Quinones, Zenna stand out as speakers at Market New York Expo
NEW YORK–The Market New York Expo for small businesses last May 21 at the Javits Center featured several talks on branding, email marketing, digital sales and mobile marketing. What stood out for us were the talks on Search Engine Optimization by Ruben Quinones, NYU adjunct instructor and VP, Client Strategy at Path Interactive and Mobile Marketing by Warren Zenna, EVP & Managing Director at Mobext (Havas Media).
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Both Quinones and Zenna made strong points about what small businesses refuse to face. For Quinones, it’s how small businesses ignore the importance of site architecture and planning. For Zenna, it’s ignoring the critical need about having a mobile-responsive site—not to be mistaken for an app. Actually, Zenna could not emphasize it more. “You only need a mobile-responsive site and not an app, unless, say, you’re an e-commerce site.”
Quinones and Zenna also stressed how Google is almost the only factor in both search and mobile marketing optimizations, with Zenna parrying a question about Bing being irrelevant. Your goal, it seems too many marketers these days, is to be found by Google. That’s the only thing that matters, because others will almost generate the same results.
It is surprising how many in the audience are not familiar with WordPress and its capabilities. Without talking down to his audience, he explained how it has become the CMS of choice for small and big companies. “CNN is built from WordPress.”
For search optimization, he suggests using Yoast. How do you get blogging to work for you? “Blog more than your competitors,” he said.
Zenna makes perfect sense. He asked what is the first point of contact nowadays? The answer was obvious, “Mobile,” because “60 percent of people check their smartphone.”
Based on different parameters, some sites are lower-ranked now because it’s not mobile-friendly
What was most telling about Zenna’s talk was how he discouraged everyone from making an app unless your business suits it or if you have the money. An app can set you back by $50,000 at the premium level. “If you’re using a WordPress site, you can create a mobile-friendly site with plug-ins.”
And what you may not know about an app is that it’s like a baby, he said. Once you launch, you’ll have to continue tweaking it—and spending more in the process.
Zenna offers some key takeways that were not different from Quinones’.
· Be found in Google search
· Site must be mobile-friendly
· Piggyback on popular social apps
