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We’ve all been there. People talk about Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization and we just nod and smile. We then wonder, “What is Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization?” Well, here’s an overview and why you should care.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

When you have a website, or even just a page, you want to make sure people can find you. If you’re selling a product, a service, retail, wholesale, or soliciting nonprofit donations, Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, helps bring people to your website.

How does that work?

Search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo! (the “SE” in SEO) regularly index the Internet, crawling around and noting what kind of content is on websites across the web. Whenever someone searches for “socks” or “melamine,” search engines look for websites with those keywords and phrases and display them on their results pages. This is sometimes called organic optimization because the result order happens by way of natural or “organic” indexing of sites. These positions cannot be purchased, but can be influenced by optimization.

Okay, so how do I “optimize?”

Keywords and key phrases! If you’re selling melamine sock organizers, it helps to periodically research what words and phrases your potential customer uses in searches. Do they look for “melamine sock caddy” more often? Perhaps they’ve adopted slang or creative spellings such as “sox” or phrases like “getting my socks in a row.”

When you’ve identified the keywords and key phrases your customers and potential clients are searching for, you can start making sure they’re included in your website pages, blog posts, social media posts, and any company profiles you have on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or other websites.

So, what is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is the umbrella term for, well, all forms of search engine marketing. Whereas SEO focuses only on organic search results, SEM includes paid advertising on search engines. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and others sell advertising space in the form of search results.

When someone searches for “socks” or “melamine,” they will find ads beside the organic results, organized by keyword bids and ranking in addition to relevance. These ads are typically at the top of search results, before the organic spots, or in a sidebar to the right.

So, how does that work?

There are a couple different services search engines offer. Perhaps the most commonly known service is Pay-Per-Click, or PPC. This displays ads alongside search results for a set period of time and within your budget.

You only pay when your ads are clicked on by users and you can set a budget that fits your business. (So, you don’t end up owing a search engine your first born.) If your budget is set at $20 per month, the search engine will offer up your ad until you reach your limit. When the $20 worth of clicks are achieved, the ad stops showing and you won’t be charged further.

You should care!

Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are important foundational pieces in your marketing activities. Search engines are a pivotal driver of traffic to websites. More traffic means more opportunity for sales, donations, new clients, or readers.

If you don’t have an expert in-house you can easily find a partner to help get your SEO and SEM campaigns off the ground, or steer them in a more focused and effective direction. No matter what your target, business model, or traffic goals are, SEO and SEM can effectively scale your digital presence.

Last week was Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference. They are releasing a lot of new software and updates that I found particularly helpful. From some of the announced developments, it appears that Apple is continuing to make a great user experience through their products. Here are some highlights from the conference that are particularly beneficial to Apple users.

User Interface Design

Smartphones are a big deal, particularly for die-hard iPhone users. Apple realized that as much as people use a desktop operating system, the one that they spend the most time on is on their phone. The new desktop operating system, named Yosemite, will be streamlined to look more like the their mobile design and experience:

• OS fonts will go from the current Lucida Grande to Helvetica Neue
• Toolbars are refined to focused on clarity and utility and they’re adding translucent “materials”
• All icons are being updated (They finally have a great looking Trash Can!)
• The toolbar and dock have a “Dark Mode” option

Continuity

One of the big talking points was: “Use the right device for the moment.” As users are using more tablets and smartphones, specifically iPhones and iPads, their experience going from device to device will be smoother.

• AirDrop - It now works between iOS and the Mac OS
• Handoff - Your devices will be aware of what you're working on. You’ll be able to pick up where you left off on another device.
• Instant Hotspot - If you're using a mac and you aren’t near a WiFi, but your phone is nearby, your computer will recognize it as a hotspot. We will see how seamless this is, there would be some setting up before you can use it automatically.
• Phone calls - When you receive a phone call, your computer presents the caller information in addition to your phone. You can even accept the phone call from your computer, even if your phone is across the room. You can make phone calls from the computer as well.

Interactive Notification

Since users are interacting primarily with their iOS devices, Apple is making advancements to make this experience easier. Users can now:

• Swipe down to interact with notifications:
  • Respond to text messages
  • Accept calendar invites
  • Like or comment on Facebook posts
• Double click the home button to get a list of the people you communicate with the most

Quick Type

The announced upgrades will make typing on iPhones and iPads much easier (and hopefully reduce the number of mistaken autocorrects).

