Time to get sentimental (hold back the tears). The end of 2006 is upon us and it's time to reflect on all of the great articles and posts we have read and discussed with each other over the past year. For me, it seemed like there was an abundance of Top 10 Lists popping up all over blogs, which is great! I love Top 10 Lists! They're direct, straight to the point - I can skim through them and read the points that catch my eye and I'm done! So with that, I (and others) thought it would be beneficial if someone compiled a list to remind us of all of the great Top Whatever's of the past year related to the industry (if it wasn't, this list would be chock full of Letterman jokes). I'm happy to present my Top 10 List of (but not limited to) Top 10 Lists of 2006 + 2, or as it is known in Europe, Listmania Haus 2006.

1.) 12 Different Types of Links and How to Get Them by Stuntdubl.
What better way to start a Top 10 list post than with the king of Top Whatever/Reasons, Stuntdubl. As someone who knew the benefits of linking, I didn't quite know alternative ways to go about getting actual quality links from web sites other than sending out blind emails begging for a link (exaggeration). This post is an excellent guide to have on hand on not only showing what kind of links to aquire, but also what to look for to identify a particular quality link, examples, and additional notes on how to go about getting this link.

2.) Top 7 SEO Mistakes For New Site Owners by Mr. SEO.
This is an excellent list of SEO Mistakes that new site owners should have folded up in their back pocket. Simple and easy for the newest of newbies to understand, he outlines many of the things I tell my clients to avoid or should be doing at the very least. This is a list anyone can do and should be doing.

3.) 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall.
The mother load of linking tips. Broken up into categories and sections, this list is an invaluable resource of knowledge and ideas. It is so huge and such a great resource that ANYONE should be able to pull at least ONE great idea from it and act on it. In fact, I'm acting on the first category right now: "Love for Lists." Print this baby out!

4.) 10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic by randfish.
The team over at SEOMoz does an excellent job of cranking out useful, informative post after post that you would have to think they are in fact not humans but Data-like characters who sit 24/7 writing posts to make benefit glorious industry of SEO (a Star Trek and Borat reference all rolled into one.) Seriously though, this list outlines different ways you can drive traffic to your site through the use of either great design, a creative Keyword campaign, or simply attending your industry events and writing about it. When you read it, you can realize how you can use the tools around you to actually improve your site easily.

5.) Top 10 Business Mistakes Search Marketing Firms Make by Marketing Pilgrim.
Maybe a lot of us search marketing agencies spend so much time improving the quality of our clients businesses that we forget to update our own businesses ways of operation! Here, Andy details how Search Marketing Firms may be missing the boat on how to effectively benefit their business, which in the long run, will make you and your clients more successful. Not only can this list come in handy for Search Marketing Firms, but you can most likely apply it to any business.

6.) Do Your Users Trust You?: 21 Tips for Improved Website Credibility by stuntdubl.
In this list, Todd outlines different ways any online business can give themselves the credibility they need to attract more business. It is so easy to be a fly-by-night operation on the internet that savy customers are now looking for ways to make sure you are a credible business they can safely transact with. For instance, by simply adding an 800 number with your business hours, or by adding a physical address you can build some confidence within your customers. What have you done to improve your customer confidence?

7.) 7 Reasons Why You Should Add More Content to Your Website by Jim Boykin. Conference after conference, agency after agency, you are told to add content to your site, and here is why in 7 sweet and short reasons. Let's do some role playing, I'll be Jim, you can be an inquiring mind.

You: "So Jim, why do you think my site isn't showing up in Google?"
Jim: "You've got the same content on your pages as 50 other sites have."
You: "And this is a problem how?"
Jim: "Google will try to choose the 1 page it thinks is the 'real' one, will it be yours? Or will yours go supplemental?"

Read the rest of his reasons to find out why you may not be showing up on the SERPS.

8.) 11 Best Practices for URLS by randfish.
If you're thinking about adding a whole new product line to your web site, or are in the process of developing a new web site, then this post is a must. Your URLS are important in not only that search engines are becoming pickier and pickier about what they'll like better but they also can improve your click through rate. For instance, if you're URL is http://www.example.com/acf934.html and the URL right next to your listing is http://www.example2.com/product-i-want.html, which would you be more inclined to click on? This list outlines many more ways to make the most of your websites URLS.

9.) The 12 days of Christmas by Paul Boisvert.
Ok, ok, maybe this isn't exactly along the same lines as the other posts, but it is still a list and an excellent one at that. Paul from the official Yahoo! Store Blog gave 12 great tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of your Yahoo! Store. Start implementing these tips into your store and I'll bet you'll see some vast improvements in your store through the year.

10.) 99 Branding Tips for Poor Web Startups by the Aviva Directory.
You know what's great about the internet? Is that anyone can pretty much start up their own business from the comfort of their own home. You know what isn't so great about the internet? Is that not everyone can afford to market their web site from the comfort of their own home. Check out this list for 99 different ways you can market your web site with even the smallest of budgets.

Bonus!

Jill Whalen's 10 Signs That your SEO is a Quack! If your SEO mentions the items in this list, then maybe it's time you moved to a new agency.

+

While doing my research for this post, I came across a post by Neil Patel who did a post on his Top 50 Favorite Blogging Resources. He lists some great web sites where you can get the know-how and find the resources you need to create a successful blog.

