Houston Web Marketing, Sales, SEO, SEM, PPC & Analytics Resume / CV

 

Larry Williams

Houston, TX

281-455-8300

lwwilliams@suddenlink.net

Summary

 

A results-motivated professional seeking an opportunity that utilizes his experience with IT sales, online marketing, SEO and web analytics to impact and grow a company’s productivity.

Employment Experience

 

eVariety Company                                                                                                    1/06-6/11

Online Sales & Marketing

• Sold collectible items through customized e-commerce websites, maintained a 100% positive customer service rating and shipped more than 75% of items within 10 days of posting.
• Utilized search engine optimization (SEO) methods and strategies to improve SERP rankings for multiple websites using tools including Google Webmaster Tools and SEO PowerSuite.
• Created and managed pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns using Google AdWords to generate traffic and grew sales using keyword ads, as well as multiple blog and website placements.
• Increased ROI by adjusting multi-channel advertising budgets based on web analytics reports generated by Google Analytics, Omniture Site Catalyst and Google AdWords.
• Created promotional ads and links using HTML tags, Java widgets and RSS feeds on multiple websites, blogs and social media networks including Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter.
• Researched, tested and trained on new SEO, online marketing and web analytics tools and techniques.

 

RSA                                                                                                                            8/05-12/05

Senior Account Manager

• Marketed IT business solutions including project, contract and permanent staffing services.
• Met with prospects and gathered detailed information to determine future technical needs.
• Researched and analyzed prospective businesses using Salesforce CRM and industry web portals to forecast sales opportunities.

 

Bridgewater Resources                                                                                             8/02-6/05

Business Development Manager

• Sold IT staffing solutions for a start-up business by developing and maintaining lasting relationships with companies seeking technical professionals and services.
• Drove sales production with a $500K/yr. average and a gross profit margin (GPM) exceeding 33%.
• Developed most of the CRM workflow process, website content and multi-channel marketing material to promote and advertise a new company and its services.
• Made presentations to corporate executives and hiring managers, gathered detailed information on job orders and planned search strategies with recruiters to target qualified technical candidates.
• Identified target companies and recruited prospects by attending Trade Shows, Career Fairs and multiple business, marketing and technology association meetings.

 

 

 

IntelliMark                                                                                                                 11/94-6/02

General Manager – Account Executive

• Sold regional B2B IT staffing and project solutions by developing and maintaining lasting relationships with companies seeking technical professionals and services.
• Met with decision makers, gathered information on qualified sales orders and developed multi-channel marketing campaigns using cross-promotions and viral marketing.
• Managed Houston branch operations, including budget, marketing plans, sales forecasting and employee hiring, firing, training and yearly reviews.
• Developed and made corporate presentations and co-hosted a national business conference.
• Managed an internet strategy team project that designed and launched a new company web site that included a new layout and content, job posting and search capability and new marketing material.
• Managed a CRM migration project and created a paperless workflow process.

Sales & Recruiting Manager – Account Executive

• Sold IT services, recruited candidates and managed account executives and recruiters.
• Identified target companies and recruited prospects by attending Trade Shows, Career Fairs and multiple business, marketing and technology association meetings.
• Led in-house training sessions and created internet training presentations, videos and documentation for sales and recruiting teams.

Technical Recruiter

• Recruited, interviewed and prepared qualified technical candidates for interviews with client companies.
• Received feedback from candidates and clients after interviews and negotiated starting salaries, benefits, start dates, sign-on bonuses and/or relocation packages.

 

Management Alliance Group, Inc.                                                                           3/94-11/94

Recruiter

• Sold staffing services to businesses and recruited candidates in multiple industries, including Finance, Medical and Oil/Gas.

 

 

Professional Achievements

• Inbound Marketing Certified Professional – HubSpot
• Manager of three (3) Presidential Award recipients
• Manager of one (1) Chairman Award recipient
• Quarter-Million Dollar Producer Award*
• Top Five Producer Award*
• Rookie of the Year Award*
• Member of Top Three Blended Services team*

* Texas Association of Personnel Consultants, Houston Area Association of Personnel Consultants

 

 

Education

Bachelor of Arts – Communications – Marketing, 1993

Stephen F. Austin State University – Nacogdoches, Texas

 

Google Analytics Adds Real Time Reports, Improves Custom Site Search – Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

 

 

 

 

 

Google Analytics Adds Real Time Reports, Improves Custom Site Search

Google Analytics Adds Real Time Reports, Improves Custom Site Search – Search Engine Watch (#SEW).

Thom Craver, October 3, 20111 Comments

A couple new and noteworthy Google Analytics features were announced last week. First, Google has added real-time reports to monitor visitors actively looking at your site. Also, for sites with their own custom search engine, Google Analytics has made it easier to integrate data into your analytics reports.

Real-Time Google Analytics

For years, Google has lacked a real-time element to its Analytics product. That changed as Google released real-time analytics reports to a limited set of people. While Google Analytics will still process results on their 24-hour lag, a new set of reports will now show activity happening on your site as it happens.