• Keyboard suggestions based on what you type (hello mistaken suggestions)
• Suggested options to reply to a message
• Language based on how you communicate with certain people (for example, you may say the “party was really nice” to your mom or say it was “epic” to a good buddy)

Messages

This might be my favorite addition to the iOS since “Do Not Disturb” in the iOS 7 release. Group messaging is now better than ever. I’m sure everyone has been on a message chain from hell. At the time it might have been useful, but 3 months later a new conversation gets started on an old chain and it blows up your phone. You now have the option to:

• Leave threads
• Turn particular threads to “Do Not Disturb”
• Add and remove people
• Name the thread

You can also sort to see all of the images used in that thread and shared locations. This will be great when you're with a large group message and would like to keep track of that one friend that barely comments.

There is also a new feature to send voice and video messages straight from the Messages App.

Family Sharing

You can now share media with family members if all accounts share the same credit card. This setup keeps your kids from spending $2,500 on in-app add-ons. You can manage settings so that certain family members, such as your 6 year old on the iPad, have to ask you in order to purchase an app. You get the alert on your device to approve or deny their request.

Photos

I’m a designer and love taking pictures. The new Photos advancements are very cool. The new app has smart editing controls, such as levels for light and color.

For example, you can select a photo to edit and click the smart editing controller. You get a smart light editing feature. To achieve this, the app has an algorithm that simultaneously adjusts brightness, contrast, exposure, highlights and shadows at the same time. The same for color.

Also, photo storage is easier with iCloud pricing: the first 5GB are free, 20GB for $0.99 a month, and 200GB for $3.99 per month. They even have tiers up to 1TB (who wants 1TB of selfies?).

Think Different

It’s good seeing Apple continue to innovate, especially when the updates are free to users. The whole conference was centered on upgrades and innovations. They didn’t sell, they only shared what was coming to everyone at no cost. I can’t wait to see what they will unveil next.

A usability study is a great way to identify trouble spots with your website, application or prototype.

It involves watching your users complete a set of tasks on your site or application. This includes testing processes like purchasing, registration, forms and finding content. It’s also a great way to test the language and labels on your site to see if you are using menu labels that are intuitive for your users.

There’s no substitute for watching users actively use your site. You gain insights into why parts of your site aren’t performing and more importantly how to resolve them.

One day of testing with 6 to 8 users will uncover over 80% of the usability issues with your site. I call that a day well spent.

Why should I use this approach?

Usability testing is a good way to learn how to improve the user experience on any site. If you are asking any of these questions, conducting usability testing might be a great next move:

• How can we get more users to complete the checkout process?
• How can we get users to accurately complete each step of this form?
• How does our site perform on mobile devices?
• How can we help our users learn more about what we have to offer?

What does usability testing achieve?

Usability testing allows you to see the site experience from the user’s point of view. The benefits of this testing include identifying:

• Confusing or unclear language and navigation labels
• Confusing or broken processes, particularly useful for check-out and registration processes or any conversion points
• Inconsistencies between multi-device versions of your site (mobile, tablet, desktop)
• Issues with the “findability” of content

When should I start testing?

Early and often. At Sandstorm we start the testing process as soon as we have enough wireframes or a prototype to start getting feedback.

Usability testing early in the process can help identify issues before budget is spent developing something that’s not optimal.

It’s also the tool to use if parts of your site aren’t performing as expected. Even when your site is performing well, you’ll want to make sure your site is optimized for your users.

I’m in. How do I conduct usability testing?

It is an in-depth process. There aren’t many steps to conducting usability research, but care should be taken with each step. You can do rapid testing in 1 or 2 weeks time. Usability study projects at Sandstorm usually take 4 to 6 weeks to complete.

1. Identify the goal of your study and the key tasks you want to test. Don’t try to test too much in one study. If you want to test a lot of areas, it’s better to do multiple studies.
2. Identify your users and participant criteria; make sure you’re testing with people who would actually use your site.
3. Write the testing protocol (the list of scenarios you want to test).
4. Recruit users. We recommend offering a gratuity for participation. It’s a nice incentive.
5. Conduct the study.
6. Analyze the results.
7. Make improvements to your site.

Here are some helpful hints for greater success:

• Focus on your conversion points.
• Allow room in the protocol for follow up questions and clarifications.
• Don’t interfere; observe and let your users do their thing.
• Test the mobile and desktop experiences.

Do I get results?

Yes, you do. Usability testing yields a research report with key findings. At Sandstorm, we always include actionable recommendations with our key findings. We also provide video and screen capture footage for stakeholders to review.

Most importantly, you’re getting rid of problems on your site and gaining a better experience for your users.

[Ed. - Check back for the last post of this series on user research with Heuristic Analyses. If you missed it, be sure to read his previous posts on In-Depth User Interviews and Card Sorting with Tree Testing.]

