Nicole

M Posted 12 years 2 months ago

t 9 min read

At BrightEdge our top value is customer success. Since our inception in 2007, we have dedicated ourselves to the SEO community by developing the most innovative SEO technology that increases visibility, uncovers competitive insights, and elevates SEO to a C-level imperative. Our customers have been able to successfully demonstrate SEO is the predominant digital channel for their organizations and advance their careers.

At Share13, we were proud to share stories of how several of our long-term customers have been promoted from SEO Specialist to SEO Director, and others from Director of SEO to VP of Customer Acquisition. At Share14, you can look forward to more inspiring stories, fantastic research, and networking opportunities.

SEO practitioners and digital marketers are truly our favorite people! The features in our latest release are designed to help our customers make an even bigger impact within their organizations.

Channel Reporting

With our new Channel Reporting, we’ve empowered you to up-level the communication to your CMO by showing the importance and strength of SEO in relation to other digital marketing channels, in a data driven way.

Gain Complete Visibility Across Your Marketing Channels

• Communicate the importance of SEO – Highlight the contribution of organic search to your total business performance and make a case for additional investments
• Track performance across multiple channels – Understand which channels are performing and how to best allocate resources
• Analyze trended, comparative metrics in a single view – Gain a complete view into Organic, Social, Paid, Direct, and Other channel performance in a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or flexible date range view
• Drill into pages driving performance - Analyze which pages are driving organic revenue, conversions, and traffic in a seamless reporting flow to Page Reporting

Content Optimizer

Also in this release we’re introducing new technology to help you partner with your content team more closely than ever. With the latest version of Content Optimizer, we bring the most powerful features and intelligence of the BrightEdge S3 platform seamlessly into Adobe Experience Manager through an enterprise ready integration. Be sure to check out our Press Release from Adobe Summit.

BrightEdge + Adobe

BrightEdge is an Adobe Accredited Application Partner, with a history of developing powerful integrated technology offerings. BrightEdge Content Optimizer brings the most powerful features and the intelligence of the BrightEdge S3 platform seamlessly into Adobe Experience Manager through an enterprise ready integration.

Content and editorial teams can leverage an out-of-the-box integration with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), allowing them to easily create content that is optimized for maximum traffic, conversions, and revenue without breaking or slowing down their content creation flow.

Content Optimizer provides organizations with recommendations that evolve along with the search landscape and are compliant with the complex structure of large websites.

Key benefits for digital marketers:

• Optimal Content Structure: SEO managers are now able to determine the optimal structure for effective content, set guidelines and policies within the BrightEdge S3 platform, and instantly share these guidelines in Adobe Experience Manager, connecting SEO know-how with the content creation process.
• Policy Compliance Across an Organization: Manage policies with out-of-the-box support for multiple teams, templates, and SEO policies. Set SEO guidelines for all site-wide content and enforce compliance across multiple teams and templates.
• SEO Checklist for Succes: Focus on what matters with up to 16 on-page recommendations that have the most impact on search performance. Access recommendations based on their rank, on-page elements, social media traction and backlink profile.

BrightEdge Global Data Cube

We’re also excited to announce that our Data Cube is Generally Available. For customers in the UK working with our London team, we’re happy to announce the BrightEdge Global Data Cube with UK coverage. With the Data Cube, customers now have access to the industry’s largest, most accurate and actionable SEO dataset. 

The Largest, Most Accurate Database

The BrightEdge Data Cube is a massive content repository, the industry’s largest data set made up of billions of pieces of information which includes: keywords, search terms, rich media, and content, along with its performance on the web.

BrightEdge processes over 100 terabytes of data each week. We do so because we realize today’s marketers need a massive data set to be able to understand their entire organic search footprint and take action off of that data.

