Website Magazine num.72 (INGLES)

F R O M T H E E D ITO R
Innovation Inspiration
“The only way of discovering the limits of the
possible is to venture a little way past them into
the impossible,” said Arthur C. Clarke. Pretty
inspiring, right?
What the English physicist and science fiction author might
have meant is that only by pushing the limits of our systems,
imaginations and creativity (and sometimes our wallets) is
it possible to achieve the impossibly inspirational — which
can truly differentiate us individually and separate our
enterprises from the hordes of competitors — keeping us
relevant in the future.
Innovation is a tricky subject. Often confused with invention,
what we’re really after here is a better system or ecosystem
(not a new one), a modified process or practice (technical
or otherwise), that results in a net positive improvement
to the bottom line. The Web is the perfect playground for
a discussion of innovation, because the pace is undeniably
swift and agile — there is nothing in human history quite
like it. In our feature article this month, we explore some of
the most exciting emerging technologies as well as several
practical solutions available today that are setting the pace of
innovation, and inspiring Web users across the globe.
This edition of Website Magazine will also help Internet
professionals round out 2013 in true digital style. Offering up
information and insights that will prove immediately useful in
their efforts to acquire greater ’Net business success, Website
Magazine’s December issue provides readers with practical
guidance on managing application development initiatives, a
foundation for hiring a digital consultant, and practical and
actionable guidance on SEO, e-commerce and Web design.
| D E C E M B E R 2013

Readers can also review articles on pay-per-click advertising,
common conversion fails, the new tabbed inbox layout in
Gmail, content marketing and much, much more.
Enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and make sure to
visit us on the Web at WebsiteMagazine.com to experience
the in-depth coverage of emerging trends, best practices
and industry news that matters most to your success as an
Internet professional.
Best Web Wishes,

Peter Prestipino — Editor-in-Chief,
Website Magazine
Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

NOTED & QUOTED
See which companies and executives made
this issue actionable and informative with
their products or insights by visiting our
online Success Corner at wsm.co/nqdec13.

Visit Website
Magazine at
these upcoming
Internet Industry
Trade Shows.
SES Conference
& Expo
November 4-7
Chicago, IL
ad:tech
November 6-7
New York, NY
SMX
November 20-21
Las Vegas, NV
Affiliate Summit
January 12-14
Las Vegas, NV

’’

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The Authenticated Testimonials
seal lets people know we can
be trusted. And trust has its
advantages such as increased
website conversions & sales.
-Alan J. www.SupplyHero.com

HOW AUTHENTICATED TESTIMONIALS WORK:
• We contact your customers to verify each statement.
• Authenticated Testimonials provides a verification seal to display on your website.
• Prospects are more inclined to trust and purchase your products or services!

| D E C E M B E R 2013

PHONE: 1.866.904.5414
INTERNATIONAL: 1.773.272.0998
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net briefs
Twitter to Go Public
In the most unexpected-expected news, Twitter finally filed for its
IPO. And, what better way to announce the news and kick off the roadshow than with a tweet? The social network indicated it will be offering
up nearly 500 million shares of stock in its initial release mid- November,
but many are wondering if the company will suffer
the same fate as Facebook after its IPO. According
to Twitter, the social network currently has 218 million monthly active users, which have created more
than 300 billion tweets since launching the service.
As far as revenue is concerned, the filing reveals that
Twitter has never been profitable and even lost $69.3
million in the first half of 2013. So will it be boom or
bust for Twitter’s IPO? Join other Website Magazine
readers, the largest group of Internet professionals,
and cast your vote at wsm.co/2013twitterIPO.

“G-Commerce”Intentions
Google is making available Product Listing Ads (PLAs) for local businesses — and potentially revealing its e-commerce intentions. When
users search for products on Google they will now encounter localized,
product-centered advertisements on the search results from nearby
merchants. Should they click, users will arrive at “local storefronts”
(powered by Google) where they can browse store inventory. The company is also innovating on a number of other levels of course — from
the release of Hummingbird to the introduction of hashtag search to
the gradual retooling of its analytics offering. Stay in the virtual loop on
these and all the most important Google developments with Website
Magazine’s ’Net Features news stream at wsm.co/NetFeatures.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

What YOU Need is

More Advertising Channels
Web-based services for consumers are entering their monetization
phase as both Pinterest and Instagram formally introduced advertising
opportunities in the past month. Pinterest announced its ads would be
coming to the network in September, but just a month later, the ads are
now being tested and can be seen in the digital wild. According to Pinterest, ads will be “tasteful, transparent and relevant” and won’t come in
display banner or pop-up form. Instead, ads will be shown as “promoted
pins” and found in the network’s search results and category feeds.
Promoted pins will work just like regular pins, according to Pinterest, but
they will have special “promoted” labels with links. Not to be forgotten,
Facebook-owned Instagram also made its ad platform official. Users of
the image-based social network will begin to see the occasional image
and video advertisement from several popular brands that are currently
using the network. Stay up to date on all the digital advertising news
important to your enterprise at wsm.co/DigitalAdChannel.

App Annie Studies eBooks
App Annie is taking on a new
vertical, launching two new tools
for authors and publishers of eBooks. The tools include analytics
and store statistics dashboards,
which can be used to gauge the
success of specific eBooks as well
as to study larger market trends.
The Analytics dashboard, for example, enables users to keep
track of sales, bookstore rankings,
downloads, customer reviews and
ratings. Conversely, the Store Stat dashboard provides market insights,
such as rankings, ratings and information on featured sections.

m o b i l e a p p wa tc h

Shopify

Talkboard by Citrix

Run your online and in-store
business through a unified platform via the iOS-enabled Shopify POS app. Shopify merchants
can turn their iPads into POS
systems that can accept credit
cards, be used to manage online and in-store inventory from the cloud, track sales, send email receipts and more.

The Talkboard app by Citrix lets
Web professionals get more
creative with their collaboration efforts. This free iPad app is
essentially a social whiteboard
that colleagues can use to brainstorm, take notes, draw diagrams and draft presentations. Plus, the app updates live so everyone can
see changes as they happen, making collaborations
easier and more efficient.

Kashoo Accounting
The Kashoo Accounting app is
gaining a reputation of being
one of the best apps for small
businesses. iPad compatible,
Kashoo gives users the ability to
create and send customized invoices, view customer balances and payment history, track expenses and monitor cash flow, track
and report sales tax from any country, and even import accounts and opening balances from Quickbooks. SMBs can try Kashoo free, which includes
up to 20 transactions per month, or subscribe to
Kashoo for a year for unlimited transactions.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

ShiftPlanning
Start managing your workforce
from the palm of your hand with
ShiftPlanning for Android, iOS
and Blackberry. The app enables
employers to manage schedules and staff, while also allowing employees to view schedules, pick up shifts
and clock in or out on their timesheets. In addition,
users can communicate with colleagues or with entire departments via private messaging or the app’s
message wall.

STAT WATCH

IT’S A (STAT) WRAP
2013 is ending and it’s safe to say that this was the
year where consumer shopping, research and social
habits really took a digital turn — driving enormous
change in what it means for Internet professionals to
be successful on the Web.
And while final numbers for this year aren’t in at time of
print, eMarketer reports online sales will grow more than
four times the rate of 3.4 percent that the National Retail
Federation forecasted for total retail sales.
Not all companies are getting an equal share of the
digital pie though. Brands that are making investments in
better user experience, from on-site search and navigation to mobile channels and social integrations, are closer
to closing the gap between them and major competitors.
The gap is big, especially when looking at Amazon’s rapid
growth, but innovative approaches and technologies are
helping to close it. According to digital and luxury research
firm L2, retailers like American Eagle, Brooks Brothers and
others, are offering free two-day shipping, for example, to
try and match Amazon Prime’s appeal.
Competing against bigger retailers is one of the most
frequent concerns for small business owners (45 percent),
but the impact of the stuttering economy (63 percent) and
attracting new customers (58 percent) are bigger worries,
according to a 2012 pre-holiday survey from FedEx. Hopefully, that puts your e-commerce initiatives in perspective.
| D E C E M B E R 2013

90%

UPS and comScore released results from a consumer study that found nearly 90 percent of online
shoppers have placed items in their shopping carts
but left the site without making purchases. Online
consumers indicated that communicating shipping
costs and delivery times early in the online shopping
experience can help alleviate cart abandonment.

52%

Despite consumers’ preference toward gathering information digitally (60 percent use search engines as their primary source for business listings),
52 percent of consumers have visited a closed business after looking up information using services
such as search engines, navigation systems and online directories according to Infogroup’s “Real-Time
in the Real-World” report.

416
$646
300%

On average, subscribers receive 416 commercial
email messages a month, according to Return Path
who says that more people read emails that deal with
their finances or travel than any other category.

U.S. consumers intend to spend an average of $646
on gifts this holiday season, according to a recent
Accenture survey.

Lead management campaigns integrating four or
more digital channels will outperform single- or
dual-channel campaigns by 300 percent according to Gartner.

