My Interview on ABC News

Once again, the power and exposure of having a blog pays off big time! Last week I was in New York City doing an interview with ABC Studios on how to make money blogging and how to help others get started. The interview went live on ABC NEWS Now and ABC VIDEO yesterday. You can watch the full interview below.

The main points discussed in the interview were how to start a blog, when to start monetizing and how to build an audience then start making real money with a blog. It doesn’t matter if you know anything about making money online or even how to make a web site, a blog can be thrown together within a few minutes and can easily be self taught with all of the resources available online. You wont make money right away by throwing a simple blog up on the web, but it will potentially get you started and on the path for a secondary income source. Taking your blog to the next level is where you will have to put in the major dedication and efforts.

Special thanks to Tory Johnson for the interview, everyone at ABC Studios and of course, all of my blog readers! It wouldn’t be possible without you. Thanks!

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The Stimulation Economy

The following is also my column in this week's Advertising Age.

The Stimulation Economy

The American consumer has long been addicted to stimulation. We crave coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and sugar - even though we know the downsides. Now add technology to this list.

Our rising addiction to digital stimulation is having a profound impact on consumer habits - and, therefore by association, marketers. The technology treadmill is catapulting all of us into a perpetual state of instant gratification. Infotech is like sugar. The more we take in, the more it leaves us with insatiable unfilled cravings.

Even in a downturn, our appetite for all that burns batteries remains evergreen. According to a survey conducted by Retrevo, consumers plan to spend more on gadgets and electronics this holiday season than they did last year. The smartphone, as one CNN.com reader recently characterized it, is the new utensil at the dinner table, like it or not.

What this means for brands is that we must continually feed the beast, not fight it. We must stimulate and titillate - or go home. Technology is slowly making us all go ADD, creating havoc for marketers who hope to captivate with new products, brand extensions and ad creative. This mandates that we regularly keep things fresh.

While no one has made a clear statistical link between our craving for shiny new techie things and marketing's tectonic shifts, there are signs that they are in fact very much related.

Let's start with the almighty ad campaign.

Where once a powerful idea could fill a brand's coffers for months or even years, today a narrative must be regularly re-invented and re-told - perhaps even weekly - to ensure that it continues to captivate. Real-time feedback in the form of tweets, clicks, searches and more makes it easier to gather the data we need, but it does not necessarily help us act on it.

The demise of the campaign (or at least its reinvention) may in part be what is contributing to CMO tenure - and vice versa.

With the average stay for a chief marketing officer hovering at 23 months, according to Spencer Stuart, execs are not waiting around to cut bait on agencies and ideas. On the flip side, the revolving CMO door is certainly influenced by the breakneck pace of technology and rapidly changing media consumption patterns.

Another victim of the stimulation economy? It just maybe the 30-second spot.

Nielsen reports that traditional television remains more popular than ever. Time spent watching TV grew by two more hours per month in the first quarter of 2010.

Despite this encouraging trend, however, the 30-second spot - long advertising's old faithful - is being devoured by shorter 15-second ads that are spread out across shows. According to Nielsen, 15-second spots increased more than 70 percent in five years. Brands that cater to young men, such as Old Spice and Dos Equis, are leading the way in running teasers that stitch together a narrative, rather than trying to tell it in a single, longer ad.

Finally there's the new product pipeline.

The proliferation of technology is propelling us deeper into our interests while making it easy for us to ignore everything else. Sports fans and fashionistas become more die-hard enthusiasts, while every day another polymath dies and is not replaced. This, arguably, is one reason why marketers are rapidly turning to brand extensions.

According to Information Resources Inc., food and beverage brand extensions - which are often tailored to psychographics like healthy living - averaged one-year sales of $28 million in 2009 vs entirely new brands, which recorded an average $15 million in revenues.

While technology isn't responsible for the brand extension boom, there is no doubt in my mind that Google and Facebook are slowly re-wiring us to be even more attracted to a psychographic state we already identify with or at least aspire to attain. This changes buying behaviors.

Finally, while hard evidence remains elusive and anecdotal, there are signs that the companies that regularly innovate in social media seem to be more memorable.

When industry conversations turn to social, the same names keep popping up. These include Starbucks and Pepsi (disclosure - we work with both on the PR side), as well as Google and Ford. What they all share in common is a commitment to rapid innovation and iteration. I believe this helps them break through the noise.

The unmistakable trend here is simple - we must innovate or die. That's not a new theme, of course, but our society's burgeoning addiction to technology stimuli will force marketers to more quickly iterate and also bail on what's not working.

This is not always a good thing, but it is the reality of living in a complex world.

Photo credit: John Althouse Cohen

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Interview: Eric Enge

Eric Enge is the President of Stone Temple Consulting, a 17 person SEO and PPC consulting firm with offices in Boston and Northern California. Eric is a crusty old veteran with 30 years working experience in technology and the Internet.

Eric is co-author of a book titled The Art of SEO, along with Rand Fishkin, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie Stricchiola. The book is published by O'Reilly Media.

Eric writes for Search Engine Land, and is also an "SEW Expert" where he contributes a column every two weeks to Search Engine Watch. On the Stone Temple web site, Eric has a blog that contains the highly regarded Interview series, in which Eric interviews top people from the search industry. Eric also is the author of SEOmoz' Link Building Pro Guide.

STC provides SEO and PPC services to companies ranging from startups to Fortune 25 companies.

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been making money online?
Since 1993 or so! I led the effort to bring America Online into the PC manufacturer's channel when I was at Phoenix Technologies Ltd. My real career in SEO did not begin until the early 2000's though.

