IMC Stockholm
IMC Stockholm was organized by Lars Nordstrom, Lennart Svanberg and Lars Johansson. It took place over three days, May 26-28. Day 1 was Affiliate Day and was conducted entirely in Swedish so I didn’t attend (lest I offend people with my horrible Swedish Chef impression). Day 2 consisted of a single track conference, and Day 3 was devoted to special workshops for attendees. Below is a recap of Day 2′s sessions.
Combining the Best of the Web: Maria Ziv and Tommy Sollén from VisitSweden
Their goal: to build Sweden’s brand to other countries in order to increase the country’s attractiveness. A country is like a brand; if there’s an affinity for the brand, people will use it (or in this case, travel to it).
What they did:
- Defined some core values that are specific to Sweden as part of their brand platform
- Worked on improving their interactive communication
- Analyzed the site’s current needs and new trends and established a new vision for the website
- Wanted more efficient use of resources, interactive communication, modern navigation and SEO friendliness
Result:
- New site has more images, maps, better interactivity (can plan a trip, watch videos, book hotels, etc.)
- Was awarded Sweden’s Best Website by Internetworld in 2008
- Set up the CommunityofSweden.com blog to be transparent with their readers and let them know what they were doing with the site and to ask for feedback. It was a great way to build an initial group of users and attract page views and buzz.
- Won the Best Online Social Community Episerver Award in 2009
- They utilize Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and "Add This" buttons to share/spread content and engage with their fans and community members
Making Social Media Profitable: Susan-Rice London from Master the New Net and Patrick Schwerdtfeger from Tactical Execution
Biggest takeaways:
- Social media is not just a set of tools, it’s a community. It’s not just observation, it’s relationships, connections, sharing, collaboration, and creation.
- Social media isn’t a new idea; it’s simply a variation of one of the oldest human activities: communication.
- The biggest hurdle to overcome with social media marketing is getting over the "I’m not social!" hump. Companies need to find their own humanity, and it’s important to identify and capture your corporation/person. Share your essence and figure out an appropriate corporate voice, and dare to make mistakes.
Top 12 SEO Tips for 2009/Keynote: Mitch Joel, Twist Image
Some other guy was supposed to do the Top 12 SEO Tips panel but he was a no-show (how rude!), so Mitch Joel took over the panel at the last minute (and even hastily prepared a slide deck for the session). He also gave a very entertaining keynote that incorporated Journey videos, so I of course was an instant fan. (Interesting aside: the keynote was given after lunch, which I think is a good idea because if it’s boring then everyone will just sit in a post-lunch sleepy coma anyway, and if it’s a good keynote then everyone will perk up and have a good time. Either way, it’s better than subjecting three panelists to the dreaded Post-Lunch Slot.)
How to Use the 6 Conversion Rate Factors to Lift Your ROI: Chris Goward, WiderFunnel
Chris gave my favorite presentation. He specializes in conversion rate optimization and had a really awesome presentation full of case studies and great examples. He also hosted a conversion rate workshop that was very well attended. I’ll likely interview him for our blog in the coming weeks, so check back to learn more about Chris and his business.
The Conversion Rate LIFT Model:
- Value proposition
- Relevance
- Clarity
- Anxiety
- Distraction
- Urgency
Lift Model Analysis Examples:
Clarity:
- The tagline doesn’t include a benefit
- "Learn More" is more prominent than "Join Now"
- Subheaders contain no features or benefits
- The "Join Now" button is below the fold
- It takes many clicks to get to individual products
- Uneven images disturbs eye flow
- Inconsistent mix of link treatment adds to confusion
Relevance:
- Headlines don’t match search keywords
Distraction:
- Animation reduces user control (generally, flash animation will depress conversions, so remove any flash animation that hasn’t been test and proven to work)
- Many links redirect attention
- The screenshots aren’t tied to the benefits
- The feature image is unclickable
Value proposition:
- The headline contains no value proposition
- The page is missing reasons why you should shop here
Anxiety:
- Users are worried about giving up personal information with no explanation or assurance of what it’s being used for
Urgency:
- Page is missing/under-emphasizing urgent keywords/phrasing (e.g., "Join Now!")
Conversion rate optimization tips:
- Don’t automatically believe best practices. Be sure to test for yourself to see what works for you. For example, one of Chris’s clients found that having the McAfee secure shopping logo in his shopping cart somehow decreased conversion rates by 1.1%.
- Start with A/B/n testing before multivariate.
- Get the process right–follow it and be rigorous about changes. You may have to tweak your conversion rate process several times in order to get results, but be diligent instead of focusing too much on initial results.