ENTERPRISE

READY

“Controlled Chaos”
Managing Digital Development While Maintaining Your Sanity

By Tony Rago, Interactive Producer, The Famous Group

Successfully managing Web and application development in
today’s fast-paced and complex digital world requires a special kind of leader. It’s not enough to simply be organized or
a skilled multitasker able to manage the numerous moving
parts that go into building digital experiences. Producers
also need the quick wits to know how to play off each
developer’s unique personality and ego, when to
involve the appropriate team members
(creative, UX, analytics, quality
assurance), and perhaps
most importantly, how
to best manage client expectations.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

ENTERPRISE

READY
It’s certainly a juggling act, but one that flows much
smoother with certain guidelines and procedures in
place. It took me many years of Web development
experience — first in client implementation and
training, then on to quality assurance (QA) testing,
through the treacherous world of being a technical
support lead and now an interactive producer — to
feel comfortable managing the “controlled chaos” that
is inherent in digital production.
Here is some guidance borne out of many late nights
and weekends full of virtual blood, sweat and tears
that should help you successfully manage a digital
project and maintain your personal sanity.
Understand the Overall Roadmap
Have a comprehensive plan that takes you from A to
Z (a.k.a. the completed project) and know it inside
and out. This starts with a statement of work (SOW),
which is the backbone for what is being promised to
the client at an agreed upon budget. Then create a
schedule that outlines the earliest stages of planning,
all the way through final testing and delivery. It’s important to keep this schedule updated and continually share it with the client to keep them up to speed.
Scheduling software such as Merlin can help you
accomplish this task. A realistic schedule is also crucial to creating task assignments that allow you to segment work properly and prevent an overlap of duties.
When it comes to tracking and managing the over| D E C E M B E R 2013

all project per the roadmap, forget spreadsheets. Use
a central online project management and bug tracking
system where everyone on the team can see the statuses of what’s being worked on, who’s handling each
task and where each step stands for being QA’ed and
signed off. There are many free project management
tools available online, as well as those for purchase
such as activeCollab.
“Sprints” and “Scrums”
Run the project as an iterative process, with planned
weekly and monthly deliverables. Having tasks
planned out will provide the producer with a queue
of work items to assign. These can include a mix of
legitimate bugs, client requests, and actual work items
and tasks from the overall roadmap. Then determine
the goals for that given time, and execute and deliver
on those for that period.
Short bursts of planned activity, known as “sprints”,
will set realistic expectations to get the team to a point
of comfort and keep the workflow on course.
Beware of the dreaded “scope creep”, where features
not originally referenced in the SOW are added to the
queue. These new requests, which can come from
your team or the client, are sometimes necessary as
project circumstances change and need to be tightly
managed. For every action, there is a reaction, and for
every new element added to a project, there should be
something else that’s dropped. For each addition, the

ENTERPRISE

READY
producer must be the decider on new priorities for
the given sprint delivery.
Have morning “scrums”, which are daily 10-15
minute standup meetings where all members of your
team state what they worked on yesterday, what they
plan to do today and give a heads up on any potential roadblocks preventing progress. These brief meetings help set expectations for all parties and enable the
producer to manage deliverable better. Clarity is king.

10 Project
Management Tools
for any Internet
professional at
wsm.co/pgmt10.

Manage Client Expectations
Mid-project is not the time for surprises. Have frequent and fluid conversations with the client so everyone is on the same page and up to date on status and
issues. Establish a working relationship where everyone is on the same team, and the goals for both sides
are unified in delivering a finished product that makes
everyone happy. Have weekly client status meetings,
typically around a delivered product, and keep the
schedule current and visible to the client.
While not always possible, make an effort to be friends
with the client and not just a hired hand. It always helps
if there’s a level of comfort between the two parties, allowing for communication to be open and honest.
Manage Your Team
Properly managing your own team is just as critical as
managing the client. A typical development team always
consists of varying personality types, each of whom re-

| D E C E M B E R 2013

quire a specific approach for managing. Some people
need more hand holding while others perform best
when allowed to run with it. Either way, managing the
personalities is a challenge requiring tact and patience.
It’s nice to all be friends, but you all also have a job to do.
As with dealing with clients, I typically take the
friendly route. When your team knows you care about
them, it creates an environment where everyone believes in the end goal and bonds throughout that process to get to the desired result. It usually also makes
everyone happier and more productive. However,
the producer is the captain of the ship and ultimately
must decide the approaches that work best in given
situations. Sometimes the nice guy has to be less nice,
and it’s important to know when to get strict and not
let friendships take advantage of you.
One last note: All the rules in the world won’t prepare you for every situation and solve every problem.
Just as the creative process involves a certain amount
of improvisation to accommodate better ideas that
sometimes come out of left field (often at inopportune
times), so too does a digital development team’s need
to remain agile and flexible enough to make decisions
and changes on the fly.
Everything is a process, and the more planning and
ongoing communication you bring to the project,
the greater likelihood you’ll have a fighting chance of
completing the work on time and within budget, and
with your sanity intact.

WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S

SMALL BUSINESS LAB

The Whens and Hows of

HIRING A DIGITAL CONSULTANT
By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

There comes a moment in every small business
owner’s virtual life, when he or she asks, is it
time to hire a digital consultant? The answer, of
course, is different for every enterprise, but there
are some telltale signs it’s time to make the move
and what to look for when one does.
Today’s Internet is complex; the sophisticated
acquisition, retention and personalization tactics and tools alone can be challenging for even
the savviest to wrap their heads around. Adding
to this complexity (and cost, of course), are the
countless digital touchpoints that are now necessary investments to help grow a business, such
as search and social, email and mobile. It’s a fast-

| D E C E M B E R 2013

moving, multi-channel world — can a digital
consultant help you navigate through it?
EXPERTISE
Growing a business online can be a significant investment of time, particularly for those small- and
mid-size businesses not already versed in certain
tech practices; this may be especially true with paid
search, as it is deceptively simple to get started but
can quickly become complex to manage.
“Most small businesses do not have the time to
become digital experts, so they go through quite
a bit of trial and error while they learn search,”
said Kristina Cutura, AdWords consultant and
former client education specialist and optimiza-


SMALL BUSINESS LAB
tion specialist at Google. “Many spend their tight
budgets on keywords that are ineffective while
they experiment with different targets. These are
valuable small business funds being wasted on
strategies that will never work.”
For paid search (or any digital initiative really), it’s imperative business owners track the time
and cost involved in learning and executing projects, and then compare the return on investment
between doing it themselves and what it would cost
for someone else to do it. A spa owner, for example,
might spend an unknown amount of hours making
small changes on his website with a website builder
that charges a monthly fee, may find it beneficial to
know if a designer can make the same adjustments
faster and cheaper. The designer might spend just
five minutes making the changes whereas the owner
could invest hours only to get ultimately frustrated
with formatting mistakes. This is where tracking
time comes in. So how much time is this spa owner
spending on website design that can be used more
efficiently in other areas? Time tracking software like
Toggl or Hubstaff can go a long way in identifying
where it is actually best spent.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

COMMITMENT
Hiring a digital consultant sounds like a no-brainer
for many small business owners, but cost is typically where plans are stalled. Oftentimes, consultants work on monthly flat fees for all of their work
— like social media, content, website management,
etc. — and the consultant pays (either out of his
monthly fee or on top of his monthly fee) for any
help he needs on the site, like design assistance.
Of course, this varies by consultant, but knowing
price structures in advance will keep both parties
happy and productive.
When it is time to make the move, no small
business owner wants to be in the dark about any
areas of his business, which is why many ownerconsultant relationships can go sour if there is not
a high level of transparency and equal footing between the two. Even if a small business owner
turns over some or all of their digital projects to
a consultant, he will still want to commit to educating himself on what it takes to succeed in that
specific niche and on the Web in general. Website Magazine is, obviously, a terrific free resource
for keeping industry awareness high, but nearly


SMALL BUSINESS LAB
every B2B platform or software provider also offers white papers, webinars and other educational
material to consider. Website Magazine editors
have compiled a dozen of the best of these free reports/guides from 2013 at wsm.co/12resources.
Aside from personal learning, small business
owners also need to commit to establishing strong
rapport with their consultants and that starts from
the very beginning of the relationship.

RED FLAGS
Learn the warning signs
that a digital consultant
may not be who your
business needs (or wants)
at wsm.co/7nohire.

CONSIDERATION
When going into business with anyone, there
have to be questions involved. This is why there
are things like job interviews. To start a partnership between a business and a consultant off on
the right foot, it’s important that both parties do
their due diligence. Cutura suggests that small
business owners ask consultants how long they’ve
been doing this work.
“There are many ‘experts’ in the digital space
who are just getting started and learning the platform themselves and may be experimenting on
your account,” said Cutura.
Stakeholders will also want to ask prospective

| D E C E M B E R 2013

consultants what types of businesses they are currently working with or have consulted in the past.
They’ll ideally want to hire based on experience with
related business issues, whatever the general focus
of the enterprise being served. LinkedIn is a fantastic
resource for small businesses looking to fact check
or just do a little more homework on consultants.
Learn how to research potential consultants or partners using LinkedIn at wsm.co/consultlinkedin.
Lastly, Cutura suggests asking, “How often will
you make changes to my account and what types
of reports do you provide?”
FULL FORCE
The best advisors can not only shift through
the Web wasteland to identify and leverage truly
best-of-breed solutions, but also serve as strategic advocates providing your company with opportunities you may never have been aware of,
or had access to. This can level the playing field
between your small business and the bigger guys,
as well as free up time to grow your company in
other ways.

See What
They’re Saying
Take a video tour of interesting people and new
stuff for your website. See Website Magazine’s
interviews from Internet Retailer Conference & Expo.

