February is a busy month for our team of speakers at Closed Loop Marketing. The 2008 Digital solutions Cooperative or Dscoop conference, where Lance Loveday will be speaking, takes place February 21st through February 23rd in San Diego, California. The 2008 Search Marketing Expo or SMX West is February 26th through the 28th in Santa Clara, California and will feature Lance Loveday, Sandra Niehaus and Amy Konefal, speaking on different topics within the search marketing field.

2008 Dscoop Conference

Lance Loveday will be on a panel discussing Internet Trends: What You Need to Know to Drive Your Business. At Dscoop, Lance Loveday , joined by other industry specialists, will discuss in a 90-minute session what one needs to know about internet trends. To be successful, knowledge of current and emerging Internet trends including search, blogs, forums and printing communities is essential. This session will include a how-to workshop with insights from leading interactive agencies to expand one’s business.

2008 SMX West

Amy Konefal will speak about Avoiding PPC Pitfalls. She will be joined by Addie Connor of Course Advisor Inc. When done right, pay-per-click (PPC) search ads can be a company’s most valuable marketing channel. But there are common pitfalls that can mean the difference between a campaign that bombs and one that makes a person the rock star of his or her marketing program. Fortunately, many of these are easy to fix, once people know what to look out for. This session will cover danger areas such as match types, content network ads, ego bidding, failure to track properly and more. Work shop attendees will learn how to increase their ROI on paid search.

Sandra Niehaus will co-present a session on Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing. Joining Sandra for this panel are Tom Leung of Google Website Optimize, Jonathan Mendez of OTTO Digital and Seth Rosenblatt of Optimost solutions at Interwoven. Known as the Wonder Twins Track, Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing is a session about what happens when one combines landing pages with multivariate testing tools; tools that change various elements of the page dynamically to see which tests better with people.

Lance Loveday will be joined by Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive to present SEO & Usability: They can (And Should) Coexist. In this session, within the Analytics and Usability Track, they will discuss how search engine friendly design does NOT mean human unfriendly design. In fact, done right, improving the usability of a site for visitors can also improve the SEO. This session looks at how both help each other.

Both conferences promise to be packed with vital information spanning the Search Marketing and Digital Solutions arenas.

The Santa Clara Convention Center will be hopping with search marketing specialists February 26th through the 28th for Search Marketing Expo 2008. Among the search marketing experts will be Closed Loop Marketing’s Lance Loveday, Sandra Niehaus, and Amy Konefal. Each speaking on different topics, they will address common search challenges and how to overcome them.

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Lance Loveday, the founder and CEO of Closed Loop Marketing is speaking December 10th, 11th, and 12th at Web Design World in Boston. Lance is a regular speaker at Web Design World and this trip he will present “Web Design for ROI,” which is also the title of his new book. Later he will present “Pleasing Users and Search Engines Alike: Balancing Design, Usability, and SEO.” Lance will also be on the “Deconstructing You” panel.

Lance’s first presentation, “Designing for ROI,” addresses how to prioritize your design efforts by identifying the elements with the greatest impact on Web page effectiveness. Lance discusses the most important concepts and elements to address for effective landing pages, home pages, category pages, product pages, forms, shopping carts, and the checkout process. He will share guidelines, show case studies, and look at current examples to illustrate what works and why.

In the later presentation, “Pleasing Users and Search Engines Alike: Balancing Design, Usability, and SEO,” Lance discusses how traditionally Web designers were taught to focus on aesthetics. More recently their scope has expanded to include usability and search engine optimization (SEO). Conventional wisdom says focusing on one detracts from the others. Designers often feel like they compromise - and end up with a mediocre design. Lance will explore, “What if you could do it all?”

Finally, Lance will co-host the panel, “Deconstructing…You!” In this discussion, top Web designers will join Conference Chair Jim Heid in critically evaluating several of the attendees’ sites. This should be a very valuable and popular wrap-up session.

