Relative Position

Your Customers Are On Facebook – The Myth of Facebook Demographics

Filed under Social Media Marketing (SMM)

“If I thought our customers were 14 year old girls I’d advertise on Facebook.”

I’ve heard this quote from clients at least three or four times in the last six months alone. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding is keeping them from reaching a new audience and growing their business.

For those that don’t know, Facebook now has over 500,000,000 users. If Facebook were a country it would take the 3rd place spot from the United States which has approximately 310,395,000 people. So what does that tell you? Everyone is on Facebook. To be more exact, about 1 out of every 14 people in the world has a Facebook page.

Facebook isn’t just huge, it’s heavily trafficked. On any given day, Facebook now gets more visits than any other page on the internet, including Google.

It’s also exclusive. How is a platform with 500,000,000 users exclusive? Because it doesn’t share or play well with others. Facebook doesn’t allow the search engines like Google to search within it’s walls. That means, that unless you’re actually participating within Facebook, your standard web marketing efforts won’t reach these users. The web used to be about getting to any place quickly through Google. If you had 5 minutes to spare you went to Google, searched for what you wanted, found it and went about your day. Today, the web is a bunch of separate pipes, many of which only allow access through their specific channel. Now, your spare 5 minutes is spent updating your status, seeing what your friends are doing or posting an image.

So who are these users? Is it really all 14 year old girls? Contrary to popular business leader opinion, no. The chart below shows that 14 – 17 years old is actually one of the smallest demographics. The largest being 18 – 24 years old, followed closely by 25 – 34 years old. And the fastest growing segment? 55 – 64 years old.

Here are some more interesting Facebook stats:

• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
• More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
• More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month
• There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users

Advertising on Facebook is also a great way to reach customers. With Facebook ads you can…

1. Approach your audience is a more casual way
2. Target your message and ads to user demographics such as age, gender, location and activities
3. Choose to pay every time your ad is shown or only when people click on your ad
4. Set your ad budget and you won’t pay any more than that
5. Track the performance of your ads, adjusting quickly the ones that are not working and further promoting those that are

In addition, there is one thing even greater than about advertising on Facebook than running actual ads. Personal recommendations. Having a customer promote your brand on their own is worth more than any ad budget you can set.

Below is an actual post (status update) from one of my connections on Facebook. Take a look:

This whole post is so interesting to me. In this post she…

• Mentions 2 brands
• Highly recommends the main brand she is talking about
• Alerts people to discounts offered and pricing of the brand
• Communicates all of this to 100′s of her friends/family
• Does all of this from her mobile phone

What I’m not showing you is the discussion this encouraged for several days after. Several of her friends posted back with questions, comments and further brand support. She chimed back in answering these questions and continuing to support the brand she mentioned.

This is truly amazing. This satisfied customer effectively ran an ad for this business, dissed their competition, promoted a discount and answered questions from prospective future customers of this brand. She was paid nothing for this. The value to the brand is almost immeasurable.

So what’s the lesson here? If you’re marketing on the internet but not on Facebook, you’re missing out. It’s no longer a site where only kids sit wasting time and gossiping with their friends. Everyone is doing it. It’s a platform representing the digital personality of all of it’s participants. It’s a location where prospective customers willingly tell you what they like, what they don’t and all they represent. And they do this all for free.

It’s the internet and it’s here to help grow your business. If you’re looking to develop a Facebook marketing strategy 11 Bridges can help.

Google Instant Won’t Hurt SEO, But It Will Hurt Your Search Experience

Filed under SEO | SEM

This week Google launched their latest change to their search engine – Google Instant. As with every change Google makes, many people begin making the claim that SEO is dead. Although making such a claim is great link bait for those bloggers, there is little merit to the claim.

Google Instant will not kill SEO. It will change things, but it won’t kill it. I think the bigger problem is that this change will hurt the search experience for the average user.

In regard to SEO changes. Search Engine Optimization specialists will quickly figure out how to adapt and change their methods. That said, many of the same practices will still deliver successful results – creating relevant content, proper onsite SEO and good link building strategies. Google has stated that people should expect to see a change to their organic search results, particularly in terms of the number of impressions you receive. Depending on how your pages are being indexed, Google Instant could produce many more or much fewer impressions for you because of how results are now being returned more frequently.

