www.HealthCentral.com

Greetings from New Orleans!

The sexual health conference is going great and I will post a full summary when I get back to Washington Sunday night/Monday am. In the meantime, just a few thoughts in response to last week’s branding discussion.

To gain a competitive advantage and increase the real and perceived value of THCN, it’s time to make some definitive branding decisions.

First, for example, what is our brand name? A good brand name is easy to remember and evokes positive associations. Are we The HealthCentral Network? HealthCentral.com? When I’m giving my 30 second elevator speech to a doctor at a sexual health conference, should I be plugging MyHerpesConnection.com, ErectileDysfunctionConnection.com and/or my unnamed women’s sexual health website (vanity URL TBD)?

I find it much easier to explain the essence of who we are by using the brand name HealthCentral.com. It’s simpler and easier to remember than The HealthCentralNetwork, THCN.com, or TheHealthCentralNetwork.com. Part of the reason why the WebMD brand has been so successful is that the words Web and MD succinctly convey who they are. In our case, the words Central and Network are so vague that they don’t contribute much in terms of conveying who we are or what we do.

Once we determine our brand name let’s create a consistent, easy to understand soundbite that conveys in one sentence:

1) What we do

2) What benefits our company provides consumers

3) The hook that makes us better than our competition

As far as I can tell, this is the only information we have up re: who we are:

“The HealthCentral Network, Inc. has a collection of owned and operated Web sites and multimedia affiliate properties providing timely, in-depth, trusted medical information, personalized tools and resources, and connections to a vast community of leading experts and patients for people seeking to manage and improve their health.”

One of the fundamental rules of marketing is Know Your Audience. Our official set of talking points on the THCN website may be perfect for an audience of advertisers, but it doesn’t seem appropriate for our consumer audience.

Perhaps we should have a more simplified, consumer friendly version on HealthCentral.com and each of the verticals. After-all, without our consumers, we don’t have any advertisers.

Again, it would be helpful to have a strong 30 second elevator speech that is consistent with our brand. Here’s my 30 second elevator speech. While it’s a simpler explanation, it still doesn’t seem to do the job:

“I work for an Internet media company called The HealthCentral Network. THCN owns over 30 authoritative, condition-specific and consumer-driven health websites. I manage their lifestyle and sexual health websites.”

Regardless of whether I give the official talking points or my abbreviated version, my audience consistently flashes me a look that says one thing: What you talking about, Willis? In other words: Huh?

On the other hand, if I were to say I work for WebMD, I suspect more people would get it. Why? Because WebMD is better than us? More trustworthy? No way! It’s because WebMD has created a strong brand while we have yet to consciously create a coherent brand identity to market ourselves. There’s no reason why we can’t come up with an even stronger brand. After-all, WE are the company that should be #1!

Seven Key Takeaways from the SMX Social Media Marketing Conference 2008

According to online marketer Brent Csutoras, Top 10 lists are an extremely effective means of generating linkbait, or content created for the purpose of attracting attention and links. While they are starting to become cliched and overused, Csutoras advises keeping this dying trend alive by mixing it up and creating negative lists or using a different number of items. It is in this spirit that I present the Top Seven Takeaways from SMX 2008:

1. Quality counts.

According to Rand Fishkin, 67.3 percent of people find the blogs they want to read via links on other blogs (followed by search engines at 19.6 percent). From there, they choose the blogs they want to read based on the quality of the writing. Blogs that are poorly written or have glaring grammatical errors will be skipped over in favor of the competition.

2. Know your community.

To some audiences, long paragraphs of dense text can be intimidating and/or overwhelming. To others, the more information the better. For example, members of an ADHD community are more likely to absorb and finish a one-page article containing clearly defined bulletted lists followed by short pithy paragraphs than a four-page piece piece with run-on sentences. If you want to keep your users coming back for more content, make sure you know what they’re looking for, and deliver accordingly.

3. Create viral content.

Viral content generates links, creates buzz, encourages comments and spurs sharing among users. Nuff said.

