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October 31, 2008

Friday Recap

Happy Halloween! How awesome is it that Halloween is on a Friday this year? Not that it would make a difference here at the BCI offices. When we do Halloween, we go big:

Check out everyone's close-up, too. I have to say I'm especially proud of the writers' choice to go as everyone's favorite mischievous '80s cartoon rock band!

This family also has some great costumes going on. They're not costumes? Huh.

If you're looking for a new decoration to scare the candy right out of those trick-or-treaters' bags, this mechanical spider head should do the trick.

Looking beyond Halloween, there's another special day just around the corner: Election Day! After you make your trip to the polls, reward yourself for doing your super civic duty with free ice cream from Ben & Jerry's. Very sweet. [For maximum karma, get Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. Patriotism is yumyum score. --Susan]

As part of my good deed to humankind for the day, or at least puppy lovers the world over, I need to pass along this box full of joy. It has brought hours of entertainment to the BC writers this week. Not while at work, of course. We wouldn't think of it.

Did you know that bees can count? Okay, only up to four, but that's four more than I expected.

To offset that totally NOT-search-related find, here are the quirky search marketing stories I ran across this week. First off, Google's founders bought a fighter jet -- a Dornier Alpha Jet to be precise. On last night's Daily Search Cast, Danny Sullivan closed the show with this zinger, to which Jim Hedger wittily commented, "It's the only thing Google's got that's not in beta." Ba-dum-tsha!

Google Earth is now available on your iPhone. Props for taking full advantage of a touch screen interface.

We all knew Twitter was a potent tool, but as with any source of power, it can be a weapon in the wrong hands. If you notice any suspicious behavior, you are encouraged to notify the Department of Conspiracy Theories. [No, reporting your fellow SEOs is not encouraged. --Susan]

Social media, the darling of Internet marketing, may have hit a snag. At least, that's the case according to one journalist, who coins the term "Long Tail of Friendship" to describe that extensive network of people you sorta-almost know. This could be because there are now more people than ever taking part in social networks and technologies.

In an example of what not to do with your Web site, MTV rolled out an awesome video library site this week, and then proceeded not to tell anyone about it. Now that the secret's out, let's all enjoy some spooky tunes, shall we? Did I mention that this week Los Angelenos helped to break the world record for the most people dancing the Thriller dance at one time? I'll try to control this overwhelming pride I have for my home town. :D

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

  1. The days of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind could be here sooner than we thought.
  2. Wars lead to zombies. And I thought war was scary enough.
  3. There's no substitute for a real haunted house.
  4. Even your kitchenware can join in on the Halloween fun!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/31/08 at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
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October 30, 2008

The SEO's 10 Commandments

By Christopher Hart, Director, Eastern Region Operations


Editor's note: When Christopher Hart went to the Scary SEO conference last weekend, he donned the official Bruce Clay, Inc. attire -- a branded shirt and slacks. Little did he know his wardrobe and color choices would lead everyone to believe he was in the clergy! When you get buzz, you can either run away from it or run with it. As for our man Chris, let's just say that burning rubber you smell is from his sneakers.

  1. Thou shall embrace Internet marketing and the digital marketing mix.
    2.

    The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    As an online business you shall embrace all modes of distribution so that you can reach your customers in the most efficient manor possible, no matter how you used to do business in the past. This means you will actively work at search engine optimization, paid search marketing, social media optimization and reputation management.

  2. Thou shall get rid of your outdated business strategies.

    3. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    Get over yourself and those old businesses rules and ideals which you held in high value in the past. This is a new age and with it comes new rules. You must learn to embrace the rules and ways of the online digital market place.

  3. Thou shall not abuse Internet marketing.

    4. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    Do not shamelessly self promote or product plug. Become part of the community in which your market place belongs and you will see more success with consumers embracing your product and services for as long as you bring them value.

  4. Thou shall remember that hard work is essential, but be sure to reward yourself and your team for a job well done.

    5. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    This job is not built on a standard five-day, nine to five week. You will work late hours over the weekend and deep into the wee hours of the night. But when your team does successfully push your initiatives live, give them a day off and show them the appreciation they deserve.

  5. Thou shall honor your client's wishes and goals.

    6. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    Listen to your customers and respect their opinions. Do not pretend you live in an ivory tower, but rather give back to your customers and they will give back to you ten fold.

  6. Thou shall not kill.

    7. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    Never kill an old site. Doing so will be like throwing away PageRank and will require you to start over.

  7. Thou shall not cheat.

    8. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    When communicating online, do not take what is others and use it for yourself. Original content rules the day and it must be yours.

  8. Thou shall not steal.

    9. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    Never 302 hijack another business Web site and always remember to attribute your sources.

  9. Thou shall not lie.

    10. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    You shall never, ever, ever spam your customers or the search engines.

  10. Thou shall not be jealous of what you don't have.

    11. The Online Digital Business Initiative Translation:
    If your Web site is hosted on a dirty IP, do something about and move to a new IP. Don't just complain and do nothing, or worse, not look into it and only find out when it is too late.

Posted by Guest Author on 10/30/08 at 7:03 AM | Comments (7)
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October 29, 2008

SEM Synergy Extras

Today's episode of SEM Synergy included a tasty news segment. Of course, with all the events and issues that come up over the course of a week, we were only able to touch on a few of the stories. Here are some of the newsworthy items that were on the agenda but just couldn't be squeezed into our time constraints.

IM Broadcast provides video sharing and networking site for Internet marketers

Our congratulations goes out to David Snyder and Jordan Kasteler for the scarily-good conference that was Scary SEO. While attendance was limited to an intimate group, everyone could enjoy a number of presentations by tuning in to a live video stream on IM Broadcast. The brainchild of Loren Baker, David and Jordan, Loren described the site as "YouTube for Internet marketers". The video sharing and networking site launched last week and already boasts more 200 members and more than 100 videos on SEO, SMO, PPC, affiliate marketing, blogging and search engine news, just to name a few.