Your Eyes Don’t Lie–What Works and What Doesn’t In Advertising: Mihkel Jaatma, Realeyes
Mihkel gave an overview of eye tracking and how it works. When conducting eye tracking, it’s important to have a sufficient sample size (reliable results start with samples of 30-50 people). He shared some test results with us that were really interesting. It seemed that of the following sites’ ads, Ebay’s were the "catchiest" to visitors. He also shared some banner ad variations and showed us which ones performed better based on eye tracking results. It was a neat presentation that gave a nice drill down of eye tracking and page layout.
Truly Understanding Visitor Behavior: Ewald Hoppen, wehkamp.nl
Ewald took us through some visitor behavior examples. I don’t have many notes from his presentation, so I apologize for that (maybe you can bug him for his slide deck if you’re super duper interested).
Websites Gone Bad: When Small Design Flaws Cost Big Money: Tom Calahan, Lost Ferret
Tom and I immediately hit it off over our mutual love of movies and general snarkiness. He owns a web conversion company in southern England. Below are highlights from his presentation:
- A lot of companies still believe in acquiring traffic ahead of improving their website. They overload their websites with too much data and information, resulting in information overload and not knowing what to look for.
- He focused a lot of his presentation on basket and checkout abandonment and highlighted some great examples:
- Busy landing page
- Hard to read/find the shopping cart
- Lacking a clear call to action
- Key information was hidden
- Missing a clear/easily readable phone number
- Basket is too low on the page
- Security information is hidden
- Weak call to action
- Limited payment options
- No progress indicator
- Customer concerns to keep in mind:
- When will it arrive?
- What if I want to return it?
- Is it secure?
- What are your credentials?
- Have I ordered the right item?
- What payment options do you offer?
- Can I speak to someone about my order?
- Who else has bought from you?
- Do I need to register?
- Key points of basket completion:
- Will it work in every browser?
- Is the product information clear/easily labeled?
- Make error messages readable and human-sounding
- Offer assurances (e.g., "Shop with Confidence," "Safe and Easy Shopping")
- Keep selling even throughout basket completion (there are still customers who will need a bit of persuasion)
- Be careful in how you handle coupons. Display them carefully, because a lot of people may think they can get a product cheaper elsewhere and will leave to find out.
- Be aware of the cons of one page checkouts (you can’t see who’s abandoned without additional development or software)
- Don’t force anyone to register (low registration rates)
I was on a panel about Cost Effective Marketing Strategies. My fellow panelists were nice and very knowledgeable, but I wish we had operated under a different format. It didn’t feel as interactive as I’d have hoped, but hopefully the audience still derived some value from the panels. I was able to redeem myself the next day when I ran the SEO workshop (the no-show guy was originally supposed to run it but I stepped in when he seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth). Since I didn’t have a presentation or anything prepared, I ran the workshop as a site audit class and went through each attendee’s website and gave some SEO tips and suggestions.
Overall, I had a really nice time at IMC Stockholm. It’s a small but fun conference series, and I met a lot of great people from the US, Canada and Europe. There’s an IMC Vancouver coming up in the fall, so hopefully you’ll be able to make it out to that one (and I may be speaking, so come out and support your favorite mozzer).
Networking at IMC Stockholm
Lennart the Hospitable Swede
After the conference was over, later that week after inadvertently crashing a yacht club party (totally true–we got free burgers but had to sit through an hour-long slideshow presentation about Swedish boat races), Lennart invited me, Manstery Guest and Patrick to his house for a homemade Thai lunch courtesy of his wife, Sandra. Not one to pass up an opportunity to eat, I graciously accepted.
Lennart’s wife and daughter, Sonja, at the yacht club party (1/2 Swedish + 1/2 Thai = 100% adorable)
We had a ridiculously lavish and delicious meal that I’ve documented below to make you all jealous:
Thai soup that contained prawns and some sort of magically delicious broth
Chicken curry
Ridiculously tasty omelet thingies that were filled with spicy-sweet pork and other fixins
Dessert #1: Chocolates and Liqueur
Dessert #2: A concoction of Willy Wonka proportions
We got stuffed so full of Thai food and alcohol that I feared we were getting plumped up for some cruel Swedish version of foi gras. Patrick threw in the towel and succumbed to his food coma:
Dreaming of ABBA, no doubt
I had a fantastic time with Lennart and his family. Huge thanks to them for being gracious and wonderful hosts. And thanks to the IMC organizers, especially Lars Johansson, for inviting me to speak at IMC Stockholm. It was a fabulous experience and I really appreciate the opportunity. Hopefully I can bring you more IMC conference coverage in the future!
Posted in June 10th, 2009
Posted by rebecca
Happy June, evvabody! Here’s what happened last month in case you were bedridden with swine flu:
Best Blog Posts in May 2009
- If I Could Go Back In Time & Give Myself Some Advice, This Would Be It. If Rand could turn back tiiiiiime…if he could find a wayyyyyyyyy…Rand hops into his DeLorean and gives his 2007 self some advice, including "Use email marketing," "Invest in your affiliate program," and "Don’t try to rip off the Libyans."
