Last week we attended Search Engine Strategies New York, the online marketing conference and expo, and one theme that kept coming up in various contexts was the concept of real value. Different industries talk about it different way: in economics it’s “utility”, in customer relations it’s “satisfaction”, but the idea is the same: businesses and consumers alike are paying more attention to each dollar that they spend and how it benefits them.

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Hi everyone,

Alhan and I just got back to the office after three days at the Search Engine Strategies New York Conference and Expo. We’ll be writing more about the takeaways from that experience a little later. But first I wanted to point out something I noticed this morning:

One technique to avoid unwanted clicks and the charges associated with them is to write ad copy which will “filter” unqualified users by discouraging them from clicking. Above, on our own AdWords creative, we use the filter “$5K+”, which gives users a clue about the level of our services.

Another New York firm, Avatar, has been doing the same thing (“$20,000 and up”), but now they’ve added a second filter on the same ad: “Currently NOT Hiring”.

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Your website is getting traffic, but these visitors aren’t taking action. Is it time for a redesign? Before you scrap the whole design and start from scratch, consider if it’s only a few elements on the page that are hindering your success. And thanks to Google Website Optimizer, there’s an easy way to find out using real user behavior.

It’s a little ironic to talk about best practices when the whole point of testing is that websites are not one-size-fits-all; best practices for page layout, calls-to-action, and information architecture might not apply to your specific niche of users. Nevertheless, here are some tips for setting up experiments that should apply most of the time:

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This is a quick post to exemplify why most methods of marketing, especially online, simply do not match the effectiveness and longevity of search engine optimization (SEO). The important factor to remember is that it is measurable, like pay-per-click advertising and banner ads, but unlike these, the effects of SEO last far beyond the length of the campaign and cost-per-conversion plummets with SEO as time goes by.
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This afternoon, our Creative Director Gabriel was the guest on Doug Huggins’s show, BEST Business Radio, giving advice on successful business websites and online marketing techniques.

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