toward what they can accomplish. This is great because you can “own” the conversation and drive them toward your way of thinking.

If it’s a consumer product…

-Focus on things that will get them excited about using it.

-Talk about them and their needs in a personal way. If you’re passionate about it, most likely they will be too.

-Since you’re speaking directly to the buyer, you can be casual about it. Use simple language and make it quick. If you’re not shy, you might even just use your own face on a webcam. If you are shy, hire a narrator but keep the simple, casual language. To help with writing such a script, imagine you’re at the grocery store and you run into a friend who is obviously in a hurry but wants to catch up. Imagine yourself telling that person all about your cool new product. You’d have to do it quickly. But at the same time, you’re not necessarily trying to sell it to them so the resulting script will not pressure the buyer into anything. Yes, it should have a call-to-action at the end, but don’t be too aggressive. It’s more important to be authentic than it is to be selling.

2. Look at your competitors.

Look at their web sites, analyze their demos, read their collateral and news. Most importantly though, look at their customers. See if you can glean some information about why they became customers, what the customer got out of working with them. Customer case studies are the best source for this intelligence so read every one you can get your hands on. And when you look at their videos, pay attention to the things they feature. Do they highlight features and functions, or do they highlight higher-level business benefits? If their video is all about features and functions, you have an opportunity to elevate the message and appeal higher on the org chart. If they highlight business benefits, make sure you don’t say the same things and see if you can change the conversation to your benefit or box them into thinking small while you think big.

3. Set your objectives.

Only when you have a clear understanding of what you plan to gain from your product video will you be able to create one that works well. For instance, if you’re in a mature business and are racing against competitors based on features, your movie should probably dive right into the product and highlight the differentiators. By contrast, if you’re revolutionizing an industry or creating a completely new one, you’ll likely have to educate the audience about that change in a business case movie.

Decide what you want them to do at the end of the movie. If you want them to pick up the phone to set up a live demo (to discuss integration and other complexities), present various ways to help them do this such as a link to a form page, 800-number, email, etc. But if your solution is so easy to purchase they can just fill out a form, make the link to that form the only thing they can see/do when the video ends.

Recognizing what you want people to do at the end of the movie often affects what you’ll say at the beginning so the end is a great place to start. For instance, if you have a complex solution that requires a phone call for more information, you’ll want to be sure your movie doesn’t get too deep into complexities (which makes it longer) during the movie so that the prospect is enticed by the possibilities; you’ll merely propose organizational benefit. Conversely, if you want people to fill in a form and buy now, the movie should be all about what they get from it on a personal level.

4. Look at what’s out there.

Choosing a presentation style can be tough. You can use cartoons, photography, illustration, charts & graphs, screen shots, 3D, live actors, and on and on. How do you choose? For that answer, again, consider your audience and what they’re currently exposed to and what you think might excite them.

So, in addition to videos from other companies in your space, you should look at everything out there so you have a good sense of what’s possible. The more you expose yourself to, the better you will know what you want. There are a lot of companies that provide awesome product movies so, in addition a directory of my own favorite production companies, here are a couple places you can go that list some of the most experienced firms…

Start Up Videos is a web site run by the good folks at ThinkMojo.com. They are a production company and run this site that lists additional great firms who specialize in movies for start-up companies.

50Grove.com is a web site run by my friends at Wistia. They are a video streaming service provider and run 50Grove to showcase some top-tier production companies sorted by cost.

But, really, the best place to look is to narrow your exposure to videos that are within your industry, to consider your audience first. For instance, if everyone in your industry is posting videos that use stock photography and stale corporate graphics, that might be a clue that respectability is an issue, that they respond well to conservative imagery. On the other hand, it can also mean an opportunity to break new ground and really stand out with 3D or, dare I say it, cartoons. Likewise, if cartoons are the norm, you might think about live actors or some other more creative format.

Be sure to bookmark your favorite ones, you’ll need them later.