Google showing images in ads

Google has been experimenting with images in ads and ads in images. Let me explain. Google Image Search, which was previously free of ads, is showing ads for some users. These experimental sponsored listings are complete with a shaded box and images of their own. In similar news, Google has been experimenting with including images in sponsored search results , as well. The images in are displayed when a user clicks on the blue Plus Box that appears with some ad results. And they aren't tiny images, either. Not a bad place to play if you have a shiny, pretty product like those described in the articles above.

RSS gets a shake up

In what amounted to a depressing abandon ship for many dedicated Bloglines users, rabid readers had enough of the borked feed subscription service. A large number of feeds continually failed to update, causing users as high up as Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher to switch to Google Reader. Google also confirmed this month that they'll begin offering RSS feeds of Web search results through the Google Alerts program. Google is the last major search engine to offer RSS feeds of Web search results, currently only offering email notifications. [Speaking of which, I always get my Google Alerts, like, seven hours after everyone else. Why am I not important to you, Google?--Susan]

I'd also like to thank my guest Mike Moran, co-author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site. We had a chance to talk about the business strategies and implementation issues that he details in the second edition of his book, and it's definitely worth a listen. Thanks, Mike!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/29/08 at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Pay Per Click, SEM Synergy

October 28, 2008

Proactive Analytics Suite Launches

NuConomy announced the public launch of its Studio analytics product today. Previously in private beta, the free tools move toward what the company calls a "proactive" approach to Web analytics. Instead of reporting page views, a common metric, NuConomy Studio aims to present meaningful data in a way that borders on story telling. Check this out:

One of Bruce's favorite sayings is that you know half your marketing dollars are being wasted, you just don't know which half. Proactive analytics aims to identify that half. Rather than combing through and cutting up the data yourself, the tools compare that day's statistics with the historical record in order to report what it considers are "things you should know". Then, by simply logging on to the system, your email or your RSS reader, the reports arrive right on your screen. This seems to me like wonderful solution to the headache many companies face when they try to take on Web analytics -- a slow and labor-intensive process that begins with collection and then analysis, before conclusions can be drawn and action taken.

There are some sweet benefits to bloggers, too, who will be thrilled to see user activities, user interests and user contributions all mapped out pretty like:

Can you think of an easier way to address the most popular topics and encourage reader participation? Those posting videos will also get a kick out of the analytics reports that break down how much of a video is watched, who's watching entire videos and if ads were watched in the video.

Even more unique is the fact that NuConomy Studio is equipped to take action on your site. A two-way API effects automatic changes to a site based on the current metrics and correlations. The example they give is showing ads or pushing specific content that is relevant to a user's interests. Very clever, NuConomy, very clever.

But before we get too excited, we'll have to get a first-hand look at the quality of the NuConomy reports. If it really does pull out trends that you may not have spotted yourself or do much of the hard work for you, then these tools will see a boom in no time. But if the tool is simply pulling out all the weird spikes or outlying data points, you may end up with more noise than when you started. [I'll be Polly Paranoid and ask about security while we're at it. Who protects my data? --Susan]

Sure you had a 1500 percent jump in traffic from the UK, but if you don't sell anything in the UK, it doesn't really matter. The goal of analytics is to come up with actionable results from data that matters to you. Unfortunately, you can't throw a mountain into a sieve and hope that eventually you'll find the gold mine.

Have you tried NuConomy Studio? What do you think?

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/28/08 at 5:20 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Analytics, SEO Tools

October 27, 2008

SEO Project Management and Educating Clients

Christopher Hart is Director, Eastern Region Operations of Bruce Clay, Inc. Last week he spoke at Scary SEO on the topic of SEO project management and client education. We thought we'd give you the inside scoop on his presentation by sharing his insights here on the blog.

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that depends on a strong foundation, continuing education and training, and communication between teams. Managing the project requires that multiple departments work like independent parts of a collaborative whole. Every part has a specific role to play, but contact is required between the parts to keep the operation running smoothly. These are some things to keep in mind when managing your search engine optimization project or when educating clients about the multi-dimensional process that is SEO.

1. SEO is about properly doing business online.

SEO is not just about techniques and tricks or following a checklist. For search engine optimization to be part of an effective business initiative, it needs to be treated as an integral component of your company's digital strategy.

Make no mistake; doing business online is just that -- a business initiative. As with any revenue generating function it needs a full time manager. Someone needs to always be focused on the needs of the project and the sum of its parts. When you build a new store front, even though a construction company put the structure together, they do not own daily operations. The design team that picks colors and floor plan layouts do not own daily operations. Likewise, the marketing team that creates advertising and helps define market voice does not own daily operations.

When your online project started, did you hear any of the following statements?

  • "This is an IT project" or "this is a marketing project."
  • "We can craft a solution around current staff functions."
  • "Doing business online is cheap and inexpensive."
  • "We only need to do this once and not worry about it."

These are lies, lies, LIES!

You need an individual to work across the different teams or groups that have input into this initiative. This person has the specific role of coordinating all the efforts into a successfully functioning online business initiative. This person needs to be empowered to prioritize, order and act as the final word in all aspects of the initiative. It is their mission to make the elements of your company work together and in support of each other.

2. SEO requires education, transparency and feedback.

If you can't see it by now, SEO is not the optimization of search engines. It is the education, planning, communication and measuring across your company of all the functions that go into your online business initiative. This is so you can maximize the ability of your company to communicate or distribute your products and services through search engines to the end users which are your perspective clients.

  • If you take the position that you just want something "done" or "taken care of" without taking the time to learn about it, then how can you judge if it is successful or if the correct decisions are being made?
  • Information must be openly shared across all teams or groups that play into your online business initiative.
  • No decision is to ever be made in the vacuum of a singular perspective.