We wish Lance the best for his current and upcoming presentations. For information on upcoming presentations please visit the Closed Loop Marketing home page.

The first week in December marks the Closed Loop Marketing company retreat to The Web Builder 2.0 conference in Las Vegas. While four of the eight team members are speaking at the conference, the remainder of the team will be there to attend the conference and learn as much as possible. Oh, and to support our team speakers, of course.

On Monday, December 3rd Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus co-present The Right Tests at the Right Times.

In this session Lance and Sandra will talk about how conducting user tests at several critical stages of a Web development project can save time and money””all without a testing lab. Listeners will learn how to use a variety of usability tests””design feedback, paper prototyping, card sorting, task and timing analysis, and multivariate testing””to iteratively shape their projects and get great user feedback.

On Tuesday, December 4th all of our speakers will present.

Lance will present Online Advertising Update: Google Takes Over

Conference attendees will learn how the online advertising landscape has shifted dramatically over the past few years as Search has grown to be the dominant ad platform. Google has been the driving force behind the mainstreaming of Search, but with its recent moves it is clear that Google’s vision is much broader. In this session he will review the reasons behind the major shift in ad dollars toward the Internet, analyze the current state of online advertising and discuss the trends and players that are promising to reshape the advertising world as we know it. Lance will do a live demonstration of the Google AdWords platform and explain its role in catapulting Google to the top. And he will end by showing why Google is poised to turn the whole advertising industry (not just online) on its head.

Later that day Lance will speak on Pleasing Users and Search Engines Alike: Balancing Design, Usability and SEO

This session will demonstrate why showing up in search results (through search engine optimization) is important. In addition, he’ll also go under the hood of sites that have achieved beauty and usability while attaining top rankings in the major search engines. Attendees of this session will leave with practical tips on how to structure, design, and code sites in ways that please both users and search engines.

Sandra Niehaus will present a session on Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers (which is also the title of Lance and Sandra’s new book.) Sandra will use case studies to focus on the most important concepts and elements for creating effective landing pages, home pages, detail pages, and the checkout process. Attendees of this session will learn how to prioritize web design efforts by aligning them with business goals and walk away with practical design guidelines for improving ROI.

The remaining speakers Amy Greer and Roger Gilliam will speak about Harnessing the Power of RSS

In this informative and educational presentation, attendees will learn the difference between “nice to have” and “must have” feed elements””and the impact those elements have on people finding your feeds. The audience will see good and bad examples of how feeds render in various feed readers and learn what you can do about it. They will even provide a checklist of RSS best practices to take with you. Packed with specific examples, screen shots and actionable intelligence, this session will give the information you need to harness the power of RSS for your organization.

We are looking forward to our trip to Las Vegas and the Web Builder 2.0 Conference. For those of you attending, we will see you there. For those of you who can’t make it, check our blog for a recap upon our return.

For more information about Web Builder 2.0, check out the official conference website.

Friday night, the 19th of October, marked the debut party for our new authors’ book, Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects into Leads. Surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, Lance and Sandra presented all of us with a copy of the book. We celebrated with a decadent meal, delicious wine and titillating conversation. At last! I finally have my very own copy of the highly anticipated new book.

The evening started with champagne and savory appetizers (bacon-wrapped dates, anyone? Really, they’re awesome). We then made our way to Carpe Vino’s “Cave” where we were treated to a fabulous meal including a double magnum of 1982 Chateau Pontet-Canet Bordeaux (which Sandra loved).

The authors then presented each of the guests with a copy of the book amidst other gift exchanges (including the shirt we hope Lance will wear at the Voices That Matter conference this week.)

Once we were able to stop thumbing through our books, we continued with our conversations and dessert.

A good time was had by all. What a wonderful way to introduce the exciting release of their new book.

Thank you, Lance and Sandra – and congratulations!

From the Team at CLM

View related topics: lance loveday, sandra niehaus, voices that matter, web design for ROI