I began this experiment in March, starting with the Awakening project, and not seeing the results I wanted. I switched from variations of acrylics with different resin levels to a flat-base, no resin acrylic as a mid-layer, and crackle paste mixed with low-resin acrylic for the top-layer. The result is almost what I’m looking for – but not quite yet.

My goal is to have at least one production piece finished in time for the opening of Slaughterhouse Gallery in Fishtown circa July 2012.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

After literally years of discussion and many months of deliberation and planning, it has happened. I have launched my first Meet-up.

Shame On UX is a user experience meet-up here in Philadelphia focused on creating a community dialogue around usability and design best practices by exploring shameful user experiences.

Interested in Attending? Please RSVP »

Also, make sure you follow Shame on UX on twitter for great tweets like this one:

“Checklist Thinking” for UX Professionals: Retaining your sanity in a complex project http://t.co/LXspd3Xa via @johnnyholland

March 29, 2012 11:12 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@ShameOnUX

Nick Eubanks

Credit: "I Love Philadelphia" Artist: William C. Ressler

Last month’s post on Fresh Insights from Some of Philly’s Top SEO’s generated a lot of great feedback in the form of comments, tweets, and even some very nice emails. The reoccurring theme of the feedback was for more; more Philly SEO, more Q&A, and especially more coverage of the brilliant minds in or from this great city.

This post features some awesome industry feedback and insights from SEO’s who are natives of Philadelphia, some of whom are now kicking ass and taking names in other cities – but just for the record, they all got their start right here.

Just a quick note: this post is long – coming in at just over 4,000 words… so take your time, and perhaps take breaks, so you don’t get burned out on too much SEO (if that’s even possible). In any case, please let me know what you think and if you would like to see more of these. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy.

Responses in this post are from the brilliant mind’s of the following people:

John Doherty

Check out his Blog at www.JohnfDoherty.com, his Tweets @dohertyjf, and his Company Distilled.

Ethan Lyon

Check out his Blog Posts, his Tweets @ethanlyon, and his Company SEER Interactive.

Devin Concannon

Check out his LinkedIn Profile, his Tweets @devin_concannon, and his Company FreePeople.

Amanda Orson

Check out her Blog at AmandaOrson.com, her Tweets @Phillian, and her Company The Lacuna Group.

Adam Melson

Check out his Blog Posts, his Tweets @adammm, and his Company SEER Interactive.

Adam Sherk

Check out his Blog at www.AdamSherk.com, his Tweets @adamsherk, and his Company Define Media Group

Chrissy Buckley

Check out her Blog Posts, her Tweets @cbuck1186, and her Company SEER Interactive

Tom Harari

Check out his Blog at TomHarari.com, his Tweets @tomharari, and his Company Resolution Media


1. With all of the buzz around SEO now encompassing a wide variety of digital marketing competencies, to the extent that some have suggested a re-branding to inbound marketing, how do you see the industry (and responsibilities of those within it) continuing to evolve over the next 1-2 years?

John Doherty

My *hope* is that we can continue to move out of the silo of rankings and be entrusted to deal with more areas of online marketing, which is really what we do. Along with this, I think we’re going to have to specialize. We can’t all be generalists and good enough at linkbuilding, technical issues, email marketing, PPC, and all the rest to do it all ourselves. We’re going to have to work in teams more.

Ethan Lyon

In the coming years, SEOs will need to take on more of the marketing mix, in particular PR.

It’s incredibly difficult to reach out to someone at Wired or Mashable or other leaders in an industry to ask for something when you haven’t given them anything. Why should they care about your linkable asset? 99% of the times you’re just noise and will be tuned out accordingly. However, if you help writers out with a story they might be working on or give them advice when they might need it, they’re much more likely to reciprocate and help you out when you need to share a linkable asset or need feedback on something to make them link to it.

How do you do this? Set up RSS feeds on Quora & Twitter with their username and a “?” to see when they’re asking questions. Use ifttt.com to push all questions to your mobile, then immediately answer them when they have a question. If you don’t have an answer, research it ASAP or recommend someone you know that might be able to help them.

Then, have an RSS feed with anything of theirs in it (including blog posts, mentions, etc), and be sure to comment on them. If you help someone out when they need, it chances are they’ll reciprocate.

Think about the Hare Krishna that gave away flowers at airports… They found when they gave away flowers, people felt compelled to reciprocate (which meant donations). It’s human nature to reciprocate. Robert Cialdini wrote about it in his book, “Influence.” To tap into that for SEO is so powerful.

PR is just one of the many parts of the new SEO’s responsibilities. It’s funny because I used to write business and marketing plans where I would interview customers, perform industry research, have long conversations with the clients about their business and now I’m finding I’m reverting to that cycle to understand how I can build it into the SEO campaign.

SEO is not just about building links, it’s about understanding the goals of the business owners and figuring out how you can meet those goals through online marketing.

Devin Concannon

To me this is such a tired argument. Rather than banter back and forth about the semantics of job titles and the different disciplines our industry encompasses, I try and focus my time on continuing to learn more of the many facets of this profession, putting in practice as many of the constant improvements coming down the pike as I can, and dreaming up & pursuing search marketing, design, and PR ideas. At the end of the day my goal isn’t to have the most creative title on my team, it’s more organic visibility, more customer engagement, and (hopefully) more revenue.

At the end of the day I feel whether you classify yourself as an inbounder, digital marketer, SEO, etc is so subjective too. No two people bring the same skillsets to the table. If you’re an SEO, just because you’ve read about paid search doesn’t make you an SEM expert. Ultimately it comes down to your knowledge, experience, and most importantly, your successes across strategies of different scale. I run a paid search campaign that’s going pretty well for a friend’s barber shop at the moment. If I was given the keys to my employer Free People’s paid search program, best believe it would look like a hot mess for a little while until I gained some insight into running an account that large in scale.

So that in a nutshell is what I feel we have to grow out of as an industry; lot’s of people talking, not nearly as many adding real value. The propensity to market the individual with the same principles we preach to the businesses we help. To add skills to our titles without actually having conceptualized, project managed, and brought any of these grand ideas to a fruition that bore real value to a customer or a business’s bottom line. I understand people have businesses they’re trying to market, but if your posting some useless bullshit why do you have to put it in on Youmoz where people are looking for real ideas and strategies. I don’t post a lot or go out of the way to market myself not because I’m not interested in recognition, but rather because I spend 50 to 60 hours a week actually putting these concepts into practice. Finit! The people that are putting in the 60 and then writing a post, that’s probably who I want to be reading.