3. A successful SEO project starts with training.

  • Did your SEO training course improve communication and awareness?
  • Did your SEO training course improve cooperation between business teams?
  • Did your SEO training course help build a strong foundation?
  • Did your SEO training course help improve efficiencies?
  • Did your SEO training course lower cost and improve ROI?

For elaboration on all these points, check out Bruce Clay's article in the December edition of Visibility Magazine due out soon.

In closing, I ask you, the business owners, the following questions:

  • Why the indifference to these realizations when it comes to doing business online?
  • Do you feel that you have a well-defined online business strategy or just a poorly-cobbled-together set of projects and initiatives that have been labeled as your online business?
  • Are your staffs educated enough to understand the requirements or functions needed of their teams in this business environment?
  • Is there visible corporate support for this initiative and are consequences of a lack of support known?

To do anything properly takes time, effort and investment. Your opportunity margins will increase over time, but only if the proper foundation is put in place and there is a corporate culture to support it.

Posted by Guest Author on 10/27/08 at 2:22 PM | Comments (6)
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October 24, 2008

Friday Recap

Happy Friday, friends! It's almost time to relax, or maybe like the kids attending Scary SEO you've already started. I know that they're kicking back by now because I saw it with my own two eyes!

Yup, the two-day search engine marketing mini-con going down in Florida today and tomorrow is being streamed on the new video sharing site dedicated to the search industry, IM Broadcast. If you missed it today, they'll be back tomorrow, and you may even be able to catch our very own Christopher Hart's presentation on SEO project management. You'll also want to check out IM Broadcast for the many videos on SEO, SMO, PPC, affiliate marketing and so on, that have found a cozy place to all hang out together!

These days California has even made voting a cozy experience by opening drive-through polling booths. My state is genius! And lazy. That's what 350 days of sun and sandals can do to you. Google's also making it easier than ever to get to your polling place with their U.S. Voter Info site and maps of voting locations. [I just found out my polling place is literally up the street from me! Yay! --Susan]

But it's not easy trying to make the world a perfect place, poor Google. This week they ran into some resistance to the launch of the new iGoogle. As one of the few who likes the new canvas view, let me just send a little smiley their way -- easier than ever now that Gmail's got emoticons. :D

Also working to make the world a smilier place, actresses Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones have found the best way to cope with the lousy economic state, and I couldn't agree more! I also get the warm-fuzzies from this list of ways to make your office life more eco-friendly.

The art form that is drunk dialing/texting/emailing, often results in warm-fuzzies of the messaging variety, but just as often, they're not-so-friendly. To protect you from, well, yourself, Gmail's Mail Goggles program may put an end to the late-night pastime of drunk emailing. Brilliant or tragic? You decide.

In my opinion, it will be a real tragedy to see newspapers go the way of the dinosaur, but my all-time favorite medium is facing hard times. I'm hopeful that it's not the end, as I've seen an impressive evolution in the way newspapers are finding their way in the Web space.

One woman who doesn't appear to have adapted well to the virtual world has been arrested for murdering her ex's avatar. Unfortunately for her, the punishment won't be virtual.

And finally, a new fan-, won-, marv-, uh, what's the word... oh yeah -- really sweet tool for writers who can't find that word that's just out of reach. I can't tell you how handy this could come in on those days. You know those days.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

  • Duct tape move out of the way. Scotch tape is the new wonder adhesive.
  • Scared of snakes? Pre-historic snakes were way worse.
  • Parrots in slo-mo are like angels wearing rainbows. (My faves are the first, second and last.)
  • While you're out picking up pumpkins to carve, grab a watermelon, too. [Mmm, brainalicious. --Susan]

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/24/08 at 5:25 PM | Comments (0)
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October 23, 2008

Mobile's Big Break

It's been the Year of Mobile for the last, what, five years now? But mobile may have finally gotten its big break. For so many years it seemed obvious to the search industry that mobile was the next frontier because, as the tech-savvy early adopters, we've turned to mobile search and Web to get us through even the simplest daily activities. And it looks like mobile search and Web have found footing in the mainstream.

Mobile advertising is booming

AdMob, a mobile advertising network, is performing profitably and recently received third-round funding, despite the lagging economy and gloomy economic forecasts. The company reported a tripling of the number of ads it served this year to 4.52 billion.

According to the article:

"Clients are busy planning campaigns on AdMob well into next year. It has yet to see demand slow down, and instead has increased its number of ad clients to more than 6,000 today."

Smart phone usage is spreading

Also explained in the VentureBeat article, "The company's ads on the iPhone have been going particularly well... [AdMob Marketing VP Jason Spero] expects to see much of the same ad growth on Android devices as the company has seen through the iPhone."

Of course, it makes sense that smart phone adoption is driving advertisers to networks like AdMob. One of the biggest factors that previously kept users off the mobile Web was that mobile Web browsing was so slow and unfamiliar. Smart phones coupled with affordable data plans mean that a familiar Web browsing experience is finding its way into more and more pockets. (You want to be in those pockets, right? Check out Cindy Krum's suggestions on optimizing for mobile.) The power of true-Web technology is also evidenced by the lengths at which AT&T will go to hold on to its iPhone partnership.

Mobile users are getting their social media fix

Web browsing has gotten so comfortable that users are accessing their social networks from their mobile phones. Updates and uploads are easier than ever on mobile phones and it's only getting easier with the advent of third-party applications. Mobile and social are both virtual watering holes. Combine them together and you've got the potential for an advertiser's dream land!

Google's pushing into the space, so you know it's the future

When Google recognizes an opportunity, it's usually not slow to act. Google has been reaching into the mobile space for some time now, achieving new heights with the release of the first phone running Google's mobile operating system, Android. Another smart phone on the market means another chance users will be attracted to the mobile Web. Today Google also announced the release of Gmail for mobile 2.0, showing a clear belief that mobile is the place to be.

So, where are you?