Do you have any experience with affiliate marketing? If so, to what extent?
I have been in affiliate marketing since 2003. While I have a SEO Consulting Company call Stone Temple Consulting (STC), I also have put a lot of energy into publishing deep content web sites, where the largest revenue stream is from affiliate marketing. To us, it is just a form of advertiser.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
We have had two exits, with the second of those occurring in May of 2010. It is a good feeling every time that you are able to accomplish that.

How did you become successful? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in the Internet? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I got involved back in 2003. I had heard good things about the potential of affiliate marketing from a trusted friend and simply decided to give it a try. Then it took off very quickly.

Our first exit took place in 2006, so I guess that is when I hit the "big time". What made us successful is that we focused on bringing real value to users, and to the search engines.

What do you think it takes to be successful?
There are many smart people out there. They can all learn a lot of good things to do in Internet marketing. The real key, in my opinion, is integrating all of this into a successful business operation. This means basic things like knowing how much money you have available, what to invest in, and how to structure a plan that works within your financial means to get your business to accomplish what it needs to.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
In my consulting business, Stone Temple Consulting, one of the biggest frustrations is dealing with clients who won't take good advice and implement it. I know that it is often true that there are real limitations in what a company can do, often related to the current implementation of their web site. But, a lot of times people don't understand what we are trying to do, and what it will take for them to be successful.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Good question. Sometimes we can't implement all the ideas we want to, either because of development limitations or budget limitations. The way we get through it is to be ruthless in prioritizing. Frustrating because you want to do it all, but you just can't.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
Not really. If I hate doing something, I hire someone else to do it. More seriously, there are plenty of tedious tasks in any small business. Not much you can do about but to keep doing them.

What is the future of marketing?
I believe that the nature of marketing will continue to evolve. We have seen an increasing rate of change over the past 20 years, and I believe that the rate of change will continue to accelerate. Smart marketers will be the ones who capitalize on new opportunities before their competitors do.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Two main areas of effort:

1. Continuing to grow the consulting business. This includes pushing in to Fortune 100 companies and growing the consulting team.

2. Rolling out more high quality web sites and promoting them.

What problems have you had with those new projects?
The main problem is scaling as fast as we can. We want to do everything at once (like everyone else!), but must make choices and work our way through the process with patience.

Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
The main thing is that my father provided consulting services to entrepreneurs when I was growing up, I got some visibility into what they did, their responsibilities, how they approached things, etc. This helped give me the mental mindset of an entrepreneur. His industry was entirely different, but that visibility was incredibly important to my development.

What are your greatest strengths?
I think my greatest strength is that I know how to build and run profitable and growing companies with minimal upfront cash investment. I also have a lot of experience as an SEO.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
At times I am too impatient. Everything takes a bit of time, and I usually want it now.

What motivates you?
One word: winning. I like creating success stories, wherever I go. This is more important than the compensation at this point.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
A good friend of mine, Steve Kalman, was the first to teach me how to manage the numbers of a business. He gave me the ability to see its economics and efficiently use the available cash to achieve my business goals.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
None other than my father, Ron Fisher, the chairman of Softbank North America. Ron taught me to apply my basic character and sense of how to deal with people to the businesses I have been involved in. He was a pretty low key, but powerful personality, and that is what I hope to be.

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
The main people I have trouble working with are those who will not listen, or can’t absorb what they have been told. It frustrates me, and I become impatient.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
I am in my 50s at this point, so I think about things a little bit differently. I have 3 kids in high school, and seeing to their success is critical to me. Of course, I hope to have success in my future business pursuits too.

If money was no object, I would be working on improving the standard of living of the poor and destitute, or helping improving the chances of children in developing companies. I have been very fortunate in my life, and I would like to "give back".

Where do you want to be ten years from now?
I hope to be involved heavily in charity oriented endeavors! I mentioned a couple of my ideas in that regard above.

How do you like to spend your free time? What does work-life balance mean to you?
I have three children in high school. Spending time with them, and my wife, is my primary goal for my free time. Not always easily done, but incredibly important! I also play basketball, workout, and enjoy fine dining - and fine wine.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
The main thing I would have done was get into the Internet sooner. While we had a false gold rush at the end of the 20th century, earlier involvement would have created new and different opportunities to do more. Of course, who knows how well I would have used such opportunities!

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
My greatest non-work achievement is my 3 children. They all are well adjusted and doing well in their lives. What could be better than that?

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
Why yes I do! You can see me at @stonetemple as well as at my Facebook page.

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Google, Maps and History

I think we are all in agreement that Google has a lot of really good points and equal amounts of bad ones, right? I chalk it up to no one is perfect especially when you are cutting a new path.

Well, I would like to take the time to congratulate Google on using their technology for something more than just marketing and making a buck (although they may make money from this but how is beyond me). A post from the Google LatLong blog this past week tells how they are using maps to bring to life the reality, the horror and the important history of World War II.

Few events in human history have the scale of World War II. It’s spatial breadth and temporal extent make it difficult to comprehend by those of us too young to have lived it. There are history books, movies, and photographs, but they portray isolated places and events more than the connected whole. So we’ve addressed this by launching historical imagery in Google Earth in a number of new areas, including London in 1945, in coordination with archivists in these countries.

Here is a picture of London from then and now

Warsaw. Poland. In 1935 on the left and 1945 on the right when 85% of the structures had been wiped out by war.

If you are interested in seeing this in action here’s how

Nearly all of 1945 London awaits your exploration. Enjoying it is easy. Just start Google Earth (install it here if you’re not one of the 700 million who already have) and type London as your destination in the upper left. Then, click on the clock icon to enable historic imagery.

