You're Mobile Impaired But Dont Have To Sit The Bench!

You're a busy Ecommerce manager, you're fully aware that mobile is important.  You have watched intently as mobile evolved over the last five years. Now without doing anything you are making sales via mobile devices despite your ignoring the calls to create a mobile site.

You don't have the development bandwidth at the moment to focus on building a mobile optimized site.  There are scores of new SAS model companies waiting in the wings to help you for prices ranging from $500-$10,000 a month.  You're more than aware of what needs to be done to take advantage of this new medium. 

Knowing that a project like this could take between 3-6 months based upon your corporate decision making tree, meetings, committees, and finally implementation frustrates you. You decide to look for opportunities NOW.  The mobile site will come in the future but until its up, are you leaving money on the table?

Forgive my sports analogy but, "Don't Sit The Bench" while the market competitors enjoy scores of valuable visitors.

A quick cruise through one's Google Analytics under Visitors> Mobile> Mobile Devices delievers all the data to move forward.  This view will yield the analytics data around the mobile devices visiting your site, and how they are interacting with it.  Typically most profiles will show Android, Iphone, Ipad, & Ipod making up the bulk of the devices visiting your site.

Here is where the analysis, strategy, & execution comes into play:

Review your mobile visitors for anomalies.  Evaluate these four devices, how does their behavior compare to a normal desktop visitor?  Are the stats similar, better, or worse?  Do all four devices show similar statistics?  Apply the Ecommerce option in Analytics to these devices to determine how they stack up against a traditional visitors revenue potential?  Does the conversion rate and average order fall in line with your goals for a traditional visitor?

In our hypothetical situation lets assume that Ipad & Android users seem to have an acceptable experience/conversion rate on your website.  These mobile visitors site usage mimics average desktop visitors, the mobile devices purchase at the same rate. Time to drive more of that converting traffic and quit leaving cash on the table!

Google Adwords lets you choose the devices you want to target.  In our example we know that with our current metrics around Ipad & Android we want as much traffic from those devices as possible.  Thankfully we can take a phased approach at marketing to mobile.  Select your best campaigns in Adwords and create new mobile campaigns focused around those keyword themes, keeping in mind the nature of shorter search queries on mobile devices.

You could take the lazy approach and just turn these devices loose on your existing campaigns, but suffice it to say, it is not recommended.   Once you have your new mobile campaigns created specify the devices you want to target.  Time to sit back and collect data.

Adwords allows you to collect data quickly especially when you are testing your best performing campaigns through the new medium.  Monitor them closely for conversion rate & user behavior tendencies.  This new source of traffic should be meeting or exceeding the original mobile device visitor data used to drive this project.  Keeping a watchful eye will mitigate surprises and cost overages. 

Marketers have a very real opportunity to affect a meaningful change on their day to day revenue by leveraging the data at their finger tips.  The new Mobile site project will come soon enough and increase the rewards of the effort you have just undertaken.  There is no debate that mobile is a very REAL part of today's marketing landscape and that it will only continue to become a larger component of the space search marketers operate in. 

A Mobile Contingency Plan:

Lets say as a search marketer you have reviewed your data and it shows mobile visitors are incapable of using your existing website.  You might feel that you are at the mercy of your mobile deficiency.  Fear Not Good Citizen! 

Google allows you to run mobile campaigns that display only a contact phone number for your mobile search ads, called Click to Call set to Call-only.  Perspective customers will see your ad among their search results with a Click to Call option applied allowing them to ring your phone room where a sales person can complete the consultation or sale.  With the stellar close rates through phone rooms in some industries it makes this option a veritable "no brainer". 

Check out this link from Google explaining the option further: http://www.google.com/ads/mobile/advertisers/adformats/ctc.html

Remember:  This strategy is a patch, a band-aid, and essentially still leaving opportunity on the table.  Failing to complete your mobile site and embracing mobile best practices means you're not only falling behind the pack but leaving the bulk of the opportunity mobile presents on the table. 

This strategy however will allow you to gain incremental income over your current mobile position.  Finding and capitalizing on opportunity is the mark of a good search marketer, why should mobile be treated any differently?  Find the mobile opportunities that you as a search marketer can execute without development assistance & with a small amount of sweat equity.  Reap the rewards & continue to drive your organization toward Mobile best practices.


Tyler Young

Search Marketing Manager
StreetSideAuto.com

Social Network Wars: How The Five Major Platforms Stack Up [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social Network Wars: How The Five Major Platforms Stack Up [INFOGRAPHIC]

Want to see how your favorite social network is stacking up to the new Google +1? When you review the features list I think it will become apparent why Google +1 is my new social network of choice! This graphic is a great easy to consume illustration of what makes a good social network great.

Tyler Young

Search Marketing Manager
StreetSideAuto.com

Getting Off The X, Your Worst Enemy In Search Is Your Own Inaction

I didn't want this post to turn into just another seize the day post.   I refuse to attempt to inspire you to action using over cited quotes from authors far smarter and more popular than I.  Quotes such as"There is no time like  now", "Why put off till tomorrow that which you could accomplish today", or “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” These quotes, while sound, don't inspire the urgency needed to inspire real action.

