SeoAlchemist

Nothing innovative here really. Just some functional features which should have been added a long time to Google’s Blog Search. Then again, better late than never.  So, Google has just added RSS/ATOM subscription, list of  the most popular terms that users are using, and latest blog posts from, I guess “more prominent” blogs indexed by Google Blog Search?The RSS/ATOM subscription is nothing new really. It’s just a way for users  to subscribe to any topic or story using any feed reader. For those who don’t use feed readers, Google Blog Search front page can now also be added to iGoogle page as a gadget. This can be customized according to topics.

In addition, the main Google Blog Search site is now featuring to ways to get the latest blog stories - via Hot Queries and Latest posts. Hot Queries list down the most popular searches done on Google Blog Search while Latest Posts displays the latest post from popular blogs. Clicking on the

These two features will appear only on the Google Blog Search main site and will disappear on individual blog search results pages.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Google Blog Search Adds RSS, Hot Queries, Latest Blog Posts

This week we feature the interview with Fraser Kelton, working at new and exciting social media project Glue, developed by AdaptiveBlue.

1. Please share your background. What brought you to the Web 2.0? Also please tell us a few words about your [other] projects you were doing before joining AdaptiveBlue.

I’m originally from Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city, an hour southwest of Toronto. I’ve been fascinated with computers since my first Commodore 64 and I’ve been addicted to the web since my first taste. Before joining AdaptiveBlue I was at a seed stage investment firm.

2. You’ve been with AdaptiveBlue since September, 2007. Can you describe the company? What have you been responsible for there?

AdaptiveBlue was founded in 2006 by Alex Iskold with the goal of creating a better web browsing experience by using semantic and personalization technologies.

Basically, the web is fairly dumb - it doesn’t know what you’re looking at, or who you are - and because of this a lot of what we take for granted in the physical world is lost on the web. By utilizing semantics it’s possible for your computer to understand what you are looking at online. It’s possible to automate intelligent ‘next steps’ for the user by combining this understanding with some level of personalization.

Our product, Glue, works hard to make life easier for you on the web. When you’re looking at a movie on a popular site Glue automates a lot of the hard work - it shows you which friends like the movie (and what they thought), it allows you to add it to your queue without leaving the page, you can watch clips from the movie, read a summary of the movie, etc.

Glue works across hundreds of popular sites within a number of categories - things like books, movies, music, and other everyday things that we visit online.

3. How was the idea of Glue born? How is it different from all other Web 2.0 platforms?

There are three unique benefits to Glue.

First, the service is contextual. We share a lot of information on the web. But very little of it is presented to us in a useful place at a useful time. When’s the best time for me to know that you like a movie that I may go see in the theater? It’s not when I’m looking at my Facebook newsfeed at 10 am on Tuesday morning. That information is most valuable when I’m looking at the movie on Fandango, deciding if I should go see it or not. Glue introduces context to the information that we share about the books, movies and music that we like. It brings the information to us, where and when it makes sense.

Second, the information in Glue appears automatically. When I browse to the movie’s page on Fandango, Glue appears automatically with the useful information.

Third, Glue is a web-wide network on top of popular sites about books, movies, music, etc. The benefits of Glue are delivered as you browse these sites like we all typically do.

4. I understand the idea behind the project name (plenty of possibilities for word play with "sticking" concept). Do you foresee any problems with online reputation management though? There are plenty completely irrelevant sites found for [Glue] search in Google (compare to "Twitter" for example).

We were slightly concerned with this before we launched. In the short-term, the truth is that initial growth comes from word-of-mouth that’s generated by a great product. If you tell your friend that Glue rocks - and pass them a link via email, twitter or facebook - then we win.

Additionally, because Glue is a browser add-on it’s not mission critical for us to have the best domain name. GetGlue.com works for our need nearly as well as Glue.com would (and was significantly less dollars to purchase).

We had a great moment recently - when users search for Glue on Google we are now the top search result, even above the Wikipedia entry for glue.

We have run into a problem when trying to track the word in real time search. Searching Twitter for Glue produces a lot of noise that we have to dig through to find the relevant signal. It’s not insurmountable and we’ve found that if a message is important it finds us.

5. Launching a new project is exciting. How do you (plan to) promote it?

We’ve recently launched a number of exciting new things - Glue was made available for Internet Explorer, we launched our API, and we released new support for the broad category of Topics.

Because of the unique benefit that Glue delivers we get a decent amount of press from top sites. We’ve also been lucky to capture the attention of influential early adopters. This buzz and coverage continues to drive interest in the product.

We also run an incredibly fun game through a twitter account that is one week-long puzzle. Contestants have to piece together clues to complete the game. Everyone who completes the game is entered into a drawing for free books, movies, and music.

Finally, we’re really working hard to encourage and support word-of-mouth. We have a page set-up where users can easily share the site with their friends or request free stickers and t-shirts.

6. One most thing that amazed me most was Glue interaction with members. You got in contact with me immediately after I Twittered about my joining the site. One of your employees emailed me a day later asking for the feedback. Can you describe in detail this strategy of yours. How do you incorporate social media?