4. Use keywords in your titles and descriptions.

Csutoras suggests that the most important thing you can do once you’ve created your content is add a relevant title and description. He suggests choosing titles that have clickability and contain popular topical keywords, even if they are only tangentially related to your product or service. This way, you’re more likely to get indexed by the Google.

5. Create evergreen resources, or, if responding to a breaking news story/timely piece of content, make sure your timing is just right.

Timeless resources are more likely to generate links and build traffic over time. If you are posting on a timely topic, make sure to use keywords and get your content up as quickly as possible to beat the competition.

6. Battle the intimidation factor by adding images and video.

Content can be intimidating to people, especially, as mentioned above, when it is dense and text-heavy. Lighten up your content and give readers’ eyes a break by adding images (and video, where relevant). Readers are likely to dedicate more time to an intimidating post when they see that it contains interesting images.

7. Generate links by telling other sites that they’re awesome.

Never underestimate the power of the human (blogger’s) ego. If you want other sites to link to you, get their attention by showing that you care and are engaged with their content and community. Get to know their site/blog and then tell them how great you think they are, perhaps by giving them an award. Maybe even a top award.

Sexual Healing, part 1

San Diego, California: Kate’s first conference. I wake up excited to be here and start the day. I cruise through the hotel lobby to the registration table. One of the conference volunteers checks me in and hands me a plastic bag full of goodies. I thank her and step to the side, peering into the bag and inspecting its contents. Inside I find the usual conference agenda, packet of papers, stray fliers and… four or five small bottles of liquid? I fish out one little bottle and turn it over in my hand as I examine the label. I raise an eyebrow, thinking to myself, what is this?

“They’re bottles of lube, Sweetheart,” explains a matronly older woman beside me, observing the perplexed expression on my face.

This lady could be my grandmother. Did she just say…?!

“Lube?”

“Lube,” she repeats firmly. She takes the liberty to stick her sun-spotted hand into my conference gift bag and pulls out a thick, glossy brochure for me to inspect. The brochure’s cover features a half naked couple embracing each other. Above their heads, in bold purple and white lettering, the text reads: Wet. It’s a sexual lubricant catalogue.  The lubricant company sponsors tables at sexology conferences, she explains. Then she laughs good naturedly and gives me a wink. “First sexology conference?”

Grandma 1, Kate 0.

I am oh so un-hip.

Did I mention that I’m at a sexual health conference? Specifically, I’m at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality’s (SSSS) 2008 conference entitled Sexual Healing: Self & Society (somebody cue up the Marvin Gaye). Kate’s first sexology conference. Too bad I forgot my camera. 

Anyway, my mission is to recruit the country’s best sex doctors, therapists and sexologists for the launch of THCN’s new sexual health sites. I’m excited and, armed with photos and bios of sexology’s heavy hitters who are supposed to be here, I make my way through the crowd.

I immediately observe that, for America’s sexologists, the mullet has made a comeback in a big way. Or, perhaps, it never went out. I’ve already seen three very agressive mullets within the first hour. Otherwise, the people here are actually pretty hip, just like the older lady that I met at the registration table. A sex therapist, she tells me that this is her 20^th SSSS conference in as many years. At least 3/4 of the sexologists are from California like me. I guess you could say that these are my peeps ;-P

The conference officially begins with a few short welcome speeches. No Sarah Lacey jokes (yet), but the introductions are peppered with enough sexual innuendo to remind me that I’m indeed at a sexology conference (think jokes about vibrating cell phones).

The sexology humor aside, all of the doctors and therapists I’ve encountered have been the epitome of professional. I’ve already come across at least a dozen sexologists interested in providing content, Q & A, etc. for THCN’s new sexual health websites. I’ve attended at least five workshops and break-out sessions that have literally blown my mind and made my head spin with ways to make THCN’s sexual health website(s) the most dynamic, cutting edge sites out there. I’m particularly excited about the “New Media Approach” (to health) event on Sunday.