If you are in the US and are at least awake on a daily basis you know that there are critical elections coming up on November 2. We sit on two sides of a broken fence and take shots at each other for ideology and more personal things. We complain. We bitch. We moan. Also, we take it all for granted.

On my opinion, a more important day is Veteran’s Day on November 11th which will come and go with little fanfare. Why? Because people forget that others have sacrificed for our current way of life. Google is helping to remind us of the history and its importance by showing just what happened in World War II through their maps function.

So what does this have to do with marketing? Nothing and everything all at once. Nothing because it’s not the usual information we discuss about Internet marketing and its impact etc, etc. here at Marketing Pilgrim. It is, however, very much about the freedoms that have been preserved through time that allow us to make things like Internet marketing important, even when in the end they really are not.

Oh and by the way. Another reason I truly appreciate what Google is doing here is that in January of 1945 my mom lost her father and I lost my grandfather (long before I was even born) at the Battle of the Bulge. On the good days when I am in a ticked-off mood and I write something mean-spirited, I think about whether the sacrifice of my grandfather’s life is honored by that activity. Many days, it keeps me in check.

This history that Google is preserving is part of my history and still very much a part of my present. War and its impact is powerful and we must never forget what has been done so we can live a life today that, even with its troubles, is far better than even just 100 short years ago. Thinking from time to time about what people have done for us may keep us all in check and maybe even interested in greater things than just business, profit, power etc.

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Mayer to Location: Big.

Today I was in a meeting with a number of consultants to a very large technology company. Their job: market research, essentially. They called to ask me my thoughts on the media and technology world, in particular as it might play out in the next five or so years. They were responsible for helping the Fortune 50 company navigate an increasingly complicated world.

I love these kind of free association tasks, because while it's not easy to be right, it's also pretty easy to not be wrong if the questions are smart. I've been a student of technology cycles for a couple of decades, and often times what's directly in front of you is, in fact, the next big thing.

So when I got this question: "What's the next big thing after social?" I didn't lose a beat in answering: "Location."

Now, many, many folks before me have been saying this for years. I'm in no way first. But I'm an early convert, in particular, as it relates to what I call the conversation economy. And the reason is simple: Once someone can declare where they are, they add extraordinary context to both search and social, and to their expectations of what a search or a social connection might yield. For an example, see The Gap Scenario.

In short, location is a key factor in the future of search, social, commerce, and media, among a lot of other things. And that's why the news today that Google's Marissa Mayer, long the VP of Search Products at Google, is taking over responsibilities for the location business, strikes me as a Big Deal.

Some have argued this is a demotion for Mayer, a Google stalwart and press favorite. But if in fact Google is "parking" Mayer in a "non job" due to her status as an early and long standing employee, I can't imagine a more strategic area for her to park. And given Mayer's success and wealth, I can't imagine she'd stay at Google if she weren't committed to a new role that she believes will be game changing. She has way too many other options, including, well, not working for as long as she'd like.

I for one don't think that's what is going on. Local is the most important signal to emerge in the database of intentions since the link. Once a consumer demands that businesses respond to their intent in the context of where they are, right now, well...the first to get that response right, wins.

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Older Internet Users More Savvy Than You May Think

When you read reports about Internet usage, smartphone adoption and technology use in general you are often led to believe that this is a young person’s game. As a recent study covered in an article from AdAge points out, how you define an older Internet user is probably the most important part of understanding just how much they are online and accessible.

Marilynn Mobley has a desktop at work, a laptop at home, a netbook for travel, an Android smartphone and just last week she bought an iPad. She time shifts all her TV viewing using DVRs and enjoys watching Blu-ray movies at home. She’s also 63 years old.

Ms. Mobley is a strategic counselor for Edelman in its Boomer Insights Generation Group.

“It’s actually a myth that baby boomers aren’t into technology. They represent 25% of the population, but they consume 40% [in total dollars spent] of it,” said Patricia McDonough, senior VP-analysis at Nielsen Co.

Those are some heady numbers if you are a marketer. I often find that the way the Boomer Generation is parsed is ridiculously off the mark. The supposed range of birth years for boomers are those that were born from 1946-1964. There is such an incredible gap in that 18 year range with regard to technology interaction and more that this entire demographic area should be redone and defined appropriately.

Here is some evidence for that argument from Forrester

As part of the Young Boomer generation myself I would argue that my Internet ‘savviness” is on par with many people much younger than I am (although Andy would argue that point). As a result, for me to be clumped in with older people and included in their ways and uses of the Internet is a huge mistake for marketers.

Let’s take a look at where the rubber meets the road. Who spends more on tech? “Boomers” do. Maybe it’s because they have more money but whatever the reason the reality is that they spend for tech.

In fact, spending on technology is one area where boomers are ahead of their younger counterparts. The 46 to 64 year-old group now spends more money on technology than any other demographic, according to Forrester Research’s annual benchmark tech study. That includes monthly telecom fees, gadget and device spending, and overall online purchases. They averaged around $650 spent in online shopping vs. Gen X ($581) and Gen Y ($429) over a three-month period.

Honestly, there is a lot of data from the article in AdAge that you s a marketers should take a look at. If you don’t have the time, I’ll sum it up for you. Not all Baby Boomers are even close to being alike in their consumption and use of technology and they need to be broken down into more realistic groups.

Lets just say, if you are stupid enough to consider baby boomers as the current 46-64 year-olds and think that you can categorize people in that age range the same from top to bottom then you are just that: stupid. The variations are just as vast when we, as marketers, like to say that 18-34 year-olds belong in the same demographic category. Maybe when marketing and advertising were in the age of the Mad Men show but today we have to be smarter than that and get much more granular with our determination of what age may represent what behavior.

