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10 HoW to Make CustoMer Contentgo MultiCHannelMany brands are not extending customer-contributed content and positive reviews across their entire marketing programs, including e-mail, in-store signage, Facebook, Twitter, mobile, direct mail, online advertising, and TV commercials. Why?

13 sneak PreVieW: ses san FranCisCo at ConneCteD Marketing WeekFrom social to video and local to mobile, the new online marketing frontier is here. Learn how to connect the dots at next months Search Engine Strategies conference, part of ClickZs Connected Marketing Week. In this section, find out why our sessions, workshops, and speakers make ses san Francisco a must-attend event.

32 glossarYTerms and acronyms every online marketer should know.

22 7 tHings agenCies Hate about FaCebook soCial aDsSome of Facbooks practices prevent SEM agencies from experimenting further and becoming bigger spenders. Here are the seven most annoying things about the social networks social ads.

6 tHe unliMiteD searCH Marketing buDgetTransaction-based websites should run with an unlimited search marketing budget, subject only to day-to-day profitability.

26 Making sense oF global searCH: target Via CountrY, not languageIn a successful SEO or PPC strategy, targeting by country will help you achieve localization, reduce competition, and gain trust.

24 DuPliCate Content: tHe WHat, WHY anD HoWWhat duplicate content is, types, why it exists, and how to avoid it.

8 aPP DeVeloPMent 101 For MarketersHow to choose a platform and technologies, how to determine which features to include, and how to drive continuous engagement.

28 10 reasons WHY DruPal is tHe best CMs For seoDrupal, the open source content management system that runs WhiteHouse.gov and The Economist, is the best platform that exists today for search engine optimization.

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4 WHat is real-tiMe aDVertising?Four ways that advertisers, publishers, and technology providers are pushing forward with innovations in advertising.

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Bing ............................................................... C2

Bruce Clay ..................................................... 12

ClickZ.com iReviews ...................................... 21

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eMarketer ...................................................... 29

iContact ........................................................... 3

iProspect ......................................................... 5

topseos.com .................................................. 23

University of San Francisco Online .................. 9

Wiley Publishing ............................................ C3

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SES: Volume 4, Issue 6 | July 2010 2010 IncIsIve MedIa plc

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about SES MagazineSES Magazine, now in its fourth year, is brought to you by ClickZ, the leading online

destination for news and expert advice in digital marketing. In this issue, youll find articles on the latest online trends, as well as a preview of our upcoming event, SES San Francisco at

ClickZs Connected Marketing Week (Aug. 16-20).We are grateful to our contributors and readers alike, and

were always interested to hear your feedback and learn about what topics youd like to see (e-mail us at [email protected]).

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Matthew baileyPresidentSiteLogic

thomas bindlFounder & CEORefined Labs GmbH

Mikel ChertudiVP, Demand & Online MarketingOmniture

eddie ChoiManaging DirectorFrontiers Digital

brett CrosbyGroup PPMGoogle

bryan eisenbergBestselling authorbryaneisenberg.com

Jeff FergusonSr. Director, Online MarketingLocal.com

andrew goodmanPresidentPage Zero Media

Mike grehan, Co-ChairVP & Global Content DirectorIncisive Media

bill HuntPresidentBack Azimuth Consulting

anne kennedyManaging PartnerBeyond Ink

John MarshallCTOBeyond Ink

Jon MyersHead of Search/Assoc. DirectorMediavest

lee oddenCEOTopRank Online Marketing

Pauline oresSr. Marketing Mgr, Social MediaIBM Corporation

stewart Quealy, Co-ChairVP, Content DevelopmentIncisive Media

erica schmidtGlobal Search DirectorIsobar

Crispin sheridanSr. Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP Marketing

4 SES July 2010 {san FrancIsco prevIew}

FOCUS: whats next

What is real-time advertising? By Gary Stein

I believe that we are about to have another big shift in advertising. There are rumblings that seem to suggest that the big boys of the technology/media world are going

to make a major push. Our future hasnt simply flowed out in front of us for several years. It comes in bursts and fits among long periods of calm. The financial downturn and the overall lack of enthusiasm for consumer marketing was one of those periods of calm, and its just about over.

For example: Twitter has suddenly become very serious about making money out of its service. It seems intent on shutting off a number of the ways that outsiders have been making money, possibly to ensure that its offering Promoted Tweets has the absolute best chance of capturing a brands excitement (and dollars).

Facebook has expanded its reach, probably too far. Facebook is the Icarus of media properties, forever going too far with its ideas, only to have its concepts melt under the harsh heat of consumer concern. The Facebook push into the rest of the web has hit a wall, but it will find a way to scale it.

Apple has begun making serious plans around iAd (its mobile ad network), and the Federal Trade Commission has approved Googles purchase of AdMob. This means that mobile advertising is going to be easier to execute, efficient to traffic, and rigorously measured.

Google has announced Google TV, a technology and set-top box that will essentially make your home TV a web browser, capable of showing video on the web. In addition to being a huge boon to the porn industry (and what isnt?), this should open up piles and piles of online video inventory. Googles not great at hardware (the Nexus One was exciting, but barely), but hopefully its partners will take the lead on developing cool items that you want in your media center.

Theres a lot happening, and its all part of the same underlying trend. I think theres

one root cause thats driving the supply side (publishers), the demand side (brands), and the underlying infrastructure (the tech companies), and that is, bluntly, the need for speed.

Collapsing time to nothingIn media, we have gone from the CBS

Evening News to The Situation Room. We have gone from browsing the web to always on. We have gone from personal websites to blogs to Twitter feeds. We have gone from documen-taries to live feeds. We live in a world where we want whats happening to be piped into our lives now, and there seems to be no limit to the number of windows we can have open or devices we can interact with. We are on a human-media quest for real time, and its time advertising joins in.

The term real time has been applied to a few different corners of technology, and has been adopted from computer science. The technical definition of real-time comput-ing is, well, totally beyond my comprehen-sion. Youre welcome to try to sort it out on Wikipedia.

In practice, real time has come to mean that time gaps between an event occurring, our ability to see or know about that event, and the feedback that comes from our reac-tion to that event, have been eliminated. That is, something happens and we know about it as though we were there, regardless of where we are.

In advertising, we are beginning to not only understand this need for speed, but also to have the tools to take advantage of the opportunity. This means that advertisers (and publishers and technology providers) can continue to push forward with innova-tions, but toward a particular direction of making advertising not only more respon-sive, but also integrated with consumers lives.

Here are ways that this is happening: The ability to make contents of an ad unit change, based on information

either from a user or the contents of the page: Making content dynamic is key in the development of truly interactive advertising. Publishers have been hesitant about this technology for a while, since they would have to be a bit unsure about what ads will really show up. But this is starting to change.

True integration across platforms: As more platforms come under the mandate of a few large companies

(like Apple, Google, or Microsoft), we can expect to communicate with a consumer as he or she moves through different environments and have that all tracked. This is a

critical move: Consumers already have integrated their media experiences, and we need to catch up.

A social environment that pervades many experiences: So many online experiences have a commercial slant, especially when it comes to looking for information or finding content. The ability to have a social graph applied to a piece of content represents a new level of recommendation that should help to power a consumer decision. This one is fraught with issues, but its still an important frontier.

A hyper-connected distribution system: The protocols and technologies that we need to have a piece of content widely distributed whether its from a publisher, a merchant, or a consumer means that once we say something, we can expect it will end up in the right ears, right away.

