Posting this just now because I didn’t have time to finish it last night. Before I knew it, the conference was coming to a close and I had to spend the last hour talking to people and taking as much photos as I can. :)

* * *

For the Site Clinic, the panel consists of Hans Koch, Damien Kelly, and Mike Villar.

A Nestle representative stood up and bravely volunteered their (fun, funky, youthful and colorful) Nescafe 3-in-1 campaign site.

Immediately, of course, Hans and Damien fired away with their SEO diagnosis, mostly targeting on-page elements. While the site is very engaging to the eyes, most specially to the youth (which is their target market anyway), the site is also very problematic if you’re gonna look at it through the Search Engine eyes.

Some on-page considerations:

1. Meta tags (titles, keywords, and descriptions) are not optimized. Damien suggests to make the title and description more search-engine friendly. Hans shows how the site shows up in the SERPs — not only does it lack meta descriptions, the only content that’s visible in the first page are the footer items, hence, those are the ones that show up in the SERPs.

2. The page *seriously* lacks text content and keywords. Nuf said.

3. The page is flash-based and overly-graphical. It’s too heavy, and it takes a lot of time to load. Damien suggests to have an html version of the site (both for those who don’t know how to navigate through the flash version, and for SEO purposes).

4. SEO and User Experience wise, navigation is problematic. Mikey suggests to have the “Quick Jump” drop down menu moved up to the top right corner of the page.

5. Source code is too heavy (too many lines). Viewing the source code, Hans suggests to take off several lines of javascript off the code and save it as another file. This way, the SE-readable content is right up at the beginning of the page.

Other considerations:

Maia, our resident Web Analytics Guru, who’s sitting beside me, immediately mentions to me that according to WASP (Web Analytics Solutino Profiler), the site does not have any form of web analytics tool or tracker. If they really want to understand and analyze their market/audience, web analytics is *very* important.

Mikey asks the Nestle representative what the site’s objective is. He mentions that their campaign is to market the Nescafe 3-in-1 to the youth, hence marketing their product to Friendster, and coming up with this portal.

There is much to say about the site, but first of all, they have to re-establish their objectives — Do they want to target online gamers? Friendster users? Young people looking for band gigs? If their objective is to be seen in the search engines, there’s a lot to be worked on. They have to identify their keywords, optimize their page, and most especially, put up a web analytics tracker.

But if they simply want a portal (or a landing page), they shouldn’t expect more than the traffic they’re getting from their friendster app page.

Once again we are reminded how uneducated local companies are about internet marketing and the opportunities that come with it. Soon enough, I’d expect to see Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Globe, and all other big names/leaders in the local industries to start investing on in-house Internet Marketing departments in their own offices.

Nestle has started acknowledging the fact that there is an online market to be reached, and I applaud them for the effort and the conceptualization of this Alien campaign, even more, for immersing into the most pinoy-congested social network, Friendster. How to maximize on this opportunity is the next step to be explored. They’re definitely on the right track.

The panel took in two more sites for the Site Clinic, but the conference was coming to a close, and I became too focused on taking pictures, which I’ll be uploading soon. So yeah.

Need help, Nescafe? You know what to do. Hee. :)

Search Engine Optimization Copywriting
Damien Kelly a.k.a. “SEO Maximus”, Content Strategist, Netbooster Asia

Why do we need good content for SEO? Because good content gets votes in the form of links.

Creating effective landing page is creating good content. It involves the use of images, call to action, and short statements that drive a point. Length of pages and logical sequence are also important.

Writing for paper and writing for online copies are different.

Tips for writing good web content

• Work with your designer
• Scanability: highlight keywords
• Navigation: move detailed info to secondary pages
• Writing to be read: headlines and subheads, lists, captions, and hyperlinks
• Writing to be found: meta tags, keywords in your title and description
• Terms to avoid: don’t call attention to web artifacts (Don’t use “CLICK HERE” as anchor text — he mentioned Adobe ranking number one for the keyword “click here”.)
• Don’t think of quantity

Lessen the wordcount as much as possible. The more words on your page, the less people read. Base on his experience, some of his article get 10s of thousands of visits a day, and Google penalizes bad content.

Damien ends with an encouragement for all web copywriters: Copywriting for the web is not easy, and not everyone can do it, so you should be passionate about it and love what your doing.

In Q&A, Damien emphasizes again that he’d stay away from using “Click Here” in his content. Hmm. I didn’t quite get why, and I wonder why too. I should ask Abe. :)

Revenue Models for Social Networks
Mike Palacios, Managing Director, Havoc Digital

The Philippines first-ever online promo on a social network: Sprite Magpakatotoo Ka on the Net (2000). Sprite, through McCann Erickson, contacted Pinoy Exchange to advertise this promo: “Post your Magpakatotoo Ka Moments for a Chance to Win a Palm Pilot III”.

Social networks are redefining the traditional “portal” phenomenon. Social networks are now all about the person. YOU. YOUR friends. YOUR photos. That party YOU attended last night. YOU, YOU, YOU. And we, Pinoys, are jumping in. The most active web pinoys are consuming social media at an unprecendented rate. This social network growth MUST BE harnessed.

The advantage of this SN boom: Exponential grown in user data and available ad inventory, more volume reduces churn and makes the social network experience more viral. The disadvantage: Rapid growth leads to infrastructure problems, monetization issues to support the network, and decentralized management. For example, Friendster and Multiply are dominated by the pinoy market, even though the original creators are in the US.