The reports show active, changing graphics, detailing page views per minute and per second. Detailed reports include percentages of active visitors by country, by page currently being viewed, and by the visitor’s source, including custom campaign tags.

While the data is limited, of the best ideas for use so far is to use it to see campaign tracking when unrolling a new campaign. Because of the way data is collected and the delay in its processing, many times a simple typo can make your data go awry and take at least 24 hours or so for you to discover. With the real-time reports, you’ll be able to see anomalies quicker.

The new real-time reports only are available in the new version of Google analytics. Look for it under the Dashboards area this week. When the new Google Analytics interface rolls out this week, you’ll be able to find it under the Home tab. If you can’t see the reports and don’t want to wait, you can request access sooner.

Google Analytics and Custom Site Search

Site search reports have already included more than mere usage and search terms. Now the set up processes are easier.

Essentially, you simply navigate to the Custom Search Engine management page. From there, select a few options, including options specific to Google Analytics, and the Google Custom Search tool will produce your new, analytics-friendly code, ready for copying and pasting into your site.

To be clear, this is really an announcement more concerned with Google’s Site Search product. However, if you use it or were considering using it, know that setting up the Google Analytics reporting components is much easier now.

The new Site Search code enables all the cool tagging and integration for Google Site Search clicks to interact properly with Google Analytics. As part of the process, you’ll need to select which Google Analytics account you intend to use with each individual site search engine you create.

More Google Analytics Changes This Week

The Google Analytics team has been quite busy of late. Just last month, Google Analytics changed the way they counted visitors with modified session data, which led into new multi-channel funnel reporting.

And Google’s not done yet. They’re promising a new Google Analytics layout this week

Boost Your CTR With These 5 PPC Ad Copy Strategies – Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

Boost Your CTR With These 5 PPC Ad Copy Strategies  – Search Engine Watch (#SEW).

Boost Your CTR With These 5 PPC Ad Copy Strategies

Ryan Woolley, June 17, 20111 Comments

Strong creative can be a huge competitive advantage in the world of paid search. When you can pay less to get more, you’re doing something right.

The compounding factors of improved CTR, increased quality score, and reduced CPC can make a tremendous impact on performance. Ad copy testing lies at the heart of seizing this competitive advantage.

With an endless number of attributes to test, it can be a little daunting to pick a starting point. Looking for a positive impact? Here are five ad copy attributes you can test.

1. Price Points & Percentage Off

If you’re a retailer, this is must. You’re missing out big if you aren’t testing into specific price points and percent off offers.

Important: don’t make assumptions here. Test out multiple price points and percentages off to find out what will resonate with consumers. Here’s one of my favorite illustrations of why not to assume anything when it comes to price points:

A 76.5 percent CTR lift on the higher price point. We can make assumptions as to why the higher of the two price points experienced the higher CTR. Maybe the “or Less” factored in, or maybe “$39” just sounded too good to be true. Hard to say. This is precisely why we test.

2. Google Sitelinks

By now you have hopefully enjoyed the benefits of running Google Sitelinks in your ads. The presence of ad sitelinks can lift CTR by more than 30 percent.

Surprisingly, many advertisers still haven’t added these to their campaigns. Maybe they’ve tested it and found that their ads perform better without sitelinks, but this is doubtful. I haven’t seen an instance where an ad’s CTR decreased as a result of having sitelinks present.

Don’t let your sitelinks get stale. Remember to rotate in new pages to test, and test variations of the ad copy. Keep refining.

3. “Official Site” 

Using “Official Site” directly following the name of the brand in the ad headline has almost always lifted CTR and reduced CPC. There is an absolute correlation between the power of the brand and the influence that “Official Site” will have on improving performance.

Recognizable brands that carry more weight will typically benefit from this. In instances where there are many affiliates competing in the space, the brand will also benefit from this tactic.

“Brand Name – Official Site” can also lift performance on non-brand terms, especially in instances where the brand is considered a leader. Depending on your account, it may be worth experimenting with this.

With the recent modification of Google displaying the root URL of the display URL within the headline, there’s been speculation that “Official Site” many not be as necessary as it once was, and those valuable headline characters can be better utilized. Sounds like another great test!

4. Sense of Urgency

Any good direct marketer understands this principle. Give consumers a reason to feel as though they should decisively take action, and they are more likely to do so.

If you’re running an offer in your ad copy – and you should be if you can – test using an end date. Here are some iterations that work well:

• “Ends 6/11” – a specific end date. Drop this in the ad copy about five days prior to the end date
• “Ends Monday” – test using the day of the week vs. the actual date
• “Hurry!”, “Save Now”, “Ends Soon” – Even without an end date, there are ways to create that sense of urgency with the consumer

5. Extended Headline

This is another recent modification to how Google displays ads. You no doubt have seen this, and hopefully have been experimenting with it.

Ultimately Google will make the call on whether your description line #1 will be moved into the headline of your ad. While you can’t explicitly opt into (or out of) this, you can influence the probability of your ad displaying as such.