George Eberstadt, TurnTo
Zach Pitts, Kount
Branden Jenkins, NetSuite
Ed Stevens, Shopatron
Howard Diamond, Rise Interactive
Greg Wooten, SecureBuy
Scott Allan, Rakuten
Parag Mamnani, Webgility
Rey Pasinli, Total-Apps
Megan Higgins, Pitney Bowes Global Enterprise
Ross Haskell, BoldChat
Shawn Ellen, Ability Commerce
Manish Chowdhary, GoECart
Michael Moore, SDL Fredhopper
Dennis Shiao, DNN
Jake Stein, RJ Metrics
Dennis O’Malley, ReadyPulse
Tom Pittman, Seller Active
Andrew Pearson, Windsor Circle
Brian Quinn, Kenshoo Social
Ryan Morgan, Hotcakes
Charles Meyer, 7Search

Visit Website Magazine’s Video Spotlight

www.websitemagazine.com/videos

*Website Magazine thanks IRCE for permission for video interviews at the show.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Jeremy Greenberg, SellerCloud
Fred Lizza, Dydacomp
Kyle Wilson, SearchSpring

50

TO P

Performance and Lead Gen Networks
Your Competitors are Using
Performance marketing is a fast paced and
exciting industry, one with all the digital
thrills and spills you’d expect when technology, marketing, the creative arts and data
science, are combined.
When companies and enterprises want to
put lead-centered initiatives on center stage
in their digital marketing campaigns, they
are fortunate in that there are innumerable
services and software solutions to make
capturing more conversions — in a more
effective and efficient way — possible. This
edition of Website Magazine features 50 of
the top performance marketing vendors,
those playing a central role in the space
today and perpetually innovating and
actively serving those seeking more leads
and opportunities to close more sales.
The challenge for those entities
| D E C E M B E R 2013

involved with the performance marketing
industry is that they must ensure that the
methods, practices and processes each
use helps achieve the desired outcome.
Advertisers have to know which designs
and promotions will help publishers
drive leads, while networks must provide
the optimal technologies and exchange
environments to manage those leads.
Affiliates and publishers have to initiate
aggressively in the digital landscape,
educate through discussion and
demonstrate value to get users to convert.
The most sophisticated networks, like
those featured here, understand these
challenges and their corresponding
opportunities and over time, have built
platforms to enable their users (publisheraffiliates and advertisers) to influence the
customer’s journey to conversion.

50

Performance and
Lead Gen Networks

TO P

1. ClickBank.com
2. Clicksor.com
3. cj.com
4. Tradedoubler.com
5. LinkShare.com
6. zanox.com
7. Infolinks.com
8. ShareASale.com
9. BidVertiser.com
10. Chitika.com
11. Affili.net
12. AffiliateWindow.com
13. Avangate.com
14. 7Search.com
15. PeerFly.com
16. Webgains.com
17. MaxBounty.com
18. AdWorkMedia.com
19. Matomy.com
20. eBayPartnerNetwork.com
21. AdscendMedia.com
22. LinkConnector.com
23. AvantLink.com
24. Clickbooth.com
25. LogicalMedia.com

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Your Competitors are Using

LEARN MORE:
Don’t miss out on headlines from these companies and others at Website
Magazine’s Affiliate Insider
Channel. Make sure to visit
us at wsm.co/ai2014.

PERFORMANCE
IN FOCUS:
eBay Partner Network recently announced that in
the future, its program pricing for publishers will be
based on category-level
commission rates (varying
for each of its worldwide
programs) and would add
a bonus for publishers driving transactions from new
and reactivated buyers.

26. Kontera.com
27. Adknowledge.com
28. AffiliateFuture.com
29. ClickDealer.com
30. AdMedia.com
31. Advertise.com
32. oneNetworkDirect.com
33. clixGalore.com
34. vCommission.com
35. Offervault.com
36. DiabloMedia.com
37. PayDotCom.com
38. AdSupply.com
39. CommissionSoup.com
40. ValueClick.com
41. FluxAds.com
42. AffiliRed.com
43. CPADNA.com
44. Axill.com
45. LeadPile.com
46. Convert2Media.com
47. MediaWhiz.com
48. RevenueWire.com
49. Adperio.com
50. offerforge.com

mastering

search
Searching for SEO Truth

COMMON MYTHS DISPELLED

Despite the increasing maturity of the SEO
industry, there are still many unfounded
beliefs, practices and tactics that website
owners adhere to in an effort to top the
search engine result pages (SERPs) and
oust their competition.
Regardless of how many times these myths,
half-truths and lies are repeated, they will never
help an enterprise optimize its digital efforts.
Let’s debunk four of these fallacies.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

MYTH #1: Organic & Paid Search Cannot
Play Nice
Many website owners fall into two types: those
who choose between SEO and paid search advertising/marketing and those looking for the
“right” balance of the two.
Digital marketing technology company Kenshoo and digital marketing agency Resolution
Media explored this topic in a Sept. 2013 white
paper, The Search Sandbox: Paid Plays Well
with Organic. When analyzing the relationship

mastering

Hummingbird
Feeder
Discover five semantic markup use-cases
to implement today at
wsm.co/seonectar.

search
between paid and organic search marketing
for a major retail division of Hewlett Packard
(HP), Kenshoo found definitive evidence that
running paid search alongside organic results
provided positive value.
“This research puts to rest the controversy
over running paid search advertising for brands
that have strong organic coverage,” said Aaron
Goldman, chief marketing officer at Kenshoo
in a company statement. “Our study shows that
visitors arriving from paid search are more profitable than those arriving from organic search,
even when you take into account traffic acquisition costs.”
The report found that paid search drives
higher net revenue per visit (NRPV, which is
paid search revenue minus the direct media
costs from those clicks) than organic search.
Plus, even with an organic result at first position, consumers still click and convert on paid
listings 39.6 percent of the time. Perhaps even
more importantly, Kenshoo reports that paid

| D E C E M B E R 2013

search is the only viable option when organic
results fall off the first page, garnering 93.1 percent of a keyword’s click share (percentage of
total clicks achieved when both a paid search
and organic listing appear together).
Even if NRPV was equal, having an extra
(paid) link on the SERP is more valuable than
having just the organic link, according to the
search marketing company. By leveraging
a paid listing, for example, it takes up space
where a competitor’s ad may appear. There is
also value in the data that marketers can collect
from paid search, such as the originating query
or keyword that initiated the ad. Kenshoo recommends companies figure out where the gaps
are in their organic search presences and use
paid search to fill in those holes.
Kenshoo, and other well-informed agencies,
subscribe to the truth that smart marketers are
those embracing holistic approaches to search
engine marketing. They are also likely the ones
getting the most out of their investments.

mastering

Guest Blogging 101
Learn how to build credibility and traffic without
damaging your rankings
or reputation at
wsm.co/guestpost101.

search
MYTH #2: SEO is for Search Engines, Not
Users
Search engines are evolving; and the richer,
more dynamic experience they want to provide
users is also changing the way companies need
to approach on-site optimization today.
“SEO is not about gaming the system; it’s
about making great content and great sites that
provide value, are structurally sound and easily navigable by user and search engines alike,
as well as demonstrate viable authority. It’s
not easy, but it is absolutely worthwhile,” said
Smarter Searches Internet Marketing Director
Courtney Herda.
The recent Hummingbird update is the perfect example of Google’s affinity toward usercentric search — providing quicker, more
relevant information to users. This algorithm
change also marks the beginning of a new formal, broader use of semantic markup in the
digital age.
By using schema.org markup, for example,

| D E C E M B E R 2013

websites are essentially providing additional
layers of data to enable search engines to associate their sites with user queries. More specifically, since the Hummingbird update addresses
how “conversational” or “voice” search queries
(that take into account context, location and
more) can be more useful for a searcher, site
owners must provide an immense amount of
information to be included in their results and
semantic markup provides the optimal way to
do that.
MYTH #3: Social is not the New SEO
SEO and social is becoming one of the most effective marketing combinations. The only surefire way to leverage the new social-SEO is to
create relevant, rich content that consumers
want to consume and, of course, share, like,
retweet, +1, etc.
“There’s a saying that says ‘Correlation does
not imply causation’ and this applies to SEO,”
said Smarter Searches’ Herda. “If you create

mastering

search
great content, people will share it. If your content gets shared, it must be great.”
While there might not be an absolute direct
correlation, it’s not difficult to see that shareworthy content can benefit your total digital
presence (wsm.co/sharethis8).

Master Search
Every Day
From Bing image search
to hashtag search at
Google, Website Magazine’s Mastering Search
channel has all of your
SEO news in one spot.
Check us out at
wsm.co/searchnews.

MYTH #4: SEOs Are Scammers
This industry is closing in on two decades and
SEO still doesn’t have a governing body. Companies rely on for-profit companies to tell them
what they can and can’t do on their websites —
at least if they want to appear atop the SERPs.
Over the years, many black and gray hat agencies, consultants, link builders and more have
polluted the industry, leading to the common
misconception that SEO is a dark art and an industry made up of liars, cheaters, scammers and
spammers. Even to this day, according to Herda,
it is the most common concern that SMBs have
about the practice.
The fact is, according to Herda, that legiti-

| D E C E M B E R 2013

mate SEO agencies can do great work. Similarly, many of the agencies that have stood the
test of time have evolved into integrated marketing agencies, taking holistic and white hat
approaches to Web success.
“The spirit of SEO is to improve your website so that it ranks better,” said Herda. “When
done correctly, this means the user engaging in
search is getting a better experience when visiting your site because your site is more relevant
to their queries.”
The Truth Will Set SEO Free
In the end, there is no one-size-fits-all approach
to getting your business higher in the search
rankings, but by leveraging a 360-degree strategy to SEO and looking at content creation,
social signals, marketing mix and user experience, you’ll be living, working and optimizing
in SEO truth.

e-commerce

express
MINING THE TREASURE TROVE OF

RETAIL ANALYTICS
By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

For Internet retailers, analytics platforms
contain the data needed to obtain all the
e-commerce riches in the digital world.
When the correct data gems are excavated from
these platforms, merchants gain insights into the
performance of their digital stores, the satisfaction
of their customers and the effectiveness of their
marketing campaigns, knowledge that can be leveraged. These insights can be used to optimize business strategies and increase revenues. The problem,
however, is knowing which metrics really matter

| D E C E M B E R 2013

the most and how they can be used to measure the
success of a digital enterprise.
Cost-Per-Acquisition/Action (CPA)
Consumers typically don’t arrive at your site by
chance, rather, they have seen or heard about your
brand somewhere — whether it be from friends, on
social media, in the search results or through display ads. In order to gauge a marketing campaign’s
impact, it is vital to calculate the cost of acquiring a
customer — wherever they come from.
The cost-per-acquisition metric is determined

e- c o m m erce

express
by dividing the amount of money spent on marketing your brand (including discounts offered,
the time and cost of support) by the number of
customers who made purchases at your store.
For example, if a merchant spends $500 on an ad
campaign that brings in 10 purchasing customers,
the CPA is $50.