I do expect we’ll see 3 main changes to SEO strategies.

First, your long tail results could be affected by Google Instant. With Google Instant, results are displayed and changed as the user types. The changes are based on predictive algorithms that Google uses. Much of the predicitions are based on the number or popularity of searches. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that searchers will be led to these more popular results and not make it to the long tail or less popular searches.

Second, I can see a lot of gaming about to begin. For example, in this Google blog post they show that when a user types in the letters ‘flow’ Google assumes you’re looking for flowers and begins showing you relevant results. But what if you’re actually looking for ‘flowcharts’? Google says that when you type the very next letter ‘flowc’ that the results will shift and they will now assume you’re searching for flowcharts. However, because Google Instant is about quicker results, I’m guessing we will start seeing SEO strategists going after truncated keywords in an attempt to have their results show faster. For example, keywording for ‘flow’ in this case.

Third, although Google dominates the search market, there are still many other search engine options. With the growth and popularity of closed systems such as Facebook, Google isn’t the only way to find information on the web. In addition, many people don’t use the actual google home page to search with Google, opting for tool bars and search bars embedded i

While SEO will survive and search strategists will learn to adapt to the new environment, I believe the overall search experience for the average user will be diminished.

Several months ago I wrote a post about a similar topic – I Want A Search Engine Not a Decision Engine. Many of the negative aspects of a ‘decision engine’ apply here as well.

Although the convenience and efficiency of having ‘instant’ results  is somewhat appealing for many reasons, I personally still want to see the organic, natural search results and have the ability to choose for the following reasons:

1. Distractions. With all of the information and options on the page changing with every letter I type, what I’m really being presented with is distractions. Again, if I’m looking for flowcharts but start seeing results for flowers by the time I type ‘flow’ I’m now just being distracted. I might think – Oh! I actually do want to order some flowers – and I’m now going down that path, being distracted from my original intent.
2. Poor results because of gaming. As I mentioned above, I expect we’ll start to see more of an attempt to game these results. Although there’s always an aspect of this with SEO I can see it becoming worse with Google Instant. If SEO specialists do start going after parts of words in an effort to outsmart Google then I expect search results to start being less meaningful in many cases.
3. Popularity contests. If Google Instant is presenting options based on predictions from aggregated user data I can guarantee that much of the time it’s going to produce bad results for someone like me. I find I tend to not follow the crowd all that often and I don’t want to start. In sticking with the ‘flowers’ example, I’m guessing that if I were to search for flowers (or flow) that big companies like 1-800 Flowers are going to be the ‘most popular’ results presented to me. However, I would prefer something more unique and local so these ‘popular results’ just get in my way.
4. The end of discovery. By being presented with popular predictions, the results with this exalted status will further solidify their position by being presented and selected even more often. All of the ‘popular’ items will bubble to the top and new, innovative, exciting options will never get discovered because they can’t get passed the popular options. In this new search world, once something is deemed popular it’s like trying to beat an incumbent politician. To me, it’s actually somewhat frightening to think how limiting search results will stifle information and decision making.
5. Choice. Even if the engines are using ‘my preferences’ to present me with options I still want to have the final decision. In fact, I don’t even want the results to be skewed toward my previous choices because who’s to say my preferences won’t change from one day to the next. I certainly don’t think the robots know better than I.

Again, although having quicker results is nice and I know SEO as an industry will survive, I have little confidence that the experience of search as a whole is being improved here. If anything, I think this is a big step backwards for Google and finding new, relevant information the web.

11 Bridges Tech Blog

Filed under Application Integration, Blogging, Web Development

11 Bridges has launched a tech blog we have titled ‘Zero’.

We use our current blog – Relative Position – is used by our sales, marketing and design team to discuss marketing, sales, development and design topics. Our new tech blog Zero exists for our development team to discuss the more technical aspects of our services. On this blog you will find three sections:

1. Blipverts (small snipets of helpful information, typically code scraps and other relevant items and tips).
2. Fail (discussions on some of the things we’ve tried that have failed and what we learned from the failures).
3. Success (discussion on things we are proud to have attempted and succeeded at).