5. Decide on a story format.

There is a limitless array of ways to tell your story. The best way for you really just comes down to what you think will best excite your audience and frame your solution so that your prospects think the way you want them to. Some examples include:

-Features & functions – but it should always include some context about how it’s used and the company’s reputation

-Challenge, Solution, Result – this is the best way to describe new inventions and groundbreaking solutions, everyone “gets” it

-A day in the life – follows a person or a couple of people, a fun little story unfolds

-Spokesperson – affordable to produce using web talent but more involved and expensive if you want to use your staff or actors because it requires a video/audio crew

-Customer case study – got an amazing success story? Turn it into a movie

-Beauty shots & special effects – most appropriate for consumer audiences, particularly when building a brand

6. Write an outline.

Now that you know basically what you want to say, write up an outline. All you need is the basic framework at this point, bullet points from start to finish. This will be an easy way to brainstorm it and get buy-in from others. A traditional framework this goes like this: 1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2. Tell them, 3. Tell them what you just told them. But these days, especially on the web and in video, you shouldn’t bother with the first and last points – just tell them. It should still have an introduction, a body and a conclusion but don’t repeat yourself in those three parts.

Even if you dive right into the solution and show how it works or how it accomplishes a specific task, you should always preface it with why it exists, why they should care. This can be very quick. It’s necessary because you have no idea how they might have come across your movie and you want to frame the conversation correctly.

Include bookmarks in your outline (the ones you bookmarked previously) to give a visual frame of reference for yourself and others.

Don’t bother including specific visuals, just focus on the story you want to tell. Images will merely cloud your ultimate goal at this point.

And please, by all means, make sure you get them excited in the first 10 seconds.


7. Write the script.

Once you know all the parts of your story and the basic flow, you need to fill in the outline with actual words. Most people dive right into visuals but you should continue to avoid this temptation until you know what you want to say. The script drives the whole thing. Let me repeat that: the script drives the whole thing. So make sure you get the script right first. (You’ll have plenty of opportunities to fine-tune it as you go, but it is the central driver, so spend some quality time with your word processor. It will pay off in the long run.) You should also try to keep each topic to a single sentence to force yourself into delivering a brief video.

Speak your script out loud. This will help you to refine it for the spoken word (which is quite different than the same thoughts when read silently). And watch the clock or use a stopwatch to make sure your script is nice and short. You might be surprised at how long the written word takes to speak and how differently it sounds compared to read silently. It also helps to record it and listen to yourself after, to make sure you get right to the point and sound conversational and not robotic.

The length of your video is entirely up to you but, take my advice, make it short. I hear companies all the time say that they want their video to be 3 minutes and, inevitably, it comes out to 4 or more. But more and more, movies need to come in even shorter, like 1 minute. How in the world can you shrink your entire business strategy and product overview into 1 minute? It isn’t easy and you might need to hire a pro. My best advice is to do everything you can to shrink sentences, condense thoughts, put text on-screen while you say something else, and rely on visuals to say things for you. But most of all, stay focused on step 1 above and make sure you serve up what your audience craves. Just make sure you do it really quickly.

8. Build the storyboard.

This is the most critical, and probably the most difficult, step in the entire process. (I’m pretty sure the difficulty of this task is why I have a job.) Connecting visuals to concepts is an art form but that doesn’t mean you have to be an artist to do it well.

Before you go and scour the web for visuals, it helps tremendously to make some notes of visuals that will work in the script. What I do is make a two-column layout in Word with the script in the left column and visual ideas in the corresponding right column. This saves you tons of time looking for images and gives you a chance to get buy-in quickly. It’s just a great way to think about your video from a visual standpoint before investing a bunch of time in actually finding and formatting anything.

First, put the script into PowerPoint (or Keynote or whatever) and put it into the notes section with one sentence on each slide. Read the first line of your script. Does it introduce the company? Show the logo. Does it introduce a person? Show that person. Go to iStockPhoto and enter keywords for that person such as, “businessman cell phone” or “customer service woman.” If you’re not finding the perfect image, try GettyImages but be prepared to pay more.

