New in WordPress 3.5

Sam Harrelson on December 7, 2012

We’re super excited about the upcoming release of WordPress 3.5 as we use the insanely flexible and competent WordPress content management platform for our own blog as well as a a number of client sites (especially in the affiliate and performance marketing world).

MediaTemple, who we use for hosting this site and can’t recommend enough to others who need server hosting, has put together a great post about the new features of WordPress…

(mt) Media Temple » Weblog » Blog Archive » What’s New in WordPress 3.5: “WordPress 3.5 is set to be released this Monday, December 10! What can you expect from the new upgrade? In this article, we will cover the basics of the new default theme, Twenty Twelve, the new Media Manager, and some lesser known but very useful features that will be a part of 3.5.”

We’ll post our experiences with 3.5 next week after we’ve had a few days to kick the tires.

WordPress A/B Testing with Simple Page Tester

Sam Harrelson on December 5, 2012

Shawn Collins points out a nifty WordPress plugin for split A/B testing on affiliate sites or any landing page that requires optimization…

A/B Testing: “For the uninitiated, split or A/B testing is a process where you serve up different versions of your page to different visitors to determine which is more effective.

I’ve tried various ways in WordPress and found they were largely a hassle, until I came across the Simple Page Tester plugin.”

I’ve tested Simple Page Tester with a paid search campaign as well as a Facebook Ads campaign linking out to a micro-site lead generation page and it definitely does the trick.

Facebook Marketing and Why EdgeRank Matters

Sam Harrelson on December 5, 2012

Fantastic post from Copyblogger on where we stand (as of Dec 2012 since Facebook is constantly changing things up) on Facebook and its paid marketing platform…

The State of Facebook: What’s Working Now | Copyblogger: “Facebook constantly changes. Not all of those changes work the way they’re supposed to. And the user experience may not be the same from page to page.

Everyone’s audience is different, and responds to different types of content. So watch your own statistics, try different things, and track your results. The magic formula is creating the good content and engaging updates that your audience craves.”

In all of our work with Facebook and various marketing campaigns, the one rule we keep trying to communicate to our clients is that Facebook alone is not a silver bullet to more conversions, signups, sales or engagement. Real success is tied to a customized program with clear goals (we call this “discovery marketing” when tied to SEO, paid search and perhaps an email newsletter).

Facebook uses an in-house formula called EdgeRank to figure out how to display posts (sponsored and organic) on users’ timelines. This is an insanely important algorithm much like Google’s constantly evolving PageRank equation that it uses to serve up search results and many other facets of its umbrella service.

EdgeRank, however, is a visible equation. Unlike PageRank, we know exactly plays into Facebook’s algorithm. And it ain’t pretty for most folks.

The reason so many business owners and marketing DIY’ers fail at Facebook Ads (or don’t have the wherewithal to climb the learning curve) is the affinity score (represented by Ue above).

What is affinity exactly? That depends on the context of course. Here, affinity refers to how often a person interacts or engages (shares, likes, clicks, etc) your content in the past. That affinity score determines the rest of the equation. Affinity determines the next steps of weight and time decay in the setup.

How do you raise your affinity score to increase engagement?

Short answer is you don’t.

You start with compelling content geared at the right audiences and find the right balance of visual content, audio content, text content and ad buying decisions.

It’s a little moneyball, a little algebra and a lot of sticktoitiveness.

However, like all social media marketing, it’s doable.

And it’s exciting and organic.

And that’s what we do. Our goal is to buy wins.

150% Increase in Google Search Traffic

Sam Harrelson on December 5, 2012

Scott Jangro lays out the somewhat complicated steps to achieve Google Authorship on your posts in a nice post (click for details)…

How to Get 150% Increase in Google Search Traffic: “Whether you do this the hard way (on your own) or the easy way (with Shareist), when you get it right, you’re rewarded with this email confirming your status in Google Authorship, and your face in SERPs, drawing attention to your pages. Sweet.”

Yes, it’s well worth your time to do this.

Questions? We’ll help!

Benefit of Syncing Business Google Plus and and Local Pages

Sam Harrelson on December 4, 2012

In doing some research for a client, I came across this piece and I couldn’t agree more:

Syncing Your Google Plus and +Local Pages: Plusses and Minuses | Mihmorandum: “Having gone through the process, the benefits of the extended descriptions and links you can add to a sync’ed +Local page, and the early-adopter ability to promote ONE single Plus presence for your business seem pretty substantial.”

We’ve helped a few clients verify their address with the snail mail postcard-from-Google method and it’s been painless every time with nice benefits in search engine results.

So, if you’re in need of having your physical address linked to a high ranking result in your serp’s, we highly recommend going through the process.