[

($ amount spent on marketing) / (# of purchasing customers) = CPA

]

To derive a more accurate picture and gain the
most value from CPA data, merchants should
analyze the cost of acquiring customers in specific channels, such as social, organic search, paid
search, mobile search and display campaigns. By
doing this, merchants can identify the channels and
campaigns that perform best, and adjust their strategies, including the financial and time resources
put into each of these channels, accordingly.
Lifetime Value (LTV)
After discovering just how much it costs to acquire, the focus should be on keeping customers

| D E C E M B E R 2013

rather than acquiring new ones. In order to determine the true value of repeat shoppers, merchants
must calculate lifetime value (LTV).
The LTV metric not only shows how loyal a
customer base is, but also the economic value of
customers to a business. Founder and Chairman
of MarketLive Ken Burke says that merchants
should determine LTV for entire customer bases
or specific customer segments. Although there are
many ways to calculate the metric, Burke suggests
the following formula:

[

]

(average number of purchases per year) X (average
order value) X (average lifetime of a customer) = LTV

The most difficult aspect of working out this
equation is defining the average lifetime of a customer segment. Because of this, many merchants
assess lifetime customer value in predetermined increments, such as 12, 24 or 36 months. Burke notes
that weighting factors should be incorporated into
this model, such as the length of time the customer
has been on file and the opportunities he has had
to purchase.

e- c o m m erce

express
Churn Rate
If your LTV is low, it could be due to a high
churn rate. By identifying this metric, merchants can discover how many one-time customers they have.
While this performance rate is rather easy to
calculate for subscription-based businesses, it
is a bit more complicated to generate for traditional e-commerce models. Merchants can start
by identifying a cutoff date, so they can consider
customers who have not made a purchase in that
timeframe — officially, a ‘churn’. The best way
to select a cutoff date is to take into consideration data like a site’s repeat purchase rate. For
instance, if most loyal customers make repeat
purchases within 75 days, any customer who has
not made a second purchase within that period
is considered “churned”. The formula for determining churn rate:

[

(# of one-time customers) / (total # of customers) =
Churn Rate

]

By identifying churned customers, or customers

| D E C E M B E R 2013

who are about to churn, merchants can take steps
to win them back. For example, merchants can
segment customer groups and email promotions
to encourage purchases. Moreover, merchants
who notice their churn rates increasing over time
can take steps to improve customer loyalty for
their digital businesses, whether it be through
more personal marketing strategies or implementing more rewarding loyalty programs.
Loyalty X Factor
Perhaps the most intriguing data gem that can
be derived from analytics is the Loyalty X Factor, a mathematic value that represents a specific
metric or combination of metrics that correlate
with, and influence, higher spending levels and
lifetime value.
Essentially, the Loyalty X Factor identifies the
degree of customer loyalty and what behaviors
or channels influence that loyalty. Although
there are many ways merchants can use analytics to compute customer loyalty, MarketLive’s
Burke believes that the most straightforward
way to discover a customer’s level of devotion

e- c o m m erce

express
is by quantifying their RFM pattern (recency,
frequency, monetary):

[

(# purchases over past 12 months) X (total sales) /
(months since last purchase) = Loyalty X Factor

]

versions, increasing their lifetime value as a customer
over time.
Digging the Data
Digging deep into data is the only way to maximize
revenue and improve the performance of your digital
store. All of these metrics tell a story about your digital enterprise, which is why merchants must know
what data to look for and how to use it.

To calculate a more robust Loyalty X Factor, Burke
says merchants can weight additional events with
RFM, such as the number of product categories purchased from, the number of
items purchased in an order,
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design

development

jQuery TO MELT YOUR MIND
By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

There are numerous reasons why jQuery
has become so popular with the design
and development set.
The CSS3-compliant JavaScript library is
compatible across browsers; it’s superfast and it leaves a small footprint. There is
excellent documentation and, of course, thousands of ready-to-implement plugins available
for nearly every need — from HTML document
traversing and event handling to animation and
Ajax interactions.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

jQuery is one of the most popular topics that
editors at Website Magazine write about regularly (check out a few posts and articles on the
’Net at wsm.co/tag-jquery) and in this month’s
Design & Development Digest, we’re featuring
numerous plugins that will wholly impress — if
not melt your digital mind in its entirety — with
their awesomeness.
If you’re looking for a better way to build forms
or present navigation or improve the digital experience, consider these 10 plugins for your next
design and digital project.

de s i g n &
de v e l o pment

digest
Progression.js
Forms are tricky to design and can be challenging
for users to navigate. Many considerations must
be made but sometimes all that’s really needed is
a little guidance to get users to that essential point
of conversion. Progression.js provides an excellent opportunity, offering users progress updates
as they complete different form fields.

Turn.js
If you’re getting tired of presenting Web pages in
a blog post or article format, or showcasing products on e-commerce landing pages, and are looking for something a little more flashy (without the
Flash) then turn to Turn.js. Using HTML, this plugin makes content look as though it’s a real book
or magazine. Turn.js works on
iPad and iPhone, allows pages to
be loaded dynamically and offers
two different transaction effects.

Impress.js
Impress.js is built to impress. The jQuery plugin enables designers and developers to create websites
on what is known as the infinite canvas (the theoretical notion that there are not conventional page limits like size or dimension). The plugin is essentially a
presentation framework that uses the power of CSS3
transforms and modern browser transitions. When
done well, the effects are impressive to say the least.
Users can navigate through the page/site via the
arrow keys, the space bar or scroll with a mouse.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Smint.js
jQuery has encouraged many designers to rethink the use of navigational elements — one of the
most important variables in the
website experience. As one-page
websites reach critical mass, designers will be looking to optimize
this site element, and Smint is an
ideal solution. The jQuery plugin

de s i g n &
de v e l o pment

digest
essentially creates a sticky navigation bar (staying
on top of the page as users scroll down) and provides menu buttons that let users navigate directly
to the section they clicked on.

TwentyTwenty tool. The jQuery plugin uses the
CSS clip property to trim an image on the left, allowing the image on the right to show through
the container as the user manually moves a slider
across the complete image with their mouse.

FlowType.js
Intro.js
Navigation is important, but it is typography that
Developing guided tours can be challenging from
is increasingly capturing the attention of Web dea development perspective, but they serve as a very
signers. With the multitude of device and screen
sizes however, it’s difficult to know
and display the appropriate character limit using CSS3 Media-queries.
Interactive SVG Map
FlowType comes to the rescue with
The Interactive SVG Map takes a
its plugin for responsive typograScalable Vector Graphic (SVG) and
phy, changing the font size, and
lets Web designers add interactivity
subsequently the line height, based
—and all without Flash. The plugin
on a specific element’s width.
is re-sizable and is responsive so it is
TwentyTwenty
If you want to see — or show rather
— the difference between two images (an actual before-and-after effect), look no further than Zurb’s

| D E C E M B E R 2013

smartphone and tablet (e.g. iPad and
iPhone) friendly. Users can zoom and
pan on the interactive maps, and designers can customize colors, create
tool tips and markers and define URLs.

de s i g n &
de v e l o pment

digest
powerful and effective means to introducing new
features to existing users. With plugins like Intro.
js, websites can profile an element within the page
as users navigate with their mouse or keyboards.
The free plugin is open source (even for commercial use) and works in Firefox, Chrome and IE8.
Another very viable alternative to guided tours
comes from the Chardin.js. The plugin lets designers and developers create overlays that display
instructions on any pre-defined page elements.
SimplerCart
Selling products (either information or physical goods) does not always require a robust
e-commerce software system. In the instances when
a full-on shopping cart or retail platform is not required, solutions like SimplerCart can easily be integrated into a website or Web page without the need
for a database or any programming familiarity at all
per say — just copy and paste some HTML and Javascript and you’re done. The plugin currently works
with PayPal Express, Google Checkout and Amazon
Payments, with Authorize.net expected soon.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Toolbox Favorites
jInvertScroll
Who says parallax websites have to scroll
up and down — why not side by side (horizontal as opposed to vertical)? That’s exactly
the functionality that jInvertScroll provides. By
including the CSS file, jQuery and the plugin,
creating the desired elements that you want to
scroll, setting the desired attributes and ordering the layers — you’re off and scrolling.
Type ahead
Search engines aren’t the only ones that
benefit from autocomplete — if you
have lots of content, publishers and merchants can too. Autocomplete library
Typeahead.js provides a range of features for
those requiring advanced search functionality
and the ability to display suggested searches
as end-users-type.