If you go with stock visuals (photography, illustration, and video), create an account and save any images you might use in a light box. Once you see something you like, copy and paste it into PowerPoint. This is the quickest way to get images into PowerPoint. But since your copy will no longer be associated with the image, you’ll want to have them all saved on the stock site so you can easily get to them again later.

I’ll be frank: graphics can be very frustrating. I have over 20 years of experience with computer graphics and even I am challenged by some situations. So, if ever, this is a great time to hire a professional graphic designer. They’ll format the art so it looks right in the storyboard, they’ll tune things to match your brand, they’ll make your life easy. I cannot recommend highly enough the value they bring. Not only will they make this part easier, they’ll let you focus on the story, which is really what matters.

Moving deeper into the story… Does your solution fit into a grander scheme? Develop a diagram that shows the fit or find stock imagery for your industry. You can also find great icons and illustrations at iStock that can liven up any video. And remember: anything you create or purchase here can be used elsewhere in your marketing materials so putting a little extra effort into this a win-win.

Add text on-screen to add interest. Use really big text to make an impact and keep it to just a few words. You can show customer quotes but only use really short ones. This is also a great way shrink durations because you can say one thing in the narration while you put supporting—but different—text on-screen to get two points across without growing the length of the video.

This one topic could be an entire book all by itself and, unfortunately, I don’t have the space here to really do it justice. Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte is an excellent resource for building powerful presentations (albeit for personal presentations, but the lessons still apply). And all of Edward Tufte’s books on information graphics are excellent. Software companies can get some great tips from Great Demo! by Peter Cohan that apply to online demos.

As a rule of thumb, to keep the audience engaged, you should have at least one visual per sentence in the script.

As you develop the storyboard, you likely will adjust the script. So again, as you develop the storyboard, read the script out loud to make sure the video doesn’t grow too much.

Once your storyboard is done, pull the script out of your presentation program and put it all into a single text document. This will give you another chance to refine the language for the narrator.


9. Hire a narrator.

No matter how you produce your video (what it finally looks like), hiring a professional narrator makes the biggest impact to your audience. A dull voice can bring down even the most elegant visuals. Your significant other may have a beautiful voice but nothing beats the pacing and intonation of an expert. You can review some of the talent I work with at ReadyDemo dot com and I would be happy to provide their contact info. An even better place is at voice123 dot com but you’ll have to pay them a little booking fee. Regardless of where you find them, plan to pay around $500 per session. Some folks charge as much as $1,500 or more (because they’re hot-shot Hollywood or radio personalities) so check prices first. Slight modifications afterwards are usually included but it’s best to nail your script so you don’t have to go back to them.

The choice between male and female is completely subjective (aside from the obvious requirement for such situations as gender-specific consumer products) and entirely up to what you think your audience would most appreciate and identify with. If you have the budget, you can create two movies: one with a male voice and the other female, and A/B test their success rates.

While most professional narrators are in a union, those who provide recordings for use on the Internet are not required to be associated as such.

All that being said about hiring a professional, some companies are opting for the casualness of non-professionals. In fact, I did the narration myself for Accompa and Comunitee. Some very successful creative firms have built their entire businesses on not using professionals because the homegrown look and feel appeals to many audiences these days. For some products and audiences, the authenticity of a “personal friend” works very well. So, while I recommend using professionals for most projects, they are not necessary. If you go the non-professional route, make sure they provide a clean recording (not muffled and no pops or static), use a high-quality microphone, and don’t stumble on any words. Casual and conversational is one thing, lousy audio is quite another.

10. Build the final file.

Aside from building the storyboard, this is the most challenging step. (Another reason why I have a job.) But, do-it-yourself software is quite good and easy to use, if you have the time and patience to learn them. For instance, if your video is for a software application, you can capture real-time screen activity and add narration to it using Camtasia or Captivate and it will work just fine for many situations You can also convert a PowerPoint or Keynote file to a Flash movie and add narration. And there are alternatives to Flash such as Flypaper.com. I have never personally produced a movie using any of these tools but they look great.