More than just discussions, we’ll also provide sample code scraps for the efforts we’ve taken. For example, check out the post on how to integrate Flickr to feed a JQuery photo gallery.

The blog is new and will probably be receiving some cosmetic changes if this side of the house has anything to say about it! So check back often, subscribe to the RSS feed and geek out at your leisure.

Client Case Study: Jeff Brink, Inc.

Filed under Blogging, Client Case Studies, SEO | SEM, Web Development

11 Bridges Client Info:

Jeff Brink, Inc.

Client Product(s)/Service(s):

Jeff Brink, Inc. is an architectural visualization company with offices in Honolulu, Hawaii and Seattle, Washington. Jeff Brink, Inc. provides architectural 3d visualization services to architects, home builders, real estate developers and interior designers needing custom illustrations to promote projects and sales.

Client Project:

Jeff Brink, Inc. has been providing 3D architectural renderings to clients for over 10  years. They approached 11 Bridges with a request for a rework of their current site. Their existing site was entirely built in Flash.  Although the use of Flash created a sophisticated and highly interactive site, it also caused usability and marketing problems such as long page load times, poor search engine optimization and an inability to perform on mobile platforms.

Jeff Brink, Inc. decided to simplify their look and build a new site focused on search engine optimization and interactive components that are compatible with all browsers and devices.

Website:

Jeff Brink, Inc. already had a design completed. 11 Bridges simply helped bring it to life on the web. Their primary goals were to showcase their existing work, update their portfolio in an easy manner and to have prospective customers contact them quickly by phone or email. Therefore, the first thing we did was make the home page a showcase itself for some of the best 3D architectural renderings done by Jeff Brink, Inc.

Jeff Brink, Inc. Architectural Visualization

11 Bridges then designed a gallery page that was easy for users to quickly view a sample of all of the work done by Jeff Brink, Inc. We built an image slider and carousel using JQuery. This ensured the portfolio images were easy to view and worked in all web browsers and mobile devices. We also used JQuery to display sample images and 360 panorama videos for each of their services.

Jeff Brink, Inc. 360 Panorama Virtual Tours

The coolest part about this page is that it is fully integrated into the Flickr page of Jeff Brink, Inc. Flickr is a social media site that is a perfect place for Jeff Brink, Inc. to promote their portfolio of work since it is all about showing off images. Early on, Jeff Brink, Inc. informed us that they frequently change the images in their portfolio and needed an easy way to update their gallery on their site. Therefore, using the Flickr API, we integrated a photo set from Jeff Brink’s Flickr page directly into the jquery image slider on their site. Now, every time they update the images in this set (order, name, descriptions, etc.), the changes automatically appear in the slider.

Jeff Brink, Inc. 3D Modeling Virtual Tours

Another component we added to this site was the use of the @font-face technique. Jeff Brink, Inc. had a specific font they wanted used on their site (Futura Light). However, other website design companies told Jeff Brink, Inc. that this non-web safe font couldn’t be used or that they had to use images. Not true. First, using images is horrible for your SEO. Please don’t do it. Second, from font licensing services to employing the @font-face technique, their are now plenty of good options out there now for using non-web safe fonts. Our use of the @font-face technique gave Jeff Brink, Inc. the look they were going for.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most of the research we did for Jeff Brink, Inc. centered around search engine optimization and analytics. Using web applications and our best internal research practices we were able to identify competition for these services, the strengths and weaknesses of this competition and find keywords and phrases that would help prospective clients find Jeff Brink, Inc. on the web. We also employed several 11 Bridges local SEO tactics since their business is primarily based in Honolulu, Hawaii and Seattle, Washington. We made the decision to focus more on the Honolulu, Hawaii office since it is their primary office and these services are more of a niche on the island. To this effort, the first place we started was to set up the Google Places page for Jeff Brink, Inc.

At the time, Google was just rolling out their new “Google Tags” feature in Seattle. We set some of these tags up for Jeff Brink, Inc. so that their services would stand out more on Google search maps.