N

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

2013 was an epic year for Internet professionals
from an innovation standpoint. We’re moving
faster, making better decisions, and collectively and aggressively moving toward the
ultimate aim – success in the digital realm.
While it can be overwhelming to keep up with the
variety of technologies that are bringing digitalfocused enterprises to new heights on the ’Net (and
beyond into brick-and-mortar), there are a handful
that every business professional interacts with — or will
at some point in their careers — and as a result should be at least
somewhat familiar with. In this edition of Website Magazine that’s
just what you’ll find — an overview of what’s trending and inspiring on the digital innovation front.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Weaved into the discussion are some of the most
exciting emerging technologies, practical digital solutions from software vendors and service
providers that are setting the pace of innovation,
standing (virtually, of course) ready to support
your enterprise for its immediate survival and
long-term success.
If there’s one particular overarching trend
it’s this — businesses, digital enterprises in
particular, are innovating at a feverish pace —
but doing so increasingly with an eye to the
big picture, maximizing use of their capital,
rethinking the whole notion of “performance”,
leveraging existing relationships and moving
seamlessly to a more holistic approach to profiting from their endeavors.
Innovation & The Function of Business
Popular management consultant, educator and
author Peter Drucker once famously mused that
“business has two functions — marketing and innovation.” While few, myself humbly included,
could ever dare call themselves innovators, it
doesn’t mean that you/we shouldn’t try. Besides,
even if you’re not an innovator, you can always
be a marketer.
The definition of “innovation” is hotly con-

| D E C E M B E R 2013

tested, but think of it this way — you are an innovator and you innovate upon things or processes.
That’s different from invention — when something entirely new is created. Where the discussion
usually breaks down is not in the defining of the
term “innovation,” but rather in the “something”
that is changed, altered, evolved, transformed or
metamorphosed. A significant breakthrough, an
improvement in process or significant modification of anything is innovation — upon what, it
really doesn’t matter.
Digital entrepreneurs and Internet professionals, those that understand the importance of innovation when it comes to staying on the cusp of
digital leadership, must first know the core principles of innovation. They have to concentrate
and understand what problem is being solved,
be discriminating in their choices of what needs
change first, be organized and creative throughout the process, experiment endlessly, listen and
analyze qualitative feedback and quantitative
data and communicate the vision. That’s not all
of course — it’s still fundamentally important to
design and implement everything. With all the
background work in general, it’s amazing that
anything is innovated upon (not invented) at all.
Above everything else, the real innovators know

that what they are innovating must be disruptive
to the digital status quo; it must fundamentally be
useful to the potential audience, and even more,
in demand. The solutions you’ll encounter below
are those living up to this ideal and our collective
expectations, those that can support you on your
own quest to digital success.
The Innovation Framework
One of the areas of technology that has been ripe
for innovation over the past decade has been that
of Web hosting, data storage and network delivery
services in general. The reason there is so little innovation (and thus so boring to so many) is because
it’s quite expensive. The hardware and functions it
could provide in the past, were far more costly and
required greater expertise to operate.
Some rather innovative thinkers decided that
it was better to leverage software to reduce
many of the hardware hurdles that enterprises
experience — and the cloud (and content delivery networks and loads of related software
solutions) emerged. Now the cloud, while innovative itself (ever-changing) by definition, is
also ripe for innovation.
Take for example providers such as OnApp,
which offers software to power cloud, CDN and

| D E C E M B E R 2013

storage services. What’s innovative about OnApp
is its “federated approach” explained OnApp’s
Chief Commercial Officer Kosten Metreweli.
OnApp enables small and mid-size hosts and
service providers (including telcos) to tap into a
global pool (geographically diverse) of cloud capacity and do so at scale. The result of combining
the solution with their customers’ local market
knowledge and support is that they create a better, more compelling and more innovative service
for their own customers.
Los Angeles cloud computing provider Reliam,
whose clients include the Grammy Awards, the
Oscars and Miss Universe, serves as a powerful
example of why solution such as OnApp is appealing. Websites such as MissUniverse.com can
receive more than 2 million page views in a single
day while events are taking place. OnApp CDN allows Reliam to scale instantly during these traffic
spikes, customizing the service to leverage only
the locations they need from among 200 global
POPs. Reliam has reduced CDN expenditures by
50 percent since moving to OnApp from its previous provider, while still guaranteeing performance — for example, 100 percent uptime even
when Miss USA was a top 50 most visited website
for an entire day.

Development and the
Roots of Innovation
Necessity isn’t just the
mother of invention,
Social
but the mother of
Innovation
innovation as
well. Internet
in Focus
professionals
There’s more data in social networks than you
and digital enmight think. Discover five
trepreneurs insolutions helping Internet
professionals like you
novate when they
extract data and develop
are faced with challenges, turmoil,
richer user profiles at
wsm.co/socialfocus.
crisis and time of great change. With
those challenges and changes, come
opportunities to satisfy needs. Consider the opportunity you have in your
daily life to work productively, responsibly and in service to others (and yourself).
Rather than stopping at the wall, the barrier
to achieve success, you need to exercise your talents and find and develop innovative solutions to
whatever is standing in your way — be it process
or product.
One of the most common walls (challenges)
facing Internet professionals of all experience
levels these days is the practice of application
development. There is likely a good reason that

| D E C E M B E R 2013

digital media and the Web in general have captured your attention — you had an idea, an innovation, about doing something your own way,
doing something faster or better than someone
else or another company. But you hit a wall because you’re not a designer or a developer, right?
Fear not, some rather innovative technology solutions have emerged recently (and over the years)
that will turn you and your team from dreamers
into doers.
UBot Studio, for example, recently launched a
new version of its software that enables anyone
to develop — and more importantly sell (distribute) — applications through its all-in-one design
and app delivery system. Unlike other automation software platforms, UBot Studio 5 lets aspiring innovators create executable applications
that can be customized to automate any repetitive
or routine tasks including those for social media
marketing, online advertising, market research,
SEO and other functions (more on that below).
The new version is built in C++ and incorporates
HTML 5, offering an intuitive and highly flexible
user interface — complete with drag-and-drop
features — to enable their users to create proprietary applications. The platform also provides
layered encryption that combines SSL certifica-

tion with an authentication algorithm, resulting
in a platform that allows innovators to create useful (and secure) applications that are unreadable/
unusable until validated through a new customer
licensing and distribution dashboard.
“There is a growing need for technology to help
streamline the marketing process as it increasingly becomes more complex and this is an area
that a lot of businesses and professionals see as a
huge opportunity,” said Seth Turin, president of
Seth Turin Media, Inc. “Our response is the introduction of UBot Studio 5, which helps marketers
turn their ideas into solutions that they can easily,
safely and securely distribute to their clients. At
the same time, the platform’s easy-to-use WYSIWYG interface removes barriers, making the
tasks involved in creating applications — which
are normally linear — much more intuitive.”
UBot Studio also provides a way for its users
to create custom user interfaces for the bots and
compiled files. A user simply selects the UI element he wants to add his interface, dragging it to
the interface, positioning it and finally customizing each element (color, font, content, etc.).
Users can even see previews before finalizing
their projects.
There are, of course, many other innovative

| D E C E M B E R 2013

technology solutions worthy of note. One would
be remiss to not mention, from a pure design perspective, what role solutions like Adobe’s Creative Suite are offering up. Adobe is currently
unmatched, but it’s not preventing some rather
big companies from giving it a go on the innovation challenge.
Google Web Designer, just released in beta,
is far less robust than even Adobe’s early versions, but it does lower the hurdles to ideas and
innovations considerably. The free, downloadable application enables users to create HTML5based designs and even motion graphics (see
“How to Create Ads in Google Web Designer”
at wsm.co/gwebdes) for Web use across any
device. By offering full code control, Google is
enabling a broader segment of Internet professionals to take control, solve their own problems
and, therefore, innovate.
There’s some direct benefit for Google’s innovation though. The Web Designer solution makes it
possible to publish the ads that are created to platforms including DoubleClick Studio or AdMob.
It’s interesting to see how easily innovations in
one market, so greatly influence the success of
other industries, companies or individuals. That’s
no more so the case than in design.

Slight Permutations in Digital Advertising
Display advertising has seen an incredible resurgence over the last few years and in great part due
to the increasing sophistication of design, as well
as the near meteoric increase in usage of the Web
and technology in general. There are more connected humans today than yesterday; there are
more websites and, of course, more inventory to
display ads.
The developments and innovations made in the
retargeting and behavioral-based display market
are important (and you can read more about them
in Website Magazine’s new “Quick Guide to Retargeting and Display” at wsm.co/targetguide),
but they don’t mean much without the right creative, in the right format, size and shape. Internet,
where we’re going, there are no 468x60 banners.
AOL, for example, recently released a set of new
ad formats that many hope will provide advertisers and publishers with bumps in performance.
The new products include a “reactive” wallpaper
(or takeover) unit that transforms as users scroll,
a “persistent” loft unit that travels down a Web
page and opens up to display video or other multimedia elements, a multi-screen unit built with
HTML5 and another proprietary format, which
is a version of the IAB’s Mobile Rising Star unit.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