So be very careful how you treat the older folks in the world of the Internet. If you dismiss them due to a completely inaccurate stereotype you do so at the risk of your bottom line.

How would you break out demographic age groups to more accurately determine how technology is used? Are you OK with 16-18 year groupings that can take a member of that group through several different life changes? How should age be used as a demographic yardstick in the Internet space?

Give us your thoughts.

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Technology and the Press

The press and technology have one of those classic “love-hate” relationships. On the one hand technology makes for good articles because of the high level of interest expressed by certain groups in society. On the other hand, technology is the one major thing that is forcing a sea change in the delivery of the news industry and changing the face of the journalistic work force.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently completed a study looking at traditional media’s treatment of technology.

The mainstream news media have offered the American public a divided view of how information technology influences society, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Over the past year, messages about the promise of technology making life easier and awe about new gadgets have vied in the news with worries about privacy, child predators, shrinking attention spans and danger behind the wheel.

The most prevalent underlying message about technology’s influence has been upbeat—the notion that technology is making life easier and more productive. Nearly a quarter of all technology stories studied from June 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, conveyed this idea. But that was closely followed by the sense that with that convenience comes risk—to our privacy and particularly to our children—which made up nearly two-in-ten stories, according to the study.

Journalists are also split on just what single events or stories should get the most attention. The lead goes to the negative side of the ledger while second place is about happier things.

The biggest single event or storyline during the year involved the perils of technology: the hazardous yet compulsive practice of texting while driving. Nearly one-in-ten technology stories were about this subject, more than five times the coverage of either the U.S. plan for broadband access and six times the coverage devoted to the debate over net neutrality.

The second-biggest storyline addressed a more positive development: the launch of the latest Apple iPhones. Attention to the release of the iPad was not far behind.

Personally, I think the journalists got the order correct because I have noticed an increase what looks like drunk driving during the daylight hours but is likely more attributable to “TWD” (texting while driving). While you may not want to hear it I’m going to say it anyway. If you are reading this and you text while you drive you are a menace to society (among several other unmetionables here). Stop putting yourself and everyone around you at risk so you can ‘finish that thought’. *This public service message has been brought to by BATADS (Bloggers Against Texting and Driving Simultaneously. We are an unofficial, small and very powerless group )

So back to journalists and technology. The company that gets the most press is Apple. It’s just another place where Google needs to work to unseat Apple’s supremacy (both real and perceived).

Another point of interest

On blogs, technology overall drove less of the conversation than on Twitter. Over the 13-month time period, just 11% of the top linked-to news stories each week related to technology, versus 51% on Twitter. It was here, though, that Google finally garnered more attention than Apple.

So overall it looks like that journalist love to talk about technology but they are also quick to point a cautionary finger at the woes created by that technology. It’s the digital age’s version of the saying “you can’t have it both ways”.

In the end, it will be interesting to see how journalists cover the end of their industry as they know it as we transition further and further into the Digital Age. Will they just go quietly into that good night or will they do what they can to delay the inevitable?

Your thoughts?

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The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it.

But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology?

How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring?

In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read.

Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.”

Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home.

From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent.

Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more.

I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces.

Check it out:

People love “dot connectors”

Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry.

Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire.

Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late!

Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more.

Headlines still matter

Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter.

You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them.

Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives?

The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first, before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important.

Numbers are a blogger’s best friend

One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake.

Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story.

Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn.

Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating.

In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students.

The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try.

Everyone loves a mystery

Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests.

The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit.

You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion.

Provide a better way to solve common problems

Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems.

This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new.

Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions.

Time to get freaky

Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog?

And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up!

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Google Instant: What It Means To Website Owners

Yesterday Google unveiled what is considered by many the biggest game changer the search industry has seen in years. It’s called Google Instant, and it basically shows search results in real time, as you type letter by letter. Here is a quote from the official Google Instant page:

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

Google is gradually rolling the change around the world, and most people should already be able to experience this feature on the Google.com (English version) page.

The question that has been on my mind is how will this new feature impact website owners. Many other people are discussing this too, so I decided to make a roundup of the views and opinions I saw around the web, with my own take about them.

1. Google Instant will kill SEO (I don’t agree.)

Some people started linkbaiting suggesting that Google Instant will kill SEO or make it irrelevant. I disagree with this view. It sure will change how SEO is done, but if anything this will open new opportunities for the skillful and clever SEOs out there.

Companies will also keep needing help with their SEO and PPC management, so I don’t think much will change in this segment either.

2. There will be less traffic to long tail keywords (I partially agree)

Now that search results are displayed in real time, the keyword suggestions people will see on their search boxes will be much more effective. This means that people will be less inclined to type long and detailed keywords (i.e., long tail ones), so the traffic you’ll get from these keywords will be reduced. I agree with that.

But there is another side to this coin. Google tests revealed that real time results encourage people to make more searches, so this could off-set the previous effect, increasing the amount of traffic you’ll get even for long tail keywords.

3. Popular keywords will become even more popular (My own theory)

Another effect of the keyword suggestions is that popular keywords should become even more popular (as long as they are one of the Google suggestions). Someone who was about to search for “make money online with a website”, for example, will see a suggestion for “make money online” right after typing some letters, and there are good chances he’ll just click there to save time.

4. Title tags will become a lot more important (My own theory)

As you probably know Google uses the title tag of a page as its headline in the search results page. For this reason title tags were already important, but with Google Instant they become even more.

Why? Because your pages will appear in many more searches now, and if you have a catchy title tag you might convince the user to click on your link even if he was searching for something else.