All of this is accelerating our work and making us into better, more nimble advertis-ers, who are not just interested in crafting the perfect message, but being the perfect brand.

Gary Stein is VP of strategy for Ammo Marketing. He has been working in interactive advertising for nearly a decade. Gary lives in San Francisco with his family. @garyst3in

Mobile advertising is going to be easier to execute, efficient to traffic, and rigorously measured.


Data-driven direct response marketing is a money-printing machine. Market-ing budgets are a holdover from former days when

you didnt know the results until weeks or months after you paid for it. Budgets are for testing. Once you have proven the profit-ability of your traffic channel, you should run full steam ahead.

ROI from search marketing can be monitored in near real-time. E-commerce sites need only float marketing capital for two to three days while awaiting reve-nues to be transferred from merchant to bank accounts. As such, transaction-based websites should run with an unlimited search marketing budget, subject only to day-to-day profitability.

While the unlimited budget concept is simple to understand, there are some normal hesitations to turning on the fire hose. Your marketing must first be account-able. Second, it must be profitable. Third,

it must be reliable. Here are some strate-gies to give responsible boldness to your marketing dollars and give you that unlimited budget.

step 1: Determine your optimum CPa

The first step in data-driven marketing is to determine how much youre willing to pay in marketing costs to get a sale. You must take into account such variables as product cost, overhead, and desired margin. The figure youre willing to pay is your cost per action (CPA). Your search market-ing success will be judged by this number.

Only it isnt that easy. The hidden part of the equation is volume. The amount youre willing to pay for a sale will determine how much advertising you are able to purchase. The more you pay for traffic, the more sales you make, but the less profit you make per sale. You must find the optimum CPA that brings in the most total profit. This number is usually quite different from what youd

The unlimited search marketing budgetBy Timothy Seward

7SearchEngineStrategies.com SES

guess. Testing alone will reveal the volume available at different spend levels.

CPA is the ideal metric under any of the following conditions:

you are paying for leads of equal value your e-commerce site sells only one front-end product

your order value doesnt fluctuate much, and neither do your margins

If you dont have a predictable order value and/or your margins vary consider-ably throughout your catalog, you should instead measure your marketing success by return on ad spend (ROAS) or value/cost. The value you track can either be order value or the order value minus your costs. This will provide visibility into your actual profitability and help you manage spend accordingly.

step 2: turn on the hoseStart spending some cash. If this is a new

traffic channel, a budget will come in handy to lower your risk of loss. Once you know how profitably the traffic converts, your need for a set budget will diminish.

step 3: track your resultsAll of this is futile if you dont have reli-

able tracking in place. At a minimum, you must be tracking spend and sales from every traffic channel. In reality, you should track everything. All aspects of your campaigns should be tagged, so individual components and ads can be measured and managed for profitability.

step 4: Make correctionsAt this point, your spend level is high,

low, or just right. If youve spent too much, your natural instinct is to decrease your spend. Indeed, this is the obvious response. Be careful, however, that you dont get back into a budget mentality.

Lets say youve determined that a $60 CPA makes you the most money. A certain campaign has spent $70. Assuming youve got enough data to make a decision (your sample size needs to encompass more than just a few actions), youll want to lower your spend level going forward.

This may appear elementary, but there is a powerful psychological urge to overcom-pensate and shoot for a lower CPA so that your average for the month will appear solid. This is a misguided attempt to punish the overspending or worse, to hide the over-spending from your boss.

Two things to keep in mind: 1) Over-spending is part of the process of finding your ideal spend and profitability level. As long as it doesnt go on for longer than necessary, theres nothing to be ashamed

of. 2) Overspending is by definition in the past and is thus a sunk cost. You cant change the past. You should not factor sunk costs into future spending decisions, unless there

is actually no more money left that can be spent.

If your goal is to actually make the most profit, not just have the cleanest looking reports, you need to put the past behind you and again shoot for the CPA that will make you the most money. If you are $10 over your $60 CPA on day 15 of the month, you should not start targeting $50 for the remainder of the month. Yes, this would put your average for the month at $60. Yet your total profit will be diminished because you lost the additional volume that the $60 CPA would have brought you in the second half of the month.

When to use a budgetIve already mentioned above that a

budget makes sense when testing new traffic sources. There are additional situa-tions where it does make sense to stick to a budget, even when your traffic source has proven profitability.

Cash flow constraint due to long buying cycle

You probably dont have unlimited capi-tal. Even if you are certain the marketing spend will be profitable, it may take a few months or more to recoup your investment. This is common when buying leads that have a long sales cycle. It is also common in SaaS businesses that rely on monthly recur-ring revenue from their customers. In cases such as these, your marketing budget will be tied to your cash flow position.

uncertain lead & customer quality

When you increase your spending and the volume of online advertising, the marginal increase in traffic is often of reduced qual-ity. You cant be certain how this additional traffic will convert, so it makes sense to approach this additional spending with caution. It may not require a fixed budget, but additional spending certainly requires a watchful eye.

Production & inventory constraints

If you cant physically service the addi-tional customers, by all means put a cap on your marketing. This is a great problem to have and should be looked on as an opportu-nity for growth.

When spend does need to be reduced, the most profitable way to reduce your spend usually isnt to cap your overall spending with a budget, but instead to lower your target CPA. This will accomplish the same goal, but will give you more profit from every sale you do make. Otherwise a budget cap usually works to simply stop your ad from showing once the budget has been reached. It is better to show your ad consis-tently at $1 per click than to show your ad for half the day at $2 per click.

It may take some convincing to loosen the budget limitations from your marketing. Tracked profits and solid ROAS are your weapons. Your goal is to make the most profit for your company, so your cautious budget needs to go.

Timothy Seward is CEO and founder of ROI Revolution. A summa cum laude graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelors in computer science, he has been running data-driven online paid search marketing campaigns for clients since June

2002. Learn more about ROI Revolutions paid search management services and request a free strategy session at www.roirevolution.com/unlimitedbudget.

FOCUS: ad planning

Want to learn more?SES San Francisco will feature sessions onbest budgeting practices, including Wednesdays Stretching Your Marketing Dollars: The Upside of Search.

www.sessanfrancisco.com

Overspending is part of the process of finding your ideal spend and

profitability level.


88%Number of respondents in

Omnitures online analytics benchmark survey who said

Facebook was either their first or second most important

social media channel.Source: omniture, 2010

A For more details, check outClickZ Stats.

FOCUS: mobile

App development 101 for marketers By Rob Weber

So, you know you need to have a mobile app for your next campaign, but you dont know where you should start. I asked Aleksey Cherfas, our top mobile

app developer, to tell me what he thinks digital marketers need to know about app development, and he distilled his guidance around how to choose a platform, how to choose what type of technology to use, how do you determine what features to include in your mobile app, and how to drive continu-ous engagement.

One of the most important decisions in preparation for mobile development is to decide which platforms you will target. Do you go for the iPhone OS, because every-body seems to be so hyped about the iPhone and iPad; Android, because you heard it is a promising open source platform; or the BlackBerry, just because this is what your boss uses?

Regardless of whether you decide to cover multiple platforms right away or focus on just one from the beginning, you should

start with analyz-ing your prospec-tive users and the marketplace. Determine if your app will have a global reach or if youll focus on local markets, in which case you should seek out device usage in those markets before committing to any particular device. A safe bet would be to single

out one device to start with and then gradu-ally expand to others, focusing on those that are more relevant to your domain.