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/23/08 at 5:32 PM | Comments (4)
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October 22, 2008

SEM Synergy Extras

Widgets are pretty nifty. My personal faves show you videos, Flickr streams and Twitter updates. Pretty darn cool from a user perspective, if you ask me. And they're pretty darn cool from an advertiser's perspective, too. That said, today's episode of SEM Synergy is all about those fabulous chunks of portable code functionality we call widgets.

The guest was widget strategy expert Patrick Sexton, who shared his best practices for developing and distributing widgets. Pat will be speaking on the Wonderful World of Widgets panel at PubCon next month, so be sure to grab your front row seat. Not that you'll have a choice -- his boyish charms will surely draw you in...

Security Concerns

One of the main user concerns regarding widgets is that they can invite infiltration of the system. Any time cross-site scripting takes place, as it does with widget embedding, the person using the widget leaves themselves vulnerable to malicious attacks. Likewise, not even Google Gadgets home page widgets are immune to attacks, as demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference this year. As far as secure widget embedding goes, it's probably best to sanitize foreign JavaScript or create a security sandbox using an iframe.

Smart Branding

During our interview, Patrick made the point that users are less likely share a widget that's main purpose is branding or that screams brand more than function. That's not to say that the branding and advertising opportunity isn't there. Relatively inexpensive and simple to develop, widgets represent an ongoing relationship with consumers, where before it was more difficult to distinguish new prospects from engaged customers. Some research on customer behavior has shown that a customer's memory for brands is best when presented early on. However, the marketing tactic of widgets rests in functionality and entertainment, so widgets can only be successful with the achievement of these goals first. Following that, branding can be applied when the user has already made positive associations -- as Patrick illustrated with his Comedy Central example.

Distribution Options

When it comes to distributing your widget, Patrick recommends a cross-platform strategy. Such a strategy relies on viral installers as well as distribution through individual widget directories. Indeed, getting your widget to the places users are looking is important to the success of widget marketing. I had asked Patrick how he recommends coming up with an idea for a widget that your audience will like, and he explained it as distilling the core functionality of your Web site. The relevance of the widget is the first step of development, because it's that relevance that will help to encourage distribution.

Happy widgeteering, everyone!

(Yes, I made that word up. Yes, I know you love it.)

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/22/08 at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)
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October 21, 2008

Five Unexpectedly Obvious SEO Tools

Tools are a critical part of any SEO's arsenal. Competitive research tools, keyword research tools, link analysis tools, project management tools, check server tools, rank checking tools, rep management tools, analytics tools -- I could go on. There are free tools and not-so-free tools. There are tools you use every day, tools you use every month, and tools you don't even know exist. Then there are the tools you may have forgotten were tools! Here are five unexpectedly obvious tools that are so integral to your daily activities you may have forgotten they could even be used as SEO tools.

1. Search

Okay, so you probably didn't forget about this one. Chances are that if you're reading this, search has already taken over your life. You used it to figure out where to go to lunch this afternoon. You used it to book the hotel you're staying at for PubCon. You used it to write that blog post this morning, and you're about to use it to find that hilarious clip from the Daily Show you saw last night so you can share it with your office mates. But when it comes to the job, search is an excellent tool for competitive research. It lets you know who your main competitors are and, through link commands, who is linking to them. Keyword research is also possible with search -- a functionality enhanced through search suggest features, as well.

2. Images and Multimedia

Didn't that picture at the top of this post catch your interest? Not only can images and multimedia get the attention of human users, but they can grab the attention of search engines as well. Images and multimedia are a sound way to get listings in a variety of locations. Image search and blended results will eat your pictures and videos right up and serve them back to hungry users.

3. Phone, Email and the Occasional Lunch

Rather archaic tools by today's standards, phone calls, emails and face-to-face time can go a long way in the workplace. One of the keys to successful SEO expectation management is communication. While you may prefer text messages or Twitter, your clients may be most comfortable communicating the old fashion way. Also addressed through communication is project management. Large scale projects need to be tracked through software programs or spreadsheets, but nothing can replace a meeting or team email to keep everyone up to speed on the stages of the project and how everyone's efforts are coming together.

4. Blogs

As a number of panelists at the Search and the U.S. Presidential Campaign session at SMX East said, blogging can be a powerful connection tool that provides a means of listening to customers or consumers. The community that can be developed through a blog can be a priceless and long-lasting benefit to your business. For SEOs, reading blogs is one of the main channels of staying up-to-date on the developments of the industry, or in other words, continuing your education. Plus, blogs are a solid way of updating and adding content to a site.

5. Social Media

Social media, like Twitter, allows us to ask questions of our peers, do research, get and give recommendations and more. I've watched bloggers make a call for post topics. I've helped out marketers that ask friends to visit certain pages they're testing. I've seen requests for the best tools that do this or that. There are vast amounts of community knowledge that can be leveraged through social media. It just goes to show that one of the very best tools we have at our disposal is each other!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/21/08 at 5:11 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in SEO Tips & Tricks, SEO Tools

October 20, 2008

SEO Training Criteria and Qualifications

Bruce is in Australia this week to present the SEOToolSet Training course, and it reminded me of the value of ongoing search engine optimization training. Conferences are an excellent way to continue your search engine marketing education, especially for those who have been in the industry a while. However, when initially learning the ins and outs of search marketing, it may be wise not to jump into the deep end. If that scenario sounds familiar, this post is for you.

Conference sessions offer up new case studies, cover recent developments in the specialized fields of mobile, video, local and personalized search, and bring new opportunities to further develop ongoing discussions like ethics and link building tactics. But for those who are newer to the field, attending a conference can be an overwhelming introduction to search marketing.

At the SEOToolSet Training held following the recent Search Marketing Expo - SMX East in New York, one attendee said that he wished he could have attended the training course before the conference. He explained that while the conference sessions were great at diving into specific topics, the training course educated him on the overall techniques and strategies employed through search engine marketing. Being able to see the big picture first, he thought, would have better allowed him to appreciate the details.