Bonus Bonus!

While Karl didn't want me to mention any of his posts in this article because it would look bad (and I think he only did one list post anyway), he did do an excellent article: How to Attain Repeat Business. He offers some great ways you may not have thought of to keep customers coming back to your store. For instance, by simply adding your business card with your order or offering free samples with each order, you can increse the chances of your customers returning to your site. It's worth a read.

So this concludes my Top 10 List of Top 10 List posts of this year. Do you agree, disagree? Who and what did I miss? Does this even matter because it'll all be irrelevant in a few months anyway? :P Please share your thoughts - and have a great New Year!

[ Download / Print PDF Version ]

Today I'll be chatting with my good friend and fellow Yahoo! Store designer Rob Snell of Snell Brothers. Rob is a very well known expert in the field of Yahoo! Store design, a guru if you will, and he has a lot of great advice to offer in regards to designing a Yahoo! Store, search engine marketing, user-ability, and of course his favorite subject... increasing conversion rates.

Rob is the author of "Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies", and has a very successful Yahoo! Store Blog which features informative insights on website development and marketing. Both are really great resources, and I would certainly encourage you all to have a look at them. They're perfect for anybody looking for ways to improve upon their own design and marketing efforts.

I am very happy to have Rob on board today, as I happen to know that a large majority of my Blog Subscribers own and operate a Yahoo! Store website. With that I am hoping that this interview comes across as both educational, as well as entertaining.

And without any further ado, here is the exclusive one-on-one chat with Rob Snell.

Hey Rob... welcome to the Klog! I know you and I've been talking about doing this Interview for some time now and so I am super-thrilled to finally be throwing it down here today. I know you've been hard at work as of late, as are most people during the holiday months, and I certainly want to 'thank you' for taking time away from your very busy schedule to come and chat.

Howdy, Karl! Thanks for having me! It's great to be here!

Let's dive right in and start by having you share with us a little bit about yourself in regards to your background and how you first became involved in Yahoo! Store Design and web marketing

Sure. I grew up in retail, working in my parents' dog supply business. One of my earliest memories is first thing every morning going with my Mom to the post office to get the mail from our P.O. Box. She would get all these envelopes stuffed with money orders and checks from folks sending money for dog collars. I thought that was so cool!

Later, as a high school student, I realized that I could use my folks' tax ID number to buy comic books wholesale! Sweet! Using that knowledge, we started a little comic shop as college students which grew over the next ten years into a chain of five "pop culture" stores in college towns. That spawned a mail order business that turned into an internet business, and we sold the last of the comic stores in 2001 to concentrate on Internet sales. Steve & I also started the Copy Cow, a copy shop, way back in 1996. The Kinko's in our town closed its doors one Christmas, and we hired two former Kinko's employees, and 10 days later we were making copies.

Shortly after that, my mom asked me to build a little brochure-ware Web site for her dog supply business. That was probably the biggest break of my career. Once the Web site was built, I wanted to drive traffic to it, so I did my homework. I read an article about how to write a good Yahoo! Directory listing (then the Holy Grail of Web marketing). I submitted a really good directory listing, got listed in Yahoo!, and then we started getting swamped with catalog requests. Literally! My dad said we couldn't afford to mail out hundreds of catalogs a day, so to either put the catalog online or cut off the Web site. My brother, Steve, ran across Viaweb online store builder (now Yahoo! Store) and we were off and running...

After two or three months of working on Mom's Web store, Paul Graham, founder of Yahoo! Store asked me to consider doing Web development for other Viaweb merchants, so I started doing e-commerce design and marketing. After a couple or three years of doing Yahoo! Store redesigns, I noticed that other competing designers had much "prettier" designs, but my stores were out-selling the pretty ones. That's when I started getting out of the "make my store pretty" business and into the "make my store make more money" business. And business has been insane ever since then...

That's actually a pretty extensive background. You've been a store clerk, the owner of a couple of businesses, and now the go-to-guy for all things website design and marketing related. Definitely points worth mentioning on your resume. In addition to these fine attributes, what other work experience would appear on your resume if you included all that you have done?

Well, ok. I've been self-employed since college and never had a "real job." Other than my entrepreneurial ventures? Well, I love working with animals! Some folks may know about my love / hate relationship with goats, but very few people know exactly where that comes from! While my friends were either working impressive internships, or padding their resumes, or backpacking across Europe, I had a different path. Thanks to my aunt being well-connected in city government, I was able to get a coveted slot working with animals. I spent the summer between high school and college working for minimum wage as the "Goat Boy" at the petting zoo at the Jackson Municipal Zoological Park. There's nothing like cleaning up after fifty pampered goats in the hot Mississippi summer sun. I think that experience prepared me for life in the real world. Shovel or not! ;)

Wow... I'm actually visualizing you standing in front of a farm with a shovel in hand like the guy from Green Acres (except he had a pitch-fork). You're certainly well-passed all of that now. Having worked with many Yahoo! Store design and search marketing clients, what would you say is a typical Snell Brother's client?

Most of our clients are Yahoo! Store guys (or gals) who have quit their day jobs and work full time in their Yahoo! Store business, but they need to crank sales up to the next level. Its fun watching folks go from low six-figure annual sales, and barely making it, to breaking the million-dollar sales mark. I love teaching folks how to do most stuff themselves, too, so we get called in on the fun gigs or when stuff blows up.