First and foremost you need to be in the premium position above the organic results. By crafting your ad so that each line of copy appears as a distinct sentence that ends with proper punctuation, you’ll at least be in a position to have your ad appear with the extended headline.

Applying some of the tactics mentioned earlier, like sense of urgency or price points, into the extended headline can help boost CTR and is worth experimenting with.

Test Your Ad Copy!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of managing paid search accounts is the ability to test, and the learning that comes from it. Curiosity, creativity, and discipline are required. With the competing priorities of so many things you can and should be doing while managing an account, ad copy testing should always remain high on the priority list.in

 

The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Optimization – Website Magazine – Website Magazine

The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Optimization – Website Magazine – Website Magazine.

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, Twitter usage has climbed to 13 percent of U.S. adults online – up from 8 percent in November. Usage among people ages 25 to 34 and 55 to 64 has more than doubled since late 2010.

These statistics are impressive but they don’t tell the whole story about recent developments with Twitter and the fact that it is on its way to becoming the Web’s next great search engine. For that, you need to optimize. But first, let’s look at how Twitter is getting closer to its goal of becoming a legitimate powerhouse.

Earlier this year, Twitter acquired TweetDeck, the service that helps users organize information on Twitter and eases the burden of constantly streaming updates. They also recently acquired AdGrok, an advertising platform intended to help Twitter monetize the site. Other recent developments include an embeddable button that allows users to more easily follow their favorite accounts on Twitter, and the ability to share photos on Twitter directly (expect video to follow).

One can argue all day that Twitter is used by a small percent of the population and that the number of accounts is inflated, due to users having several accounts at one time. But what cannot be argued is that the amount of information that flows through Twitter is enough to challenge any other source on the Web. Although it might not be a core of Twitter’s current usage, the new acquisitions point to a new phase in the service’s development – a budding real-time, social search engine. It should now be treated as such. Below, are 10 tips for Twitter optimization to make sure that your business is at the forefront of the Web’s next search boom.

1. Use TweetDeck. Twitter acquired the TweetDeck so that they could centralize Twitter functionality and keep a tight grip on the information flowing through the site. You can be sure that those who use TweetDeck will have an inherent leg-up on the competition.
2. Use Hashtags. As it stands, hashtags (#web or #sports, for example) are a good way to get your tweets indexed, searchable and noticed by other users. Don’t be afraid to get creative with hasthags, either. Sometimes they can create new streams of content or simply catch the attention of other users who will retweet your message.
3. Use Keywords. Think like a SEO professional. Research keywords and use them in your updates.
4. Be Witty. Keywords are necessary. But you must also entertain, from time to time. Clever tweets have a way of being re-tweeted. Also, consider using teasers to encourage clicks on links.
5. Use Descriptive Short URLs. When possible, edit short URLs to include content keywords. Not only will they stand out from the rest, but users will be inclined to use that URL rather than re-shrinking it on their own – resulting in better, more accurate click and share data.
6. Vary Content Types and Providers. If users wanted to only read about your company, all the time, they would subscribe to your RSS feed or bookmark your blog. Mix it up with content from other sources and by type (video, audio, photos). Remember that we are focused on search, and multimedia is increasingly important for search engines and users.
7. Tweet Regularly and Promptly. You don’t want to be a nuisance but be sure to post quality updates on a regular basis. It ensures you stay top-of-mind with consumers and provides more content available to index and search. Tweet every piece of content you produce. Twitter is used by many to find breaking news. Provide it.
8. Post Contests, Giveaways and Promotions. People love a good deal and Twitter users are no exception. Running promotions will attract followers. And the number of followers is undoubtedly part of the search formula at Twitter and on standard search engines, where tweets are increasingly displayed.
9. Re-tweet and Follow. By re-tweeting others and following other accounts, you will earn more followers and encourage interaction – another factor that Twitter will take into account when assigning “status” to information providers.
10. Listen. Many people use Twitter to contact businesses, air grievances and seek support. Listen up, and reply promptly and fairly. It shows that you respect your followers, can foster any number of opportunities for cross-promotion and branding, and can prevent a bad experience from “going viral.” Solicit feedback, too. People like to feel that they are making a difference.

Online Ad Revenues Jump 23 Percent – Website Magazine – Website Magazine

Online Ad Revenues Jump 23 Percent – Website Magazine – Website Magazine.

Online advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $7.3 billion for the first quarter of 2011, representing a 23-percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

This marks the highest first-quarter revenue level ever for the industry and a significant increase over last year’s first-quarter revenue level, which had been the highest on record to date.

“The consistent and considerable year-over-year growth we’re seeing demonstrates that digital media is an increasingly popular destination for ad dollars, and for good reason,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “As Americans spend more time online for information and entertainment purposes, digital advertising and marketing has emerged as one of the most effective tools businesses have to attract and retain customers.”

Search made up for 46 percent of the ad revenues, followed by display advertising with 24 percent. Sponshorships (3 percent of the share) have grown 88 percent since 2009, and classifieds (10 percent) are up 15 percent.