Want to know the first secret I share from my 21 Secrets to Top Converting Websites presentation? It’s so simple, so obvious, but yet so many people forget to use it. Do you?

Watch the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Want to know the rest of the 21 Secrets? You can find them out on August 17th in San Francisco as I present the 21 Secrets at SES (part of Connected Marketing Week). If you show up and mention this post I’ll give you an extra bonus.

In a couple of weeks, I will be on the road again to help people optimize their Pay Per Click marketing efforts. From July 7-9th, I’ll be in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City for the Online Marketing Summit tour. Here is a description of the PPC Optimization workshop I’ll be doing:

Over $10 Billion dollars were spent on Pay-Per-Click advertising last year. A portion of that came out of your pocket. Are you satisfied you’re getting the maximum return on investment from it? Do you find it more and more challenging to continually increase your PPC effectiveness?

Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian estimates that the average AdWords advertiser sees about $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend. That means that if you have margins of less than 50% on your products, you may be losing money. Only about 2% of Google AdWords advertisers will get the type of return on investment that makes continuing worthwhile. Are you part of that elite group?

PPC management can be costly and overwhelming. Never have 95 characters seemed so simple, yet proven so challenging. In this intensive workshop, you will learn tips, tricks and processes to increase your ROI and make your PPC investments worth continuing.

You’ll learn how to increase your PPC advertising ROI by 3x while mastering:

• The 7 most common PPC mistakes to avoid
• 4 hot metrics you should be monitoring and including in your monthly reports
• A powerful 3 step process to increase Click-Through-Rates (CTR) and relevancy of your ads and landing pages
• How to boost your Quality Score rankings and lower CPC costs
• The simple technique that will make you stand out from your competitors
• A 12-Step process to optimize and improve your PPC management process

Join New York Times bestselling author, Bryan Eisenberg, and Acquisio‘s Internet Marketing Manager, Noran El-Shinnawy, in this fun, fast paced and informative workshop.

I’d love to see you there. You can register today.

In the space of a few weeks I’ve had my material “ripped off” twice. One instance was OK by me, but one instance was not. The differences open up important questions at the forefront of the new rules involving content, sharing, social media, and copyrights.

Today, ideas spread quickly. Volumes of great information are shared through Webinars, e-books, and social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and SlideShare. Tracing an idea, insight, or fact back to its original source can be challenging. This is an even bigger issue when these exchanges are occurring among marketing professionals, especially because creating and sharing content has become practically the go-to strategy for driving business and lead generations for many companies. Take creative professionals who make their living from their ideas and content, give them an incentive to share that content openly, and you have a near perfect environment for undue influence and sticky copyright issues.

Like me, I’m sure you have your sphere of influencers. I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with people much smarter than me to nourish my brain. Being influenced by others is a good thing and it’s the reason my peers and I have been sharing our thoughts through (in my case) 300+ columns like these, presentations, and countless conversations. So far, the benefits have far outweighed any dangers or concerns. But as I mentioned, recent events have got me pondering the best ways to manage my future content sharing strategies.

The first instance happened when a student of mine asked me what I thought of their brainstorming session for banner ad ideas. When I saw the list, I asked my student if they were aware of where these ideas came from – or what influenced their ideas. As soon as I asked, they were embarrassed because it was a collection of disjointed ideas grabbed from past and future presentations and concepts I had written about in past columns and had shared with them in conversations we’d had together.

My students felt as though they’d ripped me off and I assured them that they hadn’t. What they had done is something our brains do naturally as we take in, process, and assimilate ideas. I shared with them this fabulous video of Derren Brown and his use of “Subliminal Advertising” to influence the kind of logo and branding advertising execs would come up with for a business he was starting. By manipulating barely conscious cues he provided ad execs, he predicted precisely the kind of logo they came up with. As soon as my students watched the video, they understood how their assembly of my ideas was unconsciously done and felt better about the situation. In turn, I explained how flattered I was, as my goal for the last decade has been to inspire others by sharing my ideas.

Influence Gone Bad

The next instance was not as comfortable for either me or a friend who I “influenced.” Here’s what occurred: This friend shared a presentation on March 1 titled, “15 Secrets of High Converting Websites.” (Follow along and you’ll see why the presentation has since been removed.)