The SEOToolSet Training course got some great feedback from attendees in New York, so in response we are looking to offer the course regularly on the East Coast beginning next year. Of course, it is currently held monthly at our Southern California office and annually across the globe in Australia, the UK and, coming soon, Japan. But timing and location have a big impact when it comes to the plausibility of attending training. So when looking at training courses, how can you decide which is right for you?

Jeremy Bolt, a founder and director of Bruce Clay Australia, put together a great top 10 list of SEO training course criteria. From content and methodology, to testimonials and ethics, they're all important qualities to keep in mind. Some courses offer certification. Others include tool subscriptions. Still others offer a period of follow-up support. Most importantly, you should walk away with an improved understanding of metrics, optimization techniques, methods of monitoring and search ranking signals. It never hurts if scrumptious lunches and sparkling sunshine are included (something we excel at, if I do say so myself!).

Need an idea of how some of the national training opportunities stack up? Take a gander at this comparison of various training courses presented around the country so you can line up your needs and goals with these offerings. With a little time and research, you'll have a noggin full of SEO knowledge in no time.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/20/08 at 3:37 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in SEO Training, Search Engine Optimization

October 17, 2008

Friday Recap

Just two weeks left until Halloween! Have you gotten your costume yet? You forgot Halloween was just around the corner? Then take a trip to one of these amazing cornfield mazes with the help of Google, Yahoo and Live Search Maps to get into the spirit!

Among the spookier things we can find with maps these days are wildfires, which have been ablaze throughout California this week.

Of course, we can't expect Google to keep track of everything for us. When it comes to losing some things -- like I dunno, states -- we just have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of states, here's a cool animated map of the United States that changes colors to indicate how people voted by district for presidential elections over the last 48 years. Can't wait to see what the map will look like three weeks from now. I'm sure I don't even have to say this, but vote, people!

While we're on the subject of politics, there were some cool finds on searcher behavior and search results following the last presidential debate. Plus, everyone's favorite SEO chiropractor took a look at how different the results for local service providers were from results for plumbers after the debate.

Also nifty, the people behind Common Craft have produced another awesomely animated short video that explains how to get the most out of your searches. It's truly a work of art.

This artist also knows how to work it, as evidenced by his selection for an international art show in Italy. But wait, it gets better. The artist is a horse! Man, I love what you can find on the Internet.

Did you know that searching on the Internet is not only entertaining, but it also makes you smarter? Let's see what my technophobe dad has to say to that!

Knowing him, he'd probably get me back with this technology horror story. Not a bad idea for someone looking to save on a costume. Just an idea.

On the topic of savings, how does one save face after a public embarrassment like this? Note to self: don't complain about not receiving something that doesn't exist.

Here's an idea that might perk you up in the midst of this economic uncertainty. Plug in your info to realize that things aren't so bad after all. Shout out to the boss, who found that one -- she especially deserves it since earlier this week was National Boss Day! What did you all get your bosses? The writers surprised Susan with this delicious berry pie, because who doesn't love pie? [Susan left early today, or I'm sure she'd have something very grateful to say, and sweet... like pie. --Paula] Say hi to the new new writer, everyone!

As for the big boss man, this month's issue of the SEO Newsletter features an article by Bruce explaining the case for white hat SEO. You'll want to give that one a look.

Also worth checking out is an excellent resource on sitelinks and how you can help get those little buggers into your SERP listing. Eric Lander was cool enough to take some time out to talk about sitelinks on the October 8th episode of SEM Synergy, but his article covers the topic in much further depth.

In other enhanced-listings news, Yahoo has added local content to its search results thanks to SearchMonkey.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

  • You can never be too careful when it comes to snake-proofing your baby's crib.
  • Beautiful music can be created in the most unexpected of ways.
  • A disco beat is a great way to keep time when administering CPR.
  • There's no love left for Ralph the swimming pig and his nightmarish underwater circus.
  • It's apparently the week for meat, as the Mona Lisa, this guy, and outer space all take on an uncanny resemblance.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/17/08 at 4:12 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in Fun Stuff

Social Media Campaigns: Doing It Right

Over the last couple of days, the launch of a brand new purse site got a lot of buzz in the Twitterverse. Handbag Planet was giving away one purse an hour for 24 hours in order to celebrate their launch -- signing up was super easy, give them your name and email address, then choose the drawing hour that corresponds to the bag you want and hope that no one else has taste as good as yours. Sign up, you'd get one chance to win. Every person you referred to the contest got you one more entry. Add Handbag Planet as a friend on MySpace or Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter to get 10 more chances. Blog about it and get 25 more chances. Even people who claimed not to like purses were all over it.

Unfortunately, I did not win the bag I wanted. What's even worse, when I decided to buy the bag, it was already sold out. It was a great tragedy that meant I couldn't take advantage of the 72-hour long launch promo 20 percent discount (the bag is back in stock on or around the 21st). I twittered my disappointment, not really expecting anything:

A few minutes later I got a DM from @handbagplanet asking which bag I wanted and telling me when they'd be getting back in (read from the bottom up for it to make the most sense):

Naturally, this somehow led to surfing HandbagPlanet.com and checking out the related links at the bottom. Tell me that tote isn't the cutest thing ever?

I got to thinking, hmm, I wonder if my laptop would fit in there. Since I knew from my earlier tweet of sadness that someone over there was listening, I once again turned to Twitter:

Before too long, I got a reply to that one, too.

My dreams were shattered. But after a few DM exchanges and a couple emails with my new friend James, we found a solution. I get my bag (actually two bags. I couldn't choose! Don't judge me!), they get my business and all is right with the world. [I love happily ever afters! --Virginia]

So what did Handbag Planet do right with their approach to social media?

