mozcon 2013 recap - day two

MozCon 2013 Highlights

Curated by: @KaneJamison &

Beth Anderson (@JadeEJF) Content Harmony

Day Two


Speaker: Phil Nottingham9:00 am to 9:30 am

Day 2, Session 1:

Building A Winning Video Marketing Strategy

Click here for slides

https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/s93gykbzzd7dn6s1dhp9.pptx

MozCon 2013 HighlightsDay 2, Session 1:

Speaker: Phil Nottingham

Distilled internal study found average level of referring traffic from YouTube

is 0.72% - the best performing site was REI, who had a 4.37%

clickthrough rate.

So, if you’re putting your branded videos on Youtube, you could be

losing 99% of your potential traffic/clicks/audience…

#Quote



But…

“YouTube is the best platform for brand

awareness.”

#Quote



“Measure engagement, not views.

Engagement is what matters - you need to optimize to make sure people are sticking with

it as long as they can...

#Quote



“If you want quality, evergreen links from sites in your niche, you [can’t

shoot for viral].”

#Quote



“Refine the goals and nail it.... do one piece of content every three

months instead of three pieces of content every

month.”

#Quote


Speaker: Phil Smith9:30 am to 9:45 am

Day 2, Session 2:

The Next Generation of Mozscape


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/5ivwmk939iebisj9n84f.key


Speaker: Phil Smith

“Depending on how you count, maybe a lot less than half of the internet changes... but

if we only knew which half stayed the same, we could hang on to it and get a 2x

improvement right there.

The Internet is an organic phenomenon, and it follows power distribution... the majority of links only go to a handful of

pages... the majority of updates only go to a handful of sites.”

#Quote


Speaker: Phil Smith

Note from Kane: I can’t specifically quote Phil in this section, but my take on his

explanation of their new Meerkat platform is that the speed at which the platform will

update will allow for predictive analytics and traffic estimation on Moz campaigns,

and a constantly updating link index. Pretty fascinating and should allow for

some very impressive improvements from the current generation of Open Site

Explorer and Moz’s index.

#Paraphrase


Speaker: Carin Overturf9:45 am to 10:00 am

Day 2, Session 3:

How to Moz Lingo: Cross-Team Communication

When Crisis Hits


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/gv1vxfrbsb92pwg0y7oe.pdf


Speaker: Carin Overturf

“Making sure that everyone has a clear definition of what an emergency is. For us, five emails or tweets in 24

hours about the same issue. If engineers see operational emails,

they send emails to the community help team.

You want to make sure it’s really an emergency if you’re going to wake an

engineer up at 8 a.m.”#Quote


Speaker: Carin Overturf

“Practice communication with your customers during the

good times and it’s going to be a lot easier and more natural when times get

tough.”

#Quote


Speaker: Aaron Wheeler10:00 am to 10:15 am

Day 2, Session 4:

Empower Your Customers to Become Your Evangelists


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/2n1jr747dj1ie6otlqk3.key


Speaker: Aaron Wheeler

“I think that customer service and inbound marketing are

connected in a way we don’t often think about.

Customer service is establishing [a] connection & making them

feel good, but marketing comes in when you make it public.”

#Quote


Speaker: Aaron Wheeler

“People get value out of help content... build a help content strategy alongside your normal

content strategy.”

#Quote


Speaker: Miranda Rensch10:15 am to 10:30 am

Day 2, Session 5:

Engineer Your Life: Agile for Work and Play


http://prezi.com/woqzarhy679s/engineer-your-life-agile-for-work-and-play-mozcon-2013/


Speaker: Miranda Rensch

“Agile is a process that helps you adapt over time

and remember the big picture reasons you’re

doing what you’re doing.”

#Quote


Speaker: Miranda Rensch

“Having personal mission statements can be a fun way to remember why

you’re spending time on the things you’re spending

time on.”

#Quote


Speaker: Joanna Lord10:50 am to 11:20 am

Day 2, Session 6:

Let's Play for Keeps: Building Customer Loyalty


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/cq2cf70afdbdebbo02kg.pptx


Speaker: Joanna Lord

“Loyalty is when brands create an intimate

emotional connection that you simply can’t do

without. Ever.”

-Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi

#Quote



“Companies will not succeed without loyalty.

Building a tribe, a loyal audience... is a

requirement, it’s the new standard.”

#Quote



“There should be a budget and conversations and quarterly planning for

(brand loyalty marketing).”

#Quote


Speaker: Adam Audette11:20 am to 11:50 am

Day 2, Session 7:

Ecommerce SEO: Cutting Edge Tactics That Scale


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/un86efquxns0pl0sx1he.pptx


Speaker: Adam Audette

“If we think about the old mindsets, back then it was about chasing

algorithms.

Now, instead of chasing the algorithms, we want to chase the people... and thinking about the

users.

Search engines are a means to an end.”#Quot

e



“You shouldn’t fix every server error ever, but you should fix them when they

spike.”

#Quote



“Best way to handle expired products is to

create a product not here page, and link back to

tightly related products.”