When I saw this presentation, I immediately asked my Twitter and Facebook friends: “What would you do if someone you thought was a friend ripped off one of your presentations without asking or attribution? http://ow.ly/1cOgi”

Here’s the backstory: In just two weeks, I’ll be presenting my “21 Secrets to Top Converting Websites” at SES New York. It’s a presentation that took me the better part of a decade to put together. The presentation had received rave reviews as a keynote speech at SES London, including this tweet from @Liz_Gray: “#seskey Unbelievable keynote this morning from @thegrok! Action-oriented, clear and concise. Everyone with a website – test something today.”

I first delivered this presentation in December 2009 at SES Chicago and then recorded it in January as a Webinar for my conversion optimization students. This is where my friend was “influenced” by my presentation. No other copies of these slides were shared anywhere.

I have shared presentations in the past, but since I am now focused on being a professional marketing speaker, these slides are a good part of my livelihood, and my paying clients don’t want them shared all over the Internet. So when I reviewed this person’s newest Webinar presentation, it was a shock to find that “his” slide titles and content, including many of the images, were essentially the same as mine. That’s when I tweeted the question.

The tweet led to quite a firestorm on Twitter and Facebook as people responded. My friend RSS Ray, a.k.a., Brian Offenberger, who had committed this act, was inundated with e-mails and comments on Facebook. You can read some of the discussions on Facebook here. Two of my MarketMotive students who really studied my presentation shared these comments on Twitter:

Gene Gerwin wrote: “Judging from the slides, it’s such a direct lift that I wonder if mere attribution would have been sufficient…”

And Noran El-Shinnawy wrote: “Hey, @rssray here’s my comment on your blog since you won’t approve it (@TheGrok ) http://tweetphoto.com/12949589.” In a follow up tweet, Noran added: “INCREDIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL: @rssray rips off @TheGrok ‘s 21 Secrets presentation and passes it off as his own http://ow.ly/1cOgi.”

The next morning, Brian pulled the slides he shared from his Web site, posted an apology on his blog, and explained how items from my presentation unintentionally ended up in his. We subsequently spoke on the phone.

I asked him to share with me a list of what he learned from the experience. “I had the importance of checking and re-checking work re-taught to me in the most painful of ways,” Brian wrote.

The Future of Sharing

Some people suggested I sue for damages. I’m not an attorney, but from past legal advice I know that you cannot collect damages for material that is yours unless you have filed for the copyright with the Library of Congress. You can have them remove the duplication just by placing the copyright notice on your material and you can prove it was yours first.

These two situations have left me with more questions than answers:

• Do I feel comfortable sharing my slides any more? I have shared many presentations in the past. Do you?
• How do we prevent ourselves from being overly influenced by others?
• Let’s say someone shares a presentation online through sites like SlideShare and copies a slide or two from others. During the presentation, the speaker gives verbal attribution to the original source of information, but written attribution is not placed on the slide. Is that ok?
• What would you do if you were accused of “copying” someone’s slides? I think Brian handled it as well as anyone.
• How will copyright laws evolve with the times?
• How would you have handled this situation?

Next week I’ll be traveling to Chicago to join hundreds of fellow marketers at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, where I’ll be doing a couple of sessions. There are many new and interesting sessions. I’m looking forward to attending the keynote by Dan Siroker, who led the analytics team for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and is a former Google employee as well. The title of his presentation is, “How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election.”

I’ve read about it, so I’m pretty sure Dan will discuss how the Obama campaign tracked the success of every e-mail, text message, and Web site visit, capitalizing on the analytics available and how they optimized each one.

In fact, in Edelman PR agency’s report, “The Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit,” they reported that:

Each ad and e-mail was created in multiple versions (e.g., different headers, buttons vs. links, video vs. audio vs. plain text) to test what worked and what did not. The campaign developed more than 7,000 customized e-mails, tailored to individual prospects, and made real-time improvements to its outreach materials. Adjustments were made daily to improve performance and conversion. It worked. As the campaign progressed, the effectiveness of the e-mail campaign increased and conversion rates similarly improved.

Think about all the processes required to execute on that, what kind of manpower it takes, what types of resources were necessary. There are many businesses that can learn from the campaign in terms of converting visitors to buyers (donors), creating engaged and empowered brand advocates, and effective use of e-mail, text messaging, and online video, etc.

One of my favorite examples is the optimization of the e-mail sign up page. On this page, they experimented with the media/message or benefits of signing up and the button to sign up.

They tried four variations of the button:

1. Sign Up
2. Learn More
3. Join Us Now
4. Sign Up Now

Which do you think performed the best?