What makes for a great front desk experience? As someone who has been the face at that desk and the first voice on the phone, it’s a combination of empathy and information. I’ve never had a full-time position where I just sit and wait for people to show up. The front desk person always has other priorities and goals.

People coming in the office don’t need to know that, it’s not really relevant to them. All they remember is if I helped them when they came in. In much the same way visitors to your website don’t know and don’t care what your other priorities are, they just care about what you can do for them.

Greet Them

The greeting when you walk through the door is quite important. Friendly and attentive is by far a must. You wouldn’t have your front desk person stand at the door and loudly yell at potential clients as they walk in “HEY! We’ve got a great deal for you, let me show you right now!!!” while blocking their entrance and view. Pop up ads, loud music, animations, and the like, go over about as well.

Anticipate Their Needs

I think we’d have trouble landing business if when a potential client walked in the door for her first meeting, I shoved a hot cup of coffee down her throat, yanked off her coat, and tossed her into the bathroom. I would certainly ask her if she’d like something to drink, if she’d like to hang up her coat, and if she needed the bathroom, but I let her decide what she needs.

Your users know what they want, and it may not align with what you want them to do. Error on the side of walking in their shoes, worry about your goals on the back end. Ultimately this will more effectively accomplish your goals.

Keep Them Updated

If the guest is here to see someone, I make sure that both that person is notified and that the guest is aware so that the guest is not waiting and wondering what’s going on. When an action is completed on your website, do you give a clear confirmation? If a visitor runs into a problem, does your 404 page or other error messages give that visitor any direction on what he can do next? In the real world, he can ask, or just glare expectantly. On the web, your visitors will just go to your competitors.

Learn and Repeat These Five Words

Businesses have a front desk for very much the same reasons they have a website. It’s another channel for interaction and if done well, can enhance and build relationships. If done poorly it can make sure they never come back. It all comes down to 5 words :

“How can I help you?”

Launching AdWords campaigns can be a frustrating, pocket-draining initiative if you’re not careful. However, it can also bring in traffic and conversions that quickly make the whole thing worthwhile. Here are five quick tips if you are just getting started and don’t know where to, well, start.

1. Plan ahead

Work with your internal team and your agency to define what your expectations are and create some realistic goals. A good way to do this is to assess what you are doing now. How much are you spending for leads and conversions using your existing marketing tactics? How much can you allocate to AdWords campaigns? What are your customers or clients really looking for when they turn to a search engine for help?

2. Optimize

Dedicate some time and resources to optimizing your web site’s landing pages to increase the Quality Score of your ads. Google is successful because it thinks about its users (and this focus keeps users coming back for more and more). In regards to AdWords, Google wants to make sure that it is sending its users to the places where they can actually find relevant content.

Google rewards you for sending people to right place. Having better content helps bring you a higher ranking and can lead to a lower cost-per-click. It’s worth the upfront costs and effort to create a great experience for users on your web site and landing pages before bidding on ads.

3. Play Chess, Not Battleship

While there is some guessing when it comes to the auction process, you can make educated bids. With high keyword limits, AdWords allows 20,000 per ad group, it seems like the options are endless. Why not have every variation of the terms related to your business and see what happens? If this is your approach, I’m not surprised if SEM is the bane of your marketing existence.

Instead, do research, be relevant. Imagine what your customer is thinking and searching for, then use terms and phrases they would naturally use or what they will be looking for in the future. You are paying for each visit, make the most of them. Tactically, if your product or service is commonly misspelled, use the broad match keyword approach and let Google’s mechanics take care the rest. You can cast a wide net to improve your ad’s impressions but focus a majority of your resources on high-quality keywords that will bring the right customers with real conversions.

4. Be Patient

While this process can seem laborious and not yield immediate results, stick with it. SEM is an ever-evolving marketing tool. You won’t run perfect campaigns every time (I’m not sure that such a thing even exists). After a month or so of running ads, take a look under the hood and see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you learn more about what Google AdWords and your users are looking for with your ads. Remember, one click could be the conversion that covers the cost of the entire campaign.

5. Have Flexibility

After reviewing what’s working, investigate why. Is it bid amounts, budget, keywords, ads? AdWords is full of analytics, use them. If it’s not working, do something different. This platform is one of the only marketing tools available that can quickly be changed with little or no cost.

AdWords allows you to amend your account as frequently as you want, or if you are a data-lover and want to be able to examine trends, make less frequent, measured changes. Study the board, do your research and be willing to adjust your game plan.

