Choosing the Best Internet Marketing Company

Posted by doneil at 14:16 pm | Filed In Search Engine Marketing

Jul

24

Seth Godin wrote a great article bemoaning the shortage in Search Engine Marketing of podiatrists–i.e., targeted, inexpensive, efficient specialists as opposed to dramatic and overly complex generalists (”Doctors” in his example). He observes that there are people who already know how to be “podiatrists”, but wonders if any of them are trying to market themselves as such. Funny he should mention that!

Firms with these skills exist in droves, but in our experience it’s hard to convince people to use them. We think it’s because Search Engine Marketing is still an unknown, and, for most people, an unproven practice, especially when the primary indicator of success–”Black Box” search engine algorithms–change monthly or even weekly.

So how is a consumer supposed to choose a good Search Engine Marketing company? Interview them! This is what we’d look for in a company. It should:

  • be client and results focused. Fairly early in the discussion, a good Internet Marketing company should be able to describe how Internet Marketing will apply to your business model.
  • place an emphasis on metrics. Internet Marketing is a moving target. Work with firms that emphasize how they will test assumptions and how they rely on published research to drive their processes. Read their blog to see how they think about this aspect of their work.
  • show humility about their work. Work with firms that are willing to learn from their mistakes. There’s no such thing as a perfect Internet Marketing engagement.
  • explain things simply. The fundamental concepts of internet marketing are simple; it’s the details that are hairy. An Internet Marketing firm that can simply describe its vision will be better at getting those details right in a way that works for you.
  • enjoy client loyalty. Although not all engagements are long-term, successful Internet Marketing Companies have strong, long-term engagements with a large portion of the people in their portfolio because they know how to identify needs and execute. Ask the firm flat-out: for long-term engagements, how many companies decide to renew their contract with you?
  • be certified either in an analytics tool or a Paid Search tool. Or both. Why? Because companies that can take the time to get their people certified are committed to training and professional development. Better trained people provide better service.

SEO consultant has some good questions to ask that can elicit this information. We like this overview as well, although it may be too in-depth and dependent on documentation, which isn’t a strong indication of effectiveness. Still, these questions are good start. Good luck!

Information Visualization: Defining Audience

Posted by jhullman at 10:35 am | Filed In Info Visualization

Jul

23

What can we learn from “An Inconvenient Truth” about how to tell a
complicated story with a chart or graph? Well, that it’s often a very difficult task.

A recent post addressed some basic guidelines common to information visualization design and evaluations. I’d now like to bring up a question related to both these tasks - what effect does type of audience have on these guidelines? Often, information visualization books, such as Card’s excellent Using Vision to Think, which covers numerous aspects of data viz, do not give much treatment to questions of the designated perceiver. On a general level, it may seem obvious - a visualization targeting clients should be simpler to process than one designed for analysts who have more time to spend visually exploring the data. But this doesn’t do justice to some of the finer target audience-based distinctions, which can lead to debates over guidelines and best practices if unmentioned.

In checking around for online discussions around this, while there are plenty of blogs devoted to info viz, I found that most (like information aesthetics, or meryl’s) seem to focus primarily on supplying a survey of novel and interesting visualizations, without going too far into evaluating them empirically, or considering the design process.

One online resource that did touch on this aspect of design is The Adobe Design Center Think Tank’s article on
the controversial visualization of the temp/carbon monoxide relationship in Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”:

Relationship between temp/carbon monoxide over 1000 yrs.
Global Warming?

The controversy was around labeling of the y-axis, and that a perceiver can’t tell whether warmer temperatures precede or follow the rises in levels of carbon dioxide. According the graph’s designers Duarte Design (who helped create all the graphs in the movie, but failed to comment on this particular design), “In general, you want to keep the visuals minimal and eliminate background noise to emphasize your point.” The Adobe article goes on to point out that “dumbing down” or simplifying the graphics can make your audience unlikely to agree with the pattern you’re trying to enforce through the graph, citing Edward Tufte’s famous observation that less is often just less when it comes to visualizing information, as it sacrifices nuance and thus credibility. Isn’t science “complicated”?, people tend to think, and its difficult to convince them otherwise.