The idea is to take advantage of the market, and cater to where the market is. i.e. Multiply tied up with ABSCBN. Friendster recently appointed a CEO in the region.

The most commonly sold on a CPV or CPM basis is Display Advertising. The key selling point is the fact that social networks know a lot about their users so they can deliver targeted ads (earlier, Hans also discussed about Facebook’s ad network.)

Ad positioning greatly affects CTR exponentially. i.e. Facebook’s redesign shows better and more visible ad placements.

Mike discusses some of the ad gimicks being done in Friendster, like Nescafe’s clickclique “alien” campaign. (Cute!) Why did it work for Nescafe? Each profile who opted-in, each person who thought the aliens were cute, automatically submitted data. Nescafe got branding on tens of thousands of profiles.. and counting. (Much like all those cute and senseless applications that we waste sleepless nights on over at Facebook).

There are other alternative models for social networks / communities, like for gaming sites — some lets you to play for free but you get more functions and features if you have a premium paid account.

Another case study, Rexona on Friendster. Rexona created a virtual community where users redeemed promo codes to earn virtual world currency, which they can use to fill their own online rooms with cute little stuff of their choice.

The fundamentals of monetization is this: Online advertising = premium content + partnerships.

Social networking sites will find increased commercial utilization. SNs are well-positioned to execute commercial activities because of high traffic and behavioral targeting.

He discusses some of the myths in social networks:

“SNs have low CTRS.” — The largest variance of CTR comes from quality of creative, freq cap, ad relevance and positioning, not on whether it’s SN or not.

“All I’ll get is negative comments.” — It is possible to deplay a modertaed presence in a Social Network. Nescafe reviews all comments before approval.

He also sights some expectations from various sectors:

• Brands — redefine organizations to thrive within a social media ecosystem.
• Media Planners and Buyers — go beyond banner planning into platform planning.
• Creatives — use social networks as a palette for a client’s business objectives.
• Publishers — create an open space where partners and advertisers can play. Open up APIs. (Multiply still doesn’t have one.) Open as a platform for people to enhance their communities.

To conclude, Mike leaves this challenge: Ask not what a social network can do for you.. but what you can do on a social network!

Affiliate Marketing Best Practices
Anders Barris, President, Asia Century Multi-Advertising Inc.

Anders begins by sharing his background, starting with his success in wholesale-ing and retailing magic tricks/toys in department stores and Home TV shopping. (Side note: If magic is a sale-able niche, now is the time to run your imagination wild. There surely is a special, probably unexplored, niche out there for you.)

Affiliate marketing increases visitors, sales and subscribers ONLINE and generates leads to sell your product OFFLINE.

The idea of affiliate marketing is to get websites and blogs to do the online advertising for you. If your message is spread over hundreds or even thousands of websites you will be able to reach more people. These websites/blogs can run banners, send email blasts, and do write ups and promote your product or service to their visitors/users. And you can either use an in-house affiliate program or you can use an Affiliate Network company.

Why will others promote your products? Since websites and blogs need to earn money they rely heavily on affiliate networks to provide them with revenue. Affiliate marketers take this to their advantage.

Affiliate Marketing Glossary:

• CPM - Cost per thousand impressions
• CPC - Cost Per Click, with IP Blocking and only counting unique clicks
• CPA/CPL - Cost Per Action or Lead

If you have a website with some traffic, make it grow, make money and give your visitors something they are interested in. With a blog or website you have the opportunity to promote products to your users, but you have to make sure that you get products, which fit your users.

Offer good content in weekly emailblast to your subscribers. While most of us would only provide good content on our sites, very few take time to emailblast our content. Some sites give away prizes, and some offer something free (like free funny photos, or free comics) in exchange for leads.

Internet Connectivity and the SME Market
Jerahmeel A. Azurin, Marketing Head, PLDT SME Nation

He starts by saying that there are currently 700,000 PLDT myDSL subscribers nationwide. And it’s PLDT’s 80th anniversary. (Happy Anniversary!) :) He introduces PLDT SME Nation, which caters specifically to the needs and requirements of the SME Market.

Turns out, 99.6% of all registered firms nationwide are SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises), which employ 70% of the labor force. SME is the backbone of the economy.

Surprisingly, of the 1M SMEs nationwide, only 23% have computers, only 11.5% uses the internet, only 4% has broadband subcriptions, and the rest are yet to go online. The mentality right now is that business owners think of the internet only as something “nice to have” and not as a business enabler. Businesses may miss out or may not focus on the internet’s benefits. The challenge is to have the SME market to get connected, be online, and establish an e-presence.

Commercial break: WeRoam and SmartBro are the same, just a change of brand. Pfft, thanks for that info. Hehe.

He talks about some of the products / promos / services that PLDT/Smart provides to the business market such as mobile broadband and shops.work (wifi hotspots). One interesting innovation he mentions is the real-time asset monitoring and protection wherein one can track one’s deliveries or shipments through GPS, also pro-SME.

He concludes that in being internet connected, SME should build a tech culture, educate their employees, and choose a partner with the broadest range of solutions — yes, and he means PLDT/Smart, thankyouverymuch :)

While the talk mostly markets PLDT/Smart products, it is the SME market’s unawareness of the online opportunities that await them that’s the most striking part. Nope, we’re not there yet. Internet marketing in the Philippines is STILL a mine waiting to explode.