  1. Great promotion that took advantage of the way people actually use social media: Handbag Planet got everyone and their mom to do the legwork for them, as everyone told their friends that it was free -- no catch, just a chance to win a purse. They made it seem achievable and they made it conversational. There was no script to follow, no stilted message, no requirement except mentioning their name. How well did it work? How does 5000 backlinks sound to you?
  2. Vocal presence: They've been out there, talking it up, answering questions, responding to concerns. It's obvious they're taking feedback into account and seeking to continue their relationships with the people who are now tuned in to their message.
  3. Problem Solving: Handbag Planet learned a lesson from Zappos that great customer service is worth its weight in gold. By solving my problem, they're buying brand loyalty. In the future, I'm much more likely to go to them.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 10/17/08 at 12:21 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in Branding, Social Media

October 16, 2008

What Google's Q3 Earnings Could Mean for the Search Industry

What a difference a day makes. Just yesterday, predictions about Google's incoming Q3 reported earnings varied across the board from decent to dismal. But all the guessing and speculation was for naught, as today the official earnings were announced.

While skeptics anticipated a bubble-buster, Google's earnings beat expectations. The company saw a 31 percent increase year-over-year for a net income of more than $1.5 billion.

This coming mere days after CNET anticipated dark times ahead for Web advertising and Adweek forecasted the beginning of a downturn for the ad business.

As the latter story explains:

"In past recessions, said [Jessica] Reif-Cohen, ad spending has been a 'lagging indicator' -- meaning that typically the business doesn't take a hit until a quarter or two after a consumer recession starts and doesn't recover until a quarter or two after it ends."

However, you read later that:

"The ad marketplace should be less challenging for the more measurable channels, particularly digital, according to Jack Klues, managing partner of Publicis Groupe Media's recently formed VivaKi."

Google Watch said it another way in the post Will Google's Q3 Earnings Offer a Window View to the Recession? "If Google beats expectations, it's hardly proof that online advertising isn't suffering from a recession. All it may well suggest is that search advertising, Google's main moneymaker, is for now better positioned compared to other online ad areas."

Of course Google and the search marketing industry aren't recession proof. But as Adweek reports, the ad industry in general has started bunkering down for the recession, while the person delivering the memo to search stopped for coffee along the way. The comforting fact remains that search advertising provides some of the most profitable returns available. And it looks like there's still room left for growth.

In this time of uncertainty, we hear a lot about lacking consumer confidence -- something that gets brought up around this industry as well. Considering the uneasy footing of the economy, it's especially important to continue to provide the highest quality SEM services you can. That's the best chance you've got for making it past this bumpy road.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/16/08 at 5:29 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Google, SEM Industry

October 15, 2008

SEM Synergy Extras

On this week's episode of SEM Synergy (audio will be available soon), I talked to Brent D. Payne, creator of the viral marketing success story, Big Watah. Following the interview, Scott Polk, a member of the Big Watah campaign team, Susan and I riffed on the subject, looking at the viral marketing lessons that could be gleaned.

There is also a Big Watah article in this month's SEO Newsletter which aims to deconstruct the events as they unfolded to see what strategies can be adopted by others. But even between the coverage on the radio show and the newsletter article, there is still more that can be said about viral marketing. Here's a small collection for your reading enjoyment.

Communication on steroids

Viral marketing is akin to supercharged communication, often easiest leveraged through online channels. In the newsletter article, I mentioned Jennifer Laycock's sound advice that when it comes to landing that viral success story, one important point to keep in mind is to try, try again. That recommendation came from part three of a fantastic four-part series Jennifer wrote about the top "commandments" of viral marketing.

In part one, Jennifer explained her recommendation to know your audience. One of the reasons that Big Watah took off so fast was because it was a fun and funny message that the SMX East audience could embrace. The message centered around one of their own and was easy to relate to.

The New York Times has pointed out that the adage "know your audience" has taken on new meaning in today's world. It now also encompasses knowing how your audience listens. Depending on the message and the means of the campaign, email, video, Facebook group or user-generated ad campaigns may all evoke different levels of interest and participation.

Get your audience to do the work for you

One of the beautiful byproducts of Big Watah was that most of the legwork was done by the audience themselves. On BigWatah.com and search.Twitter.com, you can see resulting flood of tweets that spread the message among the masses.

There's also a sizable flickr set that could be used as content.

As explained on WebUrbanist.com, "Somewhere along the line, marketers came up with a brilliant solution: let the customers spread the word themselves." Remember when Doritos aired a user generated ad during the 2007 Super Bowl and the ad became one of the top ten rated commercials of the game? Or the user-gen ad campaign credited with re-establishing the Nike brand among the younger demographic? Yup, it works.

Other great cases

Case study collector Marketing Sherpa highlighted its choice of the top 10 viral marketing campaigns of 2008, while a post over at iMediaConnection examines the stickiness tipping point and how viral marketing transfers from word-of-mouth to the Web. Big Watah is far from the only example of a successful viral campaign. Those interested in launching their own may find value in studying success stories -- and not-so-success stories -- to gain the insight that comes with experience.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/15/08 at 5:19 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in SEM Synergy

October 14, 2008

Personal Brand vs. Reputation

The always-controversial Loren Feldman posted a video last week of a speech he gave at a recent MediaBistro event. In classic Loren fashion, he took the subject of the speech and turned it on its head, resulting in a fascinating take on personal branding.

His main message: There's no such thing as a personal brand. "The minute that you start to think about yourself as a brand you're going to lose a little bit of your humanity" -- the very humanity that appeals to your audience. I have to agree.

Loren says of the term personal branding, "You're a human being. You have a reputation. You have a persona. You have a body. You are not a brand."

At this point, it sounds to me like an argument over semantics. If you are unsettled with the term "personal brand" then let's just go with "reputation", as Loren suggests. Indeed, the concept people are referring to when they talk about a personal brand is about the same as reputation. It's the associations that people make when they think of your personal and professional actions and ethics. You are what you do and what you say, and on the Internet, neither time nor distance can separate you from your history. So let's agree to talk about reputation, and not personal brands.

Later Loren says, "My reputation precedes me. I'm one of the biggest [jerks] on the Internet, obviously. But I make probably the most kick-[butt] videos on the Internet also. And that's what my brand is about."