Over to the readers: What do you guys think about Google Instant, and how do you think it will affect website owners?

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Google Instant: Wasn’t Caffeine Jittery Enough?

Google today has announced the widespread use of their new Google Instant technology, which shows that maybe the search giant really does know what you are thinking or what you SHOULD be thinking.

The premise of the new approach to search is that while you type your query Google is showing you results on the go. The results change as you add more to the search string and the suggestions for what you really might be looking for are always changing below your input.

Here is Google’s presentation of the new service in classic Google video format.

The post over at the Official Google Blog trumpets

Search as you type. It’s a simple and straightforward idea—people can get results as they type their queries. Imagining the future of search, the idea of being able to search for partial queries or provide some interactive feedback while searching has come up more than a few times. Along the way, we’ve even built quite a few demos (notably, Amit Patel in 1999 and Nikhil Bhatla in 2003). Our search-as-you-type demos were thought-provoking—fun, fast and interactive—but fundamentally flawed. Why? Because you don’t really want search-as-you-type (no one wants search results for [bike h] in the process of searching for [bike helmets]). You really want search-before-you-type—that is, you want results for the most likely search given what you have already typed.

Here’s my take. I don’t like it. The constant changing of the screen from the search suggest to the actual results changing on the fly practically gives me motion sickness. I’m all for saving time but if I need to take a Dramamine tablet before I Google something that won’t be very productive. If you are really trying to keep track watch the Adwords advertisers change on the fly. That’ll make some paid search manager’s head spin. If you want to give it a whirl go ahead.

Of course, I am being a bit facetious but I am really not a fan of this ‘improvement’. I am sure there will be two distinct camps on this one but the difference here is that Google is experimenting with its bread and butter. If someone decides that the new look isn’t for them it could be impetus to give bing a try. I tend to come from the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school but that’s not how things work in the Internet era. As a result you get more miscues than many are accustomed to and more than a few huge gaffes (think New Coke formula level of screw up) that can create more trouble than it’s worth.

So what is your take on this new approach to search? Are happy, sad or indifferent? Does this even matter in the grand scheme of things?

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End of Dumb Tables in Web Analytics Tools! Hello: Weighted Sort

Arthur C. Clarke said:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

That quote comes to mind when I think of a new feature in Google Analytics that carries the unassuming name of Weighted Sort. It is an advanced implementation of technology (mathematical algorithms in this case) and when used it very much feels like magic!

In this blog post I want to share with you why I am so incredibly excited about this feature, how it works and how going forward you will reject every tool that does not come built in with this feature (ok so maybe that's a stretch, but I promise you this is so cool that at least for a few minutes you'll think other tools are lame by comparison!).

Let's take a couple of steps back, get some context before we dive in.

The Problem.

We have a very long tail of data in web analytics. Tens of thousands of rows of keywords in the Search Report (even for this small blog!). Hundreds and hundreds of referring urls and campaigns and page names and so on and so forth.

Yet because we are humans we tend to look at just the top ten or twenty rows to try and find insights. The problem? The top ten of anything rarely changes (except in rare circumstances like a sale or on a pure content – think news – site).

Hence I have persistently evangelized the need for true Analysis Ninjas to move beyond the top ten rows of data to find insights.

How? Advanced table filters, tag clouds and keyword trees are a good start.

But we need more.

One more problem though.

As if massive data we have is not enough of a problem, we also rely on Averages, Percentages, Ratios and Compound/Calculated Metrics in a profoundly sub optimal way, as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than for illumination.

Take a percentage, for example Bounce Rates. The top ten won't change.

Hmmm. what to do. what to do?

You know what I'll try to  find the keywords with the highest bounce rates and fix them! After all I don't want to have all those visitors say: "I came. I puked. I left!"

Ok analytics tool: Sort descending!

Arrrrrh! Useless!

See all those single visits? Would improving these bounce rates have a huge impact?

Ok maybe I should learn from keywords with low bounce rates so I can perhaps take the lessons from my awesomness and apply it to others. Tool: Sort ascending!

Arrrrrh! Again! Useless.

What could I possibly improve by focusing on these keywords with so few visits? Nothing.

So to recap:

1. We tend to only understand the top ten rows of data, because that's what is easily visible.
2. Gold exists beyond the top tend rows.
3. Using percentages, averages sub optimally makes it impossible to find the Gold!

Yet gold I must find if I want to improve the outcomes for my web business (for profit or, as in the above example, non-profit).

The Solution!

The Google Analytics team has built a innovative and mathematically intelligent new feature called Weighted Sort to precisely solve this problem.

Now when you sort the data off a percentage or a ratio, like in the above case, you'll see this on top of the table.

When you press this unassuming checkbox something magical happens. Google Analytics brings back for me the rows of data I should analyze further to have the highest possible impact on my business.

It looks like this. . .

Sweetness!!

Notice that the Visits for these keywords are sorted in an "odd" manner, as are the bounce rates.

That is the magic.

Now you don't have to go through wild gyrations (or worse guesses) to figure out the best places to focus your attention on. You can skip combing through the, in this case, 5,777 rows of data. The algorithm will do that for you!

The "magic button" will sort your data from:

"focus here because something very important is going on here and if you focus here chances your improvements leading to reducing bounce rates will have a very high ROI for your business"

to

"rows/keywords where your efforts might not quite yield big ROI improvements"

Translation: Sort by "interestingness".  What are the most interesting keywords with high bounce rates? [Where things are going "wrong".]

You can reverse sort the table, keeping the Weighted Sort checkbox on, and you'll find the most interesting keywords with the lowest bounce rates [where things are going right].

