BernardaDorney
New Member
A great piece here, on SXO (search experience optimization), and the relationship between SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization). http://sphinn.com/story/157785
If you're not already doing this on your site, it's time to start! Why not talking about SRE (Search Result Experience) instead of SXO (search experience optimization), it could be very controversial Quote: Originally Posted by Natural Elements Why not talking about SRE (Search Result Experience) instead of SXO (search experience optimization), it could be very controversial First, I've never heard of SRE, in this context. (Neither has Google or Wikipedia)
Second, since the article is talking about an optimization process, SXO seems to me to be more on-point than SRE. Besides, the thrust of SXO is much more than just the search results. It deals with the entire experience, from search through conversion. The author respond to an article and said that "It could well be that we need a new acronym", so why not to make another one, seriously do we need other acronyms?
The article source is http://www.seoworkers.com/seo-articl...imization.html
Honestly it just make me smile that all experts use acronyms or explain something specific that will change sooner or later with algorithm changes. The only thing people can learn is the basic and continuously tests.
There are no scientific approaches, because optimization for search engines is very dynamic.
So today you you have good search experience optimization (SXO) perhaps not tomorrow. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC A great piece here, on SXO (search experience optimization), and the relationship between SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization). http://sphinn.com/story/157785
If you're not already doing this on your site, it's time to start! This is a great article, having e-commerce sites, I have always focused on the conversion rate and the content that would convince a customer to purchase. On the SEO spectrum, it almost seems like many of the approaches are like throwing darts and hope you can hit the right spots. Linking these concepts together as site experience seems to make alot of sense because it would unify the objective of gaining customers and hopefully somehow folks can define SEO consistent with that goal. I think more SEO professionals are realizing they have to set themselves apart. Perhaps by incorporating some of these concepts into what they do will improve everyones experience as well as profits. Quote: Originally Posted by amelen Never heard of SXO before - thanks for sharing. I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
Quote: Originally Posted by Morestar I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. I think it will gain traction, by necessity. Google and Bing are already implementing major changes, to bring a semantic web to reality. RDFa, microformats and CTags are central to those efforts. We will probably never see it become mandatory to use RDFA and CTags, but I think we will very soon see it become necessary, if you want a site to achieve high ranking.
Keywords are going away. With RDFa and CTags implemented, a site can achieve MUCH more than any blackhat SEO method ever hoped to. And if you know anything about CTags, then you'll understand how beneficial that will be to users, search engines AND site owners. Spamdexing will all but disappear. Anyone that tries to spam with CTags will only be spamming themselves, nobody else. I'm not so sure there's anything new here personally.
SXO = Rehashed & remarketed SEO
Quote: Originally Posted by Natural Elements
Honestly it just make me smile that all experts use acronyms or explain something specific that will change sooner or later with algorithm changes. The only thing people can learn is the basic and continuously tests.
There are no scientific approaches, because optimization for search engines is very dynamic.
So today you you have good search experience optimization (SXO) perhaps not tomorrow. agree entirely.
Quote: but I think we will very soon see it become necessary, if you want a site to achieve high ranking. I dont agree with this either, especially the very soon part. - youre basically saying you think Google will at some point start demoting authority sites that have been at the top for years because they dont have the latest fancy gizmos installed?
we heard this about xhtml / css a couple of years back, what about all the broken html 4.01 tables sites still ranking well out there?
the semantic webs a nice idea but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the ranking algo to depend on it. I think theres a number of years between now and when this *might* ever become the case. Quote: Originally Posted by Morestar I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
I hope John's paying you lot well for all this pimping his site all over the internet? Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO I'm not so sure there's anything new here personally.
SXO = Rehashed & remarketed SEO Where in SEO does CRO come in to play and is there any emphasis on it by SEO guru's? Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO I hope John's paying you lot well for all this pimping his site all over the internet? You seem to have the impression that John is claiming to have invented SXO and/or the term, Kev.
Wrong.
And from your comments here and elsewhere, it seems like you think he's paying people to shill for him.
Wrong there, too.
Much like you were wrong on a couple of counts in your post this morning.
I suppose being wrong can get to be a habit, if a fella doesn't check his facts before saying something. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. You hit the problem dead center, devonshire. Most SEOs don't really want to get involved in CRO, because it's the aspect they typically would have the least control over, and face the most client resistance on. Other aspects are just plain easier.
Where I see the beauty in this concept is, if we adopt the total umbrella concept of SXO, and honestly focus on the experience side of it, from start to finish, the job gets easier, in a couple of regards. A big one is the fact that we're no longer pitting ourselves against the search engines... but instead, we're aligned with them.