Adobe ends the article with a reference to how combined narrative / visulalizations are becoming “the most common way of presenting information for businesses, academics, and the military.” To be effective, dramatic results must be carefully introduced; the realization must be gradual to make the visualization seem accurate and believable.

To me, this begins to touch on some features that can distinguish visualizations designed for those familiar with a topic but not immersed in the data, such as clients coming to a company with an analysis need, versus those geared toward the analysts themselves.

Its a somewhat debatable issue, in my opinion. I’ve met people (including a company I designed a viz for) that ultimately decided if they were to put a visualization in front of clients, it had to be simplistic. Myself (perhaps as an analyst?) am not satisfied with overly-simplistic graphs in any context; its the data that interests me.

I thought it would be a fun exercise to try and categorize real distinguishing features of viz’s for each audience type, and some that are shared:

Client Audience

  • prettier - (custom color schemes?)
  • make use of convention as a default
  • metaphors/branding interwoven in design
  • delivered in narrative context

Analyst Audience

  • multiple views
  • access to info on data mapping
  • interactivity
  • access to much granularity

Shared Characteristics

  • maximize automatic processing
  • use easily distinguishable colors - (beward of red/green color blindness, which is relatively common)
  • minimize use of text by default

OS X Software Update Gives You Only Inconvenient Choices

Posted by Mike Beasley at 9:00 am | Filed In Usability

Jul

21

Pure Visibility is an Apple shop. When I came to Pure Visibility and got my MacBook, it was the first time that I had worked with a Mac all day long, every day. It took a while to get used to this new environment and separate the aspects of OS X that I didn’t like from the aspects that were simply different than what I was used to.

I’ve now been here for a while. There seem to be some great things about OS X, some things that are arbitrarily different, and there are some areas where there is room for improvements in usability. In writing about them, I’m not trying to assert the superiority of one operating system over another. Rather, I take the position that there’s always room for improvement.

My newly installed OS X came configured to look for software updates on a weekly basis. That’s no problem. The problem is in the Software Update application’s main screen.

Software Update for OS X
Software Update for OS X

Every Thursday morning, I get into the office and start up my computer. Not too long after I’ve started checking email and looking through my calendar and getting started on the day’s work, this window pops open telling me what software updates are available. Fair enough. However, the only option it gives me is to install the update right there on the spot. That would be fine, except that just about every week, there is a software update that requires restarting the computer.

So, every Thursday, not too long after I’ve started working, Software Update asks me if I’d like to drop everything I’m doing and restart the computer.

Of course, I can just ignore Software Update until it is convenient for me to restart. It could happen, but pretty often, I spend my day at work actually working. Or I’ll have something that I’m working on that I want to leave open if I take a break.

Instead, I can wait until the end of the day and install the software updates. Assuming I remember to do it - it is apparently possible to shut off the computer without installing those updates or Software Update asking you if you’d still like to install the updates. If I do remember to install them, then I’m stuck waiting for the computer to finish restarting before I can shut it down and leave. There doesn’t seem to be any way to just have the computer install the updates and shut down rather than restart.

Alternatively, I can close the window or quit Software Update, and then run it again later or wait until next week. The problem there is that I have to either run it again later or wait until next week. Updating software doesn’t correspond to any of my goals. Why should I have to remember to run Software Update again later when it is solely for the benefit of the computer? If I leave it until the following week, then I’m just back in the same situation again on Thursday morning.

So what would I do to improve this? How about one more button: “Install these updates when I shut down the computer.” Software Update then goes away, and then next time you shut down the computer, it takes that little bit of extra time to install the updates. It could even do it the next time you restart, too, in case you happen to do that first.