Hear Our Story About the BrightEdge Data Cube

How the Data Cube Works

Within one centralized view, marketers may perform either URL-based or Keyword-based research in real-time. BrightEdge provides two ways to access the Data Cube. With Goal Based Research we help marketers quickly identify the data that matters most, aligning SEO with business outcomes. With Freeform Search marketers can enter in a keyword or URL in the same way a Google search is performed.

syu

M Posted 12 years 2 months ago

t 9 min read

Today marks a very exciting day at BrightEdge, the conclusion of our 5^th annual Hackathon! As the Chief Architect at BrightEdge, the Hackathon is my favorite time of the year, and makes up a core part of our engineering culture. BrightEdge Hackathons provide our R&D, Product, and Engineering teams an opportunity to participate in a competition where they can: think creatively, work collaboratively, build incredible SEO technology, and win prizes!

How We Build Products

At BrightEdge we operate with a relentless commitment to innovation. We’re proud to be a leading Silicon Valley innovator that builds 100% of our product right here in Silicon Valley. Our Research and Development team is comprised of some of the brightest minds in engineering, graduates from the Top 10 Computer Science programs in the world.

Our Engineering team brings industry experience from Google, Facebook, Salesforce, and Apple. And, in addition to developing BrightEdge innovations, BrightEdge engineers have pioneered big data innovation contributions to Hadoop data warehousing, advancing the field of cloud computing.

Why a Hackathon?

We have three main reasons for hosting Hackathons:

1. As Engineers, we’re always dedicated to learning new skills, and building cutting-edge technologies
2. As Hackers, we want to show our creativity by tinkering with code, and coming up with innovative grassroots ideas
3. As a Startup, we want to demonstrate that enormous results can be achieved in a short amount of time BrightEdge Hackathons involve our entire company, as we first open up a portal for any employee to submit Hackathon ideas. Then teams of up to three Engineers have up to 24 hours to build striking new SEO and Content Marketing prototypes.

I’m truly humbled by the incredible code, creativity, and amazing projects that have come from our team during this year’s Hackathon!

Check out the picture of 1st place team below.

BrightEdge Innovations Help our Customers Succeed in SEO

Some of our customer’s favorite features have been developed during past Hackathons. This year’s winning hacks will go through extended development, and will make up some of the great new features announced at Share14 (early bird registration is still open). Engineers work around the clock on projects, and then present their creations to our team of executive judges. The judging is competitive, and the rewards are great. Winning teams get bragging rights, their names engraved on our Hackathon Cup alongside the names of previous winners, and great prizes.

Interested in Engineering at BrightEdge?

As our company grows, so does our team. We’re continuing to hire the brightest minds in engineering. Be a part of next year’s winning Hackathon team, by applying today!

A BrightEdger

M Posted 12 years 3 months ago

t 9 min read

The BrightEdge 2014 Search Marketer Survey report is here! This year, we surveyed SEO practitioners from 8,500+ global brands in December 2013 and January 2014 to compile research in the areas of content and content budgets; rank and ranking variables; data integration and technology providers; and much more. We’ve compiled a few of the highlights here.

To download the full report, check out this link.

Search Marketer Survey Data: Top 10 Takeaways

The world of SEO was rocked in 2013, with more Google Panda and Penguin updates; a release of “Hummingbird,” the Google search engine's updated infrastructure; the Google Knowledge Graph expanding to include “Carousel” results; and, of course, Google's secure search announcement.

In light of the changes we saw in 2013, this year’s research highlighted the following takeaways:

1. Connecting your content efforts to ROI is at the top of the agenda
2. The Web page is the center of the new content and SEO universe
3. Rank still matters, and is the stepping stone for page-level success
4. Tracking and measuring mobile rank across all devices is a must
5. Data and analytics are the key source of truth
6. All data is relevant and connected
7. Integrated SEO and content starts with optimizing at the author level
8. To be successful, you need to innovate ahead of the curve
9. Focusing on content accelerates career growth
10. SEO is now embedded in the content marketing process

These takeaways are aligned with the SEO industry’s new creed, the “Secure Search Manifesto,” which outlines the principles that the SEO community need today. You can get a copy of that here.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the survey data.