Amanda Orson

Over the indeterminable future the “SEO industry” will become more and more mainstream. This is not a shocking or revealing speculation.

The ramifications of it though, I believe, are that small SEO companies will fold or be consumed by larger increasingly more “full service” digital marketing companies. We may also see a stream of individuals begin to work for Fortune 500 corporations as their internal marketing departments become more Internet focused and less comfortable outsourcing the task, both for intelligence and cost reasons.

Some “Freelance SEO’s” will still exist, but as postmodernism dictates, their functions will become more niche as their primary source of income will stem from a single point of expertise – site audits, link building, paid advertising etc. What will be interesting to watch is whether ‘networks’, or referral interdependency, are created between these solopreneurs and tiny agencies that coexist in different cultural shards of the larger digital marketing/ SEO picture.

From the greater affiliate marketing world I can think of at least a half dozen people off the top of my head who, in the last several years, have evolved into SEO consultants for large corporations, gone into building competitive intelligence tools, and founded one of the microniche link-building agencies discussed above.

The irony is that the very marketing agencies the SEO phenomena disrupted suffered because they clung too long to the idea of a mass market and didn’t evolve fast enough on the digital frontier. I think we’re watching the marketing industry ‘grow up’ and reamalgamate in a new form, with new leadership and new companies at the helm.

Adam Melson

Over the next 1-2 years, there are definitely going to be SEO strategies that will fly under Google’s radar & work, but I expect a change. It is going to be increasingly hard to do well in SEO without a face. Google can see sites that have large blog readership, interact on their G+, have an active twitter account, have an increasing number of feed subscribers & more.

Faceless sites won’t make the investment in pumping out new unique content. Fly by night sites won’t publish great articles & promote them with (gasp) a phone call. PR is increasingly a larger component of an SEO strategy & this combined with the efforts mentioned above are ways the engines can identify more quality sites vs the trash.

Adam Sherk

I got my start in online marketing and eventually SEO through public relations, so I’ve always been a proponent of a diversified, multi-faceted approach. But SEO has always had technical, editorial and marketing components so I don’t things are actually that much different now than they were 5-10 years ago.

The tactics have evolved but the fundamentals are the same, and SEOs need to be well versed in all these areas. A lot of what we do in enterprise SEO consulting is making sure all of those departments have a clear understanding of the SEO implications of their work and how they need to collaborate.

Chrissy Buckley

Here are my thoughts: SEO is like the paella of marketing. It takes just about every type of marketing ability one could possibly have and spits out this awesome dish that can feed the masses. On any given day I beckon on my previous PR and marketing work, whether that be outreach messages or thinking about what might appeal to the masses. I don’t think it’s an insult to be considered inbound marketers for the mere fact that just means we have to prove ourselves and challenge ourselves to answer all sorts of questions.

In the next one to two years, I think you’re going to see a lot of traditional marketing and PR professionals cross over into the field and try to glam up the process. I can also foresee SEO professionals becoming more and more desirable to businesses. I see only good things for the SEO business.

Tom Harari

Understanding marketing concepts is critical to successful SEO. The reality is that with GSPYW, Venice, and Panda, Google has forced webmasters to adapt to a broader definition of “search optimization” or be left behind. I’m hesitant to say that to be successful in SEO you have to be an expert in social, content creation, email marketing, etc. – but you do need to be familiar with those channels to the extent that you understand how they play into the overal marketing mix and how they affect search.

Author snippets increase CTR for a reason. As do video snippets. Sure some may be able to game these signals, but in the long game putting an increased effort into building and distributing quality content and digital assets will only help amplify what we think of as “SEO”.

2. Some people believe that all you need to do is write great content and Google will do the rest. Personally I vehemently disagree with this statement and believe it takes a lot of hard work marketing your content, whether it be through well-placed (or earned) links, press, social outreach, paid promotion, word of mouth, etc. What is your stance on just creating value-add content vs. the need to promote it?

John Doherty

While I am a firm believer in content marketing, I absolutely think that you have to do outreach. Part of this outreach is through already established relationships, and letting people know CAN be as easy as sharing it through social media. Other outreach is going to take a professional PR pitching to a large site where you want a link or feature from. I’ll say it again: great content is NOT enough. Promotion is necessary.

Let’s also not forget that creating great content starts with the audience in mind. When you create content with a specific site or set of people in mind, outreach goes much easier.

Ethan Lyon

Guy Kawasaki is a master at promotion. I can’t remember where I saw this, but he said he didn’t write anything really groundbreaking, but he just knew how to promote other ideas better the people who had them. Might want to watch some interviews with him before quoting that but the point is, you can create all of the amazing content in the world, but if nobody hears about it, then how can they promote it?

In an ideal world, great content goes viral. However, I discover great content every day that no one seems to be talking about.

The first step is to find people that might be interested in your content. Stalk them and promote their stuff / answer and ask questions. Then when you have something that might really interest them, then let them know about it. This ties into my first answer.

Devin Concannon

This to me is a simple answer. What’s the likelihood you’ll be able to create a compelling, engaging piece of content or develop something in a relatively short space of time? I’d wager you have an astronomically smaller chance of creating something that captures people’s attention in 4 hours than you do in 2 months. So the success of your idea is all about the expenditure of time. Whether the work goes into the front end in creating something so useful, thought provoking, or compelling that it attains virality or on the back end efforts of marketing and promotion of your product or content, the work is still getting done somewhere.

Whether your creating something relatively simple that fills a need and market the hell out of it or it’s product\content that’s so awesome it takes a hand in marketing itself, figuring out where your opportunities lie is essential to crafting your marketing strategy. But even with great product or content, we’re not at the point where Google will just “take care of the rest”. Our jobs as SEOs is to make things “the best”.

I’m constantly looking for more opportunities, things to improve, and data that I can make actionable improvements from. My company Free People is a perfect example; we make beautiful bohemian clothing and lot’s of our customers are independent fashion blogger’s who blog and style our product all the time. Often I get great links by just reaching out, telling them we love their posts and just asking them to link back to us. That doesn’t mean I’m not constantly looking for other opportunities to get a link. People are rarely successful by accident or in spite of themselves.