Once you decide on the platform, you have at least three choices in terms of the type of applications you can develop. You can go for developing a native app, which takes advan-tage of platform-specific functionality and design, arguably making it easier to oper-ate for your users, though condemning your development effort to be very complex and technologically involved.

On the other end of the difficulty spectrum in the world of mobile application develop-ment are web apps. These applications are web pages that are rendered inside a mobile

browser and capitalize on the browsers multitouch technology for navigational inter-action. Some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is usually sufficient to build a simple and effective application. There are even frameworks that allow you to harness the power of JavaScript in mobile browsers without much effort. JQTouch, a jQuery plug-in for mobile development, is one such framework.

Your third option is a combination a kind of half-native, half-web app, where you would create a native app that uses a browser engine for rendering your content as web pages, but requires you to develop your own navigation instead of using built-in mobile browser navigation controls. This option is a little more techno-logically involved than a simple web app. Because you are using a browser engine for displaying your content, the effort is not quite as involved as with the native app.

Several services attempt to solve the multiplatform conundrum and complexity of native development, making your entrance to mobile app development a lot easier.

These services will allow you to write your code once, in many cases using JavaS-cript and HTML, and they will take care of compiling applications into the native code for different devices. Some of the more prominent of them are Rhomobile, PhoneGap, and Titanium. If you plan to develop an app by yourself, do give high consideration to these services.

As you think about the design of your mobile applications, consider these options. You can either make your design very specific to the standards and conventions of each platform, or use your design from other domains (website, desktop software) and transplant it onto the mobile app. Even with the array of platforms out there, its possible to use blueprints that will nicely fit into different platforms without violating too many conventions for each platform.

Theres no right answer when it comes to design. If you deviate from the standards, you should still stay within familiar meta-phors, so that the users dont have to work too hard to learn how to use your app.

The main difference of mobile apps from your other domains is limited display area, so keep it very simple and to the point. Dont try to incorporate every single feature into

the first version of your app. Start with a simple feature of essential functionality, and let the user feedback drive your future func-tionality and application design.

One way to keep functionality to the mini-mum is a product requirements document

(PRD). In its simplest form, a PRD is a list of application require-ments or features, with a brief explanation and some weights attached to each feature. The

commonly used weights are must have, good to have, and may have. Keeping these weights in mind makes it easier to set development priorities and move unes-sential application features into the next releases. Again, keep it simple think in terms of must have requirements for the first release.

Even after users install your app, you are still only one of many that occupy their home screen and will constantly need to compete for their attention. Updating your app often is one approach to keep users engaged and interested. Many successful apps release updates at least once a month. With each update, they address bugs and performance issues, but most importantly they try to come up with a small new feature that will keep users interested and prompt them to re-download and open your app.

With so many options to choose from when developing for mobile platforms, your decision should be based on your require-ments and resources. If you are to remem-ber one takeaway from above, it is: Keep it simple.

Rob Weber is the VP of business development and co-founder of W3i, an application network that increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for consumer applications and add-ons. Rob is an entrepreneur with over 10 years experience, leading W3i

through the rapidly changing online business environ-ment. His expertise is in consumer application market-ing, gaining insight from leading companies and using applications in their marketing strategies. @W3i

Dont try to incorporate every single feature into the first version of your app.

Want to learn more?SES San Francisco will feature sessionson the latest mobile tactics, including Wednesdays Getting Mobilized! Mobile Marketing Strategies.



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How to make customer content go multichannel By Sam Decker


COVER STORY / FOCUS: connected marketing

Consumers rarely buy a product without consulting customer reviews first. Before making just about any purchase clothing, electronics, house-

hold items people go online to check out the reviews. A July 2009 study by Nielsen found the most trusted forms of media are recommendations from people I know (92 percent) and consumer opinions posted online (72 percent). Id be willing to bet those numbers are even higher one year later.

Whats amazing, however, is that many retailers and brands have not done more with the wealth of online reviews about their products and services. They are not extend-ing this valuable first-person, customer-contributed content across their entire marketing programs, including e-mail, in-store signage, Facebook, Twitter, mobile, catalogs, direct mail, online advertising, TV commercials, and more.

Positive reviews are an extremely power-ful marketing tool. By extending the customer voice across all market-ing channels, brands and retailers can drive incredible value from their customers opinions. In other words, customer input creates great ad copy.

Heres a look at how some innova-tive companies have extended customer content across marketing channels to drive a sustained increase in sales in their social commerce programs.

QVC featured top-rated products on its television broadcasts. The shopping chan-nel labeled some products showcased on the program as customer top rated, and also published excerpts from online reviews on air, unedited, to reinforce the customer top-rated label. Sharing customers opinions on air worked so well in driving sales of these products that QVC aired a standalone show called Customer Choice that showcased only products rated highly by its customers.

Customer reviews have now become an important tool and resource in our program-ming and merchandising strategies, said Alex Miller, director of programming at QVC. They reinforce the trust our custom-ers have with QVC and help to take our customers one step closer to an experience of shopping with their friends.

There are many other examples of

companies successfully leveraging customer review content across marketing channels. B2B marketer Treatment Abroad, which matches surgeons around the world to U.K. prospects, printed customer reviews in pamphlets and leaflets. Samsung, mean-while, featured customer reviews in its pre-Super Bowl e-mail campaign. Intuit used customer review content in a far-reaching online display advertising campaign, and also used review content for its TurboTax product in in-store displays at Best Buy, Office Depot, and OfficeMax. These are just a few ways to use review content in multi-channel marketing initiatives.

Including user-generated content in advertising campaigns works to boost sales. When Office Depot added top-rated review language to its paid search ads on Google, it recorded a 196 percent increase in reve-nues from paid search. When Rubbermaid

included a positive customer review on a coupon, redemption rates

for the coupon rose 10 percent, while Northern Tool boosted conver-sion by 10 percent on an e-mail campaign simply by including customer reviews in the

e-mails.These results show that

customer-generated content does not only live online. The Internet is a

convenient place for customers to share their credible opinions on products, but its up to you as a marketer to leverage this powerful content to drives sales in other channels.

When extending review content across marketing channels, remember five simple principles:

Work together: Market-ers, merchandisers, and brand managers should work together

to identify the top-rated products and the most compelling reviews of those products to be used in marketing materials. The use of review content in multichannel marketing materials should meet your over-all marketing goals.

Choose wisely: Highlight the products that you really want to sell. People pay attention to products you promote with

reviews, so make sure these are the items you want to move.

Dont be shy: Highlight the products value in numbers. For example, 22 of 24 users would recommend this product to a

friend, or 4.8 of 5 stars. Dont be afraid to include prominent stars or bold graphics, or highlight the most glowing words from reviews.

Keep it short: Review snippets included in marketing materials should be short no more than two lines.

Get personal: Give the name and location (and/or age) of the reviewer. Showing customers that the reviewer is someone

like them is a great way to build trust in the authenticity of the review content.

But lest we not forget, successful social commerce lives and dies on the analysis of your content and campaigns. Find out which of your multichannel campaigns including positive reviews performed the best, and run A/B tests to see which specific review content had a bigger impact on sales and ROI. All positive reviews are not created equal and sometimes a more neutral, even-handed review can deliver the best results because consumers trust authentic reviews more than glowing ones.

Disclosure: QVC, Treatment Abroad, Samsung, Intuit, and Office Depot are clients of Bazaarvoice.