For my part, I'm not on a crusade to change what it's called, or how other SEOs ply their trade. To me, it's about a service being offered. It doesn't HAVE to be the same service everyone else is offering. Fact is, I'd LOVE to be the only one offering it! I just setup a single page http://www.rdfacart.com/sheep.php to clarify some things here and at some other places to avoid any further misunderstandings or misconceptions.
Thanks for your kind attention. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC You seem to have the impression that John is claiming to have invented SXO and/or the term, Kev.
Wrong. hmm, no never said that.
Quote: Originally Posted by DocC And from your comments here and elsewhere, it seems like you think he's paying people to shill for him.
Wrong there, too. hmm, not sure whether it's paid or unpaid to be honest? but John mentioned on chat yesterday that you are a member of his team and do copywriting work for him though? so if it's unpaid you want to address that.
maybe you just get to use the term too as a franchisee ?
Quote: Originally Posted by DocC Much like you were wrong on a couple of counts in your post this morning. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC I suppose being wrong can get to be a habit, if a fella doesn't check his facts before saying something. ya but its a blog post isnt it, nobody cares. and to save upsetting John too much with what was supposed to be a humorous dig at the SXO groupies more than anything else, I removed the bits that offended him (the most)
I could care less what you want to call yourselves and how you try to market your USPs, I just thought the group SXO sessions were quite amusing and as I would most likely be limited in what I wanted to say on most of the places I might have pointed that out, a combo test shot blog post was ideal.
and being as the blog post was mainly supposed to be a live testing session in which I just had to write something, I'm far more concerned with why the post dropped 35 places rather than heading up 3 more.
still looking like that new plugin needs further tweaking.. Although I certainly have no problem with folks disagreeing with each other, I expect it to be done in a respectful manner in this community.
Let's keep the personal comments, insinuations, and attacks out of this discussion and stick with the topic. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Where in SEO does CRO come in to play and is there any emphasis on it by SEO guru's? it is often (and should really be) grouped under the web development banner IMO, but on smaller sites when there is no web development being done and the SEO is the only one taking an active interest in site performance there comes a time when you think it's got to be easier to make the thing convert now than get even more traffic here to a rubbish design.
thats primarily how we've been directly involved in CRO, and indirectly on a large consulting client who were analysing the site with Omniture and consulting with us about SEO before / during CRO modifications for 2 years plus.
and "gurus" well depends who your gurus are I suppose, but I'd expect most of them are well aware of CRO.
http://www.seomoz.org/pages/search_r...&sa=SEARCH#964
http://www.seobook.com/aaron-intervi...te-experts-cre
http://www.highposition.net/conversi...-optimisation/
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/0...ion-interview/ Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO it is often (and should really be) grouped under the web development banner IMO, but on smaller sites when there is no web development being done and the SEO is the only one taking an active interest in site performance there comes a time when you think it's got to be easier to make the thing convert now than get even more traffic here to a rubbish design. I agree with you that presently, where there's no developer effort present, it will fall to the SEO (or to nobody at all). And of course on those projects that do have a developer involved, it sometimes turns into a turf war, that's unproductive for all parties.
Quote: thats primarily how we've been directly involved in CRO, and indirectly on a large consulting client who were analysing the site with Omniture and consulting with us about SEO before / during CRO modifications for 2 years plus.
and "gurus" well depends who your gurus are I suppose, but I'd expect most of them are well aware of CRO. I certainly won't deny that some SEOs do look at the big picture. In general, I'd say that those few that do so regularly, are the ones most deserving of respect for their professionalism, and their results.
What's a shame, however, is that they seem to be a minority. Too many so-called SEO experts are interested in the low-hanging fruit, and CRO is an easy target for the "that's not my job" attitude that seems to be all too prevalent.
If more SEOs exhibited that sort of start-to-finish attitude, maybe "snake oil" wouldn't pop up in so many conversations on the topic of SEO.
And it's also worthy of noting, I think, that being aware of CRO, and practicing it, are two different things.
Quote: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/see
http://www.seobook.com/aaron-intervi...te-experts-cre
http://www.highposition.net/conversi...-optimisation/
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/0...ion-interview/
If you're not already doing this on your site, it's time to start! Why not talking about SRE (Search Result Experience) instead of SXO (search experience optimization), it could be very controversial Quote: Originally Posted by Natural Elements Why not talking about SRE (Search Result Experience) instead of SXO (search experience optimization), it could be very controversial First, I've never heard of SRE, in this context. (Neither has Google or Wikipedia)
Second, since the article is talking about an optimization process, SXO seems to me to be more on-point than SRE. Besides, the thrust of SXO is much more than just the search results. It deals with the entire experience, from search through conversion. The author respond to an article and said that "It could well be that we need a new acronym", so why not to make another one, seriously do we need other acronyms?