No more using silly ascending and descending sorting. No more worrying about if you are focused on the right places. Less worrying if you are prioritizing things right.

Save time. Do less data puking. Be happier!

Awesome right? Go try it on your own Google Analytics data!

How Does Weighted Sort, aka The Magic, Actually Work?

Good question. It is also the reason for the Arthur C. Clarke quote.

Of course there is no magic, it is all the beauty of some wonderful math and ingenuity.

But it is complicated.

Let me try to explain it as best I can using some visualizations and formulas.

What powers weighted sort?

This simple hypothesis:

The true value of a metric (bounce rate, conversion rate, time on site etc) for dimensions with small participants will be imprecise.

English: If the dimension you are looking at is referring urls and if only five visits this month originated from Bing then a conversion rate of 80% (or a conversion rate of 20%) is not reflective of the "true" conversion rate.

There are too many unknown variables, or irreplicable events, that could have contributed to that number (80 or 20) making it incredibly difficult to make any decisions based on just 5 visits.

You saw this problem when I sorted descending or ascending for the metric bounce rate above.

So how do you address this problem?

The fearless developers were given this amazing goal:

Compute the "expected true value" for each row on the table.

It is a difficult problem to solve. But since the actual values are not very useful, applying some logic and mathematical intelligence to figure out what the true value is can brilliantly help identify "interesting" data (aka where to focus).

Google Analytics computes the expected true value (in our case above "expected true bounce rate") and then sorts the data using the expected true value (ETV) giving you the most interesting data to look at.

The expected true value (ETV) is not shown in the UI (as it would simply be distracting).

How exactly do you compute the "expected true value"?

That is a good question.

Think of a scale. On one end there are is a dimensional value (keywords, countries, referring urls, product names etc) with zero visits and "a lot" of visits at the other end.

Let's assume we are analyzing the dimension countries and the metric bounce rate.

Remember out hypothesis above? True value of a metric is not reflective when it comes to small samples (visits in our case).

So if there was one visit from South Africa its actual bounce rate reported in the tool is not a precise reflection of what the true value might be. But if there were A Lot of visits from South Africa then the actual value is reflective of the true value.

Put another way. . . I request you to pay attention. . . .

For values to the very far left of the scale we equate the expected true value (ETV) to be equal to site average. A very safe bet.

For value at the very far right of the scale (i.e. "a lot" of visits) it is quite likely that the ETV will be equal to the actual value. Makes sense right?

All other points between the left and the right will have ETV's that will be a blend of the site average and actual values.

Hence when computing ETV. . .

Those closer to the left (fewer visits) will have a higher blend of site average compared to actual values.

Those closer to the right (many many visits) will have a higher blend of actual value compared to site average.

Here's a image that explains this very critical concept clearly. . .

Crystal clear on how ETV's are computed?

The quest is to figure out the estimated true value (ETV) for any metric for a given dimensional value (keyword, referrer, campaign, display ad, social media strategy).

NOTE: Numbered values (0.01, 0.99, 0.5 etc) are for illustrative purposes, just to explain how weighted sort works. Actual values used in your report are intelligently and automatically computed in context of your data.

Can you give me a specific example of ETV computation?

Sure.

Let's say you are a multi billion dollar multi country multi people corporation with multiple products and services.

The next step in your world domination plan is to figure out how best to move beyond your current list of country domination (United States, Brazil, UK, India, Spain).

What do you do?

You'll look at where your traffic comes from and look at bounce rates, to figure out how you can retain even more people who land on your website. You are confident that if you just retain them beyond one page, engage them beyond your 200 mb flash intro, then you know you'll suck them into your business. Then world domination is but 15 minutes away!

So you log into your web analytics tool and you'll probably see a report like this in Google Analytics, or Omniture / Adobe or CoreMetrics / Unica / IBM or WebTrends or. . .

And you let out a little sarcastic: Just great.

The report has confirmed what you already knew from starting at the same top ten row. You very quickly went nowhere.

But you are in luck, you are using Google Analytics! (At least in my imagination. :)

You click on the Bounce Rate column to sort and then check on the Weighted Sort column and. . . bam!

Something useful. . . .

Sorted by "interestingness"!

You are now looking at a intelligently sorted list of countries where if you focus on improving your bounce rates (i.e. lower them) you'll have the best bang for you recession hit buck!

Segment the traffic from Argentina, Peru, Spain, Columbia, Chile and Denmark and you are on your way to the aforementioned world domination.

But how did Argentina rank #1 (4k visits), Peru #2 (1.5k visit), Spain #3 (8.8k visits)?

Analytics used the, again, aforementioned formula to compute the estimated true value (ETV), by leveraging Average Bounce Rate (64%) and Actual Bounce Rate for each country (last column above) and assigning contextual weights based on Visits from each country.

Let us see how the ranking worked by reverse engineering it. Here is what happened:

Argentina Bounce ETV = (0.01*avg BR) + (0.99*actual BR)

Argentina Bounce ETV = (0.01 * 63.49) + (0.99 * 79.53) = ETV = 79.37

Peru Bounce Rate ETV = (0.1 * 63.49) + (0.9 * 80.24) = ETV = 78.57

Spain Bounce Rate ETV = (0.001 * 63.49) + (0.999 * 77.76) = ETV = 77.75

Now you can see how each country, even though visits are very different, were sorted #1, #2, #3. By interestingness, by computing ETV for each.

Where did the number in red come from? You were not paying attention!!

Ok.

Remember the scale? (If not see picture with scale above.)