Amanda Orson

Far be it from me to say that a guy who makes millions more than I do is wrong, but I believe Kawasaki’s assertion that if you ‘write great content, Google will do the rest’ is flawed. There would be no need digital marketing agencies, right? Everyone would be a copywriter, video editor or < gasp > infographic producer in this Orwellian society where Google determines what gets to live and die in obscurity.

A content strategy focused on just creating good content- that’s it- is like buying a lottery ticket to get rich. You’re banking on variables beyond your control and prediction.

The ratio of content-value to promotion changes with time and topic, but I think we can all agree that a lot of up front hustle (promotion) for quality content can produce big returns over time if it’s consistent, or viral returns (read: little promotion necessary) when you publish really exceptional content later. Wine Library and Mixergy are both examples that come to mind.

Adam Melson

Writing great content – yeah. I can write the greatest article in the world, but if no one is subscribed to my blog then it will never be shared. Promotion is absolutely necessary for everyone except the 800 lb gorilla. Even large sites who write great content will not gain traction without social promotion.

Yes, people should write great content, but they should have a plan on how to push it out.

Adam Sherk

I primarily work with news and content sites with well established brands, and I can tell you that even major news sites cannot simply publish and forget about it. Publishers have large consumer marketing departments and audience development teams for a reason.

It takes hard work to build brands and audience, in any medium. Search is no different. You need mechanisms in place to get the ball rolling and keep up momentum.

Chrissy Buckley

Have you ever slaved over a white paper for weeks and produced AMAZING content only to find out no one read it? I have and it sucks. The most frustrating thing in public relations was that I would write up these beautiful content pieces and really believed that someone somewhere would read them. That was not the case.

I think SEO is different. You have the ability to write kick ass content and then you also have the ability to place that somewhere other than on the desk of a crotchety journalist who for whatever reason won’t read it. It amazes me that I can find dozens of bloggers who would post guests posts about the most ridiculous subject matter. All and all, to have a successful campaign you need great content and a solid outreach campaign AND you need to promote it.

Tom Harari

Maybe it’s because I began my SEO journey doing link building for SMB’s but I’m firmly in the camp that great content needs effective outreach. Truly great content doesn’t necessarily need GREAT outreach, but letting people know about the content is half the battle.

I’ve seen blog posts with very little outreach catch on like wildfire earning links, shares, and a wave of visits simply because the content resonated with the intended audience.

I certainly don’t blog as much I’d like to, but an image post I did in February caught on with only 1 tweet that went out automatically when I published it. (I didn’t think it would catch on at all).

That being said, take the safe route and publicize your content early and often to the people that matter (linkerati, bloggers, journalists, etc.)

3. What type of content marketing strategy have you found to be the most effective and/or sustainable?

John Doherty

As I’ve said before, having an editorial calendar and diversifying your content types while staying on-brand, identifying influencers in your space and engaging with them where they hang out (whether online or in person) is one way to win. I haven’t personally done this, but I think that there is something to Coke’s 70-20-10 principle, where 70 percent of content is low-risk and the bread and butter that they know works. 20% is innovating off of the content that they know works. 10% is just crazy content that they have no idea if it will work, but if it does, the pay-off can be much greater than the other content.

The key to content marketing is consistency, and success does not come overnight. Look at the well-known bloggers. Look at the brands that we admire for content marketing. They’ve been doing it for YEARS. But ultimately, I think it pays off.

Ethan Lyon

1. Find a similar linkable asset.
2. Find who has linked to it.
3. Stalk them.
4. Create your asset and let them know about it or get their feedback before anyone else.
5. Create an event around it (maybe a contest…)
6. Publish it on PR site, write blog posts about it on your site (informed by some KW research), try to create a video, transcribe the video. The point being, you want to promote the asset in every channel possible (video, blog posts, guest posts, PR sites, slideshare, try to speak about it at a conference, etc).
7. Then anytime someone mentions a similar asset or your asset, make sure they know that you did it and should give you proper attribution.

Check up on it every month and there’s your sustainable linking strategy.

Devin Concannon

Well again this to me is a question of what scalable for your business? At Free People I’m fortunate enough to work often with our very talented bloggers, marketing manager, and a PR manager. So aside from putting out consistently interesting content on a daily basis they also take on big initiatives like giveaways, charity auctions, fashion lookbooks, all things that our customers really respond to. Obviously having this many resources to aid in content creation is the exception rather than the rule. To me the most scalable solution for a small business is transparency.

It works so well for a lot of companies because it’s simply giving customers a look behind the curtain at the things you’re already doing. It’s a humanizing effect that let’s customers or prospects relate to your company as people on this journey with them rather than another faceless organization.

With the advent of smart phones, these days you can basically do all your content on one device. Some video’s, pictures, topical blogging, company news and inside jokes and all of a sudden a potential customer who’s 20 states away has a sense of the people he’s buying from on the web. It’s relatively simple idea to but if embraced by your small business it can be powerful stuff.

Amanda Orson

In terms of both efficacy and sustainability, evergreen content with broad appeal is still tops. I think the single best breakdown I’ve come across on how this is done can be found by perusing Tim Ferriss’ requirements for a Guest Post.

Adam Melson

Sustainable content marketing strategies – there are different levels of a content strategy ranging from just above spammy to absolute quality. Strategies should have multiple ways to use content to get traffic & get links. Whether content is created for guest posts, interviews, written to capture the longtail or to spark controversy & get mentions that way, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket & expect to win over the long run in SEO.

Adam Sherk

It sounds cheesy but the best content marketing strategies are typically those that utilize a “win-win” or “give to gain” approach. A “win-win” effort incorporates some kind of incentive for sharing and/or participation. As for “give to gain” in our industry companies like SEOmoz and Distilled have built strong followings and reputations by sharing a lot of useful information and resources, and building a community around that.

Chrissy Buckley

I’ve found a ton of success in the interview marketing strategy. It’s really interesting to see how many people would LOVE to interview someone who claims to be an expert in a field. I’ve also noticed that no matter the content strategy, you have to personalize the outreach to make the strategy successful. The more I can relate to the blogger I’m targetting the faster the response is.

Tom Harari

The most effective content I’ve seen with clients I’ve worked with usually tends to be either image based or video based content. This isn’t the case with everyone, but there is just so much written content out there that to stand out your writing really needs to be top notch.

Many businesses struggle with hiring quality writers, and while a few startups are making it easier to get into the content game (contently, skyword, and techvalidate), depending on the vertical it may be a better option to focus on visual content instead.