The article source is http://www.seoworkers.com/seo-articl...imization.html
Honestly it just make me smile that all experts use acronyms or explain something specific that will change sooner or later with algorithm changes. The only thing people can learn is the basic and continuously tests.
There are no scientific approaches, because optimization for search engines is very dynamic.
So today you you have good search experience optimization (SXO) perhaps not tomorrow. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC A great piece here, on SXO (search experience optimization), and the relationship between SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization). http://sphinn.com/story/157785
If you're not already doing this on your site, it's time to start! This is a great article, having e-commerce sites, I have always focused on the conversion rate and the content that would convince a customer to purchase. On the SEO spectrum, it almost seems like many of the approaches are like throwing darts and hope you can hit the right spots. Linking these concepts together as site experience seems to make alot of sense because it would unify the objective of gaining customers and hopefully somehow folks can define SEO consistent with that goal. I think more SEO professionals are realizing they have to set themselves apart. Perhaps by incorporating some of these concepts into what they do will improve everyones experience as well as profits. Quote: Originally Posted by amelen Never heard of SXO before - thanks for sharing. I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
Quote: Originally Posted by Morestar I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. I think it will gain traction, by necessity. Google and Bing are already implementing major changes, to bring a semantic web to reality. RDFa, microformats and CTags are central to those efforts. We will probably never see it become mandatory to use RDFA and CTags, but I think we will very soon see it become necessary, if you want a site to achieve high ranking.
Keywords are going away. With RDFa and CTags implemented, a site can achieve MUCH more than any blackhat SEO method ever hoped to. And if you know anything about CTags, then you'll understand how beneficial that will be to users, search engines AND site owners. Spamdexing will all but disappear. Anyone that tries to spam with CTags will only be spamming themselves, nobody else. I'm not so sure there's anything new here personally.
SXO = Rehashed & remarketed SEO
Quote: Originally Posted by Natural Elements
Honestly it just make me smile that all experts use acronyms or explain something specific that will change sooner or later with algorithm changes. The only thing people can learn is the basic and continuously tests.
There are no scientific approaches, because optimization for search engines is very dynamic.
So today you you have good search experience optimization (SXO) perhaps not tomorrow. agree entirely.
Quote: but I think we will very soon see it become necessary, if you want a site to achieve high ranking. I dont agree with this either, especially the very soon part. - youre basically saying you think Google will at some point start demoting authority sites that have been at the top for years because they dont have the latest fancy gizmos installed?
we heard this about xhtml / css a couple of years back, what about all the broken html 4.01 tables sites still ranking well out there?
the semantic webs a nice idea but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the ranking algo to depend on it. I think theres a number of years between now and when this *might* ever become the case. Quote: Originally Posted by Morestar I wrote a little diddy on SXO after reading up on SEO Workers article regarding it - just to add more clarity to the idea.
I hope John's paying you lot well for all this pimping his site all over the internet? Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO I'm not so sure there's anything new here personally.
SXO = Rehashed & remarketed SEO Where in SEO does CRO come in to play and is there any emphasis on it by SEO guru's? Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO I hope John's paying you lot well for all this pimping his site all over the internet? You seem to have the impression that John is claiming to have invented SXO and/or the term, Kev.
Wrong.
And from your comments here and elsewhere, it seems like you think he's paying people to shill for him.
Wrong there, too.
Much like you were wrong on a couple of counts in your post this morning.
I suppose being wrong can get to be a habit, if a fella doesn't check his facts before saying something. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Your article does a good job of explaining the concept in simple terms. The hard part is going to be defining or bridging CRO & SEO methods. From what I have seen many site owners want customers, so they focus more on CRO, however there are many SEO experts who focus on refining SEO and may not be considering CRO in their process or looking at the end result of what they do in terms of conversions. I guess the question is, have you ever seen customer experience mentioned in conjunction with SEO, beyond the SEO article on SXO, which you had read? Let's hope the concept gains some traction. You hit the problem dead center, devonshire. Most SEOs don't really want to get involved in CRO, because it's the aspect they typically would have the least control over, and face the most client resistance on. Other aspects are just plain easier.