From the last two days, I’ve noticed that these sexologists are hyper-aware of the “sex-negative” environment we Americans are living in right now; “sex-negative” in terms of access to emergency contraception, the prevalence of abstinence-only education, etc. There seems to be a consensus among this group that the Bush Administration has had a particularly negative influence on American sexual health. I’ve never come across a group of doctors who seem to be more altruistic or sincerely concerned with the general well-being and over-all health of people in this country. I’ve noticed that they take a refreshing and uniquely holistic approach to diagnosing and treating their patients. This philosophy reminded me a lot of how THCN also focuses on treating the whole person.

On an unrelated note, last night I met a doctor who told me that the show Desperate Housewives will feature a storyline revolving around one character’s sleep disorder. Apparently, this character sleepwalks in the nude while he’s living in another person’s home. This made me think about our lunch conversation last week when Chris asked that really interesting question about whether or not we could grow traffic by keeping up with the health issues that come up on TV shows. I’m going to create an index page around the Desperate Housewives example and see what happens.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I have 2 more days of the conference and will be sure to check back in soon.

-Kate

Mahalo: SEO Foe?

“I’m a hustler, in the Jay-Z sense of the word”

-Jason Calcanis, CEO of Mahalo

In today’s keynote, Jason Calcanis sort of walked into the lion’s den.  Everyone at this conference makes a living off of search engine optimization.  Mahalo threatens to upset that balance – instead of trying to please the mystical google algorithim, SEO pros would have to find a way to get their sites indexed on Mahalo.  Mahalo, a site that is controlled by… gasp… people.

All our skills are useless! Mahalo is stealin ma job! Mahalo is making my kids live in a cardboard box!  Damn you Mahalo! Damn you to hell!

Anyway, that was a possibility.  Jason, however, was pretty clear that Mahalo was more about layering people’s knowledge and opinions on top of traditional search results.  Ie, you could do a google search, but then a widget along the right side displays your friends’ opinions about the search topic, or allows you to migrate to the mahalo search page for that topic. 

I think what remains to be seen is if they can get a critical mass of users.  Google and yahoo are already trying to replicate the ‘user review’ usefulness in their results, so will we need a third party to step in?

Link Building Basics: Get on the Juice!

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/agenda3.html#link

We’re pretty familiar with the basic concept: not all inbound links are created equal.  Depending on four key factors, they can lend a lot of juice to your site, or they can be relatively worthless.

What determines the juiciness of your inbound link?

1. Link quantity - straight number of sites and individual links that point to your page. 
2. Link Quality – it’s best to get a link from is a reputable site that appears in search results often… ie, not a spam blog.
3. Anchor Text - an “endoresement of what’s to come.” The hyperlinked words should explain clearly the subject of the page they’re going to. Hyperlinking the words “click here” and “read more” are meaningless both to readers and to search engines.
4. Link Relevancy - The best links are the ones from the leaders IN YOUR AREAs.  

Anchor text and Link relevancy are by far the most important points.  This was emphasized several times this session.  You want to get links from the sites that are in the top slots for your main keywords.  What happens if I get a link from the homepage of the New York Times? Well, it probably won’t hurt, but it would be far better to get a link from a site that ranks well for my vertical’s condition.

A couple other interesting facts / opionions from the SEO pros:

• Get inbound links to your content from other content.  Linking from one homepage to another homepage doesn’t look natural to a search engine - there’s usually not enough context to warrant a link.
• Vary the achor text of your links (both inbound and on our own sites).  So rather than always phrasing it “migraine treatment”, also use “treatment for migraines” and “treating migraine”, etc.
• Page rank (the little 1-10 ranking that might appear in your google / FF toolbar) is generally worthless; not based on anything important, not indicative of a site’s value.  Sites with a rank of 3 can still rank highly in search engines; sites with a rank of 7 may not. 

Panel: Getting Vertical Search Right

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/agenda.html#orion

I’ve hated on vertical search for a while now, so I was hoping that this panel might help me see the vertical search light.  It did not, but it was interesting nonetheless.