You know... for as many times we've connected at conferences or wherever, I've never met your brother Steve. Can you shed some light on Steve, and tell us a little bit about how he fits into the Snell Brothers business model?

Steve, my baby brother, has been my business partner since we started up way back in 1988. Steve got the hunting genes, and I got the geek genes, so the division of labor has been pretty easy. Steve also handles the checkbook and runs the operations side of all the things we do. I handle all things Yahoo! Store, SEO, and design / marketing... We've been working together for almost 20 years now, so I think we've figured out how to get stuff done.

You certainly have, and it shows. You guys sound really close. In fact, you guys almost remind me of my personal favorite brother duo... the Mario Brothers. With that said, if the Snell Bros. were to some how become the Mario Bros., who would be Mario, who would be Luigi, and who would save the princess?

Actually, Steve would be Donkey Kong and I would be Barraka from Mortal Kombat 2! ("Finish him!") And in this day and age, I think the Princess could save herself...

Lol... very well said, and I think its time to move forward. I'm personally a big fan of "Starting a Yahoo! Business for Dummies", and I've spoken with many who also share my appreciation for your book. When did you first decide you were going to write the book, and how did you enjoy the experience?

Thanks! Writing a book was the hardest thing I've ever done. Seriously!

I guess third time is the charm, because the DUMMIES title was the third attempt. In 1993, I wrote a rough, rough draft based on my experience starting our company for a book called "College Entrepreneurs: How to Start Your Own Business." Never finished that one.

In 2001, a tech publisher from San Francisco called and wanted me to write an ecommerce book based upon the Yahoo! Store platform. We got as far as a detailed outline and talks with the folks at Yahoo, but since there were so few Yahoo! Stores at the time, the publisher thought the market was too small to risk printing a real book.

Since then, several friends of mine have self-published Yahoo! Store books or eBooks, and were pretty happy with the results. On top of that, Yahoo! announced that there were 40,000 Yahoo! Stores, so I knew the time was right for a Yahoo! Store book.

After I got back from Pubcon: Vegas 2004, I got an email from the Acquisitions Editor at Wiley Press asking if I would like to talk about writing a DUMMIES book on the Yahoo! Store platform. I finally got him on the phone the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He said he loved my Yahoo! Store blog, and wanted a detailed book proposal in three weeks. No problem! I cranked out my Yahoo! Store book proposal over Thanksgiving weekend and dropped it in his INBOX first thing Monday morning.

Long story, short: I got the gig. We got contracts worked out over the next few months and then I started writing in July. Finished up in December and then had to cut 125 pages. Whew! Writing that book was the best thing I ever did, both personally and professionally!

I'd certainly agree with that. The book is phenomenal! Is there any chance that you'll be writing a follow-up? Maybe a version 1.5 or 2.0 which includes Yahoo!'s recent shopping cart and design wizard updates? Or, what about a book on a completely different subject altogether?

Yep. Looks like a second printing will be coming out soon, and I believe a second edition is in the works. I have a lot of work to do!

Great! I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I'm eagerly awaiting a follow-up. Oh, and this time be sure to spell my name right! Just kidding man, you know that I still need to heckle you about that one. Now, what's the deal with these Yahoo! Store seminars I've been hearing so much about? I see that in some instances you've teamed up with Yahoo! Store experts Michael Whitaker and Istvan Siposs... talk about pulling out the big guns. The three of you chatting away with tips, strategies, and secrets is well worth the already affordable price for admission. How has your experience been thus far?

Whoops! Sorry about that, Karl with a K. (Note to self... don't forget!)

Yeah, doing the Ystore101 conferences with Mike and Istvan was literally a dream come true for me. We had fun swapping RTML riffs and Yahoo! Store marketing secrets. Retailers were literally freaking out over all the great ideas we introduced. And we had three of the strangest accents in the same room: Hungarian, British, and Mississippi Redneck.

Lol... is there any chance that you'll be taking the "show" on the road? Maybe to the Chicago-land area?

I'm sure we'll be doing more Yahoo! Store seminars in the near future. And there's always the Webinar format! We had a ton of folks sign up for those free Yahoo! Store marketing Webinars last month and we'll be doing plenty more of those. Email info@ystore.com to get on my mailing list to stay in the loop.

Very Cool. Your blog, book, and seminars are undoubtedly great resources for thousands of Yahoo! store owners and designers trying to make it online. With that said, what are some of the tools and resources that you use religiously and on a daily basis? Which would you recommend to others?

1) Get third party analytics: Michael Whitaker of Monitus.net has an awesome Yahoo! Store tool set that works with the FREE Google Analytics. And he's not paying me to say this!

2) Get Firefox. Install Aaron Wall's SEO for FIREFOX. It's free.

3) Bruce Clay has SeoToolset.com. Not free, but worth the cost.

Nice! These are some great tools and recommendations. Thanks Rob! Regarding search engine optimization of a Yahoo! Store, which techniques and strategies do you feel are most important when trying to rank a website?

Writing good content. Unique text on your Yahoo! Store's product pages is SO important these days for so many reasons. Write buyers' guides, product reviews, how to articles, etc. Have an opinion on the products you sell and share that on your Yahoo! Store.