Anyone who knows me, knows about my history in tactics and close quarters combat.  While my passion falls in both tactics and search marketing some of the concepts are applicable to both.  There is a concept in the warriors world called "Getting Off The X".  I found a post from a trainer by the name of Tom Perroni whose description of the concept I found concise and to the point.

The “X” is the area where you are currently standing, sitting, walking, or working. The thought process is that the bad guy is focused in on you and begins the attack (or action) he is in his own OODA loop and is fixated on you with blinding tunnel vision and adrenalin.

Once your OODA loop begins (or reaction) you Observe the threat, you Orient to the threat, you make a Decision and then Act. By stepping laterally to the left or the right. You have moved of the X and out of the blinding tunnel vision and adrenalin of the bad guy, this causes your attacker to have to re-adjust to you and the thought process is now you have gotten inside of the bad guys OODA loop. More importantly remember it is much harder to hit a moving target then one that stands still.

We have all been guilty at one point or another of not getting of the X.  Whether its been by passively letting changes in search affect our websites and not reacting to over come those changes, or its the project discussed around the board room for six months that no one wants to take the lead on.  Its easier to talk about projects than it is to take the first step in bring them to fruition.  The danger in this equation is our own inaction, our X is where we find ourselves when we discover a problem/opportunity.

When the officers & soldiers who keep us safe day after day find themselves facing a threat they 1. Observe what the threat is 2. Orient themselves by deciding how close the threat is and how quickly they must react. 3. Decide what action to take 4. Act to avoid certain danger.  Every human cognitively goes through this process regardless of how simple/mundane or complex/perilous the problem might be.  

Search marketers can execute 1-3 easily, but because certain danger may not lie in wait for us the same way it does for a soldier, Acting, may be delayed.  Days turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into quarters.  "We will do it later" is where good ideas go to die. 

I am constantly amazed how quickly projects move once they move off the X.  Every project starts when: the first project spec is written, the first meeting happens between designers and developers, or the simple act of picking up the phone to get the parties together that can affect change.  My Director once equated my job to that of a an Orchestra Conductor.  The moving pieces must move in harmony to make a pleasing melody. Disharmony of those piece equates to a project that is the musical equivalent of an ear piercing 5th grade band performance of Green Sleeves & Hot Cross Buns.  If you were a band geek you will certainly get that humor.

Getting of the X was meant to help warriors avoid death and harm by violently embracing action.  Search Marketers must embrace getting off the X, to avoid the harm that can come to your site, your revenue, and your career by not taking action.  Maybe your failed action is not responding to a threat your site is experiencing, its also possible its just an opportunity you need to capitalize on.  Foregoing action on that opportunity causes harm by foregoing the benefit of new traffic, conversion rate increases, and incremental revenue. 

When you pick up your coffee cup in the morning.  Remember to pick up your most important opportunity and choose to GET OFF THE X.


Tyler Young


Search Marketing Manager
StreetSideAuto.com

You made all the big changes now its time to reap the SEO harvest.......

Lets assume as a SEO that you have done all the right things.  The stars are aligned in your little web universe.

-Your IA and url structure is perfect
-You have beautifully sculpted pages optimized with the right amount of links per page to only the most relevant items
-You have declared a scorched earth policy on duplicate content and rel= canonical all that remains
-Your have your xml site map squared away
-Your title tags and meta data are text book perfect
-Your indexation is excellent
-You have amazing unique content on all of your pages, optimized to provide value, not just to have content for the sake of content
-You have distributed valuable articles, bloggers and the web community at large have given you "Link Love"
-You have proactively sought out sites with relevant interest and they have graciously linked to your site because of its amazing value to the community
-You have a booming social profile with user generated reviews/comments, social networking mentions, shares, likes, +1s
-Users find your site and bounce at an extremely low rate, your time on site, pages visited, and user engagement are the "bees knees"

Yes your SEO world is humming right along, your SERPs are great and life couldn't be grander.  We should all be so lucky as you.  The next quarter is coming up and your expected to show growth but you dont have any easy cards in your deck.  By focusing on the minutia within search you still have an opportunity for seo growth by increasing your visibility.  This article written by SEObook.com features some excellent tips on how to use your current positions to leverage more traffic.  While I dont recommend ASCII art as a method for increasing search visibility it illustrates how some SEOs have found creative ways to leverage more traffic from their current positions.

http://www.seobook.com/how-super-size-your-listings-google

Confirmation of Expectations Is Always a "Nice to Have"

I had always assumed this was a given but +Rand Fishkin conducted an experiment to see if the concept actually held water. The concept is logical, if more people in a period of time are finding a website valuable based upon ctrs that surpass average CTRs of that poistion then elevate the statistical outlying result higher in the SERPs because it has shown signals that it fulfills the users search query over the positions above it. Its amazing how logical it really is. If that CTR demand drops or search demand drops then reevaluate the position. If Google's product that it delivers to the market is quality search results, I think this concept makes perfect sense. When the users tell you something is valuable elevate it..... 

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/experiment-google-rankings-w-search-volume