Content

Seventy-eight percent of SEOs say connecting content efforts to ROI will be “more” or “much more” important in 2014. The next step then, is for those marketers to make this goal tangible, and our search marketer survey respondents agreed.

In fact, 93 percent of SEOs said they would increase content budgets by at least 10 percent this year if they could identify what content is the most effective for engaging their audience.  If content is a priority for you in 2014, you’re in good hands with BrightEdge!

Our content-centric data allow you to understand how your content is driving business value.

Rank

Tracking where pages rank in the search results is ever more complex when so many factors are at play, including rank in various areas like Universal Search results, Google’s Knowledge Graph and Carousel results.

That’s likely why 95 percent of search marketer survey respondents said gaining access to accurate rank data in 2014 is important.  

Speaking of Carousel results, are you part of the 44 percent of SEOs who reported that Carousel results were served for keywords in their industry? If so, you may also side with the 72 percent who reported that measuring rank on those results will be more important for them in 2014.

Good news: BrightEdge is committed to giving our customers real insight into their true rank across all types of search results. With our blended rank technology, our platform is the first and only of its kind to provide this level of information.

Technology Providers

In order for brands to succeed today online, it’s vital they have access to reliable data that provides actionable insight. Marketers agree. Of the search marketer survey responders, the majority said that when choosing a technology provider, key aspects included a provider that had a global customer base, a provider that was led by accomplished software veterans, and a provider backed by reputable investors.  

Marketers also wanted their technology providers to innovate on a regular basis according to Brightedge's search marketer survey. Sixty-four percent said monthly product innovations that kept up with the changes in search was going to be important in 2014.  

Here at BrightEdge, we work hard to stay ahead of the curve. In fact, every five weeks, BrightEdge releases a slew of new functionality, improving on our software on a quarterly basis by understanding the trends on the horizon, listening to what our customers want and studying the intricacies of the search and social channels through search marketer surveys, and how they impact a brand’s visibility online.

What Will 2014 Bring?

As SEOs embrace the change that occurred in 2013, they brace for the impact 2014 may bring.

Our industry is never a dull one, and marketers continue to be resilient with chameleon-like adaptation in the ever-changing world of Web marketing. But one thing will remain constant: tying SEO to business value is essential. This is, and will continue to be, the driver of successful marketing campaigns in 2014.

In order to make the connection between SEO and business value, brands need to invest in accurate and actionable data. Each step of the way, BrightEdge is that data solution, and your partner for success.

Here's to a great year!

Nicole

M Posted 12 years 3 months ago

t 9 min read

We talk a lot about technology, but today we wanted to do something a little different and take you behind the scenes at BrightEdge. So, please check out our new video - Working at BrightEdge.

In this video you’ll hear 11 BrightEdge employees share their experiences of what it’s really like building the best enterprise SEO technology. You’ll also hear our CEO and Founder, Jim Yu discuss BrightEdge’s value of People Success.

And, since it’s Thursday, we also wanted to get in on the #tbt action and share a video of Jim Yu from 2012, discussing all Five BrightEdge Values. 

In the last year a lot has happened! We’ve grown to 225 employees spanning across four offices, and are continuing to hire.

We’ve also had some fantastic events and company updates including: All Hands Celebrations, BE Active Club, Bowling, Catered Friday Lunches, (new) Chicago Office, Community Service Days, a Cooking School Event, Giant’s Games, Halloween Party, Lobster Feast, London Enterprise SEO Summit, Paintball, Potluck Lunches, President’s Club Trip, Rock Climbing, Sales Kick Off, Scavenger Hunt, Series D Financing, Share13, and Whitewater Rafting.

We’re happy to share just a few of the many reasons why people love working for BrightEdge!

We’re continuing to grow, and are actively hiring! If you’d like to join us, please apply at https://www.brightedge.com/careers.

enewton@brightedge.com

M Posted 12 years 3 months ago

t 9 min read

Multi-channel attribution has been both widely accepted by marketers and also one of the most difficult results to calculate and prove. The basic premise is that media channels work together synergistically for conversions; some channels get too much credit, and some channels get too little (for example, direct traffic to a website versus organic search traffic).

