Welcome to today’s first SearchEngineStrategies NYC 2010 breakout session on the Beyond the Crawlers Track, Digital Asset Optimization.  Moderating this session is Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite and set to speak are Mark Knowles, President & CEO, Pixelsilk, Inc., Chris Boggs Director, SEO, Rosetta, Josh Cobb, Sr. Director, Publisher Revenue Optimization, Yahoo, and Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing.

Mark Knowles is up first to talk about the opportunity and fear of universal search and digital assets. Let’s travel back in time to 2003 when Google filed the first paten for a universal search web interface. Some questions came to mind:

1. How are we going to present different data to users?
2. What constitutes categories that need to be represented differently?

Nowadays all the engines are getting into universal search, taking multiple elements into account simultaneously: image, audio, video, news, blogs, product listings… it just goes on… and local search is a whole other ballgame. Do a search for “deli” with an NYC IP address and all of a sudden you’ve got local listings on the regular SERPs. So it’s not just super tech websites that are affected by universal results- it’s small auto-body shops, mom and pop eateries, boutique clothing stores…

Still, the question surfaces once more:  is this important?

Mark noted that Bruce Clay said it had significant impact on what he’s doing. And Adam Audette, along with the rest of us (god willing) are starting to look at SERPs as much more than just ten blue links.

The goal should be to get your team to understand how things show up in the search engines. There is a very real opportunity emerging. Should you invest? When? How? The benefits of optimizing for universal search results seem obvious but then in comes fear.

Overcoming the Fear of “The Second Click”
This can be quite a hurdle for some marketers. Your brand comes up in the SERPs. That’s great. But then thanks to Google’s wide reach of multimedia properties (YouTube, Picasa, Product Search etc.) when users click on a blended search result for your brand, they’re still within Google’s bosom.

“All-things-Google is probably not good for us,” Mark said. “But you have to remember - Google is a business.” If Google goes down the tubes, which is a potential fate for every business, you should still be in control of your brand presence in universal results. This is why overall optimization, especially of digital assets, is so valuable.

Recipe for Success
Mark used the example of a trip to the grocery store to illustrate his point: when people go food shopping, they usually show up with a list. Lists are generated from recipes they’re working with. How can you make this work to your advantage? Cosco, for example, created a recipe book Thanksgiving weekend that basically organized the whole shopping experience for customers, subtly pitching, of course, their own Kirkland products.

This concept stretches across the board for all types of businesses. Yes, even Google. Google purposefully acquired a zillion properties to help make the user experience more cohesive. Is Google to be feared? Mark says, “No.” Remember, they’re a business, and every business will eventually grow or die. Right now, they’re still growing. That is why seizing the opportunity of DAO optimization is so important.

Next up is Chris Boggs.

When it comes to evaluating the opportunity in optimizing digital assets, SEO experts look at optimization as a whole composed of three main parts:

1. Technical optimization
2. On-site optimization
3. Off-site promotion

There are dozens of choices as to where you can invest your resources if you want to be holistically optimized. Like every other element of business, there is one goal in mind: ROI.

It’s essential to remember that there’s no one-size fits-all approach. Some verticals may or may not be aligned with optimizing digital assets.

In the universal search landscape, optimizing to get your homepage images or videos right on the SERPs can certainly help your pages in general rank because they contribute to the overall footprint of your site. Links start flowing in through more natural and hollistic patterns of content, and rather than just having text-based links, you now have powerful anchor text surrounding your video and images.

Here are some questions you need to ask when approaching digital asset optimization:

1. Do a lot of high performing sites in my vertical  leverage non-text content prominently?
2. Would my target segments benefit from digital assets including video, images, podcasts, etc.?
3. Are there additional legal compliance issues to be addressed?
4. Do I have the funds to create and optimize content that may not be as easy to track ROI as paid search and organic search?