Conclusion

First off – thank you all who contributed, this turned out so much better than I anticipated. As has been heavily discussed, SEO is (or has) transformed to encompass so much more than rankings and traffic. One message I see pretty consistently delivered in this post is the emphasis on continuous development of technical expertise in the areas that surround SEO, to make SEO better, things closer to the traditional definitions of public relations.

The other pattern in this post is the lack of pattern when it comes to each persons experience with sustainable content strategies. From mixing up content topics to include 10% of ‘just crazy,’ writing more core audience-focused evergreen content, focusing on mobile readability, leveraging image and video, ‘giving to get’ or simply outsourcing to established writers – I love the diversity.

More than anything else, I think this reinforces that there are so many ways to create sustainable content that will continue to provide value for your readers and produce results in the search engines, so get out there and test them all to see what works for your target audience.

In the past 8 months I have been faced with some hard questions.

I have interviewed at least 100 people, 30 or so of which were for SEO positions – if not more, and this was only after completing hundreds of screening calls. I think I was alright at answering most questions, certainly not all, but there were a few that I was never quite sure of.

The types of questions that catch you off guard, or leave you wondering “Was that a good answer?” So I kept a list of these questions to build off of and for future reference during my interviewing and on-boarding. I was never really sure what to do with them, until I saw this tweet:

I'm glad you asked... The Best SEO Interviews You Will Read in 2012 http://t.co/3nEQA0A7*Warning* Does include valuable SEO insights!

January 29, 2012 2:32 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@011100110110010

Sean

and after reading the article I figured since I know some smart SEO’s right here in Philly, I would just ask them.

Below is a short summary of each of the people who were so kind to contribute their thoughts on my questions, and help me gain some insight into what I consider ‘not your average SEO questions.’ Enjoy.

Ian Howells

Director of SEO, TrueAction

Ian is probably best known for his candid, no bullshit approach to SEO. He understands what works and what doesn’t because he’s tried it, not just read about it. With a keen grasp on what really matters to search engines, and loads of hands on experience, Ian is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to search. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out his personal SEO journal at Halo18.com. One of my favorite recent tweets from Ian is:

@NickLeRoy The "but this isn't whitehat!" thing... ugh. Know what else is against the Google guidelines? Rank checking.

December 28, 2011 1:56 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@ianhowells

Ian Howells

Justin Freid

Media Supervisor, TPG

Justin manages digital media for some of the largest brands on the internet and has a strong reputation for understanding enterprise-level PPC. A frequent contributor to Search Engine Journal on the topic of paid search, Justin has developed a reputation for squeezing value out of PPC campaigns.  One of my favorite recent tweets from Justin is:

Tips for Managing High Spend, High Volume PPC Accounts | Search Engine Journal http://t.co/jywjVh5 via @sejournal

September 5, 2011 6:57 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Justin_Freid

Justin Freid

Bill Sebald

Digital Marketing Manager, Quench U.S.A, Inc.

Bill is probably best known for his blog Green Lane SEO. Bill is an all around tech junkie and has been involved in digital media since the 90’s. I first stumbled across Bill’s site while poking around Google for SEO’s in my hometown (Bill and I are both from Berks County, just like Taylor Swift). I was not expecting to find much, so it was very surprising when I came across Green Lane SEO, and after hanging out with Bill at a few Grail’s, I started following his work. One of my favorite recent tweets from Bill is:

Hey spammer, I'm not clicking the "someone posted embarrassing pictures of you" link, not b/c I'm wise to you, but b/c that's very probable!

November 17, 2011 3:48 pm via Silver BirdReplyRetweetFavorite

@billsebald

Bill Sebald

Wil Reynolds

CEO, Seer Interactive

In Philadelphia, and throughout most of the search industry at this point, Wil needs no introduction. After gracing the cover of the Philly Business Journal to start the year, and with frequent appearances on SEOmoz, Wil is well known for continuing to find new ways to innovate link building. What many SEO folks don’t know is Wil’s deep commitment to the Philadelphia community, as shown in one of his recent tweets:

WOW last month @SEERInteractive team had 130+ volunteer hrs in 16 orgs! So proud of these guys, but wanna break 200/mo next year.

December 5, 2011 2:55 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@wilreynolds

wilreynolds

Bill Rowland

Sr. SEO Manager, TrueAction

Perhaps best known for organizing SEO Grail Philadelphia, Philly’s most popular SEO Meetup, Bill has been heavily involved in internet marketing since first getting into eCommerce for a large Philly-based retailer back in 2000. Bill’s fun outlook on SEO and ever-present sense of humor have made him a crowd favorite for chatting SEO over a few beers, and here is an example from one of my favorite recent tweets:

@billsebald Uh, last month. Dude, all I have to say is Yoohoo, Beef Jerkey and Hops/Barley. 'Nuff said. Ohh, lost keys ;)

July 21, 2011 8:55 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@billrowland

Bill Rowland

Eppie Vojt

Digital Marketing Consultant, JPL Creative

Eppie is best known for his development of the CTR Theme, and in many small SEO circles for his uncanny knack for discovering major opportunities that he has become famous for successfully exploiting. When he’s not busy building or flipping websites, you can… actually nevermind, that seems to be all he does all the time. Eppie will occasionally tweet, and when he does you can look our for gems like this:

If you've been secretly yearning to see a white SEO rap about his mustache, I've got the video for you: http://t.co/bzGdhoTh

February 1, 2012 12:01 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@eppievojt

Eppie Vojt

Mike King

SEO Manager, Publicis Modem

Mike is a Philly transplant now gracing Brooklyn with his keyword genius and charm. He is probably best known for his development of keyword level demographics and has recently been speaking all over the world at various search and link-building conferences. Mike’s unique mix of talents, including blind rapping and partnering with Dr. Seuss to teach SEO, come mostly from his previous life as a software and web developer turned SEO Engineer. Mike’s candid approach to all things search make him truly entertaining to follow, as can be seen in one of my favorite recent tweets:

Hate when I have a burning idea and I'm far away from my pc. Can code be written and tested on iPads?