On that same note, which do you feel to be least important?

On page SEO is over-rated. Don't sweat the H1 tags or the META KEYWORDS, either. IMHO, you need unique text in your CAPTION field, keywords in your NAME field, and unique TITLE tags and Meta Descriptions. And then get tons of links.

MonsterCommerce is one of Yahoo! Store's most promising competitors... at least when it comes to providing a reliable website and shopping cart solution. What is your take on MonsterCommerce? What do you feel are some of the positives and negatives for when comparing the 2 together?

OK. I think competition is a really good thing. I know I do a better job for my clients when I know that there are other folks right outside the door trying to steal my biscuit.

Honestly, if Yahoo! Store disappeared tomorrow, I'd totally freak out but I'd probably wind up using the MonsterCommerce shopping cart platform. I've been buddies with Steph & Ryan and the folks at MonsterCommerce (howdy, y'all!) for a couple or three years now. I liked what I saw when I ran a couple of MC stores, but I'm still a Yahoo! Store kind of guy. Think: old dog, new tricks.

I guess the biggest difference between MC and Yahoo! Store is in pricing: MonsterCommerce doesn't charge a percentage of sales (revenue share fee) and Yahoo! Store does. And if you do sales of hundreds of thousands of dollars (or millions of dollars!) that fee can add up!

However, I do believe you get what you pay for. 40,000 merchants wouldn't pay that percentage if they didn't think they were getting value for it. One of the biggest advantages of hosting your store with a Yahoo! is that a multi-billion dollar company has resources that smaller companies don't have. One thing I love about Yahoo! Store is their multi-million dollar load balancing systems. I like that I don't have to think about things like that that make my head hurt!

Yahoo! certainly has some great features that, as you say, don't make a person's head hurt. In fact, just this past October Yahoo! Store launched their brand new "Design Wizard", which in my opinion is a HUGE step up from their past editors... and it's much easier to use too. What are some of your thoughts on this new addition?

Design Wizard rocks. Paul and the gang really pulled out the stops on this one. WARNING: Folks who have custom templates do NOT need to mess with the Design Wizard because this will nuke your custom RTML. You've been warned!

Do you ever feel that as Yahoo! Store continues to make designing a "visually pleasing" website easier, which they obviously have done with this latest upgrade, that developers, such as you and I, will no longer be needed?

I wish! I'd love to just go fishing! Seriously, I think there will always need to be someone to help translate the "dot com stuff" into something "Mom & Pop" shops can understand. I do think that some of the over-priced RTML template "designers" will get nuked by this. Too bad...

Yeah... something will have to give with those guys eventually. Going forward, In my opinion Paul Boisvert of Yahoo! Store and of the Yahoo! Store Blog is one of the better bloggers to touch on Yahoo! Store Design and marketing. Paul is currently in the process of publishing a segment called "12 Post of Christmas" (I believe he is on number 9 as I write this), where he offers short tips and thoughts for pumping up holiday sales. Assuming that your suggestion wouldn't conflict with his, what would add to his list?

Paul B is THE MAN! He reviewed my DUMMIES manuscript before it went to press and had some major input on the book. Michael Whitaker was my tech reviewer, so I had two smart guys tightening things up to make me look better than I am!

I think the most important thing you can do before ANY major holiday is to remove items that are out of stock and make sure you let folks know what they have to do to get something delivered in time for the holidays.

Simple, yet very good advice! What about the newbies? Being the Yahoo! Store expert that you are, what advice would you give to a new Yahoo! Store owner, say a mom-and-pop business, who has little to spend on website development and marketing services? What would you advise them to do in order to get the best possible start online?

If you're already a retailer, start marketing your best performing products. Buy PPC ads to drive traffic to those few products and work on increasing your conversion rate and getting more and more sales. Buy my book. More than a few developers have blessed me out for giving away too much stuff in the DUMMIES book. ;)

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to sit in on your "Site Clinic" session at the SES Conference in Chicago (which was a great session by the way), and would very much like it if you would comment on a couple of the ideas you shared. The first one is the importance of using an "Add to Cart" button vs. the commonly used "Order Now" button, and second is regarding your experiments with making changes to the size and color of an "order" button.

ADD TO CART is so much less of a commitment than ORDER or BUY. Your mileage may vary, but test different text and graphic combinations to see which converts better for YOUR Yahoo! Store...

I like to make small changes like increasing the size of the button and waiting a week or so to see what happens. It's best if you can use something like Verster or Google's new Website Optimizer to do serious A/B testing, but most folks can get by making small changes and keeping what works.

Very cool man. A great summary! Speaking of SES conferences, I've been to a few with you in the past, as well as some trips to visit Yahoo!, and I used to think that the medium-sized black notebook you carried with you contained many of the worlds secrets, such as the Google search algorithm or at least the blue prints and vulnerability points of the Emperor's Death Star (from the Star Wars movies). Obviously, now knowing you a bit better, I know that it only contains tips and tricks for improving conversion rates... which I guess is just as important, but not really as cool. Any chance that you'll share with us some of your beloved conversion tips?

Make sure your 1-800 number is visible in the cart. And the checkout. And above the fold. When I order online, I don't really want to talk to a person, I just want my stuff, but if there's a problem with my order I know I can always call.

