**Shari Thurow**
I recently returned from the successful SMX-Advanced search engine
optimization and advertising conference, and I had an epiphany: as a
speaker, usability principles are applicable to these conferences.
Which usability principle, you might ask? Before usability
professionals create an information architecture and corresponding
interfaces, they must identify and address various personas or
profiles.
The primary persona is the group of people whose needs and
expectations must be met at all times. Normally, for a website, there
is only one primary persona. However, I believe that for search engine
conferences, there are three primary personas:
Decision makers
Hands-on
How-tos
The decision-maker persona
I did learn something new and interesting this year about search
engine conference personas. For the most part, conference attendees do
not want to hear what appears to be a pure sales pitch�or so I
thought.
Attendees who have management positions often like to hear sales
pitches and case studies. They do not always want to know the hows and
the whys, the nuts-and-bolts of search engine optimization or search
engine advertising. They want to know about companies or consultants
who have successfully performed SEO and/or search engine advertising
on sites in their industry and the same optimization techniques are
applicable to their sites.
Additionally, some attendees are in a position where they must
convince decision makers that search engine marketing is a viable
marketing strategy. And part of the marketing budget should be
allocated to search. They need third-party case studies to support
their cases.
This persona is very much one whose needs should be addressed.
The hands-on persona
This persona encompasses a wide variety of jobs:
Website designers and developers
Programmers and other IT staff
Copywriters and content providers
Advertisers
For example, many people who fit this persona want to know how to
optimize a website. They will return to their company and do it
themselves. They want to know the latest and the greatest coding,
scripting, and programming strategies that are applicable to their
types of websites. They want these search engine strategies to be
scalable and as easy to implement as possible.
Copywriters, advertisers, and marketers also fit the how-to
persona. They want to know how to write effective ads and website
copy. They want to write effective calls to action. They want to
monitor the effectiveness of their work via web analytics and other
reporting software. I love addressing this type of persona because
members not only want to know how to optimize websites and ads, they
also want to know why to optimize websites and ads.
Personally, I find this persona to be the most detail oriented.
The how-to persona
On the surface, might seem that the hands-on persona and the how-to
persona are the same persona. There is one crucial difference people
who fit hands-on persona want to actually apply the tip or strategy
themselves. People who fit the how-to persona want to know how to
implement a strategy but will not necessarily implement it themselves.
Here is an example. Many people in the marketing department must
communicate with people in an IT department to do something, such as
ensure 301 redirects are implemented appropriately. Duplicate content
delivery is a common problem. Many IT professionals unwittingly
deliver duplicate content to the search engines because, in their
eyes, the content isnt redundant. And it is often left up to
marketing staff to explain the concept and give IT staff direction to
address the issue. Therefore, people who fit the how-to persona need
assistance in how to communicate some very technical concepts and
strategies.
In addition, many companies do not host their own sites. These
website owners want to know how to communicate effectively to the
companies that do host their sites.
Finding the critical balance
Remember when you were a college or university freshman, and during
freshman orientation, an orientation speaker said, Look at the person
sitting to your left. Look at the person sitting to your right. Only
one of you will graduate, ?
Well, I like to think of conference personas in a similar way. Look
at the person sitting to your left. It might be a hands-on web
developer, who wants to know an AJAX workaround and could care less
about a case study. Look at the person to your right. That person
might be a marketing manager who is having problems deciding whether
or not to use Flash on a the site, and must report back to the Chief
Marketing Officer.
All types of people with a wide variety of job responsibilities
attend search engine conferences. And these appear to be the 3
personas, from my perspective. Personally, I wish all presenters and
attendees would remember that. Do any of you see other types of
personas?
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Shari Thurow <http://searchengineland.com/author/shari-thurow/>
is the Founder and SEO Director at Omni Marketing Interactive
<http://www.search-usability.com/>
and the author of the book Search Engine Visibility
<http://www.searchenginesbook.com>
.
<font size="-1">
Upcoming Search Marketing Expo events you won't want to miss:<ul><li><a
href="http://www.searchmarketingexposingapore.com.sg/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSingapore%2B2009">SMX
Singapore</a> - July 2-3</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-saopaulo/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSao%2BPaulo%2B2009">SMX
Sao Paulo</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BEast%2B2009">SMX
East - New York City</a> - Oct. 5-7</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/stockholm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2Bstockholm%2B2009">SMX
Stockholm</a> - Oct. 12-13</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-mexico/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BMexiso%2B2009">SMX
Mexico</a> - November 11</li></ul>Attend a <a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=SMN%2Bgeneral">Search
Marketing Now</a> Webcast - it's free! Upcoming webcasts:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com">How Large Offline Marketers Drive
Superior Search Marketing Results</a> - July 21</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/">Trademarks, Brand Terms and PPC
Advertising: Updates You Must Know</a> - July
22, 2009</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/webcasts/wc090728">Attribution
Management Buyers Guide</a> - July 28</li></ul>Interested in advertising or
sponsoring Search Marketing Expo or Search Marketing Now webcasts? <a
href="http://thirddoormedia.com/contact/sales.shtml?utm_source=searchcap&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=General%2BSales">Contact
us</a>.
<div><a href="http://www.superbhosting.net/"><img
src="http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/_images/superb.gif"
border="0"></a></div>
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a Search Engine
Land, Search Marketing Now or Search Marketing Expo newsletter. To update
your subscriptions or unsubscribe, use your newsletter preferences page at
http://third.thirddoormedia.com/lists/?p=preferences&id=2&uid=f9779113b77d03598707df46ae032f9b.
Or send your written request to: 279 Newtown Tpke., Redding, CT
06896</font>
--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --
0 comments:
Post a Comment