January 31, 2012 11:00 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@iPullRank

MyCool King

Anthony Moore

SEO Manager, TrueAction

I first met Anthony, like many of the people on this list, at SEO Grail. What I like best about Anthony is that he is very down to earth and doesnt seem to take much for granted. This could be due to the fact that he works alongside some SEO powerhouses in his current role, but I like to believe it’s just cause he has his head on straight. Keep your eye out for this guy, I promise you will only be hearing more about him. In the meantime, here is the kind of personal insight you can look forward to on twitter:

Sinage. Phoenixville Style. http://t.co/ef7sM8kp

December 4, 2011 9:47 am via InstagramReplyRetweetFavorite

@amoore138

Anthony Moore

Chris Countey

Director of SEO Strategy, WebiMax

Chris and I first met during October’s SEO Grail Meetup and I very clearly remember being impressed by both the questions he asked and insights he offered regarding his personal experiences with paid search. Chris is relatively new to the SEO space in comparison to some of the veterans in this post, but he’s hungry. Chris’s ambition to learn and close monitoring of social marketing almost guarantee you will you continue to hear about him in the months to come. Here is one of my favorite tweets from Chris:

M&Ms rebrand King Size to Sharing Size #Genius: it's assumed I won't eat the whole bag & sharing is a social media action @MarsGlobal

January 11, 2012 1:33 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@chriscountey

Chris Countey

Jed Singer

Engagement Manager, Stuzo | Dachis Group

Truth be told, I haven’t met Jed in person yet, but I have been following him since the first time I overheard someone mention his name @IndyHall. I believe the context went something like this “Yeah Singer tweeted about it, I didn’t realize either,” referring to data regarding Facebook overtaking Twitter as a mainstream news source; which was more than enough to arouse my curiosity. Ever since I have been enjoying his near real-time updates about all of the different ways to leverage social media and crowd-sourced feedback. Here is a preview of what you can look forward to as a Jed Singer follower:

Jedi Mind Tricks: 17 Lesser Known Ways to Persuade People http://t.co/1EuISHPS via @peeplaja

November 14, 2011 5:29 pm via Tweet ButtonReplyRetweetFavorite

@jedsinger

Jed Singer

Martin Weinberg

VP of Digital Strategy, eCity Interactive

I have only had the very brief pleasure of sharing a handful of SEO Grail’s with Martin. He always shows up ready to learn, offer his personal experiences, and ask solid questions. For one of the more executive types at our casual Meet-ups, Martin’s presence is missed when he is not in attendance. Follow Martin on twitter for more tweets like this one:

Startup? #Philly law firm @baercrossey has free office hours to discuss entrepreneur legal issues http://t.co/jQLES7gt

November 17, 2011 9:48 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@MartinWeinberg

Martin Weinberg

Mark Kennedy

Founder, ROI Maximizer, SEOM Interactive

Mark may be one of the best kept secrets for local SEO in Philadelphia. I first encountered Mark not as a friend, but as a competitor, while managing an SEO services firm in my past life. I have clear memories of finding out that prospects were working with his firm, SEOM Interactive, and decided not to waste my time trying to outsell the value he provides. Mark is a committed CEO and very talented SEO. On top of it all, Mark is one of the most humble and down to earth guys I have met within Philly’s SEO circles. Follow him on twitter for more awesome tweets like this one:

Love it when you find a nice little converting gem (tail) in the search query report. Positives among the negatives #ppcchat

December 4, 2011 7:53 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@markkennedysem

markkennedysem

Questions

1. What is the hardest thing to teach in SEO?

Ian Howells

The necessary mindset.

That almost feels like I’m cheating because it’s an umbrella for a lot of things.

You need someone to be prepared and aware that this isn’t an assembly line. You can’t just hit a few buttons and call it a day. (Well. You could – when you get really advanced. But, that’s not the point.) You need someone to understand what Google is trying to do. You need them to get their head around how they would organize all the pages on the web for any given topic. To think through what a “good” web page looks like vs. what a “great” page looks like. Then they also need to be completely willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work. And then maybe completely tank the next time Google rolls out something like Panda, only to dust off and get back at it.

This stuff is a long haul business. Chess – not checkers. You need to plan ahead and execute. Frankly – some people are much more fit to just moving in one direction, trying to get kinged. And that’s fine, but this probably isn’t the game for them.

Justin Freid

So much goes into SEO – link building, sitemaps, overall strategy, content, keyword research, keyword mapping, HTML code, javascript and now social. SEO is so much more now then just search engine optimization. Taking an intern or entry level employee and teaching them everything about SEO is a huge task.  All of the tactics/strategy can not be taught right away. You have to introduce an employee to them in stages, which can lengthen the process.

Bill Sebald

I find that the hardest thing to teach is the true concept of SEO ROI.  A lot of my past clients didn’t listen to my explanation of the channel, and how I approach it.  They came back after a long, tedious pitch process asking me “how many dollars will you make me for one dollar?”  I’ve had relationships end because I couldn’t get them out of that mindset, no matter how hard – and honest – I’d been.  It’s a shame, because they’re narrow focus caused them to miss out on all the other marketing values that would have helped them in their long run.  SEO is a really unique, powerful channel.

Wil Reynolds

The hunger, the competitiveness, you can’t teach someone that, once they have that everything else will just happen.

Bill Rowland

Search Engine Optimization continually challenges both practicing and aspiring SEOs. Changes in technology, client needs and misinformation can test the most experienced practicioners. Most SEO functions can be learned by applying some determination and patience however there is one area that is very difficult to teach. Curiosity is one personality characteristic that should be considered an essential skill in an SEO’s toolset. Generally, I think that most people would agree that curiosity is the one trait that many successful SEOs from a diversity of backgrounds share. Therefore curiosity is the hardest thing to teach in SEO.

Eppie Vojt

Tactics aren’t hard to teach.  Strategic thinking is.  For the most part, it’s one of those things that you either have or you don’t.  Anyone can learn how to add directory links or use a private blog network.  Not everyone can see creative ways to build links or spot opportunities to automate mundane tasks.

By going beyond basic tactical implementation you can create solutions that scale better or deliver more authority.  That’s where you start adding real value for clients and start to become a trusted partner, not just search muscle.

Mike King

The hardest thing to teach in SEO is the spirit of continued learning. Typically in other industries people tend to quickly plateau and get comfortable with their level of understanding and in SEO that just doesn’t cut it as it is a forever protean art and science. Also it’s impossible to teach imagination. I would very much prefer to work with imaginative people with far less experience than senior people that are stuck in their ways.

Anthony Moore

I’ll say that strategy (recommendations, analytics, etc) is the hardest thing, in my experience, to teach in SEO.  Learning how to measure the success of your recommendations and using that data to improve performance is one of the most difficult things to impart on someone who is just getting into the industry.