- 10 Resources That Changed How I View the Internet. Danny shares some stuff that’s substantially changed his view of the Internet. (Spoiler alert: his view of the Internet largely consists of porn.)
- URL Rewrites and 301 Redirects – How Does It All Work? New hire Jen gets all Mr. Wizard on us and gives us a handy step-by-step of how URL rewrites and 301 redirects work, complete with lovely visual aids.
- Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide Part X: Measuring and Tracking Success. Rand has finally completed the Beginner’s Guide series of blog posts. Now all we have to do is slap that beeyotch together and add an appendix and Bob’s your uncle.
- Whiteboard Friday – Link Farming. Rand talks about why link farming is bad, m’kay.
Best YOUmoz Posts in May 2009:
- The Real Power of Twitter. Dr. Pete knows what the REAL power of Twitter is, and he shares it with all of us. (It’s people! Twitter is peeeeeee-ple!)
- Weapons-Grade SEO Part 1: Laying the Foundation. Colewhitelaw teaches us how to create a "profoundly optimized" site that’s largely self-sustaining.
- Utilizing Twitter in a Link Building Campaign. Nicchenet shares some link building tips the ol’ Twitter way.
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Company Blogging. Chris Lister debuts a sinfully good list about common blogging missteps, and he tops it all off with Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box. (Okay, maybe not that last part.)
- Lost in the Ocean of Ghost Writers. SEMWarrior shares his struggle to find a quality ghost writer. I know what he means, what with them always spontaneously bursting into flames and turning into skeletons and whatnot…wait, that’s Ghost Rider. Oh. That explains a lot, actually.
Tool Updates and Launches in May 2009:
- We beefed up our Rank Checker tool into a new Rank Tracker, which allows you to track the rankings of various URLs over time. You can download previous rankings into CSV and receive rank alerts via email. Huzzah!
- We had some issues with the Linkscape API as well as some server issues this month. Sorry about that–things should be more stable now (we’re now giving Timmy 5 Red Bulls a day, so that human-powered hamster wheel should spin more continuously from now on).
- This isn’t a tool, but last month we contacted various people in the search industry about what they think are Google’s most crucial search engine ranking factors, and we’ve just received their responses so expect an updated Search Ranking Factors guide within the next month!
Monthly YOUmoz Contest Winner
Last month the monthly YOUmoz blog theme was social media marketing. We received a good chunk of submissions (many of which were about Twitter) that I’ve listed below:
Wow, look at all those entries! We had a lot of great posts, but there can be only one winner this month. So, without further ado, paging Dr. Pete, Dr. Pete, you’re wanted in the winner’s circle so we can feed you a carrot and brush your glossy coat. Pete wrote a great, simple, straightforward and practical post about the best way to leverage Twitter, and not only did it get promoted to the main blog, it won him a lovely $50 Amazon.com gift certificate. Congratulations, Pete!
YOUmoz Theme for June 2009
And the YOUmoz theme for June 2009 is (drumroll please)…case studies (I’ll display our nifty badge once it’s been deployed)! We’ve kept it simple–all we want is to hear some great case studies from you guys. Whether you’ve got a personal anecdote or you have a client example, please share them with the SEOmoz community. We want to hear both success stories and failed attempts–submit them all! They should all prove to be a great learning experience (besides, sharing is good, as we all learned in kindergarten). Start cooking up your blog posts and submit them today!
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Posted in June 10th, 2009
Well, not quite, but this judgment that its sanctions are unconstitutional certainly punches its teeth out:
Le Conseil constitutionnel a censuré, mercredi 10 juin, la partie sanction de la loi Hadopi – la “riposte graduée” – sur le téléchargement illégal. Considérant qu’”Internet est une composante de la liberté d’expression et de consommation”, et qu’”en droit français c’est la présomption d’innocence qui prime”, le Conseil rappelle que “c’est à la justice de prononcer une sanction lorsqu’il est établi qu’il y a des téléchargements illégaux”. “Le rôle de la Haute autorité (Hadopi) est d’avertir le téléchargeur qu’il a été repéré, mais pas de le sanctionner”, conclut le Conseil.
[Via Google Translate: The Constitutional Council censored, Wednesday June 10, the sanction of the law Hadopi - the "graduated response" - on illegal downloading. Considering that "the Internet is a component of freedom of expression and consumption", and "french law is the presumption of innocence which prevails, the Council recalled that" it is justice impose a sanction if it is established that there are illegal downloads.""The role of the High Authority (Hadopi) is to warn the downloader has been spotted, but not to punish,"]
So what will that nice M. Sarkozy do now?
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.
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