Optimize & Prophesize

Category: User Experience

  • Skype Boosts Homepage Conversion Rate with Radical Simplicity

    Thanks to the informational heavy handedness of 1.0 design we have the opportunity at OTTO Digital to employ our Radical Simplicity™ methodology quite frequently to improve the performance of pages and enhance brand value. The way it works, simply, is to segment users and then strip the page to a single consideration and call to…

  • How Brand, Product & Community Influence Intention

    In my last post I wrote that all user intentions can be boiled down to one of two goals, discovery or recovery. To create marketing strategies for these intentions we must begin by understanding the way users think in the course of trying to achieve these goals. Users respond to what they know. This can…

  • Brand Marketing in the Digital Age

    Brand is many things but at its core it is an emotional connection between a user and a product or service. That connection has its greatest impact at the experience level where an interaction between the user and the product or service takes place. So what is interactive marketing then if not branding? And how…

  • Diving Into Google Directions

    I know Stanford has a great swim team and many, many Googlers come from Stanford but these Google directions results prove a couple of things. First, mapping directions is a very difficult task for computers and algorithms. Second, the folks at Google have a sense of humor. Note direction number 20. I love the estimated…

  • 5 Lessons From Multivariate Tests on Buttons

    Conventional wisdom from the Information Architecture and User Experience gurus tells us that buttons and calls to action should be the same across the user experience. The thinking is that messaging, shape, size and color are all elements that if consistent will allow users to locate and click buttons and calls-to-action more easily and more…

  • Why You Must Exceed User Expectations

    Apple has an automatic pause of the track when the iPod is playing and your headphone plug comes out of the jack. The first few times this happened to me the pause was unexpected, but I was psyched each time I plugged back in and didn’t miss a beat. In fact, it didn’t really occur…

  • Information & Intent: Optimizing Content and the User Search Experience

    Everyone has a limited amount of attention to devote to searching for and consuming information. Each day a staggering amount of new information is added to the web and indexed by the search engines. How can your content get the attention of users? I spoke about this yesterday at the 49th Annual Conference of the…

  • Speaking at NFAIS

    It’s with great privilege that I was asked to speak at the NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services) annual conference in Philadelphia next week on Tuesday the 27th. The conference title is Creating Change: Opportunities for Growth in the Wake of Disruption. My presentation is: Web 2.0: Maximizing Content and the User Search…

  • Google Personalized Search: Goodbye Search Engine, Hello Find Engine

    For tens of millions of users, multiple times a day for each, Google just improved and it will keep on improving. All users need to do is continue using Google. That’s a pretty great way to create brand loyalty! How many products continue to get better the more you use them? A baseball glove, maybe…

  • Real Behavioral Targeting Focuses on Intent

    Dave Morgan of Tacoda has an insightful essay “When Will We Deliver the Promise” that addresses a question asked to him by WSJ technology writer Walter Mossberg: when will online advertising deliver on the promise of right ad, right, customer, right time? The question is great one. However, I’m afraid the folks in display media…

  • Targeting Based on Category Affinity

    One of the more interesting things we’re doing at OTTO Digital is pushing the envelope on content targeting and re-targeting based on source and behavior. Presently we’re working with a major retailer on delivering contextually relevant content on their homepage to return visitors (either in-session or on subsequent visits) based on what category the user…

  • Dawn of the Video Search (& Ad) Age

    Quietly, as if it occurred while you were sleeping over the past few years search relevancy has improved. The combination of increased algorithmic accuracy plus an abundance of additional data and content have made this possible. Long gone are the days you could and would go from engine to engine and try your query in…

  • Optimizing Content: Give Users Control

    A week and a half ago I spoke at Outsell’s BrainGain conference to a group of leading executives from traditional publishers on how they can deliver relevance to their audience. It was a great group of folks and the Outsell team does their best to steer them in the right direction. However, I couldn’t help…

  • Blog Tag: I’m it!

    Seems there is a holiday game of blog tag going around that was started by Jeff Pulver. I was tagged by Avinash Kaushik. The idea is to present some personal things about the blogger so the readers can get to know a few things about who they are. So, five facts that you probably don’t…

  • Afterthoughts on SES Chicago

    SES Chicago had a very different vibe from the six other SES shows I’ve participated in. The show was packed with first time attendees and lots of in-house folks. I actually think this is a really good sign. SEO/M has reached a turning point. On one level it has matured. Early practitioners now have years…

  • How Simplicity, Recognition & “The Perception of Ease” Impact Landing Page Optimization

    If there’s one landing page battle I’ve had to fight consistently with clients during my time as a strategist and consultant it is the fight for simplicity. Why don’t people like simplicity on landing pages? Here’s just a few snippets of what I’ve heard over the years: “It makes us look unprofessional” “It doesn’t represent…

  • User Goals and Conversion from Search

    Understanding user goals forms the foundation of my methodology for landing page and search ad optimization. Goal discovery also forms the core of searcher behavior research. This is all due to the fact that delivering relevance can only be done by first understanding the goals of users. Through my experience, research and user observation I’ve…

  • What Google’s Quality Score Is & What It Is Not

    Over the past few months at OTTO Digital we have done a series of search ad optimizations for Google advertisers using multivariate content delivery to optimize ad titles, descriptions and visible URLs based on landing page engagement and conversion rate. In addition to improving client ROI we’ve been provided a fascinating look at the effectiveness,…

  • Why (Insert Your Brand or Product Here)?

    True story. I’m on the subway heading downtown in NYC. I notice an ad for Fiji Water. It was a picture of the bottle and this copy: Message In A Bottle FIJI water is from Fiji What caught my interest most of all was the question “WHY?” handwritten in black pen next to the bottom…

  • The Death of Best Practices

    Best practice by definition is the best possible way of doing something. Most marketers look at implementing best practices as executing standards to make improvement. Unfortunately, this one-way, one-size fits all standardization mentality is not an effective practice for digital marketers. It’s lazy marketing. Old school. Our world needs to be ruled by looking at…