The numbers in red are:

1. just for illustrative purposes in this blog post

2. a function of where Visits by a country would fit, closer to the Zero (Peru) or closer to A LOT (Spain), hence the name weighted sort

3. always computed uniquely for your website data based on a intelligent mathematical formulation (which is patent pending and I can't reveal to you!)

You now understand how weighted sort works! Yea!

What if you wanted to discover which are the most interesting countries to focus on, where bounce rates are already low, and deepen your world domination?

Reverse sort the table. . .

Happy birthday.

Examples Of Weighted Sort Analysis You Should Try.

I wanted to close this post by highlighting other places you can use weighted sort and some other types of analysis you could do.

Focus your efforts for attracting New Visitors to you site.

Weighted Sort also works with % of New Visits. So let's say you are a newspaper and up against the "newspapers" of Fox. To survive you must find new countries (or Cities or Regions) from which to attract lots more new visitors from.

Well just sort by % of New Visits and you'll have the answer. . . .

Now you know where to focus.

[Remember that for a newspaper Repeat Visits are also great! :)]

How about looking at the most interesting countries from where the % of New Visits is already high? Just reverse sort the above column.

You might then want to segment that data to go see if over time Visitor Loyalty for those countries is also increasing, or these are just fly-by-night visitors.

Valuable analysis right?

Understand audience preferences, improve $$, for a non-ecommerce site!

I don't have ads or promotions on this website. But like any good Analysis Ninja I have identified my goals (I have six) and then identified values for each goal. The values define revenue that does not come to me directly, on this site, but rather comes to me in other ways as a result of the work I do on the blog (multi channel impact baby!).

The benefit of Goals and Goal Values is that it helps me do "financial analysis" for all the traffic I get (you all!). That means I can focus on what works for you and what works for me.

The metric I use is $ Index. It is the average value a given page or a set of pages add to the overall pie.

The analysis I want to do is to understand what pages / content I should focus on to create the highest possible impact.

I am not going to look at the normal table found in Google Analytics or Site Catalyst or Yahoo! Web Analytics.

I am going to look at the table with Weighted Sort turned on to identify the rows with "interestingness". . .

Who would have thunk that my public speaking engagements page was of so much interest and creating so much value for me, with just 469 page views! Certainly not me.

Some of the other rows of data were also unexpected (I need to do more videos, podcasts!) and others were just plain gratifying (I love killing useless metrics, and so do you!).

But there was also heartbreak.

When I reverse sort the data, to find which blog posts / topics are not generating enough $ Index (value), I was sad to see this was the #1 post. . .

Seven Skills to Look for in a Web Analytics Manager

I was really sad because I was a manager and a senior manager and a director of a web research and analytics teams. The above post distills my little wisdom.

More people should read this post (and similar by others) because day in and day out I see wrong people leading analytics teams causing problems for the company and sucking the life out of the Analysis Ninjas. And I hate that.

See why my heart is broken with that low $0.11 value?

But at least I know!

Money, Money, Honey Bunny!

Can't close a blog post without an example of conversion rates right?

Traffic comes to your website from many sources. We typically tend to look at silos and rare compare across acquisition channels.

Hence I recommend that you look at one of my favorite reports: All Traffic Sources.

Let's suppose you are an Analysis Ninja called Nico Weber. Now at a glance you can compare direct traffic with referral traffic with paid search with organic search with campaigns with. . . everything! Make it your new favorite.

When you report to your Sr. Leader now you can look across ALL traffic channels and tell her/him which ones are most interesting for the company. . .

Did anything in web analytics look more delightful? [Maybe the Intelligence Reports. :)]

The above table helps you prioritize where your most interesting sources of traffic are, not by conversion rate only but rather by using a intelligent mathematical algorithm that weights against Visits while computing estimate true value of the conversion rate.

Oh and don't forget to reverse sort and find the "loser" traffic source prioritized by interestingness!

That's weighted sort.

It's a simple feature, a great addition to the portfolio of techniques that Analysis Ninja's will use to find insights faster and focus on what's important.

It is my fondest hope that web analytics vendors like Adobe, I B M, Yahoo! will take a step back from this constant quest to collect every more data and just puke it out. I hope they'll take mercy on the Reporting Squirrels and Analysis Ninjas of the world and spend 10% of their vendor resources on making tools smarter, a bit more intelligent. We deserve at least that much.

I hope the Google Analytics team also continues to do so.

Ok your turn now.

What do you think of this small feature in Analytics? Do you understand how it works? Do you use it in your job already? What do you think the team at Google did right with this feature? What could they have done better? Are there other techniques you use to move from Data to Insights faster?

Please share your feedback, tips, critique, words of praise, and all else via comments.

Thanks.

End of Dumb Tables in Web Analytics Tools! Hello: Weighted Sort is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

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Fresh Thinking Saves the Video Star

The Wilderness Downtown by The Arcade Fire

With each new piece of technology that comes out we inevitably start hearing about the impending “death” of the music industry. First video was supposed to kill the radio star, and then individual MP3s should have wiped out the album as a cohesive unit. File sharing was supposed to put artists and record labels out of business, and music videos were going to lose their pop culture cachet when MTV ceased playing them. And, all of these gloom-and-doom warnings would have been great to prepare us, except that none of it’s come to pass; video didn’t kill the radio star – it just reinvented the whole concept of one.

While the music industry has been notoriously resistant to change, albums, record labels, artist and, most recently, videos have survived thanks to figuring out new ways to reinvent themselves. Music videos changed the way that people related to songs and opened up a whole new way of promoting musicians. Individual MP3s reinvented the way that artists created albums by forcing them to make sure that each song was good enough to stand on its own. And, instead of putting record labels and artists out of business studies have shown that file sharing dramatically increases music consumption, with even illegal downloaders paying to support the artists they like. And now, the music video is surviving in a post-TRL world by reinventing itself through social media.