This is a key strategy for us. Our community is invaluable and we really wouldn’t be where we are today without the support, feedback and contribution from our growing community (we call them Glue-rs). We use different types of social media to engage with the individuals who use Glue and help ensure that they are getting the most from the product. It’s a funny thought that customer service can be a competitive advantage but we’re seeing that that really is the case!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Interview with Fraser Kelton of Glue, New Promising Social Network

Creating new landing pages for testing is getting cheaper. And scalable.

So there are fewer and fewer reasons for SMBs not to be testing their landing pages and sites to optimize conversion rates.

Testing landing pages has long been a preoccupation of mine, particularly because of the traditionally prohibitive costs.

Even if you use a design contest at a place like 99Designs.com, you’re still paying $300 - $500 for a good graphic look and feel. Plus you often need to pay about $100 for a competent graphics slicing shop to handle your job.

(Yes, others can do this for less, but you’re taking a few risks:

• Unreliable people vanishing with your money
• Getting crap code and being unable to evaluate that
• Getting an ugly, non-functional design)

And that’s just the first landing page - you need alternatives so you can test! A simple A/B/C split test (eg with three variations) could thus run you $1,200 -  $1,800 for graphics and code. (Assuming you start with completely different designs; if you just split test headlines or hero shots or calls to action, you’ll probably be able to do it for “just” $400.)

Oh, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You still need to buy traffic to send to those pages to test! All of a sudden, you’re paying $300 for the graphics, $100 for the code, maybe another $50 for finagling stuff and creating simple variations, plus traffic! This test is starting to sound like it’ll cost $1000, just to do a decent job of it!

Well, not necessarily. Here are some ideas and commentary on recent SMB landing pages I’ve seen.

1) Affiliate Theme - This is a Wordpress theme that comes pre loaded with various layout and graphical options, such that you can mix and match to customize your design.

The idea is excellent. I was partly happy and partly disappointed when I saw this, because my friend Tyler Shears and I came up with roughly the same idea on our trip back from SMX West, and it was a potential business / revenue stream. Now I’d rather not be second to market, but I am glad that this is available, affordably.

A single Affiliate Theme license goes for $97, says my friend Dev Basu in his Affiliate Theme review (which I wish were a little more review and a little less description :P), while the top line one goes for $197.

The catch with Affiliate Theme, unfortunately, is that it’s Affiliate Theme.

Google hates affiliates (unless they’re Google Money affiliates or Eric Schmidt’s buddies…). Google is quicker to penalize affiliates in the organic results, and is more inclined to slap them in PPC.

Blackhats know that if their networks of sites show a footprint (a common pattern in the code), they’ll get banned more quickly.

If you want to use the same code as hundreds or thousands of other affiliates for serious projects… do yourself a favor and test things first. See how much of a leash Google gives you. I’m speaking theoretically, but this is a risk to be aware of.

2) You can use the following process.

1. Buy these three books: (i) Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug; (ii) Web Design For ROI, by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus; (iii) The Elements of User Experience Design, by Jesse James Garrett
2. Read the books, and understand how to make usable sites that make money.
3. Draw up a detailed wireframe for your site, based on “2)”.
4. Get the graphics done cheap ($50 - $100) via a freelance site. With a wireframe, 99Designs is less valuable, because the graphic artists are just painting by numbers. It’s pretty hard to miscommunicate paint-by-numbers, even if your freelancer is a non-native English speaker imho.
5. Go to the pros to have the graphics coded.

As a member of the Jewish community, I’m usually critical of my community’s associations for not making more use of testing and advanced landing page ideas and knowledge. Yet I saw an ad on Facebook that lead me to this very impressive page. I’m guessing something similar could be done with the above process.

(Click to enlarge)

• No distracting navigation,
• Clear call to action,
• The form fits entirely above the fold,
• The features are explained in terms of the benefit provided (career, personal development)
• Pictures act as a sample of the experience you can have
• The only obvious issue is that their button is inconsistent with the form headline. I’m willing to bet the text “Get More Info” or some variant on that would beat “Submit Now,” in a split test.

3) If you do have a few hundred bucks for the design and then a few hundred more bucks for the traffic, you can do really impressive stuff.

An ad I recently saw on my favourite salsa site (which has some nice social media elements, especially for an SMB site…) lead me to a landing page for my salsa school, San Tropez.

(Click to enlarge)

• Headline targets needs / desires
• Strong scent with logo, repeated “latin dance school in Montreal” phrasing etc.
• Video parallels offline live demos, which make people want to learn and become great dancers
• Video comes from national TV, and acts as social proof
• Additional social proof in “Why Choose”
• Bullets, headlines and short paragraphs for easy scanning.
• Clear call to action
• Simple form
• Multiple ways to contact them

Even though San Tropez’s agency is a competitor in my city, I have to give props to Amauta Marketing for the sweet ass job they’ve done both with San Tropez’s SEO and PPC (assuming they didn’t only do the landing page). I actually signed up for the school back in January after finding them via Google a few times.

In short, making landing pages is getting a lot cheaper, with numerous options available. And for those with slightly larger budgets, you can do really impressive things. That’s one less excuse not to test!

Gab Goldenberg shares advanced seo tips on his seo blog.

[The opinions of SEJ Guest Bloggers are not necessarily those of Search Engine Journal or Search & Social.]

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Landing Pages On A SMB Budget