Wait a second. I thought he decided not to use the term "brand" in relation to a person. Okay, don't get confused -- I'm sure he meant to say "reputation". However, it gets a bit more muddled when he starts to talk about Julia Allison, one of the other presenters on the stage:

"Julia's personal brand -- to just use Julia [as an example] -- Julia's a persona. She's an entertainer of sorts -- journalist, videographer, photo journalist -- whatever she does, she does. It's the Julia show, and that's a very specific personal brand that works for Julia. It's probably not going to work for you. Most of you out here don't have the chops to be a personal brand."

So some people can pull off a personal brand?

Call it what you will, personal brand or reputation. I think they mean the same thing. I'm inclined to call it personal brand since it's a term that's gained traction in the industry. People know what you're talking about when you say "personal brand" -- it rolls reputation, standing, reliability and quality into one.

Whatever you want to call it, I agree with Loren when he explains the danger of relying too heavily on one's own personal brand. There are many individuals on the Web and only a few will be recognized by others. You can either spend a lot of time trying to be one of the recognized few, or you can just excel at what you love to do. If you choose the latter, you'll see that recognition as a natural result of people connecting with your humanity when they see the passion behind your work.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/14/08 at 12:25 PM | Comments (3)
See more entries in Branding

October 13, 2008

Google's Link Week

Last week, amid the flood of information coming out of SMX East, Google hosted Link Week on the Webmaster Central Blog. It was a week of posts dedicated to the topic of links -- specifically, internal, external and inbound links.

Since I began covering search tradeshows and reading industry publications, I've observed the obvious: links are equal to gold on the Web. I've seen the numerous posts regarding link building, PageRank sculpting, link bait (you get the idea) go hot on Sphinn. At shows, I've noticed that Google reps always get lots of questions about linking best practices, how rel="nofollow" works, paid links (and on and on). Industry members are hungry for information on how to get rich in the link economy, and Google holds its cards close to the vest in order to avoid giving away any information that could be used to forge a fake check, if you will.

So when it was announced on the Webmaster Central Blog last Monday that the week's posts would be aimed at clarifying Google's recommendations for linking, I got excited. There are so many different channels that provide information on how Google values and measures link equity -- even three different Google reps speaking on different panels at a single conference may provide varying information -- so it's always great to get the "definitive" word from an official source.

The post that got the most attention was the final post, Good times with inbound links. At Search Engine Land, Barry Schwartz talked about his disappointment in the lack of details while a post on Wiep.net theorized that a cover-up of inbound link building recommendations may be underway. On BlogStorm, Patrick Altoft wondered if Google was embarrassed about the role of links in the ranking algorithm, but I'd venture to say that the real reason is more akin to an argument of security: secrets must stay secret so the ill-intentioned don't infiltrate the system.

Google recently removed a line from the Webmaster Guidelines that read "Have other relevant sites link to you." It was replaced with the advice "Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online." I read this change as an attempt to modify the language from an active recommendation -- to go out and solicit links -- to the more passive suggestion -- that the webmaster makes sure their site is known about. The second wording implies that if a site knows about your site, they will link to it if it has the kind of relevant and valuable information they'd like to share with their visitors.

When it comes down to it, though, Google has their hands tied. Telling SEOs and webmasters to solicit links goes against the best interests of the end users. Unless it's a clearly labeled advertisement, a link implies a related page that will give a user more information on the topic they are looking for. If I know that some deal was conducted behind the scenes, it's hard to trust that link will really be offering what I'm looking for. Hence the carefully crafted line: "when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they're also one of the positive signals to Google".

SEOs will probably never have the answers handed to them in a neat little package, or blog post or guideline for that matter. It would be much too easy to spam. But that part of you -- the user that gets frustrated by rick rolls, comment spam or poor quality pages in the SERPs --- that's the part that's got to appreciate the clever way that Google sometimes dances around the subject. On tip toes. In circles.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/13/08 at 5:17 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in Google, Linking Strategy

October 10, 2008

Ask the Search Engines

The last day of SMX East was hectic as I tried to touch base with new friends and contacts, attend all the sessions and make it to my flight in time. I managed to pull off most of those objectives, with the exception of posting a couple of live-coverage entries to the blog. So without further ado, here's what happened at the last session I attended. As my momma always says, "Better late than never!"

Moderator Danny Sullivan has got to feel good right now. Another awesome conference nearly complete! For the final leg of the marathon, let's go straight to the source and talk to the search engine representatives about all the things on our minds.

Danny says that he used to do a session called "I'm So Confused" because of all the conflicting information that is shared at conferences. But this panel will give us the official take from the search engines.

The reps are Nathan Buggia, Live Search Webmaster Central, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft; Aaron D'Souza, Software Engineer, Search Quality, Google Inc.; and Sean Suchter, VP of Engineering, Yahoo.

Sean says that sites should submit sitemaps, either .txt or .xml, and overall it helps with inclusion. He also heard a question about keyword order in Titles. He says that it is important to get right, not because of ranking but for the effect of the presentation in the SERP. Users will react well to seeing the keywords they are searching for in the Title so they should be further toward the beginning.

Aaron says that he's involved in trying to get rid of spam. He hears a lot about companies wanting to put up different versions of content for different countries. They wonder if it's going to be a duplicate content issue. He says that if the URL and the path to the content is reported to Google as specific for a certain location, Google won't see it as duplicate content.

Nathan says that he hears a lot about URLs. He says that session tracking parameters for a page will result in multiple versions of the same page in the index. Competing against own pages for space in the index can be harmful. He recommends submitting a sitemap with one URL for each page, and it should be the shortest form in the canonical version consistently. He also hears a lot about metrics and thinks that people are worrying about metrics that aren't the most important. He thinks it's all about conversions and trying to find the most valuable action. Finally, he doesn't believe that enough people are using the search engine provided tools available.

Now comes the Q&A part that you've all been waiting for. Be kind; Q&A can be hard to blog.