The amount of data that an SEO sees on a daily basis alone should not be recommended for the faint of heart.  Then taking that data, distilling it down and presenting to a client (that probably doesn’t fully understand what it is you do) is a pretty scary undertaking.  While this comes with experience, when you’re first starting out, it’s not easy.

Chris Countey

Expectations. There is no magic bullet that will help a client achieve results. Assigning weight to any part of an SEO campaign can make an SEO and their clients lose site of the overall goal: conversions.

Jed Singer

Optimization can be achieved through a scientific process, but there is also an artistic element to it. You have to be in tune with algorithms across the search platforms, and be able to apply knowledge of your space and your consumers to your presence in the appropriate ways in order to affect those algorithms. The hardest thing to teach is the artistic side of the application; staying abreast of the algorithms, understanding the channels, and each channels’ nuances based on both the consumer and the brand presence being optimized.

Martin Weinburg

The hardest thing to teach is for someone to focus attention on those aspects that have meaningful results to the business. In other words, activity versus accomplishment.

Mark Kennedy

Desire. I know that sounds weird, but it’s the truth. Unless someone has the desire to do this, they won’t like it. Most (if not all of us) are self-taught. They are just touching on SEO in schools, but not heavily and most people who are already in the industry had to learn by doing, experimenting, discussing with colleagues, etc. So if you don’t have the drive to learn and achieve, then you won’t like this world.

You have to “geek-out” a bit when you see a keyword convert into a sale, when you see a keyword jump in the ranks, when you get a sweet link or find a piece of gold in a competition analysis. And that’s something that is hard to teach, you just have to “have” it.

Don’t get me wrong, having different backgrounds and experience will help. Marketing, programming, design, PR, writing, finance, math, etc. But truthfully this industry changes fast and furious, so you have to be willing to learn, test and adapt. If you don’t have the desire to do that, you’ll get left behind.
So typically the person with that desire can learn a lot and are better students of the game. So when we look for people, we tend to focus on two things. The ability to learn (of course) and the desire to learn. If you have that, you can learn anything and be successful.

2. In the SEO industry, what frustrates you more than anything else?

Ian Howells

The cult of the rock star. Currently, you can be viewed as an awesome SEO if you talk a good game and self promote 24/7. No need to have a good spot at a sizable agency. No need to have your own affiliate sites to hold up publicly. No need to have a list of clients that vouch for you. Just guest post enough at the right places and know what you’re talking about and you’re a stud.

Take PointBlankSEO. Kid seems super sharp. Truly. I mean that without a single ounce of sarcasm. And he’s everywhere. To the point where I thought for *sure* that he was either having someone ghost write his blog posts, or he was middle-manning all his work. (Which, should be a testament to how prolific he is, and how I think there’s clearly time put into what he’s publishing.)

Then I found out he’s 18. Kid’s not even in college yet. That’s why he’s got the time to blog all day. He doesn’t have a wife or kid to provide for. He doesn’t have a mortgage. He can just blog. He mentions having clients – but that could be a 10 page site for a local dentist for $200 a month for all I know. Maybe not – maybe he’s ranking 12 different businesses all at once… but based on the time he seems to have to put towards blogging, I doubt it. Though – if I’m wrong, and he’s spending more time doing SEO than blogging about it, my hat is freaking off to him.

But, despite all that. Even if he had *no* clients and we didn’t know it – he’d be a stud in the industry because he can blog.

I’m not trying to pick on him, but I think he’s the perfect example of the dangerous place we’re getting to. Where being able to blog well and self promote and grind out post after post is more praised than actually getting stuff ranked and banking. The big SEO affiliates making ridiculous money aren’t the SEO industry rock stars, even though they’re the most qualified to be. You ask a random group of Search Engine Watch or Sphinn or SEOMoz readers who Eli Aloisi is, and most would have no idea who you were talking about. Part of it is because we’re all largely so hush-hush about where we’re ranking (which I’m completely guilty of), but the other is the rock-star mentality. Where knowing and telling all is more rewarded than doing. That worries me.

It worries me because it seems to push this idea that just knowing theory is enough. That firsthand experience and time spent are secondary to knowing the theoretical best practices and being able to turn them into an infographic or Top Something List.

It worries me when networking with SEOs seems to be the most important part of being a well known SEO – not actually ranking for high competition terms.

Justin Freid

Having worked across many competitive (sometimes sketchy) industries, Finance, Education, Insurance and Health, seeing a site rank ahead of me with blatantly purchased links or low quality content is quite frustrating. It seems that if 85% of the top companies in the space are utilizing grey hat tactics, Google turns the other way and it is accepted.

Bill Sebald

There’s two things that bother me equally.  First, the fact that we teach “content is king” while continually pumping out fluffy, non-specific, non-targeted articles.  Content that has no real value is a waste of time.  It’s noise in the signal.  I see it in the SEO industry too often, when I read a full page article and walk away with nothing I can actually act on.

It’s OK to have op ed pieces from time to time, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to grab an audience with an “I will teach you something awesome” headline, only to not deliver on any of it.  Many of the big guys do it.  They give some light tip, with no details, that leaves you more confused than before you started, while the commenters all praise the tip.  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I read this.  I’ve been in this game for over 10 years, and I still walk away scratching my head from a lot of SEO posts that get mad praise.  Come to think of it, sometimes SES and SMX aren’t much better.  I believe SEO is writing for the audience first and search engines second, and you should have the courtesy to make sure you properly teach what you say you’re going to teach.

The second frustration is how certain parts of the SEO industry has become like the entertainment business.  From Sphinn to Twitter, great information lies all over, not just with the celebrities.  I tend to follow people who curate good information over people that have good PR. I think most of the SEO industry is pretty silly, and I have no idea how someone who blogs and tweets all day can be an authority.

Wil Reynolds

How spam works, google talks poorly about spam, but then when you see how well it works, relative to what they tell you to do its frustrating.

Bill Rowland

Our industry possesses many frustrating aspects. From unethical salespeople to bandwagon jumpers trying to benefit from the “newest” trend, our industry is rich with potential aggravation. My primary frustration is the SEO community’s apparent shift from recognizing members for the substance of their work to their personalities. Propagated by social media services like Twitter and legitimized by a presence at seemingly curated industry conferences, SEO has almost become more about who you know versus what you know. And that’s frustrating.