Sam Decker is chief marketing of-ficer of Bazaarvoice, the market leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales. In his role, he works to help brands present the right user-generated content at the right time in the purchase path, bringing value to

both consumer and business. Sam has almost 20 years of marketing and online retailing experience, has written two books on word-of-mouth marketing, is a frequent speaker at marketing and e-commerce events, and is an award-winning blogger. Prior to Ba-zaarvoice, he drove Dells customer segmentation and customer-centricity strategy, while building Dell.com into the largest consumer e-commerce site at $3.5 bil-lion in annual sales.. @samdecker

Positive reviewsare an extremely

powerfulmarketing tool.

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Want to learn more?SES San Francisco will be partof Connected Marketing Weekin August. For more information:

ConnectedMarketingWeek.com


SEO TrainingDate: Monday, August 16Time: 8:30 a.m. 5:30 p.m.Cost: $1,245For more details and to register, go to:http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanfrancisco/training-partnered.php

SEO Training

Date: Monday, August 16

Time: 8:30 a.m. 5:30 p.m.

Cost: $1,245

For more details and to register, go to:

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com

/

sanfrancisco/training-partnered.php

www.BruceClay.com

8 6 6 - 5 1 7 - 1 9 0 0

SEO Training: Your Online Marketing EdgeHaving trouble getting your Web site to rank in Google? Are you losing ground to competitors, and slipping in the search results? Your business needs a search engine optimization strategy that works for todays search environment.

Search engines keep advancing at a hectic pace. New features like personalization, canonicalization, real-time search and on and on continue to emerge and evolve. It is a full-time job just keeping up with all the changes, let alone knowing how to apply them to make your Web site rank. Thankfully, the Internet marketing team at Bruce Clay, Inc. has paired leading-edge search engine research with years of successful Web site optimization to create an SEO training course geared for all levels.

Join search marketing expert Bruce Clay at SES San Francisco for a one-day Search Engine Optimization Training workshop. This one-day course targets marketing and technical staff alike. Youll learn white hat SEO strategies and tactics necessary in todays fast-changing search world.

What You Get:Full day of live training from search marketing expert Bruce Clay

Lunch

Training materials

One-year subscription to the full-featured SEOToolSet

Free copy of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies, co-authored by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza

Start off your conference week right learn the current best practices in SEO methodology, concepts and strategies.SEO Training courses also available in Simi Valley, CA and Long Island, NY. For dates and details, see:

http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/training.htm


Get IntoThe Mix

AUG. 16-20 San Francisco

At the ultimate digital marketing event

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SES is the pioneer of educational conferences and training in digital marketing. Its where the industry leaders gather to discuss the newest trends, share their insights, and give you the action plans you need.

Register online:

How are you connecting and communicating with your target market? Is your marketing more a lecture than a conversation?

At SES San Francisco, businesses will learn how to engage with their clients not just to effectively tell their story, but listen as well. Learn to leverage emerging technologies, what they mean to you, and how mastering them will transform your brand and your profit margins.

Apps

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Today, success in not only search marketing but all of marketing requires an

advanced understanding of how consumers and audiences are connecting, sharing

their passions, and influencing others.

Thus SES, in partnership with ClickZ, the leader in online marketing news and under

the umbrella of Connected Marketing Week, is bringing together a community of organizations and events who will explore every aspect of digital marketing, from

e-mail, conversion optimization, SEO, social, performance marketing, and more.

in partnership with

AUG. 16-20 SAN FRANCISCO

Formoredetailsonpartneredevents&workshops,headto:

www.ConnectedMarketingWeek.com


AGENDA AGENDATUES, AUG 17, D

AY 1

WED, AUG 18

, DAY

2TH

URS, AUG 19

, DAY

39:30AM-10:45AM Conference Welcome/Orientation & Opening Keynote: Jeffrey Hayzlett, VP, Eastman Kodak Company

10:45AM-11:30AM Grand Opening of the Expo Hall (open 10:00-7:15pm)

Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Track 4 SEW Labs

11:30AM-12:30PM Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

Covario Sponsored Session Introduction to Analytics Search: Where to Next? PPC Lab Primer

12:30PM-1:30PM Networking Lunch in the Expo Hall

1:30PM-2:30PM Successful Information Architecture

Digital Asset Optimization Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers

Introduction to Information Retrieval on the Web

SEO Lab Primer

3:00PM-4:00PM Link Building Basics Content Marketing Optimization Deep Dive Into Analytics Wpromote Sponsored Session SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) PPC Lab

4:15PM-5:15PM Developing Great Content Video: The Next Marketing Frontier

21 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites

SEO Performance Marketing

5:15PM-7:15PM Networking Cocktail Reception in the Expo Hall

9:30AM-10:30AM Morning Keynote: BJ Fogg, Author


11:00AM-12:00PM SEO101 News Search Optimization Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros & Cons

Local Search Ranking Factors Local Primer


1:00PM-2:00PM Sponsored Session Search, PR & the Social Butterfly Stretching Your Marketing Dollars: The Upside of Search

Local Search & Social Media Video Lab Primer

2:30PM-3:30PM Keynote Panel: Real Time Storytelling

3:45PM-4:45PM Paid Search 101 Google Sponsored Session B2B Search Marketing Tips Twitter Nation SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) SEO Lab

5:00PM-6:00PM How to Become a Link Magnet Pushing Content via XML, RSS & Site Maps

B2B Lead Generation Management & CRM Integration

Flashecom Sponsored Session

6:00PM-7:00PM Open Mic: SEW Black Hat, White Hat Unconferenced

9:30AM-10:30AM Morning Keynote: Tim Ash, Author, Using Five Pillars to Build Instant Trust Online


10:45AM-11:45AM Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle

Eye-Tracking Research Update Ad Networks & Exchanges SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) Mobile Lab Enterprise Level SEO

12:00PM-1:00PM Social Media 101 Channel Surfing: Measuring Profit and ROI Across Channels

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Enterprise Level SEO

1:00PM-2:00PM Networking Lunch

2:00PM-3:00PM Social & the Marketing Mix Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

Ads in a Quality Score World From Real-Time Search to Dynamic Discovery

SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) Video Lab

3:15PM-4:15PM Facebook Feeding Frenzy: Targeting Opportunities, Privacy Challenges

Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

Advanced Keyword Research Augmented Reality: A New World Order

4:45PM-5:45PM The Business Value of Social Media

Digital Marketing & Sports Advanced Paid Search Tactics Selling Search to the C-Suite Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

5:45PM-6:15PM Wrap-Up Session

www.SESsanfrancisco.comGo online for the most up-to-date agenda SAVE

$554

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AGENDA9:30AM-10:45AM Conference Welcome/Orientation & Opening Keynote: Jeffrey Hayzlett, VP, Eastman Kodak Company

10:45AM-11:30AM Grand Opening of the Expo Hall (open 10:00-7:15pm)


11:30AM-12:30PM Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

Covario Sponsored Session Introduction to Analytics Search: Where to Next? PPC Lab Primer


1:30PM-2:30PM Successful Information Architecture

Digital Asset Optimization Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers

Introduction to Information Retrieval on the Web

SEO Lab Primer

3:00PM-4:00PM Link Building Basics Content Marketing Optimization Deep Dive Into Analytics Wpromote Sponsored Session SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) PPC Lab