At the polar opposite of DIY software are professional packages such as Adobe After Effects, Flash and Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro. With them (depending on the application) you can create 3D worlds, use multiple cameras and lights, add soft blur motion effects, the sky is the limit! And, if you're feeling really ambitious, you can use Maya for mind-blowing special effects and true 3D scenes such as "Toy Story"-level animation. But be warned, these programs are very advanced and often rely on other programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator for a polished look. So take the learning curve into careful consideration before attempting to build your video in any of these applications. It’s best for graphics novices to hire a professional for truly professional work, which allows you to focus on strategy and creating a compelling story that will attract customers.

Dan Clark is the owner and Creative Director of InterplayAgency.com, a leading product video production company in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Post copyright 2011. Sentinel Beach Corporation.

Pitfalls of User-Testing: Learn Them Here

As someone who always dreaded "market research" and data, I have to say that over the years I've become much more appreciative of marketing metrics.  Most importantly, measuring consumer behavior, online and offline, has radically improved my marketing results.  Enter the concept of user testing.  In today's guest post Jason Thai explains user testing and the more common pitfalls associated with it.

User-Testing Overview

Anytime a web-based business releases a new feature, several issues pop up, keeping product managers tossing and turning at night:

·         1. Are there any glaring bugs with the new feature?

·         2. How will customers view the new feature? 

·         3. Did we design the feature in the most customer-friendly way?

·         4. Does the new feature impact other unidentified areas in the site?

·         5. And most importantly, how will the feature impact overall conversion?

If only there was a way to test your products before launch…  Luckily, several companies have built fantastic user-testing platforms, providing companies with a pool of unbiased respondents to provide feedback as if they were real customers.  A lot of the sites offer great features such as video walk-throughs with step-by-step user interaction.  Another great aspect of user testing is that there are few constraints on what you can test.  A few of the tests we’ve run include:

·         Testing preferences for  before and after web page designs

·         Testing the ease of our order flow process

·         Testing the usability of new customer features

Also, user-testing is relatively inexpensive, making it a no-brainer for identifying pitfalls prior to product launch.  

What Happens When User-Testing Results Go Against the Grain?

However, are the results of user-testing always gospel?   We, at FoxTranslate, a certified translation service ran into that exact issue.  A few months ago, we redesigned our homepage.  We felt that the redesign more effectively conveyed our key service features and more professionally segmented the content.

Current Homepage	Redesigned Homepage

To validate our intuition, we ran user-testing to compare the two sites, expecting our redesigned homepage to be the clear champion.  Unfortunately, the results of user-testing suggested otherwise.

User-Testing Results

If you needed a document translated, which page would you more likely use?	Common Themes for Picking the Current Page
Here is the split between the "preferred" current page and the "preferred" redesign page.	“The current homepage feels more credible and has a more professional look”           “The current homepage feels more secure”           “The current homepage is much easier to navigate and gather information”           “The current homepage has a much better layout”

The results showed that users clearly preferred the current homepage, meaning it might be time to head back to the drawing board.  

Call it stubbornness, but we proceeded to test the redesign on our actual customers using Google website optimizer.  Google website optimizer tested the effectiveness of our new homepage by sending half our customers to the old homepage and half to the new homepage.  From there, website optimizer calculated conversion rate (# of transaction made / site visitors) and revenue generated, allowing us to gauge which page lead to more transactions.

Results of Current vs. Redesigned Homepage Test

Redesigned Homepage Conversion Rate and Transaction Size Improvement

Over the course of a month, our new homepage generated 17% more revenue vs. the current homepage on similar customer visits.   6% of the increase was due to more converting visitors and 11% of the increase was due to people spending more per transactions.

Our Learnings

So, why didn’t the actual results align with the results from user testing?  Sometimes, it’s hard to replicate your customers – Regardless of the results; we are still advocates of user-testing.  However, sometimes, it’s hard to find everyday people to replicate your customers.  We’re not selling laundry detergent, so generic user panels can only tell us so much because they don’t exactly know what your customers care about.

About the Author: Jason Thai is a marketing manager for FoxTranslate, specializing in document translation of business, legal, immigration and academic documents in over 30 different languages.