Direct traffic is usually the largest channel for an established brand and website, but let’s face it: no one wakes up in the morning and suddenly decides to type a domain into their browser. That stimulus comes from some other channel, like display, affiliate, email, paid search, social, PR, content, actual word of mouth, or offline media. Therefore, the direct traffic channel is the largest recipient of unattributed benefit from other channels.

Until recently, calculating the interaction of channels required significant stable data and sophisticated analysis to build a regression model. The output would tell you, for example, that channels A, B and C were undercounted, and D, E, F were being overstated in terms of a “last-click” aka conversion basis.

The analysts would then tell you to redistribute a portion of D, E and F to A, B and C. The cost per acquisition (CPA) of each channel would also be adjusted, and if A, B and C were previously at max CPA, they now could take additional media budget and still generate a return. That would allow the company to correctly increase marketing spend and leads.

The other way to do multi-channel attribution online is by observing the order and interval that consumers interact with and are influenced by the media mix by writing data to the cookie on the user’s browser. Google Analytics provides multi-channel funnel data in the “Conversions” reports section that helps fill in those multi-channel attribution details that you, as a marketer, need. To access, go to GA, then Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels.

At the overview level (Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview) a Venn diagram illustrates the multi-channel overlap between any two or more of the online channels driving conversions.

Select the channels for the interaction you want to see. Use your mouse to hover over the circles and overlapping areas and understand the co-influence on conversions.

The “Assisted Conversions” reports section ((Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions) shows each channel on a last-click basis and what portion of those conversions are touched by another channel.

For BrightEdge.com, one-third of online channels are assisted by at least one other channel with a range of cross-channel assistance of .29 to .65. Of direct traffic results, half were assisted by another channel and should get a portion of those results.

If email has a .65 assist value, then for every 100 tracked results, you should also attribute 65 more. So, for example, if email results were $9,000/100, that equals a $90 CPA. With assisted multi-channel attribution, it would now look like $9,000/165, which equals a $54 CPA – 40 percent less than it originally appeared.

Since the observational approach relies on browser cookies, it tends to undercount multi-channel attribution over time because cookies are often deleted. Research shows “cookie death” causes additional understatement of contribution by another 35 to 55 percent.

In the case above, on an unattributed basis, email would get credit for 100 conversions, and on an attributed basis and accounting for cookie deletion, it should get credit for 200. The difference between 100 and 200 usually ends up in that catch-all bucket, direct.

To get started with GA’s multi-channel funnel data:

1. Make sure your channel managers are adding channel-tracking codes to web marketing assets
2. Go to the Multi-Channel Funnels Overview report to visualize your media mix
3. Review your Assisted Conversions report and adjust your totals, CPAs, and budgets, if warranted.

Nag

M Posted 12 years 3 months ago

t 9 min read

Whether you’re a marketing expert, data analyst, or social media guru, Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City is the place to be this week. Between the speakers, the sessions, and the events, Adobe Summit provides the perfect place for industry professionals to share innovative strategies, demonstrate marketing knowledge, and gain hands-on experience in the digital marketing world. Don’t miss out on the chance to partake in one of the marketing industry’s biggest events—and take a break from all the excitement on the slopes! If you haven’t registered yet, be sure to sign up.    

Speakers

From Seattle Seahawks legend Richard Sherman to Yancey Strickler, CEO and co-founder of Kickstarter, Adobe has collected an impressive and inspirational group of speakers for this year’s Summit. Be sure to take advantage of all the knowledge at the event and visit as many talks as you can to gain a variety of new tactics and information. Here are our picks for the five speakers you definitely won’t want to miss this year:

Robert Redford As an award-winning actor and director, Redford knows what it means to keep reinventing and innovating in your career. Hear his take on staying inspired in both professional and personal life. General Session: The Reinvention of Marketers Wednesday, March 26; 9:00am in Hall DE