4:15PM-5:15PM Developing Great Content Video: The Next Marketing Frontier

21 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites

SEO Performance Marketing

5:15PM-7:15PM Networking Cocktail Reception in the Expo Hall

9:30AM-10:30AM Morning Keynote: BJ Fogg, Author


11:00AM-12:00PM SEO101 News Search Optimization Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros & Cons

Local Search Ranking Factors Local Primer


1:00PM-2:00PM Sponsored Session Search, PR & the Social Butterfly Stretching Your Marketing Dollars: The Upside of Search

Local Search & Social Media Video Lab Primer

2:30PM-3:30PM Keynote Panel: Real Time Storytelling

3:45PM-4:45PM Paid Search 101 Google Sponsored Session B2B Search Marketing Tips Twitter Nation SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) SEO Lab

5:00PM-6:00PM How to Become a Link Magnet Pushing Content via XML, RSS & Site Maps

B2B Lead Generation Management & CRM Integration

Flashecom Sponsored Session

6:00PM-7:00PM Open Mic: SEW Black Hat, White Hat Unconferenced

9:30AM-10:30AM Morning Keynote: Tim Ash, Author, Using Five Pillars to Build Instant Trust Online


10:45AM-11:45AM Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle

Eye-Tracking Research Update Ad Networks & Exchanges SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) Mobile Lab Enterprise Level SEO

12:00PM-1:00PM Social Media 101 Channel Surfing: Measuring Profit and ROI Across Channels

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Enterprise Level SEO

1:00PM-2:00PM Networking Lunch

2:00PM-3:00PM Social & the Marketing Mix Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

Ads in a Quality Score World From Real-Time Search to Dynamic Discovery

SearchEngineWatch.com SEW Lab (2 hours) Video Lab

3:15PM-4:15PM Facebook Feeding Frenzy: Targeting Opportunities, Privacy Challenges

Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

Advanced Keyword Research Augmented Reality: A New World Order

4:45PM-5:45PM The Business Value of Social Media

Digital Marketing & Sports Advanced Paid Search Tactics Selling Search to the C-Suite Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

5:45PM-6:15PM Wrap-Up Session

KEYNOTESPEAKERS

Mr. Hayzlett is known as the Celebrity CMO for his work at Kodak, because his countless

media appearances and social media skills have made him one of the top C-level executive Twitterers in the world. He is also cowboy literally: A South Dakota native who always wears cowboy boots and still has a little house on the prairie. A much sought-after speaker, Mr. Hayzlett was named Business to Business Marketer of the Year by B2B Magazine in 2009 and has received numerous business awards and honors.

BJ Fogg directs the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

University. A psychologist and innovator, he devotes half of his time to industry projects. His work empowers people to think clearly about the psychology of persuasion--and then to convert those insights into real-world outcomes. He is the author of Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, a book that explains how computers can motivate and influence people. BJ is also the co-editor of Mobile Persuasion, as well as Texting 4 Health. His upcoming book is entitled The Psychology of Facebook.

CEO of SiteTuners.com, a landing page optimization firm that offers conversion consulting, full-service

guaranteed-improvement tests, and 2nd-generation software tools to improve conversion rates. Tim is a highly-regarded presenter at Search Engine Strategies. Tim is a columnist for several publications including ClickZ. Tim is the author of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization.

TUES, AUG 17, DAY 1Jeffrey HayzlettVP, Eastman Kodak Company

WED, AUG 18, DAY 2BJ foggDirector, Persuasive TechnologyLab, Stanford University

THURS, AUG 19, DAY 3tIM aSHCEO, SiteTuners.com

www.ConnectedMarketingWeek.comFor more information on partnered events, visit


SESSIONSDAY 1

11:30AM-12:30PM

Introduction to Search Engine MarketingThis session will provide a clear and concise overview of the key concepts involved in search engine marketing. This is a must-attend basic session for anyone new to SES events.

Introduction to AnalyticsCut to the chase! Use analytic tools to get the specific answers you need about your search marketing campaigns economic performance, your users on-site behaviors, and how to look for major red flags in traffic patterns. This slate of experts will keep you focused rather than poring through hundreds of pages of meaningless statistics.

Search: Where to Next?Join us for an illuminating discussion as we peek into the next generation of digital marketing and predict what search might look like in the following five to ten years.

PPC Lab Primer Go online for details.

1:30PM-2:30PM

Successful Site ArchitectureThis session will provide a fresh look at how to successfully architect your site for search engines and how specific page elements and design technologies may impact your ability to gain good organic listings.

Digital Asset Optimization Search result multiplicity is not a new phenomenon, but recent advancements guarantee that the world of search and marketing will be changing forever. Discover how blended search will affect your strategy and how users are reacting to this new evolving technology.

Meaningful SEO MetricsThis panel will discuss a myriad of ways to move beyond Page Rank, indexed pages or linked sites and into metrics that can make you a hero and, better still, get your budget increased to a respectable level.

Introduction to Information Retrieval on the Web This sessions will demonstrate how internet researchers are changing the web in a fundamental and powerful way, and the session will showcase practical ways that search marketers and web developers

can begin participating in the linked-data movement.

SEO Lab PrimerGo online for details.

3:00PM-4:00PM

Link Building BasicsDiscover how search engines rely on link analysis as an important component for ranking web pages. You will also learn how to increase traffic to your site by building quality links in an appropriate manner.

Content Marketing Optimization This session provides unique insight into content based optimization strategies and processes as well as tactics for sourcing, creation and promotion of optimized content on the social web.

Deep Dive Into AnalyticsIts all about answering specific business questions using your web analytics data to drive tactical and strategic decision making. This session will provide you with all of the essentials to get down and dirty with your data.

SEW Lab PPC Lab (2 hours) Go online for details.

4:15PM-5:15PM

Developing Great ContentIn this session, well explore a diverse range of Web content development strategies along with innovative techniques for dramatically boosting the visibility and interactive appeal of your site.

Video: The Next Marketing FrontierThis panel will cover the latest developments in video-based marketing, including: factors that make your video assets visible; Ad networks; Formats; YouTube; plus more.

21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites In this fast paced session youll find relevant examples from retail sites, B2B sites, publishers and everything in between. Youll learn the key principle of GTC - Get the Cash! Youll never be able to look at a website the same way again.

SEO Performance MarketingIn examining the strategy of tying SEO Performance Marketing, panelists will cover what parts of SEO can be tied to a performance model, and what should clients demand, and agencies promise.

DAY 211:00AM-12:00PM

SEO 101In clear, non-technical language, youll learn the latest optimization trends along with the best practices necessary to make an immediate impact on your internet presence and website profitability.

News Search OptimizationIn this session, we look at how to make use of press releases and news content to tap into the power of news search.

Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros & ConsIn this session youll learn what youll need to do in order to manage a successful in-house SEO program that runs smoothly and successfully.

Local Search Ranking FactorsLocal is different than regular SEO and requires special techniques. This session will cover the factors and criteria you need to know in order to get your clients ranked in Local directories including Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Mobile Lab Primer Go online for details.

1:00PM-2:00PM

Search, PR, & the Social Butterfly Dont miss this opportunity to hear firsthand from online PR/social media pros that bridge the best of both worlds while influencing SEO via Profiles, Fans, Tweets, Friends and Follows.

Stretching Your Marketing Dollars: The Upside of Search Our panel of industry experts will teach you the secrets to maximizing your exposure via organic, paid search and local search without emptying your wallet or cutting sales or leads.

