Dear ModCloth,

I love your Facebook ads, they are one of the few that work for me … repeatedly. I even bought one once, took it with me to Mexico and it was even borrowed from a friend! Great stuff.

On the left, myself and Lauren Polinsky. To the right, Kristy Bolsinger wearing the same Plum Role Dress.

 and 

There is an issue though. Those ads … they feature pretty dresses that catch my eye. I click … and am taken to the dresses page. The dress I loved is NOT THERE. I have to search for it.

Example

Landing Page:

No pretty blue dress. *sad face*

How to Fix This Issue and Sell More Dresses

Talk to your developers. Find some way to land on something like this:

Or the product page (bonus you have suggested other products!). Maybe retrofit the landing page to be the product page but rather than suggested accessories, you suggest other dresses. Or add a call to action at the top of the page “see other dresses” or something more catchy.

Thank you for your time,

Kate Morris

PS I do love your products. Ordered another one the other day. But please make it easier!

Thanks to Lauren Polinsky for the photos from a great trip!

Sell me this dress ModCloth! is a post from: Kate Morris

From Sonny Photos

I seem to always get the inspiration to write on a plane. I think it has to do with the solitude and ability to reflect. I have not had the time to write on my personal blog for almost 7 months. Not to make excuses, but this is largely due to my job at Distilled. I have not found a position I am happier in but it takes most of my best writing ideas. I post regularly on the Distilled Blog and SEOmoz. More than that I have been adjusting to life outside of my MBA.

My update there is that I will be getting that piece of paper this month. I finished my last course last semester, but had to transfer everything in from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. I never finished my thesis. Longer story there. Long and short of it is that I made an executive decision not to beat my head into a brick wall of educational red tape and insanity anymore. Instead I sucked up thousands of extra dollars in tuition and sunk costs of thesis courses and took a class in Tacoma in the Fall of 2010. One of only two awesome classes I took in my entire MBA. Both were marketing electives and taught by professors that understand modern marketing and research.

In the next few months I plan to write a book review I have been meaning to do for a while. It’s on one of the few  ”business” books I have really ever enjoyed. The author is a friend, but I purchased the book on my own and intend to write a review that conveys what the book really does for the reader.

But tonight I am just reflecting on some changes in my life and how that will affect this blog. First, there probably won’t be much SEO on here anymore. You’ll hear much about my readings, my workouts (get ready for CrossFit), and whatever else crosses my path. I’ve missed my personal writing. I just penned a poem, and that has been a long time. My poetry is something I don’t share much with the world. Maybe someday, but not for now. But writing is one of my most cherished outlets.

I had a great discussion with Vanessa Fox at SMX Toronto this week and it has lead me to really remember who I am. That always changes, but times like this weekend when I can get away and really reflect on life is when I realize what has changed. I say a lot that life has not ended up like I expected it. It’s better in some ways, not better or worse in others. Just different.

I want to write and express myself more, hone back in on my technical skills, launch some sites and refresh some older ones. It’s feeling like time to work on the next step, whatever that may be. But I do know these few things. I have an awesome set of friends and family to support me along the way. A company that I can truly be honored to work for and colleagues that continually push me to learn and be better in so many ways. I could not be a happier woman at this woman in my life. Thank you to all who have impacted me, you know who you are. And if you are reading this, my guess is that you are one of those people.

Best Thinking on a Plane is a post from: Kate Morris

Background

I am not a tools type of search engine marketer. Well, in terms of PPC bid management tools. I love Raven Tools and SEOmoz and some of the newer PPC tools like WordStream. (Yes, some of those are affiliate links)

There are some tools developers in the PPC space that I keep hearing about but have never seen. For the most part I don’t have the clients that are large enough for them. But seeing as there are some new awesome tools, I’ve been more open to requests from tool developers in the PPC space.

The LiveBall Approach

I got an email from Kristina Allen at Ion Interactive on February 15th asking me to review a press release about their most recent developments. Normally these requests are dry when coming from PR people, but Kristina got it right. The title of the email was Leprechauns, Lattes and LiveBall. She got immediate bonus points for originality and attention grabbing.

Her email not only got my attention, but Kristina, whom I had never met, had taken the time to read my site and understand me. She talked about my SEM Cereals post and asked nicely if I’d look at the release. She kept things light and informal.

Girl should get a raise just for that.

LiveBall

I had heard of Ion Interactive, but had no idea what they did. I wanted to help, but I can’t talk about something I know nothing about. Within 24 hours they had a demo setup and were sending me everything I needed to review their tool. The CEO was even present for the demo to answer my questions. So thanks to Justin Talerico and Megan Leap for answering all of my questions.

And just to make it clear, they are not paying me to write a good review. I am highly critical of unnecessary tools and will tell you the way it is. But I do need to tell my readers that they did send me a copy of their book, Honest Seduction. (Warning: affiliate link) I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list now.

LiveBall Review

LiveBall is a landing page optimization tool that is hosted on the Ion servers. Basically they setup an environment on their servers in which marketing people can create landing pages to test in an easy interface. LiveBall is hosting on a dedicated IP address for each customer. The pages created by their system are cross browser friendly (I asked) and while are hosted on their domain, they are pointed at a subdomain on your root domain.

The team there aids in building themes based around your current site layout. So they start the account for you by coding everything to look like your site. Testing these pages allows you to keep the same look and feel as the rest of your site. Your marketing managers can add and subtract elements to test through their easy WYSIWYG editor.

One feature I loved is that the LiveBall system gives you image galleries to choose stock images to test. Right now they are organized into six categories including Active Life, Business People, Healthcare, Higher Education, Leisure People, and Meanings. I’ve done testing, and it can get expensive to buy all the images you need for pages that you might not even keep!

The greatest thing? All of the pages created are SEO compliant. (That’s what their release was about) You can use the canonical tag to point the search engines at the “real” version, or add a “noindex” if you don’t want these pages in the index. You can add in your own tracking code, but they have built in tracking as well to help aide in decision making about the best landing page possible. And the system passes query strings so that you can track what you need to for your system as well as collecting important keyword information.

Overall Thoughts

This is something I would recommend to a company that has a marketing department and needs a way to test landing pages on the fly without interrupting the IT and web development side. Ion makes it clear that this system is built with marketers in mind, not necessarily code-minded people. It’s simple and easy to use, but also builds nice code on the back end.

What a company can learn in this system can be pushed to web development once conclusions are drawn. LiveBall and Ion have no issue with their clients taking the information and code developed in the system and putting into use on the whole site, I made sure to ask. Most companies will want to take what is learned and use it on the whole site back on the home server.

In talking with their team they understand that landing page optimization is not just for PPC. That is why they released the SEO compliant features. They know that testing is not a one time thing, and over time even the best campaigns can use some optimization. You never know when one change to a page can result in a 10% increase in conversion rates.

LiveBall Review is a post from: Kate Morris