And if you offer FREE SHIPPING, push that promotion everywhere you can. On most of our stores we offer free shipping over a certain dollar amount (say $99) to folks in the continental US., and we push that offer in a graphic on every page, but that's not enough. For example: say the sale-price of a WIDGOMATIC 3000 is $130, then you know the customer gets free shipping, so emphasize that on the product page. I put something like this in the HEADLINE field: The WIDGOMATIC 3000 Ships FREE US48

And "100% Satisfaction Guaranteed" is one of the most powerful phrases you can have on your store, IF you can back it up! Take the risk out of placing an order with your store and your conversion rate will jump up!

Those are some REALLY great points Rob, and they're so easy to do / test. Ok... one more question and then you'll be off the hook. What can we expect to see from Rob Snell and the Snell Brothers brand in the not to distant future? Are there any new ideas, services, tools, or resources brewing down there in Mississippi that you'd be willing to share with us?

Coming soon to a Yahoo! Store near you: The Marketing Time Machine - TM 2006. 'Nuff said.

Ohhhh...... and we'll leave it with that. Rob, again, thank you for taking the time to do this interview... I think we were able to put down some really great stuff here (quite possibly the best one I've done to date), with lots of tips for the readers. It's been a true pleasure to have you aboard.

Thanks, again, Karl! Happy Festivus!

About Rob:
Rob Snell is Managing Partner of Snell Brothers, a consulting firm specializing in search marketing for Yahoo! Stores. Rob has extensive Yahoo! Store experience with both family-owned stores and consulting clients. The Snell Brothers have designed, developed, marketed and/or maintained hundreds of Yahoo Stores that have generated millions and millions of dollars in online sales. Rob has a B.A. in Graphic Design from Mississippi State University.

Rob is the author of "Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies" (Wiley Computer Publishing, 2006). Rob Snell loves e-commerce and all things Yahoo! Store. He is totally obsessed with search marketing and increasing his stores' conversion rates. He is a small business owner, online retailer, search marketing/e-commerce consultant, and Yahoo! Store developer.

He's been online since 1990 and opened his first online store in 1997 when his brother stumbled across Viaweb (now Yahoo! Store). Rob has a lot of experience as a small business owner in many different fields. He started freelancing as a graphic design student and was booking and playing bass in several bands in college when he and his brother started a small chain of five comic book stores (which they sold in 2001). Rob spends his workdays helping his clients sell more stuff on the Internet and working with his family.

Rob now consults with retailers on improving their e-commerce sites and maximizing their search-marketing campaigns and is a guest speaker and lecturer on search marketing and e-commerce for small business. He posts somewhat regularly in his Yahoo! Store blog.

About Karl Ribas:
Karl Ribas is the Project Manager at All Web Promotion, and on the side runs his own search engine marketing Blog and consultant website. He has been designing websites since 2001, and began his involvement with search engine marketing in September of 2003. As both, Project Manager at All Web Promotion and owner of his own website, Karl provides up-to-date, valuable, and effect Search Engine Marketing and design services to a wide range of small to medium sized online businesses.

Secret Santa strikes again... this time, leaving behind a stylish, porcelain Klog ashtray. Check it out:

As was the case with the last gift, I'm completely clueless on whom it is... but I'm totally digging the gifts anyway. Thanks to whomever you are!

Look at what Santa left for me this year:

Pretty sweet, huh?

Now, I'm still not quite sure on who my secret Santa is just yet, but I'm hot on the case. I've narrowed it down to a few key suspects: Michael, Denise, Brandi, Alan, Kelly, Jessica, Megan, Peter, Hal, and Michelle. Ok... ok... I guess I haven't really narrowed it down all that much, but I'm trying. It's so hard, and I'm totally clueless!

In any case, who ever it was... it rocks! Thanks!

As most of you probably already know... there is some serious blog tag (very similar to that of an email chain-letter) going on throughout the SEM community. Blogger's are being asked to share 5 details about their life in which most people wouldn't already know about. Last Friday I was tagged by Lisa Barone, who was actually tagged by Graywolf, and now it's my turn to play.

First of all, I'm not one that typically participates in these kinds of things, simply because I hate the entire concept of a chain letter, but this little meme has been some good reading. I've been shocked at many of the responses. I guess it's because I've only had the privilege of knowing most of you through your Blog or from meetings at conferences, that I forgot that you all have a life outside of search. I mean who would have thought that Stuntdubl was a defensive tackle for his High School Football team or that Jim Boykin collects famous people's hair (dude... seriously, that's sort of creepy). I surely wouldn't have.

And with that, here are 5 things you probably did't know about me:

1) I've only had 2 jobs thus far in my life... granted I'm only 23, but I thought it was still worth mentioning. In addition to my current position at All Web Promotion, I also worked for Wal-Mart retail. I worked in the Sporting Goods department for over 4 years and learned lots in that period of time... and not just about guns and fishing poles, but about life as well.

2) My girlfriend Jackie, who I actually met while working at Wal-Mart, has been in Beta for a little of 6 years now (dating... for you non-techies out there). I imagine that it won't be too long before she moves out of Beta and up to a 1.0 status.

3) I have two pet leopard geckos named Kale and Klohe who live in a fish tank / terrarium. They eat live crickets, which I must admit, is pretty fun to watch. I also have a little white Maltese named "Baby" who has to be the most pampered dog ever.

