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Madison AdFed Presentation

January 22nd, 2007 - by Brett Derricott - Salt Lake City, Utah

Well, I just finished delivering a presentation for the Madison, Wisconsin Advertising Federation. I have to say I had a great time and really enjoyed the audience. I was particularly impressed with the questions posed by the audience.

As promised, I’m posting links to some additional resources for those at the presentation who’re interested in further information.

If any of you had questions that you didn’t get a chance to answer, or have feedback, suggestions, or comments for me…feel free to post a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks Madison AdFed!

W3C HTML Validator — Enter a URL in the first box and click the “Check” button to validate any page on the Web.

Adobe on Accessibility — A great primer on accessibility.

The ESPN.com Redesign — How they saved 2 terabytes of bandwidth per day by using better markup.

Copyblogger — A good resource on writing great online copy.

Guide to Link Building for SEO Purposes — Linking is a powerful SEO strategy…this article discusses link building strategies in depth.

Also, here are a few links to past blog posts that relate to the presentation.

10 Reasons Every Website Needs a CMS

Ten Buzzwords and What They Mean

All Websites are Not Created Equally

Sitemaps and SEO

5 Things You Should Know About IT People

Comments

Leanne Hughes / March 21, 2007, 4:01 pm

Hi Michael,

I attended your MAF presentation and everyone (including myself) was really impressed with your presentation and have started putting some of your Web standards to practice with our own clients.

Our company is started to get really invovled in the web and would like to strengthen our clients presence.

What if any best practices or resources could you share rergarding blogging and SEM?

Thanks so much.

Leanne

Brett Derricott / March 22, 2007, 4:44 am

@Leanne: Thanks for the kind comments regarding the MAF presentation! I had a great time there and look forward to coming back again. You picked a great day to post your comment…I was in Milwaukee doing a presentation for the Milwaukee Internet Marketing Association so I was almost in your neighborhood! I’m actually sitting on the floor now in the Midway airport trying to get on a flight back to Salt Lake City so I’ll respond in more detail to your question later today (flight is boarding). Thanks again!

Brett Derricott / March 22, 2007, 12:25 pm

@Leanne (cont.): OK, I made it back to SLC. I was marooned over night in Chicago due to flight cancellations but found an open flight this morning, luckily.

I’m re-reading your question and thinking that I could probably write a full post about both blogging and SEM/SEO. I think I’ll start working on that.

In the meantime, am I correct that you’re looking for resources/suggestions on blogging and SEM so that you can help your clients? Or is this for your own agency stuff?

Leanne Hughes / March 23, 2007, 8:58 am

Hey Brett! I’m glad you made it back safe and sound.

You are correct, we’re looking to get savvier about blogging and broaden our SEM/SEO knowledge to benefit our clients.

Currently we are involved with IYP programs (though we would like to better understand that beast as well) and moderately involved in website analytics.

We’re looking to get more involved with PPC programs and perhaps blogging but would like more resources and suggestions.

Any info you could send my way would be great! Enjoy the weekend.

Leanne

Brett Derricott / March 26, 2007, 9:31 am

@Leanne: OK here are some initial suggestions to get you started but I’ll also send you an email with my contact info so that you can ask more specific questions if you’d like.

Regarding blogging, I’ll first say that WordPress is my blogging tool of choice. It’s intuitive and easy to use, but also very flexible allowing me to customize it as needed.

I recommend that your clients (or you on their behalf) subscribe to blogs that relate to their industry. Those who are blogging within an industry are often (not always) the ones who are at the forefront. Companies should also be on the lookout for blogs that mention them or their product.

Creating a blog of their own will give your clients a chance to have an informal conversation with their current and potential customers. Product updates, solicitation of customer suggestions, a forum for messages from the company, etc. are all good reasons to blog. Keep in mind it takes time to build a blog and get readership. Your clients may try it for a month or two and expect to see immediate results. If they’re not sufficiently committed to doing it they may not endure long enough to see the benefits.

WordPress.com actually has a great overview about blogs located here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#What_is_a_.22blog.22.3F

Regarding SEM/SEO, that’s a big topic! Here are some posts of mine on the subject. If you have specific questions let me know.

http://www.agencybyte.com/category/search-engines/

Finally, PPC is best treated on a client-by-client basis. I’m most familiar with Google’s program and have had success with it so far but won’t claim to be an expert at it. Are you already using PPC for your clients?