Local Search & Social Media Well sit down with some of thought leaders in this area to drill down on what really is working for small businesses in the universe of social networks.

Video Lab Primer Go online for details.

2:30PM-3:30PM

Keynote Panel Real-Time Story Telling Go online for details.

3:45PM-4:45PM

Paid Search 101 Learn whats available in this session that is especially geared toward beginners, with details on programs from major providers and advice on how to succeed.

B2B Search Marketing Tips This session will focus on PPC and SEO best practicesspecific to B2B search marketers.

Twitter Nation Within the dramatically expanding social network space, Twitter has become everybodys darling ever since major companies like Dell publicized how many millions of dollars they are actually making via this 140-characters-is-enough micro blogging platform. Learn why subtle, suggestive marketing works best on Twitter - and how to automate that effectively, too. Plus, effective strategies to outpace your competitors.

SEW Lab: SEO Lab (2 hours) Go online for details.

5:00PM-6:00PM

How to Become A Link Magnet Find out from a panel of experts how you can have your (metaphorical) 15 minutes of fame, become a link magnet and dominate search engines.

Pushing Content via XML, RSS & Site Maps Learn about the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to search engine optimization.

B2B Lead Generation Management & CRM Integration This session will focus on post-click best practices -- specific to B2B search marketers and/or companies with a complex sales cycle.

6:00PM-7:00PM

Open Mic: SEW Black Hat, White Hat, Unconferenced Go online for details.

DAY 39:30AM-10:30AM

Keynote: Tim Ash. Using the Five Pillars to Build Instant Trust OnlineIn this provocative keynote, SiteTuners CEO and bestselling author of Landing Page Optimization Tim Ash, will show


WORKSHOPS (additional fee will apply, discount may be used)Monday, Aug. 16Bruce Clay SEO TrainingFocusing on white-hat, search engine-compliant SEO methods, this course will help you change your sites while avoiding techniques that will get you in trouble.

Email Marketers Toolkit For SuccessWant to compare your email marketing goals and campaigns with best of breeds in your category and take your programs to the next level?

Friday, Aug. 20Search Analytics TrainingLearn which numbers really matter and how to combine information to answer the questions you have about your website. Learn the basic analytics terms, dispel myths, and understand the concepts of segmentation.

SESSIONSyou how to effectively use the Five Pillars Of Trust and smooth the way to your online conversion goals.

10:45AM-11:45AM

PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle Join us for this no-holds barred session where the SEO proponents square off against the PPC evangelists.

Eye-Tracking Research Update This panel will discuss a neuromarketing study performed by One to One Interactive which analyzed user behavior through physiological, emotional, and qualitative data.

Ad Networks & Exchanges This session will cover the macro-level impact of exchange buying/selling and will include business specific case studies illustrating practical methods to get it right.

SEW Lab: Mobile Lab (2 hours) Go online for details.

12:00PM-1:00PM

Social Media 101This session is designed to guide you through the complex landscape of social media and how it relates to your brand or web property.

Storyteller Marketing: The Art of Storyteller Matches Up With the Business of MarketingGreat search strategies are built around great content; this session will give you the economic and social tools you need to create that framework.

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site IssuesWell examine issues and explore solutions for syndicating content, running mirror sites, and duplicate content.

Enterprise Level SEO This session will include a proven model of organization for your enterprise level SEO campaign as well as a summary of key metrics that you should be measuring to drive ongoing SEO strategy.

2:00PM-3:00PM

Social & the Marketing MixIn this session, youll hear from leading experts wholl help you cut through the hyperbole and create some long lasting, meaningful consumer connections with some useful integrated social media marketing tactics and strategies.

Ads in a Quality Score WorldIn this panel, well take a closer look at quality factors and give tips on increasing the perceived relevancy of your campaigns.

From Real-Time Search to Dynamic Discovery In this session we look at how near real time information is being used to offer a fresh and relevant experience for both music and recruitment.

SEW Lab: Video Lab (2 hours) Go online for details.

3:15PM-4:15PM

Facebook Feeding Frenzy: Targeting Opportunities, Privacy Challenges Facebook and other social

media platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn) offer tremendous new segmentation and ad targeting opportunities to marketers.

Advanced Keyword ResearchThis advanced session will demonstrate how to target the right terms in your paid and organic search marketing, and youll learn where these keywords should be used.

Augmented Reality A New World Order App developers and experts explain how apps hook users, demonstrate their rapid growth trajectory, and explore what might be in store for the future.

4:45PM-5:45PM

The Business Value of Social Media Join us for an illuminating discussion as we move past outdated business models, tackle ROI, and unlock the economic potential of social media.

Digital Marketing & Sports Go online for details.

Advanced Paid Search TacticsThis solo session covers campaign expansion techniques, advanced ad testing, advanced auction theory, the proper use of relevant analytics reports, ideas for bid rules and campaign automation, and more.

Selling Search to the C-Suite This very interactive session will explore how both search and non-search marketing, can educate each other and explore such issues as the nominal percentage of marketing spend that is allocated to search.

Search Analytics Workshop

Attendees will learn a basic overview of the available reports and analysis that can be done in the Google Analytics dashboard. The workshop will then focus on how to create custom reports and displays to track goals.

Keyword Research WorkshopIn this four-hour training session, attendees will explore the tools available for identifying, researching and zeroing in on the right keywords for your SEO, PPC and even social media campaigns. Well walk through the process in theory first and then work on a real-world example that leverages the latest tools available.

EXHIBITORS15miles

7Search.com

Acquisio

AdGooroo

adSage LLC

Advertise.com

Ask Sponsored Listings

Bing

Brafton CustomNews

Bruce Clay Inc.

Business.com

ClearSaleing

ClickEquations

ClickSweeper

Compete

Covario, Inc.

Elsner Technologies Pvt Ltd.

eZanga.com

Findology Interactive Media

Flashecom Inc.

Google

iContact

iCrossing

Inceptor

Indus Net Technologies

iProspect

LinkWorth

Local.com

LookSmart

Marchex

Marin Software

Market Motive

Marketwire, Inc.

Omniture

Onward Search

OrangeSoda

PRWeb

PubCon

Quova, Inc.

Raven Internet Marketing Tools

Reply.com

ROI Revolution

Rosetta

Searchmetrics GmbH

Sedo

SEO, Inc.

SLI Systems

SpyFu

Superpages.com

Textbroker.com

topseos.com

Unica Corporation

Visibility Magazine

Website Magazine

Wiley Publishing

Wpromote Inc.

Yahoo

Yield Software

Get the most updated list online:

SESsanfrancisco.comwww.ConnectedMarketingWeek.comFor more information on partnered events, visit


3 EASY WAYS TO REGISTER:

PRICING

PRICING

Online: ConnectedMarketingWeek.com

SESsanfrancisco.com

Phone: 1-800-955-2719

Mail: Search Engine Strategies 120 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY 10271

Pass Dates Early-Bird Pre-Show On-Site

Partnered Events/Workshops Dates Event Type Early-Bird Rate

Rates Expire Jul 30

Rates Expire Jul 30

Platinum Passport All 3 days $1,695 (Savings of $300) $1,895 (Savings of $100) $1,995

Two-Day Pass Any 2 days $1,195 (Savings of $400) $1,395 (Savings of $200) $1,595

One-Day Pass Any 1 day $845 (Savings of $200) $945 (Savings of $100) $1,045

Expo Only Pass Aug. 17-18 Free In Advance $25

Partnered Training Aug. 16 Full-day $1,245

SEM Training Aug. 20 Full-day $1,395 / half-day $845

BlogWorkZ Aug. 16 Half-day seminar Free. Register today!