Eppie Vojt

Within the industry, the thing that frustrates me the most are SEOs who don’t test things themselves.  There are a ton of people who are just part of the echo chamber, voicing back what they’ve heard from their favorite SEO celebrity (whether it has merit or not).  This slows the learning curve for a lot of beginner SEOs and stunts their development.

The most frustrating thing about doing SEO consulting for clients is making great recommendations that don’t get implemented.  There’s a host of reasons why this happens — whether the client’s short on budget, doesn’t have the technological skill necessary to act on your findings, or something else.

That’s why it’s important to know how to sell as an SEO.  You need to be able to present your ideas in a convincing fashion and anticipate potential barriers to implementation.

Mike King

I work with a lot of Fortune 500 and enterprise brands and it’s very frustrating that they don’t allow us to get things done and there’s so many capabilities that you have to keep happy in order to get the slightest changes pushed through. The general lack of respect for SEO as a marketing channel is incredibly frustrating but I’m happy to be in a position to speak to big brands and help change the perception..

Anthony Moore

So there are a few things that I get frustrated with.  There seems to be a lot of “who knows who” that goes on in the industry.  While it’s not necessarily a bad thing, I’d rather read or hear about your thoughts and ideas, than who you had dinner with last night.

Another part of the industry that frustrates me is the re-purposing of the same presentations over and over.  We talk about keeping things fresh, it would be nice if we could see some fresh topics on the speaking circuit.  Those conferences aren’t cheap!

Chris Countey

SEO rockstars who forget where they came from. The best thing about this industry is that it is constantly changing and there is no one source that has all the answers. Each new piece of content that enters the SEO space should be evaluated and tested individually, regardless of who the author is. Clearly there are some very knowledgeable people in the industry, but they too are susceptible to algorithm changes and advances in computer learning. Test everything you read and write about everything you test.

Jed Singer

One of the frustrating parts of the SEO industry is a marriage to the way things have been done in the past, despite platforms and users changing rapidly. As the space changes, methodologies and best practices also need to change.

Martin Weinburg

With regards to the SEO industry, I see many companies that provide clients reports that are pure data, without analysis or perspective. Without meaning and context, the statistics alone aren’t delivering real value.

Mark Kennedy

Failure. Yes, it makes you better, but it still sucks. Mainly because failure can be the end result of a lot of time, thought and effort. You come up with this master strategy. You put hours/days/weeks into fine tuning it. You execute it and…it fails. The most frustrating thing.

Sure you will learn from it. And most likely it will lead to something else or a different path. But when I get really excited about a strategy and it falls flat, it frustrates the hell out of me. It just happened to me recently with a project.  Sure, we’ll fine make adjustments or take it another direction, but I really thought it was awesome. Turns out it wasn’t.

One other thing is frustrating – Time. Or lack there of. There’s no doubt this is a growing industry and it moves at a furious pace. Unfortunately, we can’t hit the “pause” button on time. I would pay a LOT of money for that. How many times do you find yourself in a zone and then look up at the clock and see it’s 2am or you’re supposed to be somewhere an hour ago?

Yes, there are a lot of tools to help make you more time-efficient and things that are scalable. But you know there are some things you just have to spend a lot of time doing, research being a big one. I find it hard to believe that there is currently any SEO who is not working during “off” hours. Or even when they are out and about, still not have SEO cross their mind. It’s just the way SEOs are wired.

So for me (and I’m sure others), it can be frustrating when there is just not enough time in the day/week/month/year.

3. If you could give one piece of advice to someone considering getting into SEO, what would it be?

Ian Howells

Start a site – today. Run it for three months. If you still have the drive to do this, then get reading at SEOMoz until you’ve got the ins and outs of on page SEO and keyword research handled

After publishing good, targeted content for a few more months, learn up on link building.

Keep learning.

Justin Freid

If you are not looking for a challenge or an industry where you need to constantly learn, pick something else. SEO/PPC is a very competitive industry where new strategies and tools are coming out every day. It is an extremely exciting and rewarding industry. So if you are just getting your feet wet, start reading as many top blogs as you can, buy yourself a domain and start messing around to see what works.

Bill Sebald

Read everything judiciously, and use it to define what part of SEO you want to excel in.  What part do you believe in?  What part interests you the most?  Focus on that area, turn it into your strength, and branch out from there.  Don’t try to mow the entire lawn with scissors at once – just focus on one area at a time so you’ll get firmer results.  This is like learning an instrument – be prepared to be learning for the rest of your career.

Wil Reynolds

Read everything, help a LOT of people out – just help out SEOs left and right, you’ll network your way right into their inner circle.

Bill Rowland

In short, the one piece of advice to a prospective SEO that I would offer is that to be successful they must be curious, persistent and data driven, not to mention creative. The nature of search engine optimization is one of grey versus black and white, so people with these qualities should find that they should perform well and find the field rewarding.

Eppie Vojt

Build your own sites on the side and experiment with them to rank for competitive terms.  Having complete control over the decision making process (including risk assessment of various approaches) means you can try all sorts of tactics, push hard, and move quickly.

You’ll get to discover exactly what works and what doesn’t and be able to make better decisions about what to recommend for your clients.  You’ll also be much more comfortable discussing tactics with them, highlighting the potential risk vs. reward, and drawing on historical successes when needed.

Running your own sites can also give you insight into a lot of the digital marketing considerations that extend beyond picking up rankings.  You’ll develop a deeper appreciation for the need to assess the conversion potential of keywords, identify additional revenue opportunities, and implement a good user experience.

Having my own side projects has taught me much more than I would have learned from doing client work alone.

Mike King

Test everything you read and never stop learning.

Anthony Moore

Build your network.  Get to know your local community. Hit the meet-ups (even “off topic” ones).  Surround yourself with smart people who are passionate about they do. I would, however, practice some restraint when building this network.  There is a pretty healthy stream of info coming in at a rapid pace and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s important to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and keep those you trust at the top of your list.  All killer, some filler.

I have to say, it was fun to put some of these thoughts down on paper. The “hardest thing” question, was real thought provoking and I may have uncovered some other opinions on it…maybe it’ll be a blog post in the future!

Chris Countey

Start with the basics of web design. In my opinion, it’s more important to know what a website can do. Anyone with knowledge of web programming can make those changes, but it’s those who decide what needs to be changed who make the difference.