What’s so important about the AOL release, and
those of the IAB as well, is that they are innovative and force advertisers and publishers to
rethink the concept of advertising altogether.
It might be a challenge (unless you’re working
with one of those aforementioned tools) but the
rewards are immense.
Another reason that display advertising, and all
digital advertising in general, is so prominent in
the virtual lives of Internet professionals today, is
because we as users can simply do more with it.
AOL’s new persistent loft unit serves as a good example. Opening up when interacted with by the
user, the ad unit has the ability to show videos or
dynamic content. Users are coming to expect this
sort of immediate gratification of their curiosity,
satisfying their desire for information, education
or simply entertainment. And companies, including Microsoft and its Bing search engine, know
all too well that the faster they help others (e.g.
consumers) solve problems and reach their digital destinations, good things can happen.
In a “why didn’t we do this before” moment,
Bing announced recently that it will be introducing a click-to-call feature on paid listings that is
powered by Skype, enabling advertisers to connect with customers through phone calls directly

from their ads.
Bing introduced
a beta of the Call Extensions ad feature
last year, which was
E-Commerce
limited to smartTech To Know
phones. The
The e-commerce technology space is diverse, ofproject yielded
fering solutions to fit every
some positive
need and demand of even
the most discriminating
results for adbuyer of Web-based servertisers (higher
vices for retailers. See 50 of
the top companies that are
ad click-through rates, more phone
leading the digital way at
calls and better engagement accordwsm.co/50ecomm.
ing to Bing) and was formally introduced just in time for the holidays. The
Call Extensions feature enables advertisers to show their phone numbers along
with their ads on smartphones, PCs and
tablets, and do so on a cost-per-click basis.
Advertisers, marketers and their data analysts
and business management will also be able to access performance metrics/reports to understand
impressions, call volume, and spend data at the
campaign, ad group and individual call extension
level. Analytics of this nature are exceedingly important, because it’s one of the only ways available to ensure the strategic decisions made are

| D E C E M B E R 2013

good ones moving forward. But they aren’t the
only ones.
Analytical Variations
Many of the great innovations of our age are a
result of some epic shift, a change that sends Internet professionals into a digital tizzy.
The most recent change of this nature comes
from Google, which (over a course of roughly
two years) has now moved to fully encrypted
search. The result is that search engines no longer share keyword-level data about the users visit.
That’s caused some discomfort for many solution
providers. There are platforms however, such as
BrightEdge and GinzaMetrics, that are releasing
products that hope to lessen the associated anxiety (which has been at fever pitch of late) and
encourage SEOs in particular to rethink the very
definition of digital success.
BrightEdge, for example, released its new Page
Reporting feature, which allows marketers to
transition from keyword-dependent SEO to what
BrightEdge is calling a “content-centric” model.
The company believes the approach will give
marketers the insights they need about the performance of Web page visits, conversions and revenue that results from organic traffic, displaying

the revenue performance from organic search and
how pages are converting against pre-set goals.
Search and content marketing platform GinzaMetrics is another solution innovating in the face
of continual search updates.
“Four major trends are converging to present new challenges to online marketers: secure
search, semantic search, device proliferation and
the growing influence of content marketing,” said
Ray Grieselhuber, GinzaMetrics CEO. “All four of
these trends ultimately result in a better experience for Internet users. It also means, however,
that marketers need a technology platform that
responds to these trends in order to reach those
users most effectively.”
With its newly created Content Insights report,
GinzaMetrics’ users can view page-level data pulled
from their existing third-party analytics solutions
(Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, etc.). Analytics data is taken for each page, then correlated
to the most relevant keywords for that specific
page based on a user’s target keyword settings and
GinzaMetrics’ own algorithm. This allows GinzaMetrics to display page data, utilize page traffic to
infer how much traffic a specific keyword is driving and project monthly traffic based on search
volume and click-through-rat curve.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

A content-centric search algorithm from Google
has placed a growing need on understanding
which content is performing well, what keywords
and topics are driving traffic, what page content
drives conversion and how to utilize this data to
optimize pages now as well as know what content
to create moving forward. GinzaMetrics’ hybrid
solution provides this data to users and allows
them to drill down into pages and keywords to
uncover recommendations that can help teams
further optimize content and campaigns.
Integrated with Content Insights is Social Signals, a feature of the platform that helps users
uncover how social signal interactions may influence search rankings. A user can view Facebook shares, likes and posts; Google +1s; and
Twitter tweets and retweets for content across a
site and sorted by target keyword. GinzaMetrics’
competitor analysis feature also allows users to
view social signal data for selected competitors
for comparison.
Another noteworthy feature is the device filtering layer. Users can now select a device type including desktop, mobile, or tablet, and view page
level data based on their selection. The company
is looking to expand device and mobile integrations across the platform as a growing number of

search queries originate from devices other than
users’ desktop computers.
Understanding that this is a first step toward
ensuring that search and marketing professionals
can continue to promote findability of their brand
online, GinzaMetrics is set to release additional
features this year that tackle Hummingbird and
secure search head-on.
Analytics, of course, isn’t limited to SEO performance or advertising; nearly everything is
measured on today’s Web properties and that’s
causing some trouble for Internet professionals
that they likely never imagined when they set out
on the path toward ’Net success.
For example, Adobe recently released new dynamic tag management capabilities for its Adobe
Marketing Cloud that the company suggests will
speed up the process for tagging content that
needs to be measured and optimized on websites.
The technology itself results from an acquisition Adobe made in July of 2013. Satellite, formerly part of interactive agency Search Discovery,
will help Adobe’s Marketing Cloud users to consolidate code for different marketing and advertising services (as well as analytics) that are
implemented by websites to monitor how content
is being used.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Dynamic tag management is unique in that it
not only solves standard tag management problems such as code deployment, data management
and rule building, but also provides the capabilities to map these activities directly to marketing
scenarios and user experiences. The functionality
is substantially more robust than what is commonly known as a universal tag, which is essentially nothing more than a tag container. Dynamic
tag management essentially includes logic that
determines what action should be taken on a page
to measure the “right” data about a particular interaction, making it easier for marketers to develop digital marketing strategies and implement
them without any IT support.
Epic E-Commerce Shifts
Internet retailers aren’t known to be aggressive
when it comes to innovation. It can take years for
a company to decide to replatform, and they take
great precautions with their brands and budgets
when promoting their services, serving their customers and reaching for revenue opportunities.
What’s unique about the e-commerce environment today is that merchants are closing in on
the technology, catching up as it were with some
of the most innovative solutions on the market

and preparing their enterprises for success.
At its annual client
summit, eBay introduced a new suite
Innovation
of commerceEverywhere
focused techWebsite Magazine readers,
one of the largest collecnologies for
tives of Internet professioneBay Enterals on the ‘Net, are always
on the lookout for the most
prise that aim
innovative digital solutions
to help merchants
to accelerate their success.
Stay in the loop with the
focus on omnichannel operations
Software Everywhere chanand marketing solutions. The “Exnel, available at
change Platform” offers retailers
wsm.co/softwaretoday.
back-end capabilities, including distributed order management, omnichannel inventory management, payment
processing, fraud management and reporting. The Exchange Platform is pre-integrated,
not surprisingly, with Magento, eBay Marketplaces and PayPal.
eBay Enterprise’s Interfaces and Tools module also serves as the front-end, a commerce
storefront solution for retailers to create “...experiences across devices, locations, users, geographies and brands,” said Chris Saridakis,
president of eBay Enterprise.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

“Retailers and brands understand the importance of having industry-leading capabilities
across their entire value chain to support a new
retail environment where consumers demand
consistent, seamless and personalized experiences anywhere, at any time,” said Saridakis.
“We’ve been singularly focused on being a strategic growth partner to our clients, and our
new suite of modular commerce technologies
will give our clients a competitive edge in this
rapidly changing retail landscape.”
There’s no denying that companies like eBay
are innovating and fulfilling the expectations of
their users (and stockholders) but there are hundreds of fascinating digital, e-commerce focused
software and service companies that are working
as hard or harder and deserve an equal amount
of attention from Internet professionals.
Let’s INNOVATE!
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INTERNET ADVERTISING

Last-Minute Ad Tips
To Move The CTR Needle This Holiday Season
By Cleofe Betancourt, Business Development Strategist, 7Search

Let’s face facts. We have made it to the December issue of
Website Magazine and you find yourself here reading an
article providing tips for improving the click through rate
(CTR) on your PPC advertising campaigns.
This can only lead me to one of three conclusions:
a) You are late to the party and looking to launch
your last-minute holiday campaigns before it is
too late.
b) Your campaigns have been running this season
but could use a boost to help get you over the hump.
c) This author piqued your interest with his exotic nam
and intriguing headline.

| D E C E M B E R 2013


After quickly dismissing option C (your laughter hurts
people), we can get down to the business of helping to
improve your CTR with these actionable tips. Before beginning, I would like to issue the following disclaimer:
We are not going to reinvent the wheel fearless reader!
Oftentimes, the process of creating online campaigns becomes so daunting that
we fail to consider how
the ad would impact us
if we were the potential
purchaser. Common
sense can often win the
day in both ad copy and
landing page design,
which are the two key
elements we are touching on here.

PPC Tips to Try
• Be exclusive. Don’t
be afraid to play up the uniqueness and/or scarcity of
your offer. A surfer looking at your offer on the SERP
needs to make an emotional connection with your campaign in less than five seconds. Your listings face that
reality each time they are viewed. Eye-catching phrases

| D E C E M B E R 2013

like “Save X% off regular price” or “Free Next Day Shipping” might seem cliché, but used in combination with
a targeted landing page, can provide a significant boost
to your CTR. You can boost perceived scarcity further
by including an expiration date within your ad copy (see
image A). No one wants to miss a great deal; capitalize
on that.