Since MTV changed its name from Music Television and stopped playing music videos in 2008, artists have repeatedly tried to revive the music video. Lady Gaga tried to popularize videos by creating an extended version for her song, “Telephone.” Beyonce also attempted to popularize them in her “Single Ladies” music video, and she seemed to have some success when it spawned hundreds of amateur versions online. Beyonce’s engagement with her fans was accidental but it worked to popularize the video so that it’s achieved status as a pop culture reference. However, while Beyonce reaped the benefits of social media and user engagement, she did little to actually court it and the format of the music video itself remained largely unchanged.

Enter, The Arcade Fire and the new video/interactive musical experience “The Wilderness Downtown” for their song “We Used to Wait.” The indie darlings clearly understand their fans’ need to engage since “The Wilderness Downtown” is essentially a music video that has been reinvented to include the viewer/participant from the get-go. The HTML5 experience starts with users going go the “The Wilderness Downtown” page on a Google Chrome browser (Google worked on the project with the band and writer/director Chris Milk) and entering your childhood address. Then, if Google Maps has enough footage of your home, you are pulled into a highly personalized multi-browser music video. As The Arcade Fire nostalgically sings about how quickly life changes, a hooded figure (you) is shown running around your childhood neighborhood. During the experience, you’re given the opportunity to write a postcard to your younger self and whatever you write or draw grows branches. Trees pop up out of nowhere and your postcard and neighborhood literally become “the wilderness downtown.” Then, after the movie ends, the experience continues as you can replay your film, share it and your postcard with others, or even respond to other people’s postcards. So far, The Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown” is currently at number sixteen on the Billboard music chart and has generated a ton of buzz.

The Arcade Fire’s reinvention of the music video via an interactive social media experience is certainly outside the box and groundbreaking when it comes to the music industry and is a great example of how I believe technology will better allow artists to create a closer and more engaging relationship with their fans. In my opinion, the biggest threat to the music industry is not new technologies or illegal downloads, but rather the industry’s resistance to change and their hesitance toward really owning their digital space. Hopefully The Arcade Fire’s critical and commercial successes in these endeavors will prompt more of the industry to start thinking about using new technologies to engage fans more creatively in the future – if not, then the industry really will become obsolete.

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Essential Tools of Amanda Bucklow

This week’s Essential Tools series features Amanda Bucklow, a commercial mediator, instructor, blogger (at Mediation Times) and consultant who is a leader in her fields’ technology use. Amanda, along with Tammy Lenski, co-founded the Mediation Business Summit virtual conference, where I will be speaking later this month on the topic of website essentials for small businesses.

In Amanda’s own words:

My interest in technology and the web goes back many years. I had an email address and no one to email! I am naturally an early adopter and while that has been an expensive exercise, it has been fun. I am completely self taught and enjoy the adventure of being absorbed in learning a new skill. (I consider Lynda.com an essential tool as it provides the best tutorials on everything from web design, digital photography, Excel and more.)

I do all my own graphics for my web sites and I am a passionate photographer so life would be very difficult without Photoshop and Illustrator.  Topaz filters are an essential tool for my graphics as they allow me to create a more arty feel.

As for my daily tools:

• One of the best additions to my toolbox this year has been Evernote . I particularly like that I can send a tweet that I don’t have time to explore when it whizzes by. I gather them all up on Evernote for reading later together with web pages and screen shots. Having them grouped together like this often gives me a great idea for a blog post and the links are already there for me to create connections.
• 1Password (Mac only) has been a blessing and helped me develop a better protocol for creating passwords. I am now happy to use a complex password because I know that I have the info on hand, secure and backed up. I just need to get it on my BlackBerry.
• For my AmandaBucklow.co.uk web site I use AdaptYourCMS.  This is not a perfect set up but it makes updating my web site very easy indeed. I can add documents, videos and, best of all, any number of secure zones and membership areas which I use extensively for my training. Each course is a community of its own and I find that providing the platform for people to engage with each other before and after the classroom sessions makes for better outcomes at assessment. The friendships created during training can become a real source of support and encouragement for fledgling mediators. I know I still value mine from 15 years ago. Providing students with a ready made home has been a great success.
• Twitter. I haven’t taken to Facebook at all except to keep in touch with my nephews and niece who don’t seem to be able to communicate any other way! I do remember it took me about a week to send my first Tweet – I couldn’t imagine that all those strangers could possibly be interested in what I might have to say! Phil Gerbyshak is entirely responsible for my besottedness with Twitter. He was one of the first to follow me back and start a real conversation. The discipline of saying something interesting in 140 characters is a very good one to have.
• One of the best gadgets I have ever used are my Flip video which is with me wherever I go. I can’t believe such a small thing can produce such high quality video and audio.
• Even more cherished is my Livescribe 2 GB Pulse Smartpen. I have no idea how I managed without that before I had one. Interviews are a doddle now. I like very much that I can pay attention to the person I am talking to rather than be looking at my notes. One keyword and you can find the part of the interview just by pointing the pen at the paper. Magic.
• The tool I would really like is Blackberry Messenger on the iPhone. I would love to switch to the iPhone as I am a complete Apple fan but the BlackBerry Messenger is so good especially when I am working abroad and need to keep in touch with my training partner. I takes the stress out of meeting up and changes in plans. I like the encryption on the BlackBerry but it is useless for browsing the web.

Thanks Amanda for sharing such a great assortment of tools – some of which are totally new to me and I can not wait to go try out!

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