Ads in the Right Place at the Right Time

Unlike some other marketing efforts, AdWords allows customers to see your information when they expect to see it, at the time when they are actively searching for what you offer. It’s a worthwhile program to boost your business, but it requires attention and upkeep for success. Stay focused and watch the clicks turn to conversions.

I recently conducted a usability study for a Fortune 50 company. It was for an internal portal for managing employee health benefits and programs. This included testing both the desktop and mobile experiences. Results of the study showed users were frustrated by irrelevant content or that they missed content important to them because it was buried in the experience.

Stakeholder goals came first

The project stakeholders built the portal around their needs and the users needs were secondary. Throughout the portal, surveys, promotions for internal programs were brought to the front instead of presenting the key health benefit information users wanted. Users found this particularly frustrating on their mobile devices, where they wanted to quickly access specific information on-the-go.

User goals should be priority

If the users had access to the information they wanted first, they would more likely take the time to read the promotions or surveys. Since it was in the way beforehand, users found it annoying. At best it was ignored.

A soapbox I often stand on when speaking with clients goes like this:

• You have business or organizational goals
• Your users have goals
• Sometimes these are the same, sometimes they are not
• Meeting your users goals first greatly increases your chances of meeting your business goals

Everyone wins when the user succeeds

Often, there are business goals your users don’t care about at all. If you prioritize your users’ goals, you’ll have the opportunity later to meet those business goals that aren’t important to your users. If you make it difficult for your users to meet their goals, it’s unlikely they’ll stick around to help you meet yours.

Each user has a goal in mind specific to their need and situation. By successfully meeting this need, they will return to your site, app, and even brick and mortar store again.

Big data isn’t new, but it has been on our minds for the last several months. So, we thought now was as good a time as any to talk about it.

Big data in the news

In September, the New York Times ran an article that piqued our interest. In short: Acxiom Corporation, one of the world’s largest marketing technology companies, had launched AboutTheData.com – a website that lets consumers see what information (or ‘Big Data’) the company is collecting and analyzing about them.

The pitch was simple: If you want to get the best advertising delivered to you, based on your actual interests, start here. Tell us who you are so we can show you the information used to fuel many of the marketing offers you receive from advertisers using Acxiom’s digital marketing data.

What information is out there?

More and more, companies are beginning to invest in Big Data solutions as a means of achieving a more effective reach, but investing in this kind of data is not without its challenges. For example, here’s what some Sandstormers had to say when they registered with AboutTheData for a look behind the data mining curtain:

“Characteristic data was spot-on except for the child I didn’t know I have. Household vehicle data: only insurance renewal, nothing about past vehicles I’ve owned (10!). Household economic data: accurate, but light.”

“The only thing accurate about my home was the year it was built. There was absolutely no data found on our cars. For household interests, they had gourmet cooking which is really quite funny since we order most from Pizza Hut… None of the data they had on me felt invasive, probably because the most personal pieces of data were simply not us.”

 “The results were disturbingly specific and correct in many cases. In other cases they were completely wrong. They knew everything about my condo purchase, which isn’t hard info to get. They know when my condo and car insurance policies are up for renewal. They knew my age (down to a two year window). Were close enough on my profession. They were pretty far off on my household income and purchasing habits.”

A constant work-in-progress

As our Sandstormers and media outlets have reported, Acxiom still has a few kinks to work out, and chief among them may be accuracy.

“One point I want to make is that this is the first release of the website,” says Nicholas Meshes, an engineering lead at Acxiom who oversees a team of developers who work on the AboutTheData.com project. “There will be subsequent releases that mean more information, improved usability, and more resources and control around how data is being used.”

It’s for more personalized relationships

He adds: “The fact is, corporations want to have more personalized relationships with consumers, and what we’re trying to do is create trust among consumers by letting them see and specify what information is being shared. People who use the website have places to go to give direct feedback, and can opt in or out of most elements we have on file about them. There are also features in the AboutTheData that direct you back to the Acxiom website to show you how we are using your data. Whatever you specify becomes our highest priority.” Whether you opt in or out, you are likely going to be marketed to regardless, “so it may as well be relevant to you.”

One of many tools

Okay. It’s a good idea driven by well-meaning intent, but the Acxiom project and the skepticism with which it has been met underscores one of the biggest challenges faced by marketing companies whose success continues to be influenced by big data: You can’t have trust without accuracy. Even if the data is accurate, it’s just one tool in your marketing toolbox.

Addressing the challenges

Big data is not the marketing panacea, but it can be a fantastic tool to create better experiences for your customers. Using big data effectively requires thoughtful decisions about how you want to engage your target market and providing them with the appropriate control mechanisms to build trust. This is a process and a large component of utilizing big data effectively to address marketing challenges.