A

• Name drop as if your (PPC)
life depends on it. It is always a good idea to take full
advantage of built-in brand
B value whenever you can.
Mentioning a well-known
brand in your copy adds
an additional layer of relevance in the eyes of your
potential customer. Even if
the brand you are promoting is not as well known as
major competitors, utilizing the brand name in your copy, compared to a broader
term, can improve performance.
• Don’t fight the science! Experiment with A/B testing.
A/B testing is a methodology in advertising of using


B). A surfer is more likely to click on your ad if their
randomized experiments with two variants, A and B,
search query appears in it, due to a perceived greater relwhich are the control and treatment in the controlled
evance to the query. Use this to your advantage to drive
experiment — at least that’s how Wikipedia describes
higher CTRs.
it. Put plainly, craft two versions of your ad copy and run
them for a specified period.
• Consider the mobile diMajor League Bidding
Since these are last-minute
lemma. Is your website optiWrigleyvilleSports.com sells Chicago Cubs merchantips for your holiday cammized to capitalize on mobile
dise, making its Online Marketing Manager Eric Caspaigns, time is of the essence.
visitors? While this may be
tellucci all too familiar with competing against large
Run for 3-5 days, at most, in
less of an issue for newer
enterprises, like MLB Shop. For him, and others, PPC is
becoming more competitive. A few years ago, the big
order to accrue enough data
landing pages, older sites
companies would bid on a few keywords. Now, he says,
to pick a winner. With your
may not display properly on
it’s obvious they have put more efforts into PPC and bid on
winning ad identified, create
the small screen. Not sure if
more specific, long-tailed keywords, as well. It forces Castellucci and his team to be more creative in their strategies
a new ad, testing additional
this applies to you? Then it
and more aggressive in their bidding. One way Wrigleyville
elements and repeat the
likely does. Exclude mobile
Sports stands out from the digital crowd is by using its
experiment. Your goal should
traffic sources to make sure
brick-and-mortar location to its advantage. By pointing out
it has a store directly across from Wrigley Field, it is able
be to take the best aspects of
more of your advertising
to build credibility among Web surfers. Castellucci shares
the winning ad and continue
dollars are targeted toward
more PPC tips and insights at wsm.co/homerunppc.
growing them through addisources that have traditiontional trials.
ally worked for you.
• Make the connection between their search and your
offer. Use the keyword or a Dynamic Keyword Insert
(DKI) in your ad title and/or description. Most ad platforms offer some sort of DKI to ensure that the searched
keyword appears in the ad title or description (see image

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Remember the words of Mark Twain, “Many a small
thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” Following these best practices is sure to get those
cash registers, or in this case payment processors, ringing this holiday season.

CONVERSION CONNECTION

Common E-Commerce

By Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners

Many Internet retailers are failing to convert enough visitors into customers. However, much of the time, the reasons are
foreseeable. How does your site stack up
against this list of common problems?

| D E C E M B E R 2013


Slow Page Load Speed
Internet visitors want it yesterday! Any delay
becomes seen as intolerable. Google is on a
mission to speed up the Internet, because
they have seen that even small increases in
page load speed can affect conversion. Your
page load speed not only influences your
search rankings, but also has a direct impact
on the conversion rate of visitors who land
on your site.
Often, just tweaking some of your Web server
settings can result in dramatic gains. Taking
the time to set up a content delivery network
(CDN) properly, purchasing the proper amount
of hosting power and bandwidth, and optimizing assets like images and videos can also pay
dividends. Pay attention to your coding and
programming. Reducing the number of database
calls to the minimum required in server-side
code like PHP, Python or Ruby, or optimizing
client-side code like HTML, CSS and JavaScript
can all make major improvements in your page
load speed (or at least the time it takes for the
page to start rendering).

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Lack of Visual Continuity between Mobile and Desktop
Mobile sites are fundamentally different from
desktop websites. You have less space to do the
important stuff. It’s necessary to reduce, but not
to change the experience. The content on your
mobile site should be highlights and essentials
from your desktop site. It should be information chopped down to the specifics that visitors
might be looking for: a price, a phone number
or click to call, a few features and benefits and a
purchase button. It should be limited information but not different information.
But even though mobile is increasingly a popular choice for key activities, it would be a mistake
to think that mobile is always used alone. In fact,
in the “always-on” world that we live in, people
often bounce between devices and regularly use
more than one device simultaneously. So there
must be continuity among their experiences.
The style, colors, headlines and branding elements should all stay the same. Logical aspects
like product categories and content hierarchy
should remain consistent so that your mobile site
is intuitive to people who have already shopped


your desktop site. Make your mobile site an extension of your desktop site and your customers
will thank you with their hard-earned money.

On-The-Go
Conversions
See five e-commerce
solutions that enable
merchants to capitalize
on the mobile market at
wsm.co/modwebapps.

Excluding International Visitors
It’s 2 a.m. — do you know where your website
traffic is coming from? Some of it’s not from your
time zone, or even your country. You must recognize and honor cultural differences and provide
appropriate checkout and onsite experiences.
If you have significant international traffic, you
should make sure that the checkout is specific
to their country and no weird “Americanisms”
creep in.
On checkout forms, for example, rather than
asking for a state, you should be requesting state/
province. For zip code, request zip/postal code.
By speaking to visitors on their terms, you make
them feel at home on your site. Some countries
don’t even have states or provinces. So if you
require a state or province in checkout, you will
literally block the sale. Including a “No State or
Province” option or disabling the state/province
section when applicable countries are selected

| D E C E M B E R 2013

keeps the conversion funnel flowing.
Better yet, auto detect the origin of your visitor and show them a country-specific experience whenever possible. Display prices in their
local currency and offer text translation. Making
your site accessible and even comfortable to international visitors opens up your business to an
entire world of customers.
Negative Bias from Initial Reviewers
If one person doesn’t like chocolate ice cream,
that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The next person might
love it. So don’t let a single bad review ruin a
product (and your bottom line). If the first review posted on a product page is a one-star review, and you show the rating upstream in your
site (on search results or category pages), fewer
people will consider buying it after a quick visual scan of the star-rating images. Avoid creating an average review score for a product with
only a few reviews. You can still post the text of
the review on the product page, but let it be in
the context that it’s just one person’s opinion.
Wait until you have several reviews before you


start showing them as star ratings throughout
the site.
Difficult Purchase Process
If customers can’t figure out how to buy your
product — they won’t. It’s critical to have an
easy, intuitive purchase process. So the purchase
button needs to be easy to find. Calls-to-action
need to be:
• Appropriately labeled (telling you accurately
what will happen when you click)
• Big enough to click on mobile (we use our
thumbs a lot and need bigger areas)
• Few in number (too many buttons on your
cart page are a sure way to kill conversion)
• Obvious (prominent and unique compared to
other visual elements)
After passing the checks listed above, it’s time
to think about your shopping cart. Customers
need an intuitive way to check out. Frequent
online shoppers have become accustomed to a
shopping cart button in the top right-hand corner of the page, but it’s important that the button
stands out and is visible on all devices, especially

| D E C E M B E R 2013

on mobile. If you don’t have a site that offers responsive design, your visit cart button may be
extra difficult to find for mobile customers. One
solution to this is to add an overlay after an item
has been added to the cart that gives the option
to start the checkout process or keep shopping.
Routing All Mobile Traffic to the Mobile Home Page
Congratulations, you have finally created a fantastic dedicated site for mobile! But it’s too early
to celebrate if you are sending all redirected visitors to your mobile homepage. Don’t route all
mobile visitors to m.yoursite.com. Instead, take
the extra time to route visitors to the specific
internal landing page requested. For instance,
if someone tries to click on a link to a specific
product on a mobile device, they don’t want to
be sent back to your home page to find it from
there. They want to go directly to that page. It’s
better to hold off on your mobile site launch
until you have made sure that deep-linking is
working properly.
Correct this checklist of conversion fails, and
your digital cash register will ring more often!

2013 CALL FOR ENTRIES
DEADLINE DECEMBER 20, 2013

HORIZONINTERACTIVEAWARDS.COM
WEB SITES

Advocacy & Non Profit
Bank / Finance
Consumer Information
Corporate / B2B
E-Commerce / Shopping
Entertainment Industry
Games
Government Agency
Health / Human Services
Legal
Magazine / News / Blog
Responsive Design
Restaurant / Food Industry
School / University
Self Promotion / Portfolio
Towns & Municipalities
Training / E-Learning
Travel & Touris m

VIDEO

Broadcast Commercial
Instructional
Motion Graphics / Effects
Promotional Video
Short Film / Documentary
Viral Video

ADVERTISING

Email Marketing / Newsletter
Integrated Campaign
Online ads

MOBILE APPS

Advertisement
Branding Campaign
Brochure
Poster

Business
Education
Entertainment
Game
Magazine / News
Productivity
Utility

INTERACTIVE

EMAIL

PRINT

Kiosk / Public Exhibit / Museum

E-Card
Newsletter
Promotional

Recognizing Excellence in Interactive Media Production

SM

The Horizon Interactive Awards, now in its 12th season, is a prestigious international competition recognizing
outstanding achievement among interactive media producers. The competition awards the best web sites, videos,
print media, mobile applications and online advertising. Enter now for your chance to be honored as one of this
year’s “best of the best.”

| D E C E M B E R 2013

EMAIL EXPERIENCE

INSIDE GMAIL
By Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research, ExactTarget

The introduction of Tabs in Google’s Gmail has generated concern among email senders about how the new filtering feature
will affect open rates. Here are five reasons why those concerns are overblown:
1. Tabs only affect a small percentage of your subscribers.
On average, less than 2 percent of email opens occur on Tabsupported Gmail clients, according to Litmus. Gmail’s new
inbox mostly affects the shrinking number of desktop users,
not the growing number of mobile users.
2. Highly engaged subscribers — which generate the
most email revenue — have been positively impacted
by Tabs.
According to Return Path, these subscribers are opening
more promotional emails and inbox placement rates increased
slightly after rollout of Tabs. Most of the decline in opens has
been among less engaged subscribers.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

EMAIL EXPERIENCE

3. The Promotions tab is shifting engagement
patterns.
There’s growing evidence that Gmail users are
checking their Promotion tabs once every day or
so and then engaging heavily with the emails in
that tab. That may mean that Tab users are less
responsive to unexpected or unannounced flash
sales, for instance, but they are engaging with the
Tab consistently.
4. The Promotions tab is a virtual mall.
Having your emails in the Promotions tab will be a
net positive for most brands. When subscribers go
to that tab, they’re in a buying mood — or at least
more in a buying mood than when they’re interacting with emails from their friends and family in
their Primary tabs.
When users go to the Promotions tab, they expect
to find promotional emails and that’s what they get.
This allows them to focus and get in a shopping mode.
Just visiting the Promotions tab is a signal of buying
intent, in the same way that visiting the mall is.
5. Consumers are still adjusting to Tabs.
While Gmail announced the roll out of their new
inbox interface in May, it is still being rolled out.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Gmail users are in an adjustment period. Some will
end up turning off Tabs while others will move
email streams around until they get senders’ emails
into the tabs that are most convenient for them. The
behavior that we’re seeing right now is really unsettled and does not represent the new baseline.
The long-term effects are also unknown. Marketers could very well reap additional benefits from
users that keep Tabs enabled, but that will not become evident for some time. For instance, since
promotional emails won’t be competing directly
with emails from their friends and family, Tabs
users may become more likely to stay subscribed to
promotional emails longer, producing a more accurate subscriber lifetime value. For the same reason, Tabs users may be more inclined to sign up for
promotional emails in the first place, so list growth
could benefit.
Gmail Tabs should be embraced as a welcomed
change. We’ve seen similar inbox changes before — like Gmail’s Priority Inbox and Hotmail’s
Sweep functionality — and none of them impacted
email’s return on investment, which is still stellar.
In general, email marketers should applaud any
development that improves the email experience
for users.