#Quote



From RKG internal client studies, Facebook sends

30x more traffic than Google+... social sites are

less than 2% of all referring traffic (for their clients).

#Stats


Speaker: Brittan Bright1:20 pm to 1:50 pm

Day 2, Session 8:

Building Your Business: Relationship and Other

Critical "Soft" Skills


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/qtmgn1ic8jxez44z3bds.pptx


Speaker: Brittan Bright

“We like to pretend like these soft skills are on the outskirts - but they’re central to everything. If

you’re a developer, there are languages you need to code in, and it’s comforting when you know you

need to have those skills.

Hardcore skills can build a house, but it takes a softer touch to make a

house a home.”

#Quote


Speaker: Brittan Bright#Quote

“It’s not an IQ contest... if your ideas aren’t heard, it doesn’t matter - social and emotional intelligence are

really important.

Understanding how to elicit an emotion in another person

is a really important skill.”


Speaker: Kyle Rush1:50 pm to 2:20 pm

Day 2, Session 9:

Win Through Optimization and Testing


http://slid.es/kylerush/landing-page-optimization


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“We always had a test running, and it was always

intense, the amount of traffic we had.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“If you’re not gathering data, then you’re flying

blind.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“You want to observe your users using your product,

otherwise you’re not going to know how they’re using

it, because you are not your user.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“The first step for us in experimentation was to identify our goals at a micro and a macro level. The second step is to develop hypotheses - it’s just the scientific process that we all learned in grade school... it’s helpful in making sure you stay focused. Number three is to create experiments...

and test it multiple times and create multiple experiments to test your

hypotheses. Fourth is to prioritize with ROI.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“Test your ideas, and lastly, record your results. We ran 500 tests and we couldn’t

always remember the result. We kept a Google doc that recorded the results, and

without that we couldn’t have functioned...”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“Copy is in my experience, by far, the highest ROI you can

experiment with.

By making the copy more direct, we got a 21% increase on

conversions. Very little development effort, but a huge

change in conversions.”#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“An 80% faster time-to-paint caused a 14% increase in

conversions... it’s not as big as the other changes... but it was

$32 million worth.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“Don’t be afraid to fail - I can’t stress this enough.

Only 20% of our experiments increased the conversion rate…

…you can’t let that get you down.”

#Quote


Speaker: Kyle Rush

“Placing an upsell on the conversion page resulted in a

44% decrease in conversions for us.

If you aren’t failing, you aren’t testing enough. You are not going

to have 100% success in your tests.”

#Quote


Speaker: Nathalie Nahai2:20 pm to 2:50 pm

Day 2, Session 10:

How Gender and Cultural Differences in Web

Psychology Affect the Customer Experience


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/wwo9rxwaj9m0d88ibmih.pdf


Speaker: Nathalie Nahai

“In all the research I did, I found there are three pillars that you

need to succeed online - knowing who you’re targeting, being able

to communicate with them persuasively, and using

psychology to sell with integrity.”

#Quote



“Risk is one of the biggest barriers to buying things online. Men tend to be

less concerned about privacy, and more likely to blog with their real

name.

Women are still skeptical of online information, and are much more likely

to blog anonymously. There is an element of sexual harassment that happens online, and we have to be

aware of it.”#Quote



Design for men - flashy interactive and animated,

goal-oriented/gamified, many sub-levels

Design for women - attracted to colors, clean/uncluttered, prefer fewer subpage levels.

#Quote


Speaker: Annie Cushing2:50 pm to 3:20 pm

Day 2, Session 11:

Breaking Up with Your Keyword-Based KPIs


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/qnqagq6sgg85qb73jocc.pptx


Speaker: Annie Cushing

Regarding all of the incremental changes in Not

Provided data:

“You should be marking all of these things that chip away at

your keyword data in your annotations.”

#Quote



“It was amazing what we were able to do with [past keyword-level data], but it’s a thing of

the past. Move on.”

#Quote



“Any metric you’re isolating per keyword is junk data. Going after it is a fool’s

errand.

I’m not calling you a fool, just your errand.”

#Quote



“You have to know how to work pivot tables in order to

get any kind of insight.

It’s one of the two most critical skills you have to

know as a marketer.”

#Quote



“You have to get in front of this [shift]. if you’re an agency, you need to have this discussion with your clients - before the

inevitable day where your client comes to you saying they’re down in keyword-level

KPIs.

When you have an angry HiPPO and they’re coming after you, that’s not the time to say

“Oh no, wait, it’s not our fault, it’s (not provided) and firefox and chrome”…

…at that point it’s too late.”#Quote


Speaker: David Mihm3:40 pm to 4:10 pm

Day 2, Session 12:

End-to-End Local Optimization


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/q1btl8h3rketh6gshx2d.pptx


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“About one in three searches has local intent - people looking for a local business, maps, weather

news, etc.”

#Stats


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“Mobile is exploding... Yelp and some of the other sites

in the local space report upwards of 30% of

searches.”