That way, you can have it whichever way you like it: If you enjoy dropping whatever you’re doing and rebooting, you can install the updates immediately. If you enjoy working for the computer rather than having the computer work for you, you can just close Software Update and manually start it whenever you choose. If you want to get the software updates but want to keep working, then you have the option to unobtrusively slip them in when in works for you.

Naturally, after writing this post, the next time I shut down my computer, OS X flashed a dialog informing me that it was installing some updates just before the computer finished shutting off. I have no idea how I got that to happen, and my search for information online has turned up nothing. Given that I can’t figure out how to get it to happen again, I think this post still stands.

Very Happy Birthdays at Pure Visibility!

Posted by linda girard at 10:47 am | Filed In Pure Visibility

Jul

18

We love cake! Every month we have a birthday or two and we celebrate with a gathering around the “cake”. The cake will come in various shapes and sizes, but this month is extra special for a few reasons.

Jason Young, Daniel O\'Neil, Dunrie Greiling
Happy Birthday Jason, Daniel & Dunrie!

Yesterday, we celebrated some very special birthdays: Jason Young (our Information Superhighway Tour Guide), Daniel O’Neil (our Alchemist), and Dunrie Greiling (our Director of Happiness).

So of course we would need a very special cake for these very special team members! Only the best will do, after all, Jason is a foodie, Dunrie is an exquisite baker, and Daniel…well he loves his cake!

Chocolate Raspberry Birthday Cake from Jefferson Market and Cakery
Amazing Birthday Cake!

This chocolate raspberry cake with white frosting (design based on a Google search listing) was amazing and who knew that Ann Arbor’s very own Jefferson Market made these delicious birthday cakes! Well of course Jessica Hullman (our Analytics Muse) did - thank you for enlightening us Jessica!

And Happy Birthday Jason, Daniel and Dunrie!!!

Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets

Posted by admin at 9:30 am | Filed In AdWords, PPC, Pure Visibility

Jul

17

WSO Book CoverAt long last we are thrilled to announce the release of O’Reilly Media’s Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine and Conversion Rate Secrets. This book details search engine marketing best practices: showing readers how to optimize their conversion rates and performance tune their websites to boost the return on any Web site investment.

This is the second edition of a book written by Ann Arbor, MI website optimization guru Andy King. In this edition, Andy tapped us to contribute two chapters: Chapter 3 - Pay Per Click Optimization and Chapter 4 - PPC Case Study featuring our work for Body Glove Mobile Accessories Group.

Our Pure Visibility team learned a lot throughout the course of writing these chapters, personally, I was amazed at how much hard work and revisions go into putting out a finished bound copy. The hard work was worth it and I’ve never seen a book with such an in depth and thorough analysis of PPC marketing. We are confident that if you have an interest in Pay Per Click Optimization or Website Optimization you will learn a ton from this book.

Commoditizing Relevance: Can Yahoo! create the next wave in Search?

Posted by doneil at 13:20 pm | Filed In ASK, Search Engine Marketing

Jul

16

Recently the New York Times published an article about Yahoo!’s attempt to bootstrap the next generation of search by opening their search platform to start-up partners. Yahoo!’s revenue gain from this approach, at least short-term, is probably not going to be significant. But it does suggest a potential threat to Google’s dominance. Why? Simply put, Yahoo! is trying commoditize Google’s secret weapon, “relevance”, which would open the way for the next innovation in search.

Relevance has been the key innovation in online search since about 2005, but it’s not the first innovation, and Yahoo! is banking on the reasonable assumption that it won’t be the last. The state of the art in search has moved through a series of innovations, each of which created a top competitor. These were, in rough order,

Directories like Galaxy, where content was managed and organized largely by humans,

Content-Rich Search engines like Alta Vista, which provided enormous amounts of information without the kind of rigorous relevance we expect today,

Portal-based search engines like Yahoo!, where the engine was part of a community, and

Relevance-based search engines, which has been the core of Google’s brand from its inception.