Richard Sherman After playing football for Stanford University (by way of Compton, CA), Sherman understands the value of hard work to accomplishing big things. He joins Robert Redford to discuss motivation and change. General Session: The Reinvention of Marketers Wednesday, March 26; 9:00am in Hall DE

Eric Stonestreet Most of you know him from his Modern Family fame, but Stonestreet joins Adobe Summit to help demo the latest innovations from Adobe (and keep everything fun!). General Session 3: Sneaks Wednesday, March 26; 5:00pm in Hall DE

Yancey Strickler As the CEO and co-founder of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, Strickler has learned marketing lessons from day one. Hear him discuss what he's figured out. General Session 1: The Reinvention of Marketing Tuesday, March 25; 8:30am in Hall DE

Shawn Burns In his time as SAP's Global VP of Digital Marketing, Burns has experienced and developed B2B and B2P marketing strategies. Learn the difference, and  both are important, during his session. SAP's Business-to-People (B2P) Marketing Strategy Thursday, March 27; 9:30am in Ballroom F

Sessions

With myriad sessions to choose from at Adobe Summit, filtering your picks down to your industry is a great way to tailor your experience and get the most insight out of your trip to Salt Lake. Choose from Marketing Analytics, Personalization and Optimization, Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Social Marketing, Web Experience Management, Marketing Innovations, Digital Advertising, or Hands-on Labs. No matter your area of expertise, there’s something for every kind of marketer. Here are our picks for the five sessions to make sure you hit:

SoLoMo: The Convergence of Channel and Opportunity Learn how to make sure your marketing strategy is optimized for SoLoMo (social, local, and mobile). Thursday, March 27; 3:00pm in Ballroom H

Search Marketing Roudtable: Meet, Participate and Learn Come learn and teach about some of the biggest topics in the search marketing industry. Make your voice heard at the Summit. Thursday, March 27; 11am in 150DEF

People Over Profit: Break the System, Market with Purpose, and Be Even More Profitable Make people your priority, not profits. Learn from Dale Partridge, founder of Sevenly.org, about the seven core beliefs shared by consumers, marketers, and business leaders who are breaking the cycle of putting profits over people. Wednesday, March 26; 2:00pm in Ballroom G

Shut Up and Play the Hits: The Latest in Adobe Analytics Tips and Tricks With over 75 new features released in the past in the past 12 months, Adobe is on top of analytics. Learn about these new capabilities and how they could help your brand.

Events

With all the marketing industry discussions going on during the day, we’ve got to find a way to unwind at the end of the day. Adobe Summit has that covered, too. Here are the after-hours event to make sure you attend:

Summit Bash Sponsored by MRM//McCann and featuring Grammy-award winning band Vampire Weekend, the Summit Bash is the nighttime highlight of Adobe Summit. With stand out food, drinks, and entertainment, use this evening to relax and enjoy the company. Industry Mixer If you’re looking for networking opportunities during your time in Salt Lake, you won’t want to miss the Industry Mixer. On Thursday, take the opportunity to discuss learnings and takeaways from the conference and solidify industry connections.  

Insider Tips

If we’ve learned anything from Adobe Summit in years past, it’s the importance of being prepared. To make the most of your experience next week, check out these five insider tips to remember before, during, and after the event:

1. Make a list of topics you're interested in. It's hard to see everything, so build a ranked list and decide what sessions or speakers are top priority.

2. Take advantage of the Adobe practice sessions; they can offer hands-on learning and advice.

3. Be sure to chat with the speakers after their sessions to get all of your questions answered and connect face-to-face.

4. If you're interested in evaluating technology, make sure to get a product demo and ask specific questions. With such little time and so many people, make sure you're asking about the features that matter most to you.

5. Have fun! Don't miss the Summit Bash, enjoy the diverse cuisine, and get out to the slopes on Ski Day.   Hope all this information helps you make the most of your Adobe Summit experience! Be sure to stop by the BrightEdge booth (#717) at the tradeshow Monday-Wednesday and say hi. You could win a prize!