4) My head was once engulfed in flames. True story! It was late, and a couple of my friends and I decided to throw burgers out on my parent's gas grill. After a few attempts at starting the grill with the built in igniter, I switched to using a grill-lighter. Well, as it turns out, the gas had quickly made its way to the top of the grill and sure enough when I went to light it, a giant ball of flames came over me. It literally left me rolling around on the ground.

5) During my senior year of High School I was suspended 5 days for telling a pre-school teacher to F-off (well, actually I told her multiple times to do so... thanks to some encouraging peer pressure from my good friend Greg. Thanks Greg!). I know... I know... I am a terrible, terrible person. To make such a long story very short, I was retaliating from a comment she made about me looking "retarded" (her words, not mine) in an old year book. Just my opinion: I don't think she, being an educator, should be calling any student retarded.

Now who am I going to tag? Let see... Ummm... I tag: Kid Disco, Michael Roebuck, Mr. SEO, Rob Snell, and Jill Whalen.

For you other readers out there, what is something that most people don't know about you? Feel free to comment, I'd love to read your thoughts.

In a previous post, I mentioned ways that website owners and online merchants could benefit and even learn from the mistakes that Sony made in its recent launch of their PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. As good as those suggestions were, I've since come across another source that I feel is also worth looking into... her name is Jackie, and what she can indirectly teach us about Search Engine Marketing, specifically Pay Per Click Management, is worth... well... an SES Conference Badge.

Jackie is a music director for a local Illinois grade school (2 of them actually), and she also happens to be my loving girlfriend (whom I absolutely adore). Neither of these facts has any bearing on her hidden abilities to be an excellent Pay Per Click marketer... however, I still thought they were worth mentioning.

So what can Jackie teach us about our industry? Well, I must admit that at first this story will seem to be a bit off-topic, but bear with me and I'll do my best to pull it all together.

Jackie and I love to play "MarioKart" for the Nintendo GameCube. It's not my favorite game, but I do enjoy playing it... and besides, it's always nice to find a game that she's interested in as well. She absolutely loves to play MarioKart, and does so often as a stress reliever... which I can totally relate too.

MarioKart is a racing game which features Nintendo's most well-known trademarked characters, such as Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Toadstool, Donkey Kong, and many more, and the goal is to race souped-up go-carts around 16 or so tracks. The kicker is, that unlike other versions of MarioKart, this one is titled "Double Dash" and forces you to race in a 2-man cart (with 2 characters).

Jackie and I are both very, very good at the game. In fact, we always seem to be competing for bragging rights on one particular track called "Baby Park". She claims that she is the best at the course, and I, being a guy, certaintly can't let her one-up me. We've decided that the best way to determine who was better between her and I at "Baby Park" was to compete in "time-trial" mode... meaning that whomever had the best race-time for the course, would ultimately be #1.

For months now, I had owned the top record for "Baby Park" making me the better player. I was very confident in my record, and thought that her every attempt to beat me was a lost-cause. I had a couple of seconds on her best time and she didn't seem to be making any ground. Did she stop... nope, not one bit... and it paid off.

I recently returned from this past SES Conference to find that she not only beat my top record, but had completely destroyed it. I was shocked. How could she have topped it? After begging for what seemed like hours, she let me in on her little secret. First of all, let me start by saying that she made every turn, cut every corner, and took every possible short cut that I did... so the difference in her time wasn't a change in technique. Her response: "Easy. I just kept partnering up different characters with different carts until it worked. Once I beat your record, I continued to tweak the combination of carts and players to achieve better results."

Absolutely Genius!

Jackie tested 306 2-player character combinations across 10 possible go-carts until she found the right player-player-cart combination that would allow her to initially beat my record. Once she did that, she continued to test alternative combinations in order to shave milliseconds off of her already untouchable record. She didn't beat my record with one session... rather with many sessions of testing, tuning, and trial and error. She literally beat me a millisecond at a time, and cracked an unforeseen algorithm that was not allowing her to succeed.

Now stop and apply that same message to Pay Per Click marketing. See where I'm going with this? It's not that her strategy is complicated or difficult to understand by any means... as Search Engine Marketers we're all aware of the need for testing and tuning. In fact, if I learned anything at all during this past SES conference it was the importance of testing and fine-tuning Pay Per Click campaigns. And now that I think of it, maybe I should have just stayed home and played MarioKart with Jackie. I would have learned the same lesson and would have saved boss-man a couple of C-notes in the process.

I was so certain of my initial accomplishment that I left well enough alone. That's not what a true marketer does. A true marketer does as Jackie did... they poke and prod and continue to improve upon their successes.

In MarioKart there are characters and carts. In Pay Per Click marketing there are titles & descriptions and landing pages. Whether you're attempting to achieve a higher lap-record or a higher click-through and conversion rate... the secret lies within testing.

If you would have asked me last week at SES what I felt my chances were for winning the HatBait contest put on by Li Evans and Search Marketing Gurus, I would have said "slim-to-none". Come on... these sorts of contests are always popularity driven and seem to only be between "A-List" SEOs. However, all of that seemed to have changed once I walked into the office on Monday morning, and found that several of my colleagues, and even a few clients, had placed votes for me (thank you to those of you that did by the way).