GMail 2.0 and The Decision to Leave iOS?

Sam Harrelson on December 4, 2012

We’re big fans of Google Apps for Enterprise and use the service for our email, docs, calendaring, telephony (via Google Voice’s integration with Sprint), analytics, feed reading and even backups with Google Drive.

So, we were excited to hear about the new GMail app for our main computing devices these days, the iPhone:

The Gmail app for iPhone and iPad: version 2.0 | Official Gmail Blog: “Six months ago, our team set out to completely rebuild the Gmail app for iPhone and iPad to give you you a faster, sleeker, and easier experience on iOS. The result? Version 2.0. With version 2.0 of the app, you’ll get a totally new look and feel, plus a bunch of improvements like profile pictures in messages, numerous new animations from swivels to transitions and infinite scrolling in the message lists.”

Between the new GMail app and the revised Google search app with its nifty and better-than-Siri response time and quality, we’ve had many internal conversations about whether it’s time to think about Android as a platform.

The iPhone and iPad make for great “Google” computers when paired with the stream of quality apps coming out of Mountain View. Mission critical apps such as Google Analytics are available to us via third party iOS apps like Analytics Pro. Our enduring reliance on RSS for alerts, status messages and a news stream is satiated with Google Reader’s plug into the Reeder app.

However, are we missing anything as a company by not being on the newest flavor of Android? While it’s getting mixed reviews, the Nexus 4 and its installation of 4.2 Jelly Bean looks pretty interesting.

While we go back and forth with this almost-religious decision, we’re constantly developing new apps for both iOS and Android (as well as the open web with HTML 5) and noticing new things popping up in both that point to exciting futures for developers and users on both platforms.

At the moment, in comparison to Android (and I hate to admit it), iOS (especially critical apps like Mail) seems… stale and even clunky.

So… what to do?

Analytics, APIs and Mobiles

Sam Harrelson on December 4, 2012

We’ve been experimenting with Keen’s API-as-analytics platform (simply drop some code into your existing code) on a few of the apps we’re building for clients and have been mightily impressed so far…

Keen IO – Analytics APIs: “So many of the devices we use everyday are internet connected and could certainly benefit from great user analytics. And we want to be a part of it all. But, in the short-term, we’re spending our time on where we think we can make the biggest impact – mobile. We’ve got SDKs for iOS, Android, JavaScript, and Ruby ready for you today. Python and Windows Mobile are in the queue and coming soon.”

If you’re doing anything with iOS or Android (we haven’t ventured in Windows Mobile development), we can’t recommend poking around Keen enough. It’s not for everyone and doesn’t offer all the options of a custom solution, but definitely does the job if you need to tackle larger windmills in your app development.

Should You Develop iOS or Android Apps?

Sam Harrelson on December 3, 2012

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is more complicated depending on your audience and where/how you need to be discovered…

iOS Devices Have Been Dominating Mobile Web Traffic For The Past 6 Months [Report] | Cult of Mac: “Android technically sells more smartphones than Apple, but iOS devices continue to dominate mobile web traffic. Chitika Insights has been tracking web traffic on the top mobile platforms, and iOS commands 67% of usage and Android only 33%.”

We generally start clients with iOS and web apps but don’t shy away from Android if the market is there.

Top 2012 Yahoo Searches Across Categories

Sam Harrelson on December 3, 2012

From a meme point of view, this is fascinating data…

2012 Yahoo Year In Review: Over 500 Top Searches In Over 50 Categories: “Below are some of the most interesting categories overall, and I’ve highlighted items in Yahoo purple that may be of particular interest to tech / Internet geeks and have also linked to relevant stories on Search Engine Land /Marketing Land about some personalities mentioned below, and for topics such as SOPA and Facebook’s IPO.”

While “Top 10” lists by themselves are static noise, lists such as these in aggregate are a goldmine.

The Value of No Interface

Sam Harrelson on December 3, 2012

It’s not intuitive, but it is beautiful:

The best interface is no interface | Cooper Journal: “It’s time for us to move beyond screen-based thinking. Because when we think in screens, we design based upon a model that is inherently unnatural, inhumane, and has diminishing returns. It requires a great deal of talent, money and time to make these systems somewhat usable, and after all that effort, the software can sadly, only truly improve with a major overhaul.”

For a generation or two raised on detailed instruction manuals and websites with overwhelming options and menus, the idea of a clean and interface-less experience for users is painful… however it just might be what you need.

Thinking Before Acting

Sam Harrelson on November 27, 2012

Seth reminds us why it’s important to think before we necessarily act.

What change are you trying to make in him, his life, or his story?

Thanks to Devin T for the link.