DOMAIN MASTERS

Where to Sell

Domains in 2014

The Internet is changing. How companies select
and leverage domain names will evolve drastically
as the adoption of new gTLDs (generic top-level domains) increases. And despite the initial confusion
these new Web addresses are likely to cause, 62
percent of those surveyed for a Sedo report believe
the adoption will ultimately be successful.
For those interested in buying and selling domain names for profit, these new gTLDs could
be an untapped revenue generator. First, let’s
explore some of the reasons why these new Web

| D E C E M B E R 2013

addresses can shake up the industry.
“We’re going to see the market flooded with
hundreds of new domain extensions in the coming months and years, and our data shows that
investors and corporations are evidently warming up to the idea of using different extensions,”
said Tobias Flaitz, Sedo’s CEO in a company
statement. “It will take time and effort before
we see mass adoption of new TLDs, and Sedo is
contributing its part to raise awareness through
global marketing, sales efforts and partnerships
with applicants. The fact that more extensions

DOMAIN MASTERS

The Changing
Face of the
Domain Name
Aftermarket
See how GoDaddy’s acquisition of Afternic will
disrupt the industry (in a
good way) at
wsm.co/goafternic.

than ever are being traded and successfully used
for business is a promising development.”
In the past, companies have been restricted
to 22 TLDs, including .com, .org and others.
Now, hundreds of extensions will be released,
so brands can choose from .map, .book, .deals,
.vegas, .report, .ads, etc. Almost a dozen gTLDs
could be released each week. Most expect that
.com will still be favored by most businesses, but
the new gTLDs can help them secure more memorable website addresses.
A lot of the success of these new extensions,
especially for selling them, will come down to
awareness and, of course, demand. There is a bigger supply of extensions, so it will definitely dilute
the market. The popular consensus, however, is
that there will be “buzz” extensions that are highly
in demand, and thus, profitable while most of the
inventory might be useful to buy but not to sell.
That’s why it’s fun to be a domainer, right?
You have to play the digital lotto to win, so
where are the best places on the Interwebs to
sell domains today?

| D E C E M B E R 2013

GoDaddy
GoDaddy Auctions is a massive
marketplace for buyers and sellers of domain names, allowing
anyone to list their domains for
a flat $4.99 annual fee. Domain registrants can
auction their domain names and potential buyers
can bid on them, make offers or buy them on the
spot, depending on the listing type. Sellers can
also use various features to increase the exposure
of their auction listings, and receive free instant
appraisals of their domain names. The auction
platform is backed by GoDaddy systems and support, which includes 24/7 customer assistance.
Sedo
Domain name and website marketplace, Sedo is a domain name
and website marketplace and
domain-parking provider responsible for more than 40,000 sales each year.
Sedo’s international auction capabilities and

DOMAIN MASTERS

domain trading platform, along with its global
network of domain brokers, makes its well positioned to support the introduction of the new
gTLDs. Sedo also offers domain appraisals and
secure purchase, transfer and escrow.
Flippa
Professionals can sell online
property at Flippa in two ways:
at public auction or in private
sales. Flippa considers itself
to be like a matchmaking site
for online property buyers and sellers: they put
the two together, and help them work out if one
wants what the other party has to offer. Their involvement ends when the auction or sale is completed. Read Editor-In-Chief Peter Prestipino’s
report on his own successful sale through Flippa
at wsm.co/eicflippa.
Do you have compliments or criticisms of selling domains on GoDaddy, Sedo, Flippa or Afternic? Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine.

| D E C E M B E R 2013

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION
1. Publication title: Website Magazine. 2. Publication No. 1942-0633 3. Filing date: October 1, 2013. 4. Issue
frequency: Four times per year with 8 special issues (January, March, April, June, July, September, October, and
December). 5. No. of issues published annually: 12. 6. Annual subscription price $44.95. 7. Complete mailing
address of known office of publication: 999 E. Touhy Ave., Ste 590, Des Plaines, IL 60018. 8. Complete mailing
address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: 999 E. Touhy Ave., Ste 590, Des Plaines, IL
60018. 9. Full names and mailing addresses of general manager, editor, and managing editor: David Ruiz, 999
E. Touhy Ave., Suite 590, Des Plaines, IL 60018; Peter Prestipino, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Suite 590, Des Plaines, IL
60018; Amberly Dressler, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Suite 590, Des Plaines, IL 60018. 10. Owner: Website Services
Inc., Dante Monteverde, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Suite 590, Des Plaines, IL 60018. 11. None. 12. Not applicable. 13.
Publication title: Website Magazine. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: December 2013. 15. Extent and
nature of circulation:
Average No. Copies No. Copies of Single
Each Issue During
Issue Published
Preceding 12 Months Nearest to Filing Date
A. Total No. copies (net press run)

47,181

53,853

41,826

49,821

B. Paid or Requested Distribution
1. Outside-county paid/requested mail subscriptions
2. In-county paid/requested mail subscriptions

-

0

3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter
sales, and other paid or requested distribution outside USPS

1,929

2,232

4. Requested copies distributed by other mail classes through
the USPS

-

0

43,754

52,053

2,191

0

C. Total paid and/or requested circulation
D. Nonrequested distribution
1.Outside-county nonrequested copies stated on PS Form 3541
2. In-county nonrequested copies included on PS Form 3541
3. Nonrequested copies distributed through the USPS by
other classes of mail
4. Nonrequested copies distributed outside the mail
E. Total nonrequested distribution
F. Total distribution
G. Copies not distributed
H. Total
I. Percent paid and/or requested circulation

-

0

79

18

1,008

1,400

3,278

1,418

47,033

53,471

148

382

47,181

53,853

93%

97%

16. This statement of ownership will be printed in December issue of this publication 17. I certify that all information
furnished on this form is true and complete.
Signature and title: David Ruiz, General Manager, October 1, 2013

HONESTY.

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SOCIAL MEDIA MAVENS

Getting The Most From

Google’s Ghost Town
By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

When Google+ first arrived on the social
scene, everyone wanted an invitation.
Its membership numbers soared once it
opened to the public, and when the network’s business profiles finally arrived,
enterprising Internet professionals acted
quickly to claim their places.

The initial newness has worn off though and most
brands have all but abandoned their Google+
presence in favor of networks with established
audiences and higher levels of engagement.
Google+ may be a virtual ghost town compared
to the likes of Facebook or Twitter, but the net-

| D E C E M B E R 2013

work actually offers several unique and businessfriendly features to help companies create active
and engaged communities while gaining a whole
lot more than “likes” in the future.

Google+ Hangouts
One of the features that sets Google+ apart from
other social networks is its ‘Hangout’ offering,
which enables users to engage in group conversations, host Q&A sessions or virtual conferences or launch products live with ‘Hangouts
on Air’. In fact, Hangouts On Air are broadcast
not only on Google+, but can also be distributed on YouTube and websites where they have

SOCIAL MEDIA MAVENS

feature and quickly took advantage of it.
been embedded. Rasmussen College, for example, leverages this feature to connect with both
“Communities are a great opportunity for
current and future students.
businesses to interact with
their target markets,” said
“The Hangout feature is
Yvonne Miaoulis, marketing
great for allowing businesses
manager at Baroan Techto be seen and continue to
nologies. “We made a comprove themselves as subject
munity for Bergen County
matter experts within their
businesses that serves as a
industry,” said Grant Tilus,
platform for us to provide
inbound marketing specialist
potential prospects with
for Rasmussen College. “It is
helpful information and
also a simple way to create viresources about their local
sually engaging video content
areas. Google+ is still young
without the need for big bud“Google+ is still young enough
enough that a business can
gets or time commitments.”
that a business can be the first
be the first to create a niche
to create a niche community
that will grow as more compacommunity that will grow
Google+ Communities
nies join”
as more companies join
Similar to Facebook Groups,
-Yvonne Miaoulis, Baroan Technologies
Google+. There are only 25
Google+ offers a ‘Communimembers in our community
ties’ feature, which empowers
right now, but I have no
interest-based communities
doubt that number will increase exponentially
to gather and interact. IT service provider
in the next year.”
Baroan Technologies saw the potential in this

| D E C E M B E R 2013

Website Magazine num.72 (INGLES)

Website Magazine num.72 (INGLES)

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