After the initial SEO work by 11 Bridges was completed, we continued to provide ongoing monthly SEO services for Jeff Brink, Inc. to improve their page rank in search results and keep them ranking high. We are pleased to say that in less than 30 days time, Jeff Brink, Inc. was ranking at the top of the first page for almost every keyword we targeted. If you look at the picture below you can see an example.

1st Position for "Architectural 3D Rendering Seattle"

Analytics

We set up Google Analytics to track data, browser information and measure conversion goals on the site as well. Google Analytics is a great tool that is free and provides you with all the data you need to measure your site’s usability and performance. The primary items Jeff Brink, Inc. wanted tracked were: locations from where searches came from, keywords used, traffic sources (specifically, social media traffic) site visits, and conversion measurement. The information we’ve gathered has helped 11 Bridges make improvements to the site of Jeff Brink, Inc. as well as further optimize their pages for search.

Blogging

11 Bridges created a blog for Jeff Brink, Inc. Architectural Visualization Services on the WordPress platform. Again, this is our preferred blogging platform because of its usability and excellent SEO capabilities. We customized an existing theme that worked with the branding of Jeff Brink, Inc. and included the blog into their domain to further increase their SEO. The blog of Jeff Brink, Inc. is now one more place for them to promote their content and show off their work on the web in an effort to broaden their audience.

Summary

The Jeff Brink, Inc. project was relatively quick and we had fun working on it. It was a unique effort and one of the first we have done where a client wanted to simplify their design and change their Flash website to one that works on all platforms. We are confident in our ability to improve the Search Engine Optimization for our clients so when Jeff Brink, Inc. approached us we knew we could help them out. Although we typically see quick results from our SEO efforts, the positive results we saw here were some of the fastest we have ever seen. It’s always nice to see quick results, mostly because it produces happy clients.  We’ll check back in with Jeff Brink, Inc. in a few months and report the latest with their business.

The Outcome of Your Next Web Project – Fast, Cheap or Good?

Filed under Branding, Web Design, Web Development

I know it’s nothing new to say. However, I find myself saying it constantly. Recently, seemingly more often than ever.

The axiom probably rings true in many  industries and lines of work. I learned how true of a statement it is in regard to design, development and marketing work.

The axiom is, when it comes to web development, design and marketing projects – “You can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick two.”

Many companies come to us with concepts and ideas but don’t know where to begin, how to develop a marketing plan or how to build a brand. In almost every case, these companies also don’t know what to expect when it comes to pricing and time lines for such services. When faced with this situation we always ask these prospective clients three questions: “what are your goals?” “what is your timeline?” and “what is your budget?”

Goals. Many clients have the same obvious goal. To make money. However, we’re looking for more details with this question. If you’re a new company most likely your goal is to create brand awareness. If you’re a company that has recently gone through some controversy, perhaps your goal is to improve your brand image.

Timeline. Once we identify your goals it’s time to figure out when you need your project items delivered. We’ve literally been faced with clients that wanted an entire website,  shopping cart, and SEO ready to go in 6 days (we hit that goal by the way). And we have clients that simply ask us when we can have things delivered for them.

Budget. This last question reveals a lot about the project and probably not for the reasons most people think. Some people feel this question is simply a ploy for us to set a price just under whatever the top level number is. It really isn’t. The goal of that question is to help us determine what kind of resources the client wants us to apply toward achieving their goals and hitting their timelines.

When we have answers to all three of these questions we can usually determine where in the “Project Triangle” this client project lands. Meaning, which two characteristics will best define this project – fast, cheap or good.

Project Triangle

That said, it’s not a perfect measure. It’s also good to realize this statement has a floor and a ceiling. Meaning, we of course will never let something out the door we think is of unacceptable quality. After all, it does have our name on it. In addition, there are some projects where the budget might simply be too low for us to accept or the timeline might be impossible to hit based on the budget and goals.

The opposite end of the spectrum also carries some truths. Meaning, although a large budget can speed things up and ensure high quality work, we still have to work within reality. For example, 9 pregnant women won’t produce a baby in one month. Impossible is still impossible.