EEC: Email Marketer Toolkit Aug. 16 Full-day workshop $895

Bruce Clay SEO Training Aug. 16 Full-day workshop $1,295

SES San Francisco Aug. 17-19 1-3 day conference & expo See rates below

OMS Social Media Day Aug. 17 1-day forum certification $525 / $995

EEC: Email Marketing Day Aug. 18 1-day forum $845

IAB/Ad Exchange Network Aug. 18 1-day forum $795

Conversion Conference Aug. 19 1-day forum $845

140Conf Aug. 19 1-day forum $100

International Day Aug. 20 1-day forum $295

SEM Training Workshop Aug. 20 Full & half-day workshops $1,295 / $795

Rates Expire Aug 16

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iReviewswhere your voice counts.

ClickZ.com/ireviews is where marketers and executives like youcan write product reviews, share experiences,

and build a reputation in the online marketing space.

Ad & Interactive Agencies Ad Networks & Exchanges Ad Technologies Affiliate & Performance MarketingAnalytics & Measurement Associations Content Development and Distribution Content Management Systems

Creative Services & Development Direct Response Services Domain & Hosting E-commerce SolutionsE-mail Solution Providers Emerging Technologies Lead & Demand Solutions Legal Local & MobileMarket Research & Business Intelligence Marketing Automation & CRM Optimization & Targeting

Pay-per-call Solutions Pay-per-click (PPC) Tools Publications Search Engine Marketing (SEM) AgenciesSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools Search Engines & Directories Social Media Applications

Staffing & Job Search Training & Certification Video & Webcasting


FOCUS: social

7 things agencies hate about Facebook social ads By Marc Poirier

Raise your hands if youre playing with Facebook ads, trying to figure out how this can complement your search marketing efforts. OK, dont

really raise your hands, I cant see you from here. But I know that about 92 percent of you had your hand up.

How do I know this? Well, my company recently did an internal survey of all our clients, mostly SEM agencies, and asked them if they do social ads. There were just under 200 respondents, and 92 percent said I do.

We then asked them how much they invest in social ads for their clients. This is where we laughed. While the average agency spends about $75,000 to $100,000 per month on paid search (with wild variations), they spend more like $1,000 or $2,000 per month on Facebook (again, wild variations, but clearly a minuscule fraction of the paid search budget).

Besides the obvious fact that most of us search marketers have yet to truly figure out how to make our clients more money with this thing, and that we all suspect that there is a way to succeed here, Facebook does a number of things wrong, and that prevents SEM agencies from experimenting further and becoming bigger spenders.

These issues are especially irritating to search marketers because search engines

addressed them a long time ago. You would think that the challenger would come ready to take its piece of the pie, but that doesnt seem to be the case.

Here are the seven most annoying things about Facebook social ads, especially if youre an agency trying to bring Facebook ads into your current offering.

BillingWhy would any business want to get a new invoice for every

account, every single day of the month? Please, one summary invoice per month per account.

Lack of a hier-archical structure

Because there is no hierarchy in social ads, its practically impossible to build and efficiently manage highly targeted ads for tens of thousands of segments, like you would for keywords.

No MCC?Agencies have to manage multiple client campaigns. Can

we have one ber login to see everything?

Stats for demographics and psychographicsThe stats in Facebook are disap-

pointing. Why cant we see which segment generates the best ROI?

Daily spend limitsThis has got to be one of the most annoying things in any ad network ever. Whats with

the elf that decides how much money youre

allowed to spend on any given day? Are you joking? I want to give you $20,000 today, not $50.

Conversion tracking & impressionsThe newly released Facebook conversion tracking code is a

huge relief. It also takes liberties that will go right over many peoples heads, giving ad impressions credit for conversions. There is no attribution model in place to give them some credit. If there is a conversion, and an ad was displayed on some page, then that ad impression takes credit for the conversion. Hmmmm...

Conversion tracking: Inside FacebookLast but not least, it looks like

marketing on Facebook social ads is all about getting fans (or likes? not sure what they call these anymore). If thats true, then why is it that Facebook social ads will not report on Facebook actions, such as new fans, or RSVPs?

Why isnt Facebook better equipped to help agencies address all these issues? Maybe they have focused on brand advertis-ers and brand agencies, and not so much on direct marketers (search nerds) like us. Or perhaps they tried to be a little too different?

Who knows. One thing is for sure: Face-book needs to show search marketers the money, because right now most of us cant find it. But were not giving up just yet.

Marc Poirier is a search engine marketing expert with more than a decade of experience. He is co-founder and CMO of Acquisio, where he leads all marketing ac-tivities. Previously, he was founder and president at Canalytics, a boutique SEM and SEO agency.

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Want to learn more?Marc will be speaking at the Search: Whereto Next? session at SES San Francisco, on Tuesday,Aug. 17. For more information, visit


Some of Facebooks issues irritate search

marketers because the engines addressed them

a long time ago.


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FOCUS: best practices

Duplicate content is one of the most discussed, blogged, and talked about SEO topics well, after link build-ing, of course. Based on

Googles webmaster guidelines, Dupli-cate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or is appreciably similar. Most of the time when we see this, its unintentional or at least not malicious in origin.

What exactly do substantive and appreciably similar mean? In my view, two pages can be termed duplicate if 30 percent or more of the page elements title, URL, content are similar to each other. For example, in the news/blog world, articles are often syndicated across numer-ous websites.

Two types of duplicate content exist: within a domain and cross-domain.

Within a domainThis kind of duplicate content arises

within the same site or domain. The most common example is a scenario like abc.com, where http://abc.com, http://www.abc.com/index.html, and http://www.abc.com all point to the same page. The solu-tion here is simple: 301 redirect http://abc.com and http://www.abc.com/index.html to http://www.abc.com.

Duplicate content issues can also arise when the crawler can get to the same piece of content through two or more different paths. Example: shopzilla.com/digital-cameras/402/canon/259-43010/prod-ucts and shopzilla.com/digital-cameras/canon+digital+cameras/402/products are very similar. In such cases, Google picks one and discards the other. If you have tons of these types of instances on your site, I suggest using a canonical tag pick a URL

thats already indexed by Google or is more relevant to users, and have the second URL point to the primary using the canonical tag. This will help in two ways:

Search engines will know your preferred version and will pick that.

Search engines will pass link juice from one version to another, thus boosting the link juice of your preferred page.

Cross-domainHere are a few common scenarios where

duplicate content arises between domains.Content syndications: This usually

happens when one domain syndicates its content to another domain. The example below shows CNETs content syndicated on nytimes.com.

According to Google, If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version youd prefer.

In most instances, most appropriate for users corresponds to greater page author-ity. In this case, CNET shows up in No. 2 spot for the query Canon PowerShot S90, while nytimes.com is on page three of the results.

Affiliates and co-brands: Both affili-ate and co-brand deals result in dupli-cate content issues if not done correctly. Although co-brand deals are generally a thing of the past, they do still occur. From

an SEO perspective, I would stay very far away from co-brand deals, because they inevitably result in one of the sites being

completely removed from the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Here are some things to keep in mind when syndicating

your content or starting an affiliate program. Have the site on which your content is syndicated link back to you.

Ask the website syndicating your content to add a no index tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content. If you can swing this, you should probably be in business development or sales!