#Stats


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“Google Places page signals, citation signals,

and review signals make up nearly 50% of the [local]

algorithm.”

#Quote


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“Google seems to be using largely the same algorithm on desktop as they do on

mobile, but I expect that to change as Google takes in

mobile signals over the next few years.”

#Quote


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“Google is now showing a lot of localized organic results, and so you

really need to focus a lot more heavily on local content.

Every manager or store owner should be able to write their own 200 character description for their

location. Have your managers answer the top 10 most asked questions in

store to get personalized unique local content on the site.”#Quot

e


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“If you do want low-hanging fruit, one great technique is to create

discount programs with local university/colleges.”

#Quote


Speaker: David Mihm

Day 2, Session 12:

“The folks who are doing really well despite being

out in the suburbs - that is who you want to pay

attention to. Do a competitive analysis

there.”#Quote


Speaker: Dana DiTomaso4:10 pm to 4:40 pm

Next Level Local Tactics: Making Your SEO Stand Out


Day 2, Session 13:

https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/jk7idmwz8k61s4w05veb.pptx


Speaker: Dana DiTomaso

Day 2, Session 13:

“Small businesses have the smallest budgets in the world, and they think they should get the same treatment

as big brands, and you explain to them that big brands have a whole team, and you expect me and my

$1000 to make the same thing happen? But, I love working with small businesses... because I like seeing the things you do for them

have a massive impact.”

#Paraphrase



Day 2, Session 13:

“Small businesses can show their heart much

more easily than a giant brand can.”

#Quote



Day 2, Session 13:

“The question is no longer how do I come up, but how

do I stand out?

How do I make myself more awesome than the

competition?”

#Quote



Day 2, Session 13:

“If you have an advertising club in your city, you should go, join, and listen to them,

because they say really interesting things… but they

don’t understand how to translate that to the Internet

yet.”#Quote



Day 2, Session 13:

“When you start to understand the conversation,

you give this little tiny business a massive voice that the big brand can’t replicate... make your brand interesting, make it stand for something,

make people love you.”

#Quote



Day 2, Session 13:

“Referral business is the best... why do we do a shitty job of getting them via the

web?

If I see an increase in branded traffic, that means referrals are working... I want to see that word of mouth getting

out there.”#Quote


Speaker: Allison Urban4:40 pm to 5:10 pm

Day 2, Session 14:

Cater to Your Audience via UX


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/u6k640ovb1j3ty3vnvvo.pptx


Speaker: Allison Urban

“If we want to build the kind of businesses that last... we

need to think about the engine of our growth - and that’s our customers. If we think of them as people we want to delight, rather than

leads or conversions, it changes everything.”

#Quote



“User experience is a key differentiator... because customer happiness is a leading indicator of the

future health of any business.”

#Quote



“Usability is making things as easy to understand and

usable as possible.”

#Quote



“Pleasure doesn’t have to be at the forefront of your app. You can incorporate

just a little bit of joy pleasure and surprise, and that can work surprisingly

well.”#Quote



“When you send your email campaign [in MailChimp for

example], people are usually relieved. Because of that, success pages are a great place to do something fun,

because they’re outside of the task workflow.”

#Quote



“When we create emotionally engaging

experiences, people stop thinking of our products as just dumb interfaces, and start thinking of them as

people they want to interact with, and that’s

really powerful.”#Quote



“When we think about user experience, we need to think about delighting customers,

and not necessarily the immediate return on

investment... you need to think long-term. If we focus on profit instead of the user experience, they’d see right

through us.”#Quote



“To make your product meaningful, celebrate

milestones, reward achievements - say thank you. That personal bit of

attention can really make a difference between you and

your competitors.”#Quote



“You don’t have to be silly, you just want to be

yourself, and communicate like you’re talking to a friend instead of with

corporate speak. When you write something, say it out

loud.”#Quote


Speaker: Will Critchlow5:10 pm to 5:40 pm

Day 2, Session 15:

Living in the Future of User Behavior


https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/dugcy2wmr61pu5cirvmb.pdf


Speaker: Will Critchlow

“We’re following people more than ever before.

We’re getting stuff curated for us by people that we trust. We want people we

trust to tell us what to read...”

#Quote



“The main reason people like brands on Facebook is because they actually like

that brand.”

#Quote



“Audience fragmentation is a huge power for anyone

who can own that audience... what we need

to be doing is building audiences for people,

because they’ve lost the power to do that...”

#Quote



“77% of mobile searches are done in a location

where a PC is likely to be available... because it’s

convenient.”

#Stats



“Fundamentally, the big trend that I think we need to do to

make ourselves successful... is that we need to realize that we’re

not gaming and tweaking little factors... but we need to be helping our businesses earn

attention and gain real audiences.”

#Quote

Thanks for checking out our coverage!

Check out our full live notes and slide decks for all 3 days of

MozCon 2013:

Click here!Curated by:

@KaneJamison &Beth Anderson (@JadeEJF) Content

Harmony

http://www.contentharmony.com/blog/mozcon-2013-coverage/