Insights from Nebo

Nebo had the good fortune to meet the folks from Portland, Oregon-based WebVisions at a meetup Monday night. Held at Gordon Biersch, we ran into an eclectic group of Atlanta web designers and representatives from leading agencies, many of whom are volunteering to put together the upcoming WebVisions event coming to Atlanta on November 17-18. Local organizers include Andrew Hinton (Macquarium) and J Cornelius (Atlanta Web Design Group).

Last week, we threw out this question to our networks on LinkedIn and Facebook and received a great variety of responses. Feel free to add to the discussion in the comments below.

Brian Easter, CEO of Nebo Agency, had the opportunity last evening to speak to marketing juniors and seniors at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He joined a panel of distinguished companies and agencies who talked about their businesses and what they’re looking for in an entry-level employee.

Talking to the students was a blast. Their enthusiasm and talent was on full display. They largely have an understanding of the business world they will soon join. Their questions revealed some myths and misperceptions about what is and isn’t important in finding a job and working for an agency. Some common themes emerged in these discussions that we’d like to share with a wider audience. These tips should be helpful for marketing students thinking ahead to their first job.

Last evening, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) Atlanta chapter held an excellent event at Google’s Atlanta headquarters (while also teleconferencing in the SEMPO chapters from New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles). The panel featured Enrique Munoz Torres (Google), Evan LaPointe (Search Discovery), and Matt Crenshaw (Discovery Communications) with moderator Kevin Geraghty (360i). Conversation (and Tweeting) covered a thorough analysis of Google Analytics Premium by Torres along with applications and implications discussed by LaPointe and Crenshaw.

Facebook’s new look has completely changed in just a few weeks, and everyone is asking the same question: What’s up with all the changes? Now, more of your old friends appear in your timeline, you can track constant updates in real time through a news ticker, and automated groups show up on the left panel. Less transparent is the number of changes occurring behind the scenes to make sure the content you see isn’t a bunch of Farmville updates and spam from brands. These changes keep Facebook from suffering the same fate as its long-ago rival, MySpace.

What’s the difference between ‘web design’ and ‘website design’? Or ‘SEM agency’ and ‘search engine marketing agency’? To humans, there is little difference; however, we’re seeing some interesting AdWords Quality Score variations between these similar keywords, even when taking other factors into account like CTR, CPC, landing page content, and ad copy.

The differences in Quality Score seem to be directly tied to the keywords in Ad Groups where we’re buying terms that are fairly synonymous.