 To review, vertical search engines are search engines that only search specific categories of content.  For example, iMedix is a vertical search engine for health.  Panelists included Cthe EO of Organized Wisdom (Steven Krein), someone else from a vert search for jobs, one for restaurants and food delivery.

 The basic argument in favor of vertical search is the google, yahoo, msn and ask can’t really tailor their algorithim to return the best results for a particular category.  The results might not be user friendly, and dubious websites can rise to the top while good websites can never make it on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) because the site authors just don’t put much effort into SEO.

 Our moderator kicks things off with a joke about how she shouldn’t “talk too much about her self and have some sort of Sarah Lacy moment.” Will this work its way into a verb?  I hope so. 

Although vertical searches only represent about 2% of all internet searches (google has about 60-70%, followed by yahoo and msn / ask much lower), that 2% is still pretty massive.  Thus vertical searches can still survive… they just need to have their own niche.  The crazy thing though, and all the panelists are quick to admit it, is that the vast majority of traffic to vertical search engines start with a larger mainstream engine.  Think about that. To search on Organized Wisdom, you need to do a google search, click through to their site, and then start your search over.  Will people actually do that? I am unconvinced.  Even if they do, can you impress the user enough so that they’ll want to come back and use your vertical search instead of google next time? Again, I can’t think this is likely, simply because they are too many search engines out there, and very few of them are actually significantly better than google’s results.

Sorry, all of this is opinion, but the panel hasn’t shown me anything that is truly compelling yet.  Yes, vertical searches CAN be better than google.  I just don’t think they can get enough audience or repeat usership, other than a few select vertical areas, and only if mainstream search is really broken in that vertical

 Throughout this whole panel, Steven Krein, CEO of Organized Wisdom has used the phrase “handcrafted search results” 57 times.  I am seriously going to flip if I hear it once more. They are also rolling out a new feature called “Live Wisdom.” You can get a doctor to help you with your search queries in real time, and they’ll feed you links to the best information.  The catch? You have to pay for it.  $1.99 a minute.  It’s like a 1-900 number but slower because it’s over chat, and less sexy, because it’s a doctor and you have a serious illness.

As a sidenote, I was really impressed by Bill Tancer from Hitwise - one of the best analysts / thinkers I’ve heard.  I’ll have to see if he has a blog…

Web Analytics: Data into Action (March 17th)

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/agenda.html#web

How do you use the data that you find? How do you decide if the tactic you’re using is working? Panelists tackle this topic.  A couple highlights that all of us can take away:

Avinash  Kaushik (blog = Occam’s Razo):

-Bounce rate is an incredibly important metric to look at - % of users who hit a page and leave within the first five seconds.  Known as the “I came, I saw, I puked” metric.  25% or less is good; 35% is worrisome.  50% = time to freak out.  For our sites, maybe instead of dreaming ways to increase PV/V by upping the pages consumed by one, we should concentrate on eliminating the bounces.  It’s not that everyone who goes to our site looks at X number of pages, it’s that a good portion of people look at a number of pages, but the “bouncers” just tank your PV/V.

 Interesting statistic to look at:

“Day before purchase report.”  Look at what people did just prior to “buying” (or in our case, signing up, commenting, newsletter sign up, etc.), and start direct people to those places or compel them to those actions.   If we want to increase sign ups, the best way isn’t to imagine the sign up process, it’s look at the data on signups and determine what actions are most likely to lead to signups in the future.

 A lot of the discussion centers on paid search, but their are takeaways for our organic SEO as well.  For example, One of the panelists found that users who came in through a longtail search using a 4+ word keyword phrase were were far more likely to “convert.”  For our sites, this would suggest that even if you got the number one slot in google for “diabetes”, you might not get a very high percentage of those users to convert since they’re searching generally and are thus “less qualified.” Users who are searching very specifically are more likely to find what they’re looking for, and take action based on it. 

Once again, longtail is key for getting user signups, even apart from its importance to traffic.

SES is rad