Keep the syndicated feed different from the content thats on your site. One way of doing this is to not syndicate all of the content, or have the affiliate site display results in a different order.

Ensure that the key SEO elements like URL structure and title and meta tags are different between your site and the affiliate.

However, if you do find that your content is being copied and this is resulting in the scrapers ranking ahead of you, you can file a DMCA with Google (google.com/dmca.html), Bing (microsoft.com/info/cpyrtInfrg.htm), and Yahoo (http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html).

Removing duplicate content from your own domain is easy, so complete that as soon as you can. Duplicate content across domains is a totally different beast, but if you play by the rules, in most cases, you should be able to tame this beast.

Prashant Puri is head of global SEO for Shopping.com (an eBay Inc Company). He is responsible for SEO for sites that run across five countries. He has more than eight years of online marketing experience, including stints at Yahoo and AT&T. Hes built nu-

merous sites into multi-million unique visitor sites through a combination of SEO and SEM.

Duplicate content: The what, why, and howBy Prashant Puri

Want to learn more?Prashant will be speaking at the BringingSEO In-House: The Pros and Cons session atSES San Francisco on Aug. 18. For more information:


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FOCUS: international

Making sense of global search: Target via country, not language By Michael Bonfils

The most common mistake when companies decide to launch a multilingual and international search campaign is focusing on language rather than country.

There are obvious benefits and challenges to both strategies, but before you commence your program, know exactly what youre getting into. Its much more difficult to re-engineer your site later, so get it right in the beginning.

benefits of targeting by languageSave on costs such as hosting and TLDs

Since you are not specifically targeting one nation, hosting in target countries is not as crucial, and it should save you some money. Besides hosting, having specific TLDs, re-engineering your site, and hiring a language SEO and content specialists can get very expensive. Targeting by a few languages, especially if they cover a lot of territory and population, is not nearly as expensive.

Multi-cultural by natureLanguage is one of the biggest parts of a

culture. Multi-cultural advertising not only touches those outside of North America, but internally as well. A multicultural Span-ish campaign, targeting U.S. Hispanics, for example, can easily be converted to cover almost all of Latin America.

Drawbacks of targeting by language

These certainly outweigh the benefits:

Issues with SEOIts not impossible to rank when you are

just targeting by language, but search algo-rithms are typically built around the local-ity of countries they are in, rather than languages. If they werent, while in Los

Angeles, you might find your local dry cleaners in Australia.

Linguistically wrongDialects and spelling are typically dissim-

ilar across different countries that share the same language. In many cases, phrases and certain names can be taken the wrong way. The well-known story of Chevy Nova is one of those cases, where No va in Span-ish means no go it affected only some countries that spoke Spanish, not all of them.

benefits of targeting by countryTargeting your campaign via country will

likely provide you with more value. Some areas of success include:

Succeed with your SEOMany SEO best practices exist in each

specific country, and following Googles rules in general works just about every-where. However, there are huge benefits to be gained with SEO targeting to a country. In-country hosting and having a specific TLD are two of those ranking benefits that could be easily employed. Addition-ally, keyword targeting in the country you chose now competes with fewer pages, thus making it much easier to rank well.

Developing the trust factorI feel that the trust factor is by far the

most important factor when choosing to target via language or country. Being local and/or coming across as local as possible is going to win more business than being multinational, unless you represent a huge, well-known global brand like eBay (who, by the way, also employs local strategies). When you give the user the sense that you understand them and that you are local to them, it develops trust and trust is the goal of all marketers.

Drawbacks of targeting by countryIf youre not careful, there can be disad-

vantages to targeting a specific country:

Content duplicationAccording to Google, it is not a penalty

for having the same content from one site to the next; however, not getting ranked is the risk. I have seen many .com sites (U.S. versions) rank better than their .co.uk (U.K. versions) counterparts when targeting the U.K. Often the result is less conversions

and some British guy laughing at your use of the English language and misspellings. There are ways to get around it, though, like re-writing the duplicated content, specifying language in Googles webmaster tools, and fixing links.

ExpensiveDid I just say re-writing all of your

content as one of the previous challenges? Yes, not only re-writing them, but hiring a content specialist from your target country can get expensive. And thats not talking about other languages either for exam-ple, Brazilian Portuguese is different from European Portuguese, plus youd need two hosting boxes in each country, independent TLDs, and different SEO strategies around each marketplace. Starting from the ground up in each country is a lot of work. Make sure you do solid research prior to enter-ing your choice markets, and keep in mind: Sometimes the differences between two nations and languages are close enough that you dont have to worry.

Targeting by language in my experience can work well when you want to just provide users with the ability to understand the content on your site in a different language. It can be easily employed with the use of a paid search campaign and is a cheap alterna-tive if serious cross-border marketing is not the main objective.

Although, if your goal is a successful SEO or PPC strategy, targeting by coun-

try does have more benefits then targeting by language. Target-ing by country is true localization, compe-tition is reduced and

crucial trust is gained. Yes, it will cost you a lot more in the short term, but in the long term, you may just win a market that thinks your brand is a local competitor.

Michael Bonfils is the international managing director of SEM Inter-national, specializing in providing international-multilingual search engine marketing management services for global advertising agencies, search engine mar-keting, and Fortune 1000 firms.

Michael is a contributor to national publications and events such as Search Engine Watch, Witi, and Web-masterworlds Pubcon. Previously, he founded a con-textual/behavioral advertising agency, which he sold in 2004. He sits on the board of directors for many organizations, including the TechBiz Connection.

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FOCUS: content management

10 reasons why Drupal is the best CMS for SEOBy Ben Finklea

Your website is the front door to your business it provides a first impression of the organization, gener-ates leads, and propagates

your brand message. However, looking pretty will not get you to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Thats why we all use search engine optimization (SEO), which, for todays complex content sites, is very different from the HTML of yesteryear.

Drupal, the open source content manage-ment system (CMS) that runs WhiteHouse.gov, MTV Europe, and The Economist, is a very powerful system that can be used for large, complex sites, and its the best plat-form that exists today for SEO. Ive seen clients triple their traf-fic within a few weeks of switching from a lesser platform. Drupals built-in tools for automating SEO on massive amounts of content, along with granular control that gives you absolute power over every single site element, put it head and shoul-ders above the rest, including Joomla and WordPress. Additionally, Drupal is the most scalable, configurable system, and major improvements in usability will soon

shorten the learning curve for new users and developers.

Heres why Drupal is the best:

Search engine-optimized URLsUnlike WordPress, Drupal gives you complete control over URL structure. Each item of content

created in Drupal (called a node) can be given a custom URL, called a URL alias. You can even set it to automatically gener-ate user- and search engine-friendly URLs

based on content type (blog post, page, user), title of the post, keyword, date, time, or any other infor-mation related to the node. In WordPress, you are generally limited to one type

of permalink URL for all posts. You can override it, but its much less specific than Drupals URL aliases. For years, Joomla was lacking in search engine-friendly URLs and the ability to fix them. It now offers a built-in search engine-friendly func-tionality, but it lacks the functionality and control over the URLs parameters.

Custom content types & viewsWithout having to write any code, you can use the content construction kit (CCK) and

view modules to create new content types and create advanced custom views for those types. Common examples include news stories, blog posts, albums, books, and tutorials, all of which can be created and

displayed in a variety of ways. While most content management systems require addi-tional written code for creating these types, no programming knowledge is required to do them in Dr

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