Where I see the beauty in this concept is, if we adopt the total umbrella concept of SXO, and honestly focus on the experience side of it, from start to finish, the job gets easier, in a couple of regards. A big one is the fact that we're no longer pitting ourselves against the search engines... but instead, we're aligned with them.
For my part, I'm not on a crusade to change what it's called, or how other SEOs ply their trade. To me, it's about a service being offered. It doesn't HAVE to be the same service everyone else is offering. Fact is, I'd LOVE to be the only one offering it! I just setup a single page http://www.rdfacart.com/sheep.php to clarify some things here and at some other places to avoid any further misunderstandings or misconceptions.
Thanks for your kind attention. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC You seem to have the impression that John is claiming to have invented SXO and/or the term, Kev.
Wrong. hmm, no never said that.
Quote: Originally Posted by DocC And from your comments here and elsewhere, it seems like you think he's paying people to shill for him.
Wrong there, too. hmm, not sure whether it's paid or unpaid to be honest? but John mentioned on chat yesterday that you are a member of his team and do copywriting work for him though? so if it's unpaid you want to address that.
maybe you just get to use the term too as a franchisee ?
Quote: Originally Posted by DocC Much like you were wrong on a couple of counts in your post this morning. Quote: Originally Posted by DocC I suppose being wrong can get to be a habit, if a fella doesn't check his facts before saying something. ya but its a blog post isnt it, nobody cares. and to save upsetting John too much with what was supposed to be a humorous dig at the SXO groupies more than anything else, I removed the bits that offended him (the most)
I could care less what you want to call yourselves and how you try to market your USPs, I just thought the group SXO sessions were quite amusing and as I would most likely be limited in what I wanted to say on most of the places I might have pointed that out, a combo test shot blog post was ideal.
and being as the blog post was mainly supposed to be a live testing session in which I just had to write something, I'm far more concerned with why the post dropped 35 places rather than heading up 3 more.
still looking like that new plugin needs further tweaking.. Although I certainly have no problem with folks disagreeing with each other, I expect it to be done in a respectful manner in this community.
Let's keep the personal comments, insinuations, and attacks out of this discussion and stick with the topic. Quote: Originally Posted by devonshire Where in SEO does CRO come in to play and is there any emphasis on it by SEO guru's? it is often (and should really be) grouped under the web development banner IMO, but on smaller sites when there is no web development being done and the SEO is the only one taking an active interest in site performance there comes a time when you think it's got to be easier to make the thing convert now than get even more traffic here to a rubbish design.
thats primarily how we've been directly involved in CRO, and indirectly on a large consulting client who were analysing the site with Omniture and consulting with us about SEO before / during CRO modifications for 2 years plus.
and "gurus" well depends who your gurus are I suppose, but I'd expect most of them are well aware of CRO.
http://www.seomoz.org/pages/search_r...&sa=SEARCH#964
http://www.seobook.com/aaron-intervi...te-experts-cre
http://www.highposition.net/conversi...-optimisation/
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/0...ion-interview/ Quote: Originally Posted by SmallBusinessSEO it is often (and should really be) grouped under the web development banner IMO, but on smaller sites when there is no web development being done and the SEO is the only one taking an active interest in site performance there comes a time when you think it's got to be easier to make the thing convert now than get even more traffic here to a rubbish design. I agree with you that presently, where there's no developer effort present, it will fall to the SEO (or to nobody at all). And of course on those projects that do have a developer involved, it sometimes turns into a turf war, that's unproductive for all parties.
Quote: thats primarily how we've been directly involved in CRO, and indirectly on a large consulting client who were analysing the site with Omniture and consulting with us about SEO before / during CRO modifications for 2 years plus.
and "gurus" well depends who your gurus are I suppose, but I'd expect most of them are well aware of CRO. I certainly won't deny that some SEOs do look at the big picture. In general, I'd say that those few that do so regularly, are the ones most deserving of respect for their professionalism, and their results.
What's a shame, however, is that they seem to be a minority. Too many so-called SEO experts are interested in the low-hanging fruit, and CRO is an easy target for the "that's not my job" attitude that seems to be all too prevalent.
If more SEOs exhibited that sort of start-to-finish attitude, maybe "snake oil" wouldn't pop up in so many conversations on the topic of SEO.
And it's also worthy of noting, I think, that being aware of CRO, and practicing it, are two different things.
Quote: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/see
http://www.seobook.com/aaron-intervi...te-experts-cre
http://www.highposition.net/conversi...-optimisation/
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/0...ion-interview/