Dallas Texas search engine marketing company - KeyRelevance

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KeyRelevance will be presenting at:

Search Engine Strategies Speaker

SES London
February 17-20, 2009
London, UK

SES New York
March 23-27, 2009
New York, NY



SMX West Speaker

SMX West
Feb 10-12, 2009
Santa Clara, CA

SMX Search Analytics
March 31-April 1, 2009
Toronto, Canada



Search Engine Strategies Training

SES Training San Francisco
March 10, 2009
San Francisco, CA

SES Training New York
March 23, 2009
New York, NY

SES Training Denver
April 27, 2009
Denver, CO


PubCon by Web Master World

PubCon South
March 11-13, 2009
Austin, TX



KeyRelevance Bookshelf

Recommended Reading for Web Marketers

Usability Books
Web Analytics
Understanding Customer Behavior
Paid Advertising

Usability Books

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
by Steve Krug, Foreword by Roger Black

Steve Krug's observations may seem obvious in retrospect, but in some cases it takes the eyes of another to make you see what is right in front of you.

The Web moves at a lightning pace, and web visitors do, too. Given the information overload brought to our doorstep by the World Wide Web, Web users have adopted several coping mechanisms, including:

  • scanning, not reading
  • satisficing (a coined term indicating a blend of satisfying and sufficing)
  • muddling through, rather than figuring things out

Krug gives illustrations of these facts of (Web) life and how to adapt your web site to take advantage of them. In eleven chapters, he reviews Web user behaviour, writing for the web, providing navigation aids for your visitors, and devotes several chapters to applying usability testing to your web site.

As one might expect from a book about usability, the text is quite readable (and even scan-friendly) and makes use of graphics to clarify the discussion. Several of his counter-examples leave one thinking "What were they thinking?", and occasionally "I've done that!" He also provides examples of good usability from several real-world web sites so you can explore the usability aspects of these sites as well.

Usability Engineering
by Jakob Nielsen

It's a classic, but if you haven't read it....

My copy of Usability Engineering is a sight to behold. There are hand-written notes in the margins of the dog-eared pages and yellow highlighting and sticky notes flagging important concepts. The sad looking book definitely falls into the well-worn department. I bought my copy of the book back in the mid-late 90's when I became fascinated by the concept of user-oriented design and Web Site Usability testing.

Jakob Nielsen, the Internet's Usability guru, made his mark in the industry with this book. Sure, some of the statistics he quotes are dated, but the concepts and ideas are still on target. Jakob demystifies the whole idea of usability testing. At one time I was able to quote long passages from the book, simply because I'd read it so many times. I've read his other works, but this one is my favorite. The book is a classic and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about Web Site Usability.

Web Analytics Books

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
by Avinash Kaushik

Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success
by Jim Sterne

Web Analytics Demystified
by Eric Peterson

Understanding Customer Behavior

Blink and The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink, takes you into the fascinating world of "thin-slicing" - the art of making accurate decisions with limited input. As in his earlier book, The Tipping Point, Gladwell's words infiltrate into our everyday working vocabulary. Since finishing the book I have heard the phrase "thin-slicing" frequently. It's the new "paradigm". After his first book, everything was "a tipping point" this or "a tipping point" that. Few writers have influenced our everyday speech so dramatically.

When I first read The Tipping Point a friend had lent me a copy to read. I was surprised to find that the friend had written my name next to one of the personality types in the book (a good personality type, but still...). When I inquired about it, the friend told me Gladwell's description was descriptive of how he viewed me. This made me wonder how many other readers read the book assigning friends to certain personality types.



I enjoyed both of Gladwell's books. Both Blink and The Tipping Point were fun, easy reads. I was excited when I heard Gladwell was coming out with Blink because I had enjoyed his first book so much.

Blink wasn't a disappointment. The Tipping Point talked about group behavior and how trends can sweep a nation; Blink is more about individual decision-making. Gladwell makes the concepts come alive through real stories. The book is about certain experts who have perfected the skill of being able to make accurate assessments of a situation in the blink of an eye. From art connoisseurs who can decipher a fake at first glance to a researcher who can observe a married couple for a few minutes and tell whether their marriage will succeed with 90% accuracy, Blink is a fascinating read.

Peopleware
by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Do yourself a favor: put this book in your boss's stocking this year!

This is one of those books I re-read every few years. It never fails to inspire. There's a quote in the book that captures the essence of the book: "The manager's function is NOT to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work." Having endured work environments where the "cube" was the norm and where "quality work flow" without interruption was impossible, I fell in love with this book and its unabashed support for the individual in the workplace.

DeMarco and Lister examine the current trends in the work environment and present compelling arguments why most of these trends are harmful to productivity. Fortunately they also provide options for what you as a manager can do to make a difference. Check it out today!

Paid Advertising

How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders
by Catherine Seda

Winning Results with Google AdWords
by Andrew Goodman

This is hands down my favorite AdWords book. And here's a little inside secret, here at KeyRelevance, we recommend it to all our PPC account managers.

Why do I like it? The biggest reason I recommend this book is that Andrew's suggestions work. If you use his techniques, you will save money and

increase the efficiency of your campaign. With bid prices on the rise, getting more mileage out of your campaign is critical to your PPC success.

Andrew walks you through every step of the way, from account set up, keyword selection, ad development, landing page testing, and even analytics. If you're going to do AdWords and you want to get the best performance out of your campaign, you NEED to read this book.


Our Services
How You Benefit
  • Qualified sales leads
  • Increased brand awareness
  • Improved ROI
Our Philosophy
  • Campaign synergy
  • Complete optimization
  • Relevant keywords
  • No spam techniques
  • Long-term value


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KeyRelevance - Dallas based Texas Search Engine Marketing Firm
39 Santa Rosa Circle, Wylie, Texas 75098
Phone: 972-429-1222      Fax: (320) 205-0260
info@keyrelevance.com