Ultimately your goal should be to assess what type of content you aim to deliver users and decide what forms of content would provide the most value. For information that’s a bit dry, such as tax advice, perhaps a fun but educational video would be most effective when reaching out to users. Users searching for medical conditions (think: “weird bump on my 5 year old’s neck”) are often appreciative of images they can compare and learn from. Decide what type of digital assets would best serve your audience, then create and optimize the heck out of them.

Josh Cobb takes to the podium next.

It seems Josh was a last-minute addition to this panel (his name was not in the itinerary), but a welcome one indeed. “It’s been about six or seven years since I’ve spoken publicly,” he says, mentioning that he’s “never felt so recorded before” what with 78% of the room snapping digital cameras, tweeting presentations verbatim… oh, and quite literally, flip cameras abound.

Josh takes us through his 4-fold approach to optimizing digital assets:

1. Take an inventory of your digital assets. Of course, consider user-generated content and internally generated content, but consider your online audience as a digital asset as well. Things haven’t changed: the person with the biggest, bestest thing usually wins. Google has the biggest index. It often wins. The LA Times had the largest archive of print material that wasn’t online for a long time. When they created digital archives, they stole the show.
2. Sort your inventory accordingly. There are four main groups: commercial value, editorial value, entertainment value and added value.
3. Align these assets and their values against the user, advertiser and publisher experience.
4. Build a test for all of your marketing assumptions, user behavior, and technical limits.

Regarding monetization, think of it as work for users. Ads organize our thoughts in exchange for perceived or actual value that users expert you to deliver.

And when it comes to deciding what to deploy, these are the main three profiles:

1. Long term, loyal user base
2. Highly transactional sites (e-Commerce)
3. Pass through traffic

The next priority is when to deploy.

• Most importantly, don’t be afraid.
• Take things little by little, but be meticulous.
• Set your goals, be ready to measure things.
• Go after 80% of the opportunity you discover- don’t burn yourself out trying to capture all 100%.

As Josh said, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.”

Face it- on the Internet, you’re either ahead or behind- you’re never on time. So stop trying to be. The best you can do is understand that users are going to choose for themselves. Just try to make yourself the most attractive choice .

Lastly, you must understand how to assess deployment:

• A/B testing
• specific goals
• proper rotation of users
• statistical and temporal relevance
• isolated
• specific begin/end
• specific owners and roll-back plan

And how will you know if your assumptions are correct? Make sure you’re measuring results at the baseline. Leverage third party analytics packages and internal custom data analytic tools- everything from Excel to MS SQL to SAS. Investing in a trusted, knowledgeable analytics staff is a wise choice, too.

Key metrics include:

• revenue / RMP / CPM
• session length
• CTR of all contente assets
• return users whole page yield

Last up is fellow Minnesotan, Lee Odden.

Universal Search was really born in 2007. But now three years later, the search landscape is different. We still have all the same digital assets, but now we have to weigh them against  personalized, social and real-time search. And lest we forget mobile search… even though mobile only represents about 3% of search, the smartphone adoption rate is sizeable, and thrusts another card in the mix we must consider.

Lee’s point is simply this: it’s all marketing! If something can be searched, it can be optimized.

Here’s a breakdown of Lee’s DAO Content Strategy Pyramid:

• Keywords - leverage PPC KW research as well as social conversation keywords. It;s really smart to understand what keywords and what concepts people are talking about in social environments, and the vocabulary they’re using to describe them.
• Personas - who is your audience? What are their behaviors? What are their needs? What are there interests? Where are they in the buying cycle? Do they prefer images or video?
• SERPs – evalute the serps – what shows up? wheres the opportuunity? its not static.
• Asset-  assess what you have. What’s already there? Online as well as offline.
• Editorial - make sure you create a content plan.
• Mapping - create a map for the keywords that relate to the content. This is just regular SEO but it takes digital assets into consideration.
• Operationalize - integrate this into your regular process.
• Off-page DAO - add digital assets, such as video, right on your site- but you better be sure yo’re promoting it across a variety of platforms.
• Promote - leverage RSS, email marketing and other forms of direct marketing.
• Measure - make sure you take traditional metrics into consideration as well as social media metrics, both front and and back end.

