Michael Stearne

Michael Stearne, VP of Interactive Media & Systems, and Ruben Quinones, Director of New Media, at Path Interactive will co instruct the course.

The course will be located at the Midtown Center campus, at 11 W 42^nd St (between 5^th and 6^thAvenue, across from Bryant Park). Visit the NYU SCPS registration page for additional details.  Path Interactive will be facilitating several courses in the spring as well, including an additional Search Engine Optimization class, a Social Media Marketing class, and a new Facebook Marketing class.

About Path Interactive
Path Interactive is a leading New York search engine marketing providing results targeted campaigns for national, regional & local business brands. Path employs a unique approach to paid search management, organic site optimization, and social

Ruben Quinones

media marketing. Our  team draws its strength from a diverse mix of media professionals, whose expertise spans both the traditional and new media as well as experience in both local and national markets.

The users, real people that test these pages, were presented with the homepage of the site and told to:

“Click the item that would get you a life insurance quote”

The wording for the task may not have been optimal but was chosen so as to not lead the user to click a particular part of the screen.  We didn’t want to say “click the get a quote button” or “submit the quote form” because that might guide the user to certain phrases on the page.

Test Results

Click here to review the results http://theclicktest.com/test/share/eN2nA1ilRpNzPZ6V

N.B. Out of the 13 tests, 2 should be discounted because they were done by Ari and myself. We both clicked the Compare Now button.

What We Learned

Only 1 person clicked the button we wanted them to, the Compare Now button!

Possible reasons:

• The message of Compare Now (in the context of this test) is in appropriate
• Compare Now doesn’t look enough like a button or click-able item
• Form is too long and daunting and Get Free Quotes, Get A Quote looks like an easier option to the user

Possible improvements: 

• Remove Get Free Quotes callout in the middle of the page
• Restyle Get Free Quotes to look less like a button or clickable item
• Remove all links on the landing page that navigates away from users filling out the form, remove Get Free Quotes and Get A Quote from navigation for the homepage
• Make the callout containing Get Free Instant Insurance Quote clickable
• Better style the Compare Now button to a more standard looking button
• Change the copy on the Compare Now  button to Get Quotes

Twitter Forces Rethink on English Privacy Laws; New Scientist
Twitter is forcing the UK government to re-examine privacy laws in England. The rethink comes after a judge granted a privacy injunction, meaning that English newspapers could not legally publish the name of a professional soccer player who allegedly had an affair, despite thousands of people who have reported the name on the social-networking site. The footballer issued legal proceedings against Twitter and “persons unknown” – the tweeters who had repeated his name. But the action is unlikely to succeed, because English courts have no jurisdiction over the US-based company.
The Takeaway: Retweeters are unlikely to face legal consequences, but the initial tweeter could: “There may have been a journalist who deliberately disseminated this and encouraged the enormous publication on Twitter. If that is the case, he or she could go to prison.”

Toyota, Salesforce Partner on Social Network for your Car; CIO Insight
Powered by Salesforce.com, Toyota Friend is a private social network that connects Toyota owners to their cars, dealership, and Toyota itself.
The Takeaway: Salesforce has always positioned itself as aggressive for new territory, and perhaps cars were seen as the next logical step.

LinkedIn Shares Fall After Doubling in IPO Week; Bloomberg
LinkedIn Corp. declined as much as 9.8 percent after more than doubling in its initial public offering last week.
The Takeaway: Why did this happen? According to one analyst, “People are probably taking a look and saying maybe I’ll wait. The price is probably still a little crazy.”

As the majority of online traffic still originates from search engines, businesses can’t ignore this as an effective channel for marketing.   Search engine optimization is a  fast changing field, as it is always constantly tweaking algorithms apart from the already fast changing Internet landscape.

Marketers, web masters, Internet business owners, content managers and many other specialists can benefit from learning the different aspects of marketing online. That kind of an effort requires a firm foundation on the basics of search engine optimization which is exactly what this course offered by NYU SCPS (New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies) aims to provide.

The course takes a focused approach to equip all the above mentioned professionals with critical aspects in Search Optimization, including keyword research, keyword selection, keyword placement techniques, on-page and off-page search engine optimization, Meta information, effective link development, off site marketing techniques and much more. The completion of this course contributes to the overall “Certificate in Digital Media Marketing”.

“The value we provide with the courses we instruct at NYU, are an extension of our philosophy at Path Interactive, which is to provide deep educational value along with incorporating relevant , current techniques that have benefited our clients.  I look forward to teaching this upcoming course”  Michael Coppola says.