With each generation the previous innovation generally became a commoditized feature of a new product: something that people expected, rather than something that differentiated the product from other products.

So can Yahoo! commoditize relevance? It depends on whether or not relevance is truly ready to become a standard feature of search. If it’s not ready, then new services won’t satisfy a key need and won’t be used. Ask.com, for example, had an innovative interface that emphasized usability, but its searches lacked relevance. As a result people never adopted the engine, but opted to stay instead with Google and Yahoo!, both of which provide excellent relevance in searches.

Still, if Yahoo! can succeed in providing its relevance engine as a feeder for companies that are providing additional value ON TOP OF their relevance engine, they could create a new revolution in search by giving developers a demanded and key feature that will be added to some new search innovation.

That could, yet again, change everything.

Visualization Considerations

Posted by jhullman at 16:35 pm | Filed In Info Visualization

Jul

15

Information visualization has become a big part of web analytics, with Google Analytics leading the pack when it comes to visualizing user interactions with a site, and a few new tools for social media analysis touting visualization capabilities as reasons to invest. With newer technologies making it easier than ever to create visualizations, as well as allowing more visually-engaging options than ever before as 3D becomes easier to process, a post on some of the basic guidelines that can be used when judging the effectiveness of a visualization seemed worthwhile.

Let’s start with an example. Below are two visualizations of a wave form from Stuart Card’s Using Vision to Think”:

wave form

Clearly, the bottom graphic is more effective. But why?

One of the fundamental requirements in information visualization concerns use of basic human perceptive abilities. Ideally, a visualization allows for fast interpretation by making use of automatic processing, the kind that allows forms to pop-out without any conscious attempt. Is how well a graph does this subjective to judge? To some degree, perhaps, but just as usability standards exist, so do general guidelines for designing graphs.

Now, for an example closer to SEM, here’s the map portion of the Map Overlay report in Google Analytics:

Map Overlay

I am actually not a huge fan of this graph, though most GA graphs are fairly intuitive. Ideally, a visualization should convey distinction well without cognitive overload, even between similar values. Otherwise, we could just use tables for everything. In the map, by using a gradient, the colors on the left side of the scale appear more or less the same. When I see most of the map appearing the same color, one hardly discernible from the background, my first assumption is that these countries aren’t bringing any traffic, or are bringing maybe 1-5 people (based on the scale in the lower left). In actuality, several are bringing web traffic in the hundreds. The graph gives the impression of a pattern, as it should, but the error in the judgment it encourages is worth considering. As a fan of visualizations, rather than tables, I’d rather the surprise came from the former, but with this graph I need the table to get a real sense of the data.

Here’s another map example, Mark Newman (of UM)’s well-known graph of US Election Results in the 2006 Congressional Election:

2006 US Dem vs Rep Election Results

I like how the borders are de-prioritized in favor of giving the viewer a better sense of the distribution of democrats and republicans, but the state outlines allow one to still note what state.

An easy evaluation measure is to consider whether the mapping of the data to the visualizing structure is expressive, meaning it represents all and only the data in the source table. The classic example of a violation is a bar graph being used to graph two non-ordinal variables (like countries versus food exports).

A final major consideration usually concerns “focus + context”, a term used often in HCI and interface design, referring to providing both the big picture and the detailed view. Zoom is a classic distortion example that demonstrates focus + context when done right. The best visualizations are those like the zoom capabilities of Google Maps, where details don’t come at the expense of the bigger picture:

Google Maps

What does your blog’s word cloud say about you?

Posted by dgreiling at 14:05 pm | Filed In Pure Visibility

Jul

11

So, there’s a joke around the office that besides a few obvious stand-outs (our co-founder Linda Girard is one), that we’re a kind of odd bunch here at Pure Visibility. We’ve used the phrase “nerds with social skills” to describe the mix on our team (often in the same person) of hard nosed data analysis and more qualitative business analysis skills.