Dura Europos and Me

Sam Harrelson on November 26, 2012

Dura Europos

Thanks to Evernote, I’ve been able to digitize most of the notebooks I’ve written on Dura Europos. I know take digital notes on the small city, but thumbing back through my Moleskine notebooks full of clippings and hand written notes makes me feel a bit like Indiana Jones with his father’s collected notebooks on the Holy Grail.

In many ways, Dura is like my holy grail.

I started studying the city while working as a curatorial assistant to Susan Matthews at the Yale Art Gallery while doing my graduate studies there in ancient religious art. In fact, my real first job was to spend time with the thousands of objects that Yale has in its warehouses and the gallery basement and lovingly “digitize” Yale’s collection of slides, objects and paintings from its involvement with the excavation of Dura Europos in the 1930’s. It was magical.

I still go back to those dark and stuffed basements and warehouses full of artifacts, beads, paintings, statues, detritus and debris in my mind and realize what a chance Prof Matheson allowed me to fall in love with a place.

Ten years later, I still want to go:

Dura-Europos, a Melting Pot at the Intersection of Empires – NYTimes.com: “As a city of extraordinary cultural diversity,’ said Jennifer Y. Chi, an archaeologist and the exhibition’s chief curator, ‘Dura-Europos has great resonance for the modern world, where multiculturalism shapes the very nature and quality of daily life.”

Here’s a nice interactive site on Dura that the Yale Art Gallery has put together with maps, images and descriptions. I highly recommend checking it out.

I would share my Evernote notebook with you all… but would Dr Henry Jones Sr share his holy grail notebook? Nah.

Why Teaching is Dying

Sam Harrelson on November 7, 2012

How could anyone think this is a good idea or a way to produce “great” teachers?

Getting an Earful—of Classroom Management Training – Rules for Engagement – Education Week: “Teach For America is using one tool that works live and in the moment to advise teachers as they work with their students. Teachers are fitted with earbuds, while a mentor equipped with a walkie-talkie watches them in action, giving them cues and suggestions in real time.”

Shameful.

iPhone Passes Outlook in Email Usage

Sam Harrelson on November 5, 2012

Email marketing is an essential part of what we call Discovery Marketing. Retention is the new acquisition, after all.

We love to use resources like MailChimp or ConstantContact to help our clients find the best relationships with their customers or users. Often, we get questions about HTML emails and pretty graphics as a part of those campaigns.

We like to caution people to remember the mobile component and how much customers are using devices such as iPhones, iPads and Android devices to perform tasks like checking on email during the day, during a sports event or in the evenings.

In many ways, the iPhone and competing devices have re-opened the possibilities for email that programs like Outlook slowly smothered.

And here’s some more positive news about email usage on the iPhone that bolster our point…

“Email marketing campaigns have been a classic marketing technique since the rise of the Internet. Traditionally, people would use their computer to open up an email client like Outlook or Hotmail and sift through the contents of their inbox. Now, more people are accessing and opening emails via mobile devices than ever before. In fact, a recent email experiment in which one billion “opens” of emails were examined shows that the iPhone accounts for most email opens, more so than Gmail, Hotmail, and Windows Live combined.

So, yes… use email marketing.

But keep in mind those of us that routinely use iPhones etc as our preliminary email processing machines for real effectiveness in your campaigns!

Using Math in Reality

Sam Harrelson on October 21, 2012

Great piece…

The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness of Mathematics Education: “We should teach our students mathematics because they can use it to describe reality. They can use it to discover facts about the universe. Facts about their retirement funds, their living rooms, and the rate of fish food consumption in their fish tanks.

Mathematics is a tool to explore reality. We should teach our students to use it.”

Reminds me of what my 7th graders are up to in class right now.

Minnesota Bans Coursera

Sam Harrelson on October 19, 2012

NewImage

Dumb:

Minnesota bans Coursera: State takes bold stand against free education.: “As the Chronicle notes, with admirable restraint, ‘It’s unclear how the law could be enforced when the content is freely available on the Web.’ And keep in mind, Coursera isn’t offering degrees—just free classes. Nevertheless, the startup appears to be playing along, posting on its terms of service a special notice to Minnesota users. It reads, in part:”

Time to rethink this, Minnesota.

Rising Cost of Pay Per Click

Sam Harrelson on October 18, 2012

We like to preach about discovery (social media + organic search engine optimization + paid search) because we realize that channels such as Facebook Ads or paid search are not as effective at getting people to your site and performing an action there alone as they are in a healthy combination.

This report in the NY Times today comes as no surprise to us…

This concern has become increasingly common as online advertising has become a standard channel for large companies. Attracting those additional advertisers has been great for Google, which reported  a 42 percent increase in paid clicks, year over year, for the second quarter of 2012. But the heightened competition has driven up the prices for keywords and made it harder for small companies like Mr. Telford’s.