Well, as it turns out, in addition to my "I've Been... HatBaited?" post last week, Michael Roebuck, who was also a participant (#86 on the list), had sent out a company wide email asking for votes on my behalf. I'm pretty sure that he did this as a joke and as a way to draw attention to how ridiculous I looked wearing both a "Joker" hat with my infamous FireFox baseball cap, (we do play a lot of pranks and so forth here in the office), but looks like the joke is on him. His email gave me the few extra votes needed to beat out a very funny "Pretty Princess" Neil Patel. Sorry Neil. Some how I get the feeling that you've already come to terms with loosing and have moved on.

Putting aside all of the recent controversy, I had a blast with the contest! It certainly helped liven up my work week, which usually consists of being knee deep in website code. Thanks Li.

Ahhhh... it sure does feel real good to be back in the office today. I know how weird that must sound seeing how most people would love to be away from their day-job, but just like the saying goes... "There's no place like home". And with that, I found myself returning to a mountain of work that all seemed to be screaming out for my immediate attention. That's not how one should be ending their work week, but what am I going to do. I guess that's why there are weekends.

Overall, I thought the show went quite well. I was able to jot down a few worthy notes, as well as pick the brains of some of the SEO industry's brightest minds. I'm sure like everyone else who attends these conferences... I have my likes and dislikes:

Likes:

• Meeting Some New and Interesting People.
• Watching Californians Deal with 6 Degree Weather.
• Meeting-Up with Conference Buds.
• The HatBait Project.
• The Yahoo! Search Marketing Party.
• The Yahoo! Panama Review.
• Ending each Day with a Cigar and Drink in Hand.

Dislikes:

• A Lack of Public Sponsored Parties.
• A Lack of Public Sponsored Parties.
• A Smaller than normal Exhibit Hall.
• Many Speakers with Repeat Presentations.
• Being in Chicago in December.
• Less SEO's and More In-house Marketers Attending

On a side note, I took about 25 - 30 or so pictures while at the conference, and was able to get them up on my Flickr account. I am hoping to get them up on my site here really soon. If it suits you, please have a look.

I hope you've enjoyed the four day coverage that I provided of this year's Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago. If you didn't catch my daily notes, you may do so here:

• SES Chicago 2006: Day 1 Notes
• SES Chicago 2006: Day 2 Notes
• SES Chicago 2006: Day 3 Notes
• SES Chicago 2006: Day 4 Notes

Today was a light day for me as I was able to sleep in much, much later than any of the previous days this week... and to top it all off, I only attended 2 sessions the entire day. Hehehe, but shhh... no need to tell boss-man that I was slacking off.

My first session was the "Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic" which featured Joe Agliozzo of BetterPPC and Brad Geddes of LocalLaunch.com. Together the two examined actual ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience, and suggested changes that may improve click-through rates and conversions. Overall, I'd say this was a good session; however, I did hear some suggestions that conflicted with what others had been saying on other panels, as well as with what I know to be true, but that's to be expected I guess.

My second and last session of the day was another "Site Clinic" which again took volunteers from the audience and examined their websites live to provide them with general feedback on how to gain more traffic from search engines. Why another "site clinic" you ask? Well, in addition to being SEO related, this session also featured my good-friend and Yahoo! Store Guru Rob Snell. Maybe you've heard of Rob? He is the author of a Yahoo! Store Design and Marketing Book and also offers Yahoo! Store Seminars every now and then. Aside from being entertaining, Rob and his partner on the panel, Derrick Wheeler of Acxiom Digital, provided some great tips and tricks to those with and without e-commerce websites.

And that's that... the end of the conference. Tomorrow, I'll probably be doing my normal summary of the show including my likes and dislikes and so forth and will hopefully have all of my pictures published on my website, as well as my Flickr account.

Thanks for hanging with me this week. Hope you've enjoyed it!

Looking back at my notes today, I found that I made it to and through all of the various sessions that I set out to attend. As you'll see from my notes below, the sessions were very, very different from one another which, unlike previous days this week, made attending easier and much more fascinating.

My first session happen to be "Web Analytics & Measuring Success" which has been a hot topic in our All Web office as of late, and so I was pretty eager to sit in on this one. The panel consisted of Laura Thieme of Bizsearch and Matt Williams of Prominent Placement, both of which I felt did a great job in explaining the importance of measuring website conversions and unique monthly visitors. In fact I thought Matt did a stellar job in presenting, and actually influenced me to begin monitoring and measuring much of the activity that takes place on this site and Blog. Thanks Matt!

The next session I attended was "SMO: Social Media Optimization". This was by far the best session that I attended today as it featured an all-star panel, including Andy Hagans, Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin, Todd Malicoat, and Lee Odden. Together the group outlined countless ways one can use social media sites, such as Wikipedia, Digg, Del.icio.us, and YouTube, to reach a very targeted audience and to improve their own search results in the process.

Immediately following the lunch break, I hit the "Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues" session, which was very similar in a lot of ways to the previous one that took place months earlier in San Jose. Much of the conversation was heated (as sessions featuring a clash in opinions typically are), but on the flip side the panel provided some great information as well as a little bit of entertainment. Ok, it provided a lot of bit of entertainment. The main issue as to why these sessions do sometimes become heated comes down to methodology. One person / company believes and uses one tactic to do something, and another person believes and uses another tactic to do that same something... which of course leaves both sides having to defend why their process is better.

