Media Week

A couple of us hunkered down and listened to a webcast by the American Marketing Association a couple of weeks back.

I didn't realise it but you can actually still see the presentation online here:

7 Deadly Sins of Website Design

Our takeaways:

Pride – it’s not about what WE have as website owners, it’s about what our customers’ problems are and how we can solve them.

Greed – when it comes to forms, website owners tend to be data greedy at times. Less is More.

Envy – design and write for YOUR customers and don’t always compare your site to what the competition is doing.

Wrath – a confusing path, accessibility or sign up/purchase process angers customers.

Lust – use cool videos and other media.........but only if it enhances the experience.

Gluttony – don't provide too much content.

Sloth – don’t forget to test and optimize pages on targeted segments.......and then test again!

When it comes to search engines, I'm still in love with something my friend Shari Thurow once said:

"You should design your website for people who use search engines, not for search engines!"

So how does your site fair?

Will you be welcomed with open arms at the pearly gates?

Or will you have to endure an eternal life of fire, brimstone and that Slade Christmas song on repeat play?

I'm at Search Engine Strategies New York right now and it's rocking.

Guy Kawasaki did a keynote on Tuesday about Twitter that has caused a bit of a stir because we understand he simply churned out the same content he did at another conference a couple of weeks ago. I thought he was pretty good, frank and funny but didn't agree with everything he said.

There's a lot of talk about the recession and the organisers have a lot of emphasis on social media and rightly so, yesterday I couldn't get into one of the sessions as it was standing room only!

I'll write up some more next week but in the meantime check out the videos me and my buddy Jason Yormark did recapping Day 1 and Day 2!

As a huge Genesis fan, I can’t help but start humming their first single directed at the female fan market – Follow You Follow Me – the chorus lyrics seem to fit the following fad that is pervading the Twittersphere at the moment, namely people following other people just because they follow them.

I, like many other internet marketing folk on Twitter, have a rule that I’ll only follow people if they engage in conversation or, at the very least have something interesting to say.

I’m not really interested in my stream being polluted by people who are too lazy to blog properly, and see Twitter as an easy way to bolster their diminishing self-esteem.

Kevin Rose, Digg-founder and all round internet entrepreneur, has released a tool which will fuel the aspirations of the Twitter mediocrity by verticalizing the top Tweeters in their field.

WeFollow.com, a user generated Twitter directory, splits out celebrities, tech peeps, actors and news and allows you to tag yourself, so people who want to follow your niche can see who’s who in their fantasy Twitteratti!

Check out Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!

Nicely done, it gives a good snapshot of who’s influential in what sectors, and is bound to increase competition between tweeters who value quantity over quality!

I'm on a course right now in sunny Chertsey so don't have a whole lotta time to blog.

During a break in learning I spotted a Tweet about blogging for the time poor!

Check our Michael Martine's Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less if you're pressed for time!

Right! That took six minutes.......gotta run!!! Ciao!

Often debated, and more often misunderstood, behavioural targeting has been in, and further in the news for months now.

Ever since Phorm’s trials with BT were outed as an (unjustified in my opinion) outrage, the dark spectre of privacy and control has lingered heavy over the industry like an annoying uncle you knew meant well, but most people just didn’t get the attraction.

With my panel of friends and family, I’ve chatted through the problem and, more often than not have persuaded them of the benefits of highly targeted advertising based on what they look at.

Me – “If you’re looking for a holiday villa in Greece online, do you want to be peppered with ads for hotels or B&Bs?”

Them – “No!”

Me – “Would you rather know just as you’re about to spend £1000 that there’s a deal elsewhere for £750?”

Them – “Yes!”

Me – “How do you pay Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft for using their search engines? Cash or credit card?”

Them – “I don’t!”

Me – “How much is your Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! email subscription?”

Them – “Nothing – it’s free!”

Me – “Did you know advertising pays for you to have those internet services for free?”

Them – “Kind of...”

Me – “So if you’re going to have to put up with advertising, wouldn’t you rather have advertising relevant to what you’re looking for online?”

Them – “S’pose....”

Now, that’s a very simplistic way of looking at it and there are issues that run deeper, but the IAB have thrashed through them with the likes of AOL, Platform A, Audience Science, Google, Microsoft Advertising, NebuAd, Phorm, Specific Media, Yahoo! SARL and Wunderloop to release a new site which sets out some standards and “Good Practice Principles” for behavioural targeting which should go a long way in demystifying the medium - http://www.youronlinechoices.com

The 3 core principles of the commitment are:

"Notice – a company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising - such as a website publisher, ad network or technology company – must clearly inform a consumer that data is being collected and used for this purpose.

Choice – a company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide a mechanism for users to decline behavioural advertising and where applicable seek a consumer’s consent (where data protection law or specific regulatory guidance applies).

Education – a company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide consumers with clear and simple information about their use of data for this purpose and how users can decline."

Personally, I applaud everyone involved for making everyone in this industry that had tried to articulate this kind of thing’s job a whole lot easier!

I've been doing the Twitter thing for nearly a year now and I found such a huge benefit in connecting in real-time with people and stories that matter out there in the Twittersphere, that I encouraged our community team to do the same with the adCenterBlog.

Google joined in last week and so far have amassed a whopping 39k followers - very impressive I must say! And Yahoo! have been at it a while too.

Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand kindly wrote a post outlining the big list of search engines on Twitter, and hundreds more followers have coming flooding in!

So why do we do we Tweet?

- Twitter has become a great way to reach search engine marketers who are now using Twitter as part of their daily lives to keep up with the news and latest trends.

- We learn as much about our customers as they do from us - sometimes more - as we have the opportunity to engage and have full, and sometimes very frank, conversations in a real-time environment.

- Analytics providers, like the ones listed on Lee Odden's post, help us keep track of what subjects & conversations are most interesting to readers. No point in talking about something no one's interested in!

- Twitter Search is a great resource to get a quick and dirty snapshot of what people are saying about a particular topic.

- It's great fun and an exciting new channel to be experimenting with.

But it's not all work, work, work - I'm one of 9k followers of MICoach - a cricket coach called David Hinchliffe - some stats say he's the 4th most followed Tweeter in the UK!!!

With The Ashes coming up, I hope that Andrew Strauss and his boys are on a good calling plan in the West Indies, and are hanging on his every word!!!