There is no right or wrong answer here. I simply find it helpful to characterize each project within these terms so that everyone’s expectations are properly set and we all know what parameters we’re working with. Next time you engage in a design, development or marketing project keep this statement in mind when determining what outcome you’re hoping to achieve.

Client Case Study: The Law Office of Caryn Jones

Filed under Application Integration, Blogging, Brand Management, Client Case Studies, SEO | SEM, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Web Design

11 Bridges Client Info:

The Law Office of Caryn Jones

Client Product(s)/Service(s):

The Law Office of Caryn Jones is a Portland law firm that provides legal advocacy to Oregon Women. Their primary practice focuses on delivering legal services to women for divorce, custody disputes, domestic partnerships, employment discrimination and harassment, as well as business incorporation and contracting.

Client Project:

The Law Office of Caryn Jones is run by Caryn Jones. Caryn recently graduated from law school and set out to start her own practice. Based on her experience, Caryn believes she has something more to offer than many other law firms in Portland. She provides personal attention and sound legal advice, from a woman’s perspective, to each of her clients.

Caryn approached 11 Bridges with a blank slate in terms of marketing her business and we helped her get started.

Research:

After researching her business service and potential competition we quickly discovered a large, unfilled niche for legal services in the Portland area: women. Interestingly enough, we found several law firms that focused their practice and service offerings on men, but none who did so for women. Therefore, we concentrated on this angle for all of her business and marketing strategies.

Branding:

Caryn incorporated her business as “The Law Office of Caryn Jones.” We decide to keep this as her primary company name but to also incorporate her messaging to women with the name “Portland Women’s Law.” Portland Women’s Law serves as somewhat of a tagline for her brand and lets her audience quickly know what she’s all about. We used this for her URL choice (http://www.portlandwomenslaw.com) and throughout her messaging. We also created a specific tagline for her “Legal Advocacy for Oregon Women.” These statements combined quickly get her message across to potential clients.

In conducting our research, we also discovered that the web presence of many law firms comes across as being very corporate and “stuffy.” This makes many of them feel very unapproachable. Caryn wanted the exact opposite message to be sent to her potential clients. She wanted to let her clients know that she was one of them and that she is there to work for them. As a single mother who had been through legal battles over divorce and custody disputes, she also wanted to share her experience with others and make the experience for her clients be the best it could be.

The research 11 Bridges performed and information we collected from Caryn helped us to create her brand.

We felt the color, font, message and image choices gave Caryn the right amount of professionalism, class, style and approachability she was going for with her audience. The logo font is: Zapfino.   The primary messaging font is: Arial. The script font is: Saginaw

The color palette we used:

Website:

Continuing with the theme of being approachable, simple and professional we began work on Caryn’s site. Her primary goals were to have people contact her by phone or email and to quickly provide relevant and useful information to potential customers. Therefore, the first thing we did was design a site that made her contact information prominent to every user. We also added a simple contact form right on the home page that had people indicate their legal service need.

We added lots of pictures to her site that we felt would speak to her audience. We also included a slide show with text, on the home page to quickly convey her messaging to potential customers. We built this slide show with javascript to ensure usability on all web and mobile web platforms. For additional design elements, we added a style to each image that made them look like physical pictures placed on a surface to give the site more of a personal feeling.

11 Bridges also created a resources page for the site and made the keyword driven content on several pages feel somewhat conversational and more of a question/answer type of a format. We felt this would also contribute to the helpful, approachable tone to the site.

Caryn also had an interesting approach to her pricing. She wanted to offer flat fees to her clients for many of her services. She also wanted to help keep her client costs low by giving them access to information online that would keep them from having to call and send emails to her and be charged for them. Therefore, we really highlighted the ‘Flat Fee Pricing’ and ‘Free Initial, 30 minute Consultation’ she offers to help increase her prospects.