Jed Singer

Understand where the SEO practices has been in the past, and understand the infrastructure of the search platforms that your consumers use. Social channels, like Facebook, Twitter, and others, are a huge part of search, and big wins – both quick and more drawn out – can be achieved when leveraging both mainstays, like Google, and new channels.

Martin Weinburg

The advice I’d give someone getting into SEO is to realize you are not working in a silo, and this is not a number-cruncher job. You’ll need to coordinate, negotiate and evangelize your recommendations among managers, designers, programmers and copywriters.

Mark Kennedy

Do it. I love it and I’ve never looked back. It’s awesome. But the advice I would give is that you have to want to get into it. It goes back to my first answer. Desire. If you are not sure it’s for you, it’s probably not. You have to have a bit of the geek-gene.

But as for specific advice – test some things. Basic things to start, but those things will take you deeper. Create a blog, try creating a word press site, put Google analytics on a current site and watch the metrics, etc. You’ll learn a lot that way and once you have a little taste of SEO, you’ll have more specific and better questions to ask. And just that much more experience.

Conclusion

First and foremost, a huge thank you to everyone who contributed; it is because of you that this post came together. I love seeing patterns emerge between great minds; with lifelong learning, exhaustive testing, and constant creativity standing out as the real nuts and bolts of the insights provided in this post.

I hope you have found these insights helpful and thought-provoking. If so follow me @nick_eubanks to stay abreast of the latest insights on the SEO industry, Start-up companies, and content strategy. Also if you aren’t already following each of the brilliant minds featured above, make sure you do immediately, you won’t regret it.

Colophon

Inspiration to write this post came to me while reading the best SEO interviews you will read in 2012. Sean Revel, better known as @011100110110010, uses this post to ask some awesome people some great questions, and if you have not read it yet, go do that now.

Based on the title of this post you have probably guessed this by now…I have decided that this website should be true to form, and be a showcase of my interests and activities, not just technical stuff about marketing and SEO.

For what promises to be the first of many posts, I am going to highlight some of my most recent creative works.

Please let me know what you think in the comments, and please be honest. Brutally honest.

Work created during the end of 2011 and over this past weekend.

Credit: Prejudice Made Plausible

When was the last time you made a comment on a blog post you appreciated that turned into something worthwhile? Like really worthwhile, more than just a blog comment link?

If your experiences are in any way similar to my own, it’s been a long time, if ever.

And Then it Happens

After a very thought provoking meet-up @SEOGrail this past Wednesday, where @IanHowells and @BillSebald faced-off on white hat vs. black hat SEO and the practical applications of each, I decided to check out Ian’s blog, Halo18.

I was immediately greeted by a really cool concept that had never occurred to me; putting my goals into the form of a blog post (Which Ian does in his post titled: Prepping for 2012).

Not only would this help me hold myself accountable for these goals, but it also affords the opportunity to get real feedback from other people that may be reading about them, which in itself could be very beneficial, and potentially cause you to re-think some of your goals and objectives.

Throughout Ian’s post he makes mention of several content development goals, speaking primarily about how often he aims to update the blog with fresh content in the form of posts and new page content.

This Got Me Thinking…

How is he going to develop all of this content? Perhaps he uses guest bloggers… so I decided to ask. Here was my comment:

Ian – What’s your take on guest blogging? Do you do it? How often? Do you try to get other people in the space to contribute on here? Otherwise I like the mention of real estate – a full review of my asset portfolio is SO long overdue, which means that most people in the space probably haven’t given it the thought the should have either… perfect thing to analyze over the holiday break opposed to forcing awkward conversations with 3rd cousins.

Nothing special, just my thoughts – complete with typos. What became of this?

Inspiration

Not for me, but for Ian. This simple string of casual questions led him to instead of responding via comment, write this post: My Take on Guest Posting, complete with a link back to my site, sweet!

Conclusion

Next time you are reading a post by someone you respect, or admire, or hopefully both, and suddenly get hit with a wall of questions, take a moment and ask them… you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. And to Ian, thanks!

Check out the post on Factor Media’s blog;  Topgrading: The Only Way to Run a Start-Up, or Any Company for That Matter

Factor Media Website

SEO in Philadelphia

Guest Post on SEOinPhiladelphia.com: SEO Tools You Might Not Know About »

• A form submittal
• A shopping cart checkout
• A subscription
• A phone call

Are you currently tracking these conversions? If not you should consider spending a few moment to learn more about analytics / web traffic analysis. Once you begin tracking these key conversion points on your website, the next step is optimize your conversion funnel by paying close attention to the experience of your visitors (sometimes called users).

User Experience is defined by Wikipedia as:

User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system. User experience is subjective in nature, because it is about an individual’s feelings and thoughts about the system. User experience is dynamic, because it changes over time as the circumstances change.

The meaning is probably exactly what you think it is, it is how a person feels or experiences your website and or product or service. A simple, direct, and positive experience can lead to more leads, more phone calls, and even more revenue. An experience that is arduous, aggravating, and scattered can lead to a higher bounce rate, no leads, no phone calls, and ultimately no revenue. This is why it is so crucial to understand not what you think works for your users, but what actually works for them.

One way to find this out is through testing. There are a number of platforms designed to help create and facilitate the the testing of your website visitors as well as a number of different methods for testing. The methods I am most familiar with are Split Testing, also sometimes referred to as A/B testing and Multivariate Testing.

Split Testing

Split testing is the most basic form of user experience or optimization testing. It involves the utilization of simple changes to test different layouts, messaging, and behavior patterns for your visitors. A split test is comprised of the following pieces:

1. The control (your existing web page)
2. Test page A
3. Test page B
4. Goal or conversion page

As you can see variation page A has a 4% higher conversion rate for the desired goal action than the control (existing) page. If your website averages 10,000 visits per day and sells 800 widgets for an average of $30 each, this is a potential $12,000 per day improvement – that’s $360,000 a Month!

Multivariate Testing

Multivariate testing is just like it sounds; the testing of multiple variables at the same time. The idea behind multivariate testing is that it may take more than one messaging, layout, or design change to see a significant improvement in your user’s conversion behavior. Common multivariate tests utilize column-based layouts to move the same, or very similar, pieces of the layout design around the page in variations to test overall conversion impact. For example take a look at the example below.

Credit: WebTrends

As you can see in the above example, elements on the page are separated into headlines, offers, and buttons, each designed to test the impact of conversion based on a target conversion audience of 3 different ‘heroes,’ or champions.