enewton@brightedge.com

M Posted 8 years 4 months ago

t 9 min read

BrightEdge received hundreds of nominations for the 2017 BrightEdge Content and SEO Awards for North America from its community of over 8,000 brands. The variety and quality of nominations was outstanding and the achievements of community members were truly inspiring. Some of the 40 finalists include companies, such as L'Oreal, Facebook, Hallmark, White Hat, BCG, Quill.com, and Comcast. The finalists and nominees have been notified by email. Entries were reviewed by a panel of 6 BrightEdge employees: 3 from Marketing and 3 from Customer Success. The nominations were evaluated for their Inspiration, Innovation, and Impact in 3 business categories, B2B, B2C, and Agency on behalf of clients. The criteria considered included, detail about the problem and approach to solve it, specific BrightEdge functionality applied, and specific numeric business results. The time period of the work was calendar 2017. The results were so close that runoff balloting was used to break ties. BrightEdge will also work with nominees to develop case studies and customer videos and has already served as a means to promote marketers' good work and results at customer and community events, like user groups. SEO Awards trophies will be presented at the closing ceremonies of the Share Insights Tour NY 2018 on March 14, 2018. Register now to join us at Share NY. Nominations for APAC and EMEA for 2017 are still being accepted. The 2018 SEO Awards call for nominations will be in August and winners will be announced at Share San Francisco on October 10.

enewton@brightedge.com

M Posted 8 years 5 months ago

t 9 min read

In a motor vehicle, the dashboard is a strategically placed control center, which gives the driver instant access to information about how the various systems of the car are working. These “reports” give real-time data about the most important components of the system to ensure the car is running as it should. A digital dashboard is exactly the same concept, applied to business initiatives.

This initiative can be anything from organizing a global event to implementing an SEO program. Wikipedia cites the definition of the dashboard from Peter McFadden as “an easy to read, often single page, real-time user interface, showing a graphical presentation of the current status (snapshot) and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators to enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance."

One important consideration in making the most from any digital dashboard is being able to customize the key performance indicators that you want to track. Auto makers, for example, when assembling a dashboard, apply their expertise to determine which components are the most important for a driver to track. In a digital dashboard, that same determination is left up to the user. And while customization is a benefit of digital dashboards, it presents a couple challenges.

For example, in Web analytics, reporting mechanisms often start by reporting on generic data – meaning until the reporting is configured to the user, that business receives the same data any other business would using it right “out of the box.”

Another challenge is that the value of the information being reported on is only as good as the users’ ability to determine what they should actually be tracking. Imagine a person with no understanding of how a car engine works being responsible for determining the components of his or her vehicle dashboard. This person could make educated guesses and even get a couple right – temperature gauge, gas gauge, etc. – but this person wouldn’t be expected to know the most important pieces that show the health of the entire system.

So to get the most from your dashboard, whether it’s within your Web analytics or your customer relationship management system, there are a few things to consider. Let’s look at those next.

Getting Dashboards Right: A Starter’s Guide to SEO Reporting

Before venturing to design your own digital dashboard, you’ll need to explore a few questions. In this case, let’s say you’re tracking an SEO program. You’ll want to ask:

1. What are the key performance indicators of the program? The dashboard is a reporting arm for your strategy, so get clear on what the KPIs are, and customize the dashboard to report on that.
2. Who will view the dashboard? Depending on the technology, you can often customize dashboards for different types of people. Your own personal dashboard may provide a greater level of detail than a dashboard for the executives who just want to see a few high-level reports, for example.
3. When should the reports be delivered? Some types of programs need more consistent reporting than others. Find out the sweet spot between data overload and not staying in the loop at all.

Using BrightEdge’s dashboards as an illustrative example of what you might track in an SEO program, here are some considerations for creating dashboards:

• Choose the types of charts you’re interested in. In BrightEdge, you can view charts that show you competitive trends, keyword rankings, SEO “health” snapshots and more. You can also choose how to deliver the information, for example, CSV or PDF formats.
• Start with templates and build from there. When you’re first starting with dashboards, you may want to use an expertly created template and customize from there as you begin to learn options. In BrightEdge, you can choose templates for individual roles within the company, such as the executive, the SEO manager and more.
• Consider tracking events that may impact the program. In SEO, this would be events such as search engine algorithm updates, site redesigns and others.
• Determine if integrations are available to make the data more informed. With BrightEdge, for example, our dashboards integrate with Web analytics to give a more complete picture of performance.

Here is an example of a couple reports found in one custom dashboard in BrightEdge. The first report shows the overall SEO health of a website, and the second report in the dashboard shows how the example site stacks up against the competition.