In an effort to help with keeping her clients online, we recommended the use of an online software application called Basecamp. Basecamp is a web-based project management application. It’s simple, effective and affordable and something we use at 11 Bridges to manage all of our client projects. This application allows Caryn to create ‘folders’ for her clients to which only they have access. These folders contain all the relevant items that pertain to this client’s case, important dates (such as court schedules) and lists of items that need to be and have been done by both Caryn and her clients. Caryn has branded this service ‘My File’ and we integrated the login page for this application right into the home page of the site so her clients can easily access this page.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most of the research we did for The Law Office of Caryn Jones centered around search engine optimization and analytics. Using relevant tools and research practices we were able to identify a competitive niche, learn the strengths and weaknesses of her competition and find keywords and phrases that would help potential clients find her on the web. We also employed several ‘local SEO’ tactics since Caryn’s business is Oregon based and specifically targeting the Portland Metro area. In particular, the first place we started was ensuring that the Goolge Places page for The Law Office of Caryn Jones was completed and being utilized to its full potential.

After the initial 11 Bridges SEO work was completed, we continued to provide ongoing weekly SEO services for Caryn to improve her page rank in search results and keep her ranking high.

Analytics

We set up Google Analytics to track data, user information and measure conversion goals on the site as well. Google Analytics is a great tool that is free and provides you with all the data you need to measure your sites usability and performance. The main things The Law Office of Caryn Jones was interested in tracking were: site visits, page views, time on site, referral sources, keyword performance and conversion measurement. Since the site has 2 contact forms for users to fill out we set up tracking goals to track each time this happens. We also track certain site visit paths and referring sources (keywords and websites) as goals. The information we’ve gathered has helped up make improvements to their site as well as further optimize their pages for search.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Although we didn’t develop a full social media marketing strategy for The Law Office of Caryn Jones we did create social platforms on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Avvo. We worked with Caryn to create a presence on these sights and advised her on the value of updating and actively using them. The keyword research we conducted  was used to create content on these sites. The links back from these social sites to her main website also contribute to her successful SEO strategy.

Blogging

11 Bridges created a blog for The Law Office of Caryn Jones on the WordPress platform. This is our preferred blogging platform because of its usability and excellent SEO capabilities. We customized an existing theme to match with her branding and included the blog into her domain to further increase her SEO. She is now using her blog to distribute valuable content on the web and broaden her audience.

Brand Management

The Law Office of Caryn Jones has hired 11 Bridges to manage and track their brand on the web. We use a web application that “listens” for specific brand and keyword mentions on websites, blogs, news posts, press releases and social media sites. These listeners find any web posts related to their brand and selected keywords. This application takes screen shots of these posts and then documents and archives them. 11 Bridges then rolls these posts up and sends them to The Law Office of Caryn Jones weekly. These reports provide detailed, statistical information that assist The Law Office of Caryn Jones in finding new business, potential partnerships, competitive information, positive press and customer support opportunities. It’s possibly one of these most valuable services we provide.

Print Design

11 Bridges finished the initial project for The Law Office of Caryn Jones with some print design work. We create business cards for Caryn that were consistent with her message and theme. We printed them with MOO Cards. Moo Cards are very attractive, fully customizable and affordable business cards that you can order online.

Summary

The Law Office of Caryn Jones was a project we really enjoyed working on. Although every project we take on is something we like to do, working on projects that start with a blank slate offer us the ability to do the best and most comprehensive work we can offer a client. It’s an amazing opportunity to help take someone’s concept and turn it into a complete identity, web presence and successful marketing campaign strategy. We’ll check back in with The Law Office of Caryn Jones in a few months and report the latest with their business and brand.

Help Us Fight Parkinson’s Disease and Support a Friend

Filed under Community

We have a dear friend, Lore Anderson, that was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease earlier this year. We are going to help her beat it by raising money for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Brian Grant Foundation.

There is an event in Portland, OR, Shake it Till We Make It! that is being hosted by former Portland Trailblazer, Brian Grant who also has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. His celebrity guests include Michael J Fox, Mohammed Ali, Pat Riley and many others.

Our goal is to raise at least $5,000 for this great cause benefiting Parkinson’s research. We also want to surprise Lore with a seat at the event. Even if we only raise $1,000 we can make this happen for her.