Lee like to build up the blog as a centerpiece to which all your social channels point towards. Of course he does. He’s got a beaut under his belt, TopRankBlog.com.

Holistic SEO In Action

Here’s a little case study Lee and the TopRank Online Marketing conducted last year:

1. Their Goal: build keyword authority, leads.
2. Ideal Keyword: “social media marketing”
3. Buyer Persona: fortune 1000 companies, corp marketers
4. Already in SERPs: web pages, blog posts
5. Ideal Assets: blog posts, images
6. Off-page Assets: Flickr, StumbleUpon, etc.

What They Did

• Asked 25 top dogs in social media marketing the same 8-10 questions (some interviews were even done by video)
• Took answers from one topical question (specific SMM tactics)
• Optimized content and published
• Promoted post via social media channels, RSS and email

The result? 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips a.k.a. a totally hot, beloved post with incredible SEO value.

IMHO this was a wonderfully insightful session to kickstart my week of goodies here at #SESNY. Be sure to stay tuned for our coverage throughout the conference, and follow our live tweets @beebow, @MerryMorud, @MannyRivas and of course, @aimclear.

Looks like that furry little so-and-so Punxsutawney Phil was wrong. Things are warming up here on the East coast just in time for search marketers to crawl out of their winter cocoons and into the session halls for Search Engine Strategies New York 2010.

SES means many things to us here at aimClear-  it’s an opportunity to learn from seasoned thought-leaders as well as share a few tricks, tidbits and techniques of our own… a chance to talk shop in a dynamic, geektastic environment, to meet new folks and reconnect with old friends. It also means one very special event is on the agenda: The semi-annual aimClear/Clix Marketing SchmoozeFest.

We’ve noted from previous industry events including SES San Jose, SMX West and SMX East that end of Day 2 is the best time to nurture attendees’ fried brains with snacks and adult beverages. That’s why for one magical evening, aimClear’s Marty Weintraub and PPC Expert David Szetela (Clix Marketing) join forces to host SchmoozeFest, the can’t-miss social event on the SES NY calendar.  This year’s edition is co-sponsored by our friends at Apogee Results, an Austin, TX search marketing firm. Special thanks to Bill Leake.

This exclusive networking shin-dig is a fabulous excuse for Marty and David to charm industry friends with lovely camaraderie, hilariously disturbing tales of yesteryear, “forgettable finger foods” and tasty, tasty cocktails. But we weren’t kidding about the exclusivity – only those sporting the coveted orange wristband are able to partake in the festivities (and any impending hangovers thereafter).

Already have your invitation? We’ll see you Wednesday, March 24^th 7-9 PM, orange wristband at the ready. Feel you were unjustly left off the guest list? Ping Marty via Facebook or Twitter (@aimClear), or reach out to me (@beebow), Merry (@MerryMorud) or Manny (@MannyRivas).

Oh, and before then- check out our SES NY iPod giveaway page where you can enter to win one of three iPod Nanos with the swank inscription: #SESNY Search Engine Strategies 2010. Only KPIs are fun and friendship .

photo credit: joiseyshowaa on Flickr
photo credit: toprankonlinemarketing on Flickr
photo credit: josh.liba on Flickr

Search Engine Strategies New York is an annual conclave of rare depth and importance.  In search marketing, channels evolve at blazing speed and staying relevant is an intense and ongoing process.  As part of our commitment to stay cutting-edge-current, aimClear team members hit the road for about 80 days of training each year. SES New York is on the shortest-list of must-attend seminars we would simply never miss. Here’s why:

5000 Marketers On A Mission
As robust as social media connections can be, there is absolutely no substitute for in-person networking. It’s not an exaggeration to say that aimClear’s SES participation has been a key building block to our knowledge and growth.  The assortment of industry peers, new friends, human resources, agencies, vendors, speakers & bloggers is stunning.