While about 96 percent of pay-per-click advertisers spend less than $10,000 a month, according to  AdGooroo, a research firm that studies the pay-per-click market, big-budget advertisers spend hundreds of times more. In the first half of 2012, Amazon reportedly spent $54 million, and the University of Phoenix $37.9 million. “AdWords can bleed many a small business dry,” said Sharon Geltner, an analyst at the  Small Business Development Center at Palm Beach State College in Boca Raton, Fla.

It’s no secret that paid search is highly effective if you know what you’re doing with setup, keyword selection and eventual optimization.

What we do (and what we really enjoy doing) is helping small businesses realize that tactics such as targeting demographics or locations or keyword buying with a specific goal in mind can help level the playing field of the competitive pages of a Google result.

Here’s the Future of Books

Sam Harrelson on October 14, 2012

My daughters will read far more books than I have (and I’ve read quite a few) simply because they will grow up with the ability to read more books than I ever dreamed of having access to…

The Humble eBook Bundle: “Pay what you want. Support charity. Read.”

Here’s to the future.

Club of Honest Whigs

Sam Harrelson on October 9, 2012

The name of my next band…

Benjamin Franklin – Wikipedia: “Whilst in London, Franklin became involved in radical politics. He was a member of the Club of Honest Whigs, alongside thinkers such as Richard Price, the minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church who ignited the Revolution Controversy.”

Geez I love Ben Franklin.

Impressions

Sam Harrelson on October 8, 2012

We don’t pretend that we don’t need inspiration, too. ​

In fact, as we are grocery shopping or eating lunch or filling up our cars with gas, we are noticing and observing how businesses are telling their stories. ​

Today as we gathered for a team lunch, we noticed the diner had placed a paper 4 x 6 card on the table to sign up for their newsletter. Being the curators of ideas that we are, we picked it up and examined it and wondered if it was effective. ​

Five minutes later, we noticed the older couple at the table next to us had picked up the same 4 x 6 card. The following conversation resulted:

Woman: Did you see this?

Man: Aren’t we getting those emails all the time?

Woman: Not from here. You can get discounts.

Man: I think we probably are on too many email lists already,

Woman: But we eat here an awful lot.

In the digital world, these would be called impressions. We picked up the card and talked about it. This older couple picked up the card and talked about it. ​

The result is the diner is spreading their story. ​

See, we’re still talking about them! ​

Mobile Means Disocvery

Sam Harrelson on October 7, 2012

We like to chirp on and on (and on) about the need for companies to invest in what we call Discovery (again… a blend of organic SEO, paid search and social media campaigns that all tie nice and neatly together at the end of the day and/or month).​

However, one thing that we don’t get to chirp about directly, unless you’re in a client meeting with our team, is how insanely powerful mobile marketing is for everyone.​

Mobile is not only the new hotness, it is the next wave of consumer interaction.​

Here’s a great article from Matthew Creamer in AdAge about the Marketing’s Next Five Years that makes our point pretty well…​

To put it bluntly, there needs to be more ad spending on mobile, which now comprises only about 1% of budgets, according to a recent study from the consultancy Marketing Evolution. Based on ROI analyses of smartphone penetration, that figure will be about 7%. In five years’ time, that number will need to be in excess of 10%.

75% of the world will be covered in 3G wireless data connections in 5 years. Let that soak in for a moment.​

We’re in the middle of a radical transition from laptops and desktops to iPads and mobile computing devices (which are capable of making the occasional phone call).​

Being prepared for this reality in the coming months/years is going to be (or should be) a major part of each of your strategy sessions.​

Sample Weekly Discovery Report We Provide Clients

Sam Harrelson on October 6, 2012

Here’s an example of the weekly (or bi-weekly) stats and analytics report we like to provide to each our clients​ about their Discovery (SEO, Paid Search and Social Media Optimization/Ads) marketing campaigns

​(The text, report and analytics are all real-life examples but we’ve changed the client’s name with their permission):

Harrelson Agency WEEK 2 Discovery Report for SAMPLEhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/109210914/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-20sn0genr12c2vl2eiy8&wmode=opaque

Sweating the Details, Apple Style

Sam Harrelson on October 5, 2012

Beautiful:

Apple’s Tribute To Steve Jobs, Yo-Yo Ma, And The Prelude From Bach:

As it turns out, Ma plays the first four Bach suites tuning down his cello a full semitone, and there is a specific reason for doing so. In baroque times, instruments like cellos sounded a little different: the musical note A (A440) didn’t have a frequency of 440 Hz, but was more around 415 Hz — something known as the baroque pitch.

(Via www.macstories.net)