We are looking for contributions large and small. Every $5, $10, $25, $50, or $100 helps the cause and will be greatly appreciated by all those affected by this disease. If you or your company donates $1,000, you may attend the event live with Lore.

Shake it Till We Make It! is Sunday, August 1st at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon!

Donations can be made here on Chip In with a credit card or via PayPal and all the transactions are secure. Or simply click on the widget below!

Thanks for your support!

I Want A Search Engine, Not A Decision Engine

Filed under SEO | SEM

Over the last few weeks I’ve been to several online marketing conferences that specifically focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) strategies. Bing was a big sponsor of all of these conferences so I got to hear several Bing employees talk about the benefits of their new search engine and I also got to try it out myself.

Bing’s marketing campaign is promoting that they are not a search engine, but rather, a ‘decision engine.’ Bing is focused on better understanding user intent and displaying fewer, but more relevant/accurate results based on your intent. Since their inception, search engines have always been on a mission to better understand user intent and deliver better results so in a sense, this is not new. In addition, with Google’s recent introduction of personal search results they too seem to be headed further down this path.

In theory, this all sounds great to me. However, I personally don’t like where this could lead. Bing seems to be narrowing the results returned based on the assumption that they better understand your intent. They make it more of an effort to get passed these limited options and expand your search in case they got it wrong.

Others are getting into the game as well. Take a look at this screen shot from Travelocity. In performing a search for a plane ticket I was presented with one option they selected for me based on what they felt was my ‘intent.’ Not only were they wrong but it is somewhat frustrating and confusing to expand the search results and chose the best flight for my trip.

What was most interesting to me during this process though was how I felt. Even if the trip Travelocity presented to me was the cheapest, fastest, best flight available I had one simple problem with the selection presented to me. My problem was that I didn’t have choice. I’m sorry but I’m not yet ready for the machines to start making my decisions.

Although the convenience and efficiency of a decision engine is somewhat appealing for many reasons, personally, I want to have the ability to choose for the following reasons:

1. I don’t follow the crowd. If the decision engine is presenting options to be based on aggregated user data I can guarantee that 80% of the time it’s going to be wrong. I find I tend to not follow the crowd all that often and I don’t want to start.
2. Brand trust. I need to have significant trust in a brand before I will allow it to make decisions for me. I assure you, I don’t have that trust in Travelocity or Microsoft. In fact, I can’t think of any brands I trust this much.
3. The end of discovery. If we continue to allow these decision engines to make choices for us pretty soon all the available tools will have the same problem Apple’s app store has. All of the ‘popular’ items will bubble to the top and new, innovative, exciting options will never get discovered because they never get ‘recommended’. Once something is deemed popular it’s like trying to beat an incumbent politician. It’s somewhat of a frightening prospect to think how limiting search results will stifle information and decision making.
4. Choice. Even if the engines are using ‘my preferences’ to present me with options I still want to have the final decision. In fact, I don’t even want the results to be skewed toward my previous choices because who’s to say my preferences won’t change from one day to the next. I certainly don’t think the robots know better than I.

Again, I’m all for more accurate and relevant search results being presented to me. However, I want the option to opt in to any decision making functionality each time I engage with the product. Further, I don’t want the options presented limited for any reason. I still want to choose. I want a search engine, not a decision engine.

Relative Position

Filed under PPC, SEO | SEM, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Uncategorized, Web Design, Web Development

11 Bridges is a new venture we’re starting here in Portland, Oregon. Our goal is to create custom websites and web applications for small – medium sized companies, and help promote them with online marketing strategies. We’ve been successful in building our own web based software company that truly transformed an entire industry. Now we want to apply that knowledge to assist other companies with their ventures and continue to work on our own new projects. We’ve really enjoyed the clients we’ve worked with so far and are incredibly grateful for the opportunity.

We hope to build a great reputation for helping companies achieve their goals on the web by delivering successful products and services.

This blog will be a platform from which we will discuss our design and development theories and other relevant topics. We’ll also discuss the projects we’re working on and help keep those interested up to date on the things we learn along the way.

We hope you stay tuned and watch what is to come. It will certainly be interesting.