They tried six variations of the message (where the words “Get Involved” with the picture of Barack Obama is now). Three of these messages were static words and images and three were with videos.

1. The original, “Get Involved,” you see above.
2. A family image with the words “Change We Can Believe In.”



3. A picture of Barack Obama alone with the words “Change We Can Believe In.”



4. A video clip of Barack Obama.

   
   Download the clip here.

5. A video clip of an appearance in Springfield.

   
   Download the clip here.

6. A video clip the team called Sam’s video.

   
   Download the clip here.

Which media/message do you think was most effective at converting visitors to sign up for the newsletter? Most people do not guess the correct one, even if they are the boss, and that is why you need to let the data help you make decisions.

I won’t spoil Dan’s presentation by providing you with the results this time, but I will share them with you next time. In the mean time, if you have any questions for Dan or I, send them to me and I’ll make sure I get a chance to ask him.

I hope you can join us in Chicago at Search Engine Strategies, and if you are there, please be sure to reach out to me and don’t miss the fabulous SES Pre Game Meetup planned for Sunday night before the conference.

P.S. I’ll also be premiering my latest presentation, “21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites.” I do hope to see you there.

It’s now been almost 2 years since I last did my training session “Call to Action: Conversion Optimization Training”  publicly. If you are looking to improve your conversion optimization efforts you’ll want to be there. I’ll be teaching a Search Engine Strategies Training course on November 5th, at the Downtown Conference Center in New York.

The other course I haven’t offered in almost 2 years is Persuasive Online Copywriting. Well you’ll be hearing more about the availability of that course from your desktop. Copywriter and copywriting teacher extraordinaire Jeff Sexton and I will be teaming up to bring you this course virtually. We’ll meet once a week for 3 weeks, you’ll have exercises and you’ll come out a much improved copywriter, even if you never wrote copy before. Let me know if you want advanced details before they come out later this week.

As many of you know, I have been a faculty member of MarketMotive and have been doing training and workshops for members – well we are getting ready to launch a certification course in conversion optimization in January. They currently offer several certifications in web analytics, search engine marketing and social media. If you are interested in a conversion optimization certification shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to hook you up with a juicy discount.

One of my favorite parts of working with MarketMotive is working with my good friend Avinash Kaushik, author of Occam’s Razor, Web Analytics: One Hour a Day and Web Analytics 2.0. He’ll have some part in this certification course as well. Last time we were together at SES San Jose 2009, the folks from MarketMotive grabbed a video camera and found some people who had questions for the two of us. Check it out! Do you have some questions for us? Let’s also wish Avinash a speedy recovery on his broken arm.

On November 4th, I’ll be at the Ad:tech conference doing some roving reporting and interviews for WebMasterRadio. If you are going to be there, let’s try and catch up. If you’d like to be interviewed by me, send me an email and I will try to get it set up.

Last week I had the fortune to speak at the Arizona Internet Marketing Association. Thanks to their fabulous efforts you can watch my presentation online.

Here is AZIMA’s October 2009 Social Event – Always Be Testing – Marketing Optimization in Challenging Times (link opens a new window – you will need Flash to view the presentation).

I just got back from speaking at the Bolo Conference and AZIMA event in Arizona. They were both well organized events, with very attentive audiences. At the Bolo conference I premiered my latest presentation, Trim the Fat: How to use Personas, Analytics and Human Psychology to Improve Marketing (more on that soon). The reception to the presentation was extremely positive. But I am not here to talk about myself, but to talk about one of the other keynote presentations at the Bolo Conference.

I had the privilege to interview Guy Kawasaki before his keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies New York last March. You can listen to the interview on WebMasterRadio.FM. Guy’s presentation is a detailed hands-on illustration of how Guy uses Twitter. You can listen to a previous version of his presentation about how to use Twitter on WebMasterRadio. Guy splits no hairs, as he is aware that some people do not like his approach to marketing on Twitter. However, the audience loved his hands on approach as he walks them through using Twitter with this collection of links on how to demo Twitter he uses as his outline.

Have you heard Guy Kawasaki give this presentation (either live at a conference or the recording above)? Some people feel Guy Kawasaki is a Twitter spammer who uses bots and automation to drop urls all the time. What are your thoughts about how he uses Twitter? Would you use it the same way or just take out a few of his tactics and tools (which ones)?

Click here to view the embedded video.