The following is a a quick 2 min video that I took with my digital camera during the Click-Fraud session. However I'm afraid I missed out on the REALLY good heated discussions that had taken place minutes early. This one's not bad though.

Or, view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKYlKaYftKE

My last session for today was "Usability & SEO. Two Wins For The Price Of One", headed up by Shari Thurow and Matt Bailey. Aside from being quite humorous, they both provided some great examples of what to and not to do as far as building a user-friendly and search-friendly website. This too was one my favorite sessions for today.

I did happen to get a little bit more Exhibit Hall time in today. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, so be sure to stay tuned for those notes as well.

After reviewing my notes tonight, I noticed that I really didn't have too much to mention... which is about right seeing how I only attended 2 sessions the whole day. However, that is in direct correlation of what my schedule allowed.

My day kicked off with the "Bulk Submit 2.0" session which included a small panel existing of Amanda Camp of Google, Todd Friesen (Oilman) of Range Online Media, and Eric Papczun of Performics. The group covered the basics of the Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Site Explore products, and of course the new Sitemaps.org project which is currently in place.

During the lunch time-slot, I attended a live demonstration / review / Q&A of Yahoo!'s new and upcoming Pay Per Click platform, which is codenamed "Project Panama". Panama will be a mandatory system update for all Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers, and will feature such additions as:

• A New User-Interface.
• A Time-Zone Setting.
• An Extremely Enhanced and Better Geo-Targeting Feature.
• A/B Testing Options.
• Budgeting on Both an Account Level and Campaign Level.
• Alerts and Customizable Alerts.
• A New Ranking Algorithm Based on an Ad's Performance.

Some other highlights concerning the Panama release:

• US upgrades to the new system have begun.
• Sign-Ups to move forward one's upgrade date will soon be available.
• Random invitations to upgrade will continue to be sent over the next few months.
• Data will not be backwards compatible. Accounts will begin a new set of stats.

After lunch, I, along with fellow All Webber's Michael Roebuck, Jessica Guadiana, and Kelly Wilson, made our rounds through the exhibit hall, which had opened up at around 10am today. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't completely impressed with this year's exhibit hall. It had seemed smaller than past years, and really didn't feature many new vendors, or at least any that I really wanted to meet and chat with.

Jessica Guadiana, Kelly Wilson, and Myself

That's it as far as search goes. I did happen to go out to a great Chinese Dinner at the Pacific Bistro located up and around North Lakeshore Drive. Apparently, the building which houses this restaurant and a few other specialty stores and offices is the old Playboy Building in Chicago. Here's a photo of a sign I came across.

That's it for now... stay tuned for more updates as the SES conference continues.

With some of the recent changes within All Web's Pay Per Click division, I am now in a position where I once again need to be on top of my PPC game. With that exact mindset, I booked myself in mostly PPC related sessions for this entire conference, as opposed to those of the SEO nature. In return, I am of course hoping to refresh myself on the many Pay Per Click strategies and techniques we employ as a company, as well as learn a few new ones to boot.

With that being said, my first 2 sessions for today were "Compare & Contrast Ad Program Strategies" and "Ads in A Quality Score World", and both were very good. The panelists, who include such gurus as Mona Elesseily, Kevin Lee, Jonathon Mendez, Joshua Stylman, and Andrew Goodman, covered a variety of PPC topics and issues. Those that I especially enjoyed were PPC trademark guidelines, editorial guidelines, and of course a lesson how to improve ones quality score... which if you don't know by know, is a huge part of Google's algorithm for determining paid placement and will soon be integrated into the new Yahoo! Search Marketing platform as well.

Here's an interesting piece of information that was shared by Kevin Lee of Did-It:

The concept does make sense, however I never would have thought to test it. Kudos to you Kevin! So, if you're looking to increase your quality score, give using "negative keywords" a try. Even if the result is a slight change... it's no doubt worth every bit of it.

The following is a snap-shot of the "Ads in a Quality Score World" panel:

I wrapped up my day by attending what turned out to be a half-way decent SEMPO meeting. In addition to the open bar, some of the highlights included:

• Preliminary results of the recent SEMPO Search Survey
  Not much here, but it was fun to take a preliminary look at what the results are hinting too. Future updates should definitely be interesting.



• An introduction to SEMPO educational courses
  The organization is putting the final touches on "certification" program, taught similar to that of a college course, for both Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization.



• An update to International SEMPO Launches
  Apparently there's been a huge push to form chapters of SEMPO in various countries throughout the world, and the results have been quite successful thus far.

Afterwards, I attended the Yahoo! Search Marketing Party, which I must say was very fun and well worth the 10 - 15 minute bus ride. Don't get me wrong, it was no Google Dance, but it did have its highlights:

• Free Transportation
• Free Booze
• Very Cool Music
• Bartenders that would put Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktails to shame
• Great appetizer-type food
• An unpleasant Dancer whom eventually ended up flashing everybody and dancing topless. Too bad it was a guy!

Here are some of tonight's Yahoo! Party Photos:

Michael Roebuck and David Burke

That's it for today... be sure to stay tuned for all of tomorrow's notes and highlights.