As we work for our clients, whether we’re improving the visibility of their site through search engine optimization and AdWords, Yahoo, and MSN PPC management or improving their site’s performance through tuning its usability, we use a combination of hard skills (let the numbers speak for themselves, prove it to me) and soft skills (listening to our clients, listening to our clients’ customers). I think the word cloud for our blog proves it. Because we’ve got a nice mix of technology and domain terms (”website” “salesforce” “online” “bounce” “AdWords” “domain”) as well as analytical terms (”know” “measure”) we’ve got “people” as big as any of them.

Wordcloud from the Pure Visibility blog

We believe the people are what should drive the technology, rather than the reverse. What does your blog’s word cloud say about you? Find out at Wordle.net.

Top Level Domain Name Auctions

Posted by jhullman at 14:10 pm | Filed In Search Engine Marketing

Jul

9

Domain names, as regulated as they are, are a concept racked with ambiguity and ethical considerations. There are those sickened by the fact that they can be bought cheap and re-sold (most notably for 7.5 Million, as in business.com). There are idealists who cling to the belief that the internet in reality should adhere to the principles with which the DNS was created. For instance, the generic top level domain name .com should really apply only to company sites, and not be taken as the obligatory suffix. (Its difficult to see this battle as anything but futile).

Luckily, some new domain name issues have surfaced to distract us with drama on what may be a larger scale. Earlier this summer, it was announced that the ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is the organization that controls the creation and administration of generic top level domain names (.edu, .org, .com, as well as country codes like .uk), approved a relaxation to the current rules that takes major steps toward making it possible for companies to buy top level domain names. Rumor has it that testing has already begun. So, Google could buy .google (or .goog!), a porn site could finally get their .xxx, and an internet marketing company .seo, if they so desire.

With some exceptions, that is. The major one is, not surprisingly, $$$. The concept of the “yet-unpoached” domain name, to quote a colleague, will be nonexistent in relation to top level domains. If you don’t have the cash to back up your request, you’re out of luck, regardless of whether anyone else has any interest in the name. While anyone can apply, the coveted TLD will in the end go to the highest bidder. Approximations of price are on the order of a couple thousand.

And this is not all. Other types of issues (the list is long) include:

Pragmatic: There are those who think real-(web)-world use of TLDs won’t catch on. They may have a point. On a general level, there are a couple reasons why some tools and practices are taken for granted while others never are. One is that the best really do, upon introduction, offer a vast improvement over the old system (think Google’s emergence). The second is that once adopted and used regularly over a reasonable duration, people tend to stick with what they know.

So will the new system offer that incredible improvement required to make it second-nature? Not at all, say skeptics. Subdomains can now accomplish what the new TLDs are essentially doing.

Lexical/Morphological: Consider the soon-to-be-feasible .corn. See any problems?

According to this CircleID post, an algorithm will eliminate such problems by outlawing proposed TLDs that are very visually similar to existing names.

A similar problem may crop up with regard to common misspellings of top level domains. How much might “.comn” or “.comm” be worth? Would this be considered an moral issue, and be outlawed by the ICANN? Misspelling of lower level domain names, to my knowledge, are legal.

Econo-Political: Currently, the domain name industry maintains a competitive marketplace. Anyone with a web server (plus the willingness and basic requirements to maintain web hosting) can jump in and begin selling domain names, once they’ve registered them to their box through the ICANN. GoDaddy competes with Network Solutions competes with the smaller hosting companies that abound.

When it comes to the proposed TLD system, ICANN will retain sole rights to police new requests, reserving the right to turn down requests on “moral or public order” grounds.

One burning question remains: if not for money, why would ICANN be taking these steps?

Well, I’m not certain, but it may be that the action is aligned more with the organization’s overall reason-for-being than it is with making some cash. At least one country, (the Polynesian island Tuvalu), has taken advantage of its lucrative country code by leasing it to television firms. The new TLD system will put a stop to this by establishing a world-wide application procedure and rules.