Are there best practice for running A/B tests so search engines don't think you're trying to cloak?

Aaron says that the way they look at it is that cloaking is only a problem if the intent is malicious. So for A/B testing, it is fine because the same type of content will be served. While they don't encourage cloaking, penalties only happen after a human review, so no penalty will be served if it's clearly just testing and not malicious.

Nathan says that A/B generally looks different than cloaking, and while they don't recommend cloaking, it really isn't a problem.

Sean says that the bad situation happens when there are large diversions, not the little ones that are common of testing.

Do you count affiliate links?

Sean says it depends where and in what context the links are coming up. If they are coming up in random, irrelevant places, that's not good. But if affiliates are making them of value to users, it's probably going to be a fine signal.

Nathan says that each link is evaluated independently and it's not necessarily considered if it's an affiliate or not.

We're currently redesigning our site and the only thing staying the same is the domain. The old site had ten pages and the new one will have 100,000. Are we going to have a problem?

Nathan says that the search engine always tries to find the most relevant page for a query, so if there's a page with similar content about a product as the manufacturer's page about the product which has been around longer, your site's page may not show up as it's considered a duplicate. One way to work around this is if you can add something beyond what's already out there, like pictures or reviews. As the question came from someone who has a weapons site, he suggests that she could maybe do videos of tazing pets... The whole audience laughs and groans and I'm pretty sure Nathan is turning pink. Maybe not the best example!

Aaron says that when you have a unique offering in a market, you will stand out by doing something different. He doesn't think that the reputation credited to the old site will be devalued on the new site, but he does warn to be aware of duplicate content from the old site.

When will Yahoo and Microsoft get country-specific targeting? And what's your advice if you want your site seen in another country?

Sean says that you should use a ccTLD because it's a huge signal. The other big signal is where the users and links are coming from.

Nathan says that you should make sure the international site is all located in the same sub-group or sub-directory because it's easier to identify. If a whole sub-directory looks like it's in German, it's a signal that it is targeted for Germany.

What percentage of false positives do you have in spam protection?

Aaron says that it's low but that it's an algorithm so there are sometimes mistakes. Spam algorithm changes are treated the same way as any other algorithm change. They test changes in a large sample and if they see a generally overwhelmingly positive result, they roll it out.

Sean sways that it's low, but if you think your site is treated incorrectly or if it has been cleaned up, submit a webmaster support form for consideration by the right people.

Danny says that Microsoft and Google will report to you if they think you're spam, except for cases that Google feels are so obvious the site is spammy that you should know it already. Yahoo is working on it.

Should people be bothering with nofollow or not to try to flow their PageRank around?

Sean says that in terms of designing for users, it's not helpful at all, so in the long term your energy could probably be better put into other areas. Aaron says that for the most part the issue comes up when there are way more links on a page than are useful to a user. In that case you have to think if the page itself is good for the user. He doesn't think it's going to cause an issue one way or another. Nathan asks who in the audience is doing sculpting (maybe five) and then he asks who has measured a positive change (maybe two). He says it was higher than he thought, but he still doubts the long term value.

Aaron says that sculpting seems like a lot of effort to put into the one signal of the link equity algorithm. He says he thinks it can be done if there's nothing left to do. Danny recommends testing it yourself to see if you see a difference.

It was suggested in a link building session that you could make donations to charities to get a link on their .org site.

Danny says that, to make it more uncomfortable, Matt Cutts has said that's fine. Sean says that if a charity is offering links for sale, he would think that they'd be getting links from bad guys as well as good guys, which will quickly get them flagged. Then the site will be in the universe of people who are bad and that link will be worthless.

Aaron says that if they were to see that 60 percent of the spam comes from charities, then they'll go after it. If it's rampant and makes up a large portion of spam then they'll see it as low-hanging fruit. Nathan says that if you're giving it to charity, then it's good anyway. But really, a charity that is aggressively selling links is probably going to see other attention as a result of their marketing techniques and see an increase in traffic.

Do you ever do direct intervention to penalize spam, as opposed to changes to the algorithm?

Aaron says absolutely. If it's hurting the results right now then they're going to do something manually. But they want to make the algorithm better, too, which they do by learning about the ways people are spamming.

Do reports that come in from a Google account have more weight?

He says that reports that come in from Webmaster Central are considered first over the external submissions because it's a cleaner data set.

Does the Yahoo algorithm in Japan work in a significantly different way than in the U.S.?

Sean says that there are slightly different signals but that it is the same back-end search engine and system, just tweaked for the market.

In natural search, do you offer some sort of endorsement or certification for SEOs?

Nathan says no. He says that he wouldn't want to endorse vendors because there's so much behind it. Sean says that it's the second time he's heard the question and says it's an interesting suggestion.

Is there a conflict behind your content networks showing up in your search engines?

Sean says that the reason Yahoo has SEOs is because they're trying to avoid a conflict of interest. There's search and there's content and it's not the same thing. So, for the content they have to compete for their user base and thus they need SEO. Aaron says that there's no Google policy to boost Google properties, but for certain properties like YouTube they have more information on them than they have on other sites, so they may show up more. Nathan says that Microsoft tries to keep a firewall between all of their businesses. Even advertisers that spend tons of money get no preferential treatment. AdCenter and the search engine are separate.

Are links still the primary signal for popularity and importance?

Aaron says inks are a good measure of reputation. Clicks are a noisy signal, and so the absence of a click for a result is thus way more useful because it signals that it's not the most relevant result. Sean isn't sure if links are the most important signal or not, but he will say that it's a larger signal than Title tags, for instance.

What's happening with personalized search?

(Okay, I actually didn't hear the question, but this is the answer.)

Aaron says there's a lot of data they have access to because of the way people use the search engine. But in personalized search, one policy is that whatever is done will be told to the user. The user can go in and control what is being used for personalization. They want to give you the ability to say "I don't want you to use this".

And