I’m always astonished to find so many kindred professionals so willing to share, prognosticate, network and party.  We’d never miss Search Engine Strategies New York, if only for the opportunity to feel part of such a close-knit and powerful community.  Look around the room. These are among the most plugged-in and gracious Internet marketers on earth. I’ve made life-long friends, partners & clients at SES.

Critically Important Topics
Really, it’s a matter of survival. A commitment to attend Search Engine Strategies New York is  assurance that your search marketing team will stay relevant. The content is cutting edge. Whatever your bag, you can fill it with goodies here. Dive into best-in-class training to move your SEO, PPC, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social PPC, video, strategy, tools and tactics to the next level.

We’d never miss SES New York because there are so few places to find such deep training, all under one tent. Search industry players tend to hold major announcements for release at SES New York.  In 2008 Google verified that personal search had, in fact, been dialed-in. Attending SES means being part of the industry news cycle, rather observing from afar.

Seriously Relevant Tracks
Each day features themed sessions segmented into “tracks,” this year’s SES Tracks are: Search Fundamentals, Beyond the Crawlers, Search Analytics, The State of Search, Search on the Edge, Search Fundamentals, News & Advertising, Business Track, Geek Speak, OMS Track, Search & Social, Hybrid, Advanced Issues, Geek Track & Clinics. Obviously it would be mistake to miss SES New York. There are very few places in the entire world to find this specialized a concentration of topical matter.

aimClear is Speaking!
I’ll have the pleasure of speaking on the Advanced Keyword Research panel.  Moderated by Jon Myers, SES Advisory Board & Head of Search/Associate Director, Mediavest, my fellow speakers are Yigal Elnekave, Senior Product Manager, Search Advertising Strategy, Microsoft Advertising, Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance, Marcus Tandler, CEO, Creativity in Action.

This session is going to be a burner folks, packed with advanced concepts for building targeted keyword lists whilst providing a basket of practical tools and techniques. We look forward to seeing you at 4:15 -5:15 of Thursday March 25^th.

Awesome Speakers List
The SES New York speaker’s list is a veritable who’s-who in search marketing.  It’s rare to see such a glittering gathering of thought leaders, vendors, up-and-comers and representative of the engines themselves.

What’s most striking is how incredible approachable the speakers are.  Somehow they always seem to find time to chat it up with attendees. Meet your favorite practitioners, bloggers and thought-leaders in person.

New York Hilton Venue
The New York Hilton is one of the coolest hotels in the world. Smack-dab in the middle of Mid-Town Manhattan, it’s only steps to Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Broadway, Central Park, killer shopping and (of course) the best selection of eateries anywhere in the world.

The grand ballrooms, striking concourses and ornate decorations whisper memories of America’s opulent renaissance.  This hotel is my personal favorite conference location in the world.

Next Gen’ Keynotes
The keynotes promise to be extraordinary David Meerman ScottAuthor, World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas… Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist, Google. Yusuf Mehdi Senior Vice President of the Online Audience Business, Bing. I’m particularly excited about seeing Avninash speak. His approach to analytics is nearly Zen for those in the know. Don’t miss this chance to see him debut in his first SES NY Keynote.

The City of New York
Never miss a chance to hang out in NYC!  To walk the streets and look around is to discover America’s architectural roots.  The people are an amazing rainbow, a melting pot of what world was and has become.

The restaurant options are stunning, including always-vital China Town & Little Italy fare, Korean, Afghan, South American, Cuban, Kosher and just about every other ethnic permutation imaginable.  Museums, attractions, theater, and music…from neighborhood to neighborhood, the opportunity to experience NYC is always golden.

See You There!
There are many excellent reasons to attend SES New York and we never miss it.  Gather all the information your team needs in one sitting and make life-long associations.  Keep current on rapidly changing trends and tools to keep the team relevant. Partake in New York City’s splendor. We look forward to seeing you there.