Archive for May, 2009
adExcellence Qualified
Today i managed to pass the adExcellence exam from Microsoft and thought it would be useful to share some of my experiences. I managed to learn and pass the exam in as little as four and a half hours but i did find the exam much more challenging the Google equivalent.
Firstly many of the questions were based on example ads and why they might be disqualified. These questions throw me quite a bit as i did not spend a great deal of time learning the materials. There were also many questions which were similar to one another and it made me think a lot about whether a the answers were in fact the same or completely different. I found many were the same but still found it very off putting.
If you are taking the exam then i would definitely take the time to learn the billing cycle, trademark and character length lessons. Although i felt it was worth while taking the exam i think my preference is still Google Adwords.
It’s something i have been waiting for for a while now and this morning i noticed that Stumble Upon has finally added an SEO category to their site. It doesn’t sound like a major development but i got a bit tired of my submissions being given the thumbs down by users in the ‘internet’ category. Before this recent update it was one of the only relevant categories for many of my stories.
It will be nice to see what effect it will have on my submissions and as a big fan of Stumble its an extremely welcomed addition.
image: clubfemina
Case studies are often an overlooked tactic in SEO however they can be used to great effect if implemented properly. I mean you only have to look at the number of SEO companies themselves using this tactic on their own sites. For example see how we achieved top rankings in three months etc. This is not only great for driving traffic but also provides reasons as to why customers should use you. Anyway the case study tactic is something we aim to play with in some form on the latest episode of The Factory for K3. This is different in the fact that it is a video case study. It is showing, in a humorous way how there product can be used in a manufacturing environment using a real life client. This is of course of great interest to potential buyers and is done in a fun and exciting way. The different with this example is that its done in a funny style that it appeals to a wider more general audience.
I think the new approach is going to open up some exciting opportunities for us as it gives a user a more specific reason as to why they should watch the video. Before we were using a range of social media tools and approaches based on the humour whereas the video case study will target people directly interested in manufacturing ERP systems. Before we were targeting specific interest groups but not providing a reason to watch which is as clear as this. It will of course only be able to be deployed in some locations but I think we will be able to improve the already great conversion rate.
The latest episode which will be used for the case study was launched today and is entitled ‘David’s Management Fail! Manufacturing ERP System Success (The Factory Eps 4)’. You can see the video below but for full length episodes you will need to head over to the Factory mini site.
Hope you enjoy it and I will keep you up to date with the results.
Monitoring exact link acquisition numbers is not something that i have had to look into with to much detail before but i was recently asked by one of my clients to report on the exact number of links we had each month. Although for many reasons this is not strictly valuable data (because you really want to know what links you have, the quality of them and of course the anchor text) i decided to do a bit of research.
I often find that Yahoo Site Explorer fluctuates the numbers pretty heavily so decided this was not an ideal solution. I then started looking in to a few options and asking people in forums. Two big suggestions came from it. The first being Linkscape which is of course SeoMoz’s high end link and site evaluation tool. I love this tool for many reasons and the metrics are extremely powerful but i found with out paying the huge custom reporting fee’s it didn’t output data in a friendly manner. This was important as the client is not particularly technical.
I then, one day while reading ‘the google cache‘ blog came across a post about a tool or i should say i Firefox extension which integrates with webmaster tools. This seemed ideal as Google although doesn’t list all the links to a site (like Yahoo) delivers reliable data. In delving into the extension further i found it deliver one crucial thing. That was an easy to understand interface. It shows a nice graph, which of course all clients can appreciate, especially if its heading in an upwards direction. Having a graph and the links in a table below make it a joy to use.
In essence the tool is pretty basic but if you want to share those basic numbers with clients this could be the one you were looking for. Being embedded in webmaster tools means it can also easily be used by your clients. I have been using the basic version but a more in depth pro version is available.
About Mark Mayne
Manchester based SEO consultant who specialises in online marketing and PPC. Mark currently works for PushON ltd, one of the north west's top online marketing companies and has helped numerous companies boost their online profiles.