Guerilla Google AdWords Marketing, Part 1

Posted by cjuon at 7:00 am | Filed In AdWords, Google, PPC

Jul

9

If you’ve been listening to us preach the AdWords gospel, by now you know that you should be using conversion tracking and Google Analytics to learn more about works and what doesn’t on your web site. But what if you’re just getting started and none of your AdWords are doing the trick? What then? Where to start?

First, take off your shoes. (Not literally!) But it is time to start thinking like your customers and walking in their shoes. One word of caution: This may be doubly tricky if you’re a downtown retailer, because it may take time to get used to thinking about the difference between your online customers and the ones that stroll in the store.

How are your online and walk-in customers different? Lets put on the shoes of a window shopper for a moment to find out. Lets pretend you’re hanging out with some friends for a long lunch and checking out a few shops downtown. You run across a darling hand-bag that’ll go perfectly with half your wardrobe. Do you run around the rest of downtown to see if you’ve got the best price? (Remember, you’re on a long lunch…) Or, when your friend elbows you and gives you the nudge, do you just grab it on the spur of the moment? And indulge in a bit of retail therapy?

How is this story different if you’re shopping for a purse online? Might you search first for a favorite brand? If the brand is even moderately popular, chances are there are lots of ads to choose from. How would you decide?

Scanning the ads, which look interesting? Free shipping might catch your eye; those ads are pretty popular. Did you search for a particular color? Chances are some of the ads will be “broad match”, and won’t reflect that you mentioned a color. Chances are you’ll skip over these to an ad that is clearly a closer match for what you’re looking for.

So now you’ve clicked on an ad, and get to the website. But wait - you’re on the home page? What happened to the red bag? Back to the search results… Now you want to see an interior shot of the bag so you’ll know if it has the right kind of pockets, or if the fabric texture is exactly what you were looking for. No close-up shot? Time to move on. Are the shipping costs disclosed? You might not want to bother signing up and putting it in your cart to find out. Next…

By now, you get the idea. Online shoppers are comparatively ruthless. If you’ve got a lot of competition online, running a pay per click ad simply isn’t enough. You must have a good price and competitive shipping. You need to write a compelling ad, target it well, and send it to the right page. You need to have good photography (and multiple pics), a shopping cart that’s not problematic, and a few other things… and then you might actually wind up with the sale.

Whew! There must be an easier way, right? Well, sort of. Most of that stuff you’re going to need to do regardless, but you can improve your odds by going where there is less competition. And frankly, that’s the place to start if you’re struggling to get AdWords off the ground. We’ll call this “guerrilla AdWords marketing”, and here are a few tips to get started.

  • Find the products that aren’t already competitive and market those. Though I realize changing your inventory is easier said than done - understanding that your online competition is different is key. Some products that do really well in your store may simply not be candidates for AdWords because of this different competitive landscape. In other words, it may not be practical to change your inventory, but understand that it’s quite possible not everything you sell belongs online.
  • Find words and phrases that describe what you’re selling that others aren’t using. Sometimes when you start poking around, you’ll discover your competitors bid on all the obvious terms and ONLY the obvious terms. That’s a happy day, because that means you have “everything else”, known in the biz as “the long tail”. The long tail is a term that describes the WIDE variety of lower frequency searches for any given item. If you’re a small retail businesses, you probably moved onto the web to expand the reach of your business. Chances are, you don’t need to sell huge volumes of any particular item, you just need to keep inventory moving. It’s quite possible the long-tail could do a very nice job of that for you - by creating low volume sales on a wide variety of items.

    • And now for the million dollar question - how do you find the stuff that’s not obvious? As Apple would say “think different”. Yes, that’s a bit of a trick, and a great topic for Guerilla Google AdWords Marketing, Part 2. Stay tuned!

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