Jackson Lo

On to day 2…

If you haven't yet, you can read my previous post about Day 1 at SMX.

Given the fact that my flight is at 5:30pm, day was short, but I found even the condensed time-frame didn't takeaway the value I got from the speakers. Here are the sessions I attend and will be recapping on:

• Evaluating SEO and Paid Search Activity and Conversions
• Data Diving: Segmenting Data for Insights and Actionable Metrics
• What's new with Local Search?

Evaluating the value of your efforts

Often getting a ton of traffic flowing to your site is great. But is that enough to satisfy your efforts to drive that amount of traffic to your site? Do you know your cost:revenue ratio? This is exactly what this panel discussed.

Key takeaways:

• Map out your conversion funnel and assign values in buckets (take it one step at a time). Refer to Ani Lopez's post on Measuring SEO Performance, which sums up his presentation during this session.
• Set Goals: Do you have goals set up in your Google Analytics account? Do you have goal values assigned to each one of your goals?

Multi-Channel Funnel

Probably one of the hottest topics around Google is their new Google Analytics V5. Recently, Google also revealed the their Multi-Channel Funnel feature. There was great interest in this product shown by the number of questions that were raised at the end of the session. I will not dive into the discussion because it's a technical one, but my company wrote a post about the feature on the Cardinal Path blog.

Advanced Segmentation

One powerful feature in Google Analytics is advanced segmentation. You may create advanced segments to separate out the data you don't want to analyze, and focus on just the ones you want to draw conclusions on. Key takeaways:

• Extremely powerful if used properly.
• Can assist you with deeper analysis into a specific segment of your entire data set.
• You can get creative with advanced segments. Think about your goals and objectives.

One example that was discussed was to this question: "Is my blog actually delivering any business value?" So how do we know? We create an advanced segment that filters out only the visits from the blog. After you've done that, you may want to dive deeper, as the visits data usually doesn't tell you much about how many of those visits really brought in money to your business. In order to do so, you will need to look at some of the conversion mechanisms like the Goals report > Conversion Rate (if you have goals set up) in Google Analytics.

Local Search

Google's been pampering local information even more lately. There's a great interest in this area because local search is becoming an integral part in our lives, whether it be looking up a menu on your desktop, or looking for a number to make a reservation on your phone.

Key takeaways:

• Follow the Google Local guidelines
• Formulate some type of categorization for your local keywords and apply them within your Place Page listing
• Obtain a broad set of citations * Apply timely updates to your Places page
• Use microformat (hCard and hReview) on your site
• Obtain diversified links to your website from other local sites
• User rank tracking software like AuthorityLabs.com or BrightLocal.com to monitor your listing

This brings day 2 to an end for me at SMX. I have had the privilege to connect with a lot of innovative SEOs and would really thank the organizing committee for this great opportunity. Finally, because it's Friday, that means it's time for #FF…

Here's a list of some SEOs to keep an eye out for (in no particular order):

• Dev Basu – @devbasu
• Mike Mire – @GetMeListed
• Mike Belasco – @belasco
• Ani Lopez – @anilopez
• Dawn Wentzell – @saffyre9
• Kate Morris – @katemorris
• Frank Morello – @fmorello
• Helen M Overland – @semlady

Until next time, see you friends!