Digital dashboards – especially in an enterprise organization – help all the stakeholders get an instant picture of how the system is working. With dashboards, every person at the wheel of a marketing project has a clear understanding of the individual components and how they’re working to keep the vehicle on a clear and smooth path.

If you have a marketing program, and you have analytics reports, chances are you could greatly benefit from customizing the dashboards associated with that data to get a quick snapshot of how you’re tracking against goals.

Take our digital marketing quiz to test your knowledge.

stefaniesisto

M Posted 8 years 5 months ago

t 9 min read

Everyone here at BrightEdge is excited to announce the return of the Share Global Insights Tour in 2018! We’re building on the momentum from the 2017 tour, adding new tracks, product training sessions, and even more speakers. We will be back with single day events in New York, London, and Chicago. And new in 2018, we’re planning a two-day marquis event in San Francisco. The theme of #SHARE18 is Search, Content, and the Customer Experience. We’ll explore how agile organizations are using AI and automation to bring together search and content marketing to deliver a personalized digital experiences. Bookmark a city tour stop below closest to you!

Last year, the tour hosted speakers from companies of every size - from global leaders such as Google, Adobe, L’Oréal, to Quill.com and WhiteHat Security, companies that are driving innovation with small, agile teams. Whether you are running a global SEO team or a powerhouse team of one, SHARE has something for you.

New York: March 14

London: April 19

San Francisco: October 9 – 10

Chicago: Date coming soon!

Need Inspiration?

We are thrilled to announce our keynote speaker for SHARE, an inspiring story of grit and determination. Derek’s semi-final at the Barcelona Olympics will be remembered as an eternally inspirational moment, as his father headed onto the track to help him cross the finishing line after a serious injury mid race. Lauded as NBC’s third top Olympic moment ever, and mentioned in a public speech by Barack Obama, Derek Redmond is a top motivational speaker in the world. Dogged by serious injury from the start of his career, Derek’s remarkable achievements are internationally lauded.

“Derek Redmond bravely making it through with little help, moments of euphoria after years of hard work. Moments when the human spirit triumphs over injury that should have been impossible to overcome." President Barack Obama

Join industry experts at SHARE who will help bring artificial intelligence to your fingertips. We’ll cut through the hype surrounding AI and provide real, practical advice on how you can become an AI-First marketers.

“Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is an interesting area we’ve been exploring to weave into our SEO strategy at IBM and our partnership with BrightEdge is critical to staying ahead of the digital marketing curve.” Ellen Mamedov, Head of SEO at IBM 

“BrightEdge is transforming the way that search, content and digital marketers build experiences to connect with customers across every part of the customer journey. I am really looking forward to sharing insights and connecting with like-minded marketers at Share NYC.” Paul Roetzer, Founder and CEO of PR 20/20 and creator of The Marketing Artificial Intelligence 

SHARE NY Kicks off the tour this March with a blockbuster Agenda:

There's more to SHARE than just great content—we’ve also built in a ton of networking. After all, you are spending the day with the very best in the industry! This year our agenda is all about actionable best practices that you can take back to your office and instantly incorporate for quick wins.

Inspire

Are you looking to elevate your role as a marketer and earn a seat at the table in your organization? Look no further, hear from experts in the BrightEdge community who have developed winning formulas to scale their SEO and content initiatives, increase their budget and lead with impact! “Elevating and operationalizing SEO across all parts of the Comcast organization is one of the major drivers of our SEO success. The BrightEdge platform allows us to scale and maximize our return on SEO and Content investments.” Sean Kainec, Director, Search Engine Optimization, Comcast

Impact: Keep Evolving with BrightEdge

Are you looking for more ways to leverage the data you within the BrightEdge platform? Curious how you can use the power of AI and let the machine learning advance your strategies.

Reasons to Attend

We want you to get the most out of your SHARE experience so we’ve taken your feedback from 2017 and optimized the 2018 roadshow to make it even better. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Innovative Break Out Tracks: Whether your focus is in digital, content, or strictly SEO, SHARE will have two tracks specifically designed for you. Get the most out of your day with BrightEdge by attending sessions specifically tailored to your needs.
2. More Networking: Learning happens both on and off the stage (ahem, and at happy hour) and this year SHARE will have tailored networking so you can connect with peers in your distinct role SHARE your successes.
3. Platform Deep Dives: Do you have a specific challenge you are trying to solve with the platform? Chat with our product experts at the event to get real-time solutions that help you step up your marketing game.

Register now!

Calling all early birds! Register before March 2nd to take advantage of early bird pricing for just $499 ($699 regular price) for the NY, London, and Chicago stops of the tour and just $699 (regular price $999) for SHARE San Francisco. Take advantage of early bird rates using the code share18earlybird upon registration. We here at BrightEdge can’t wait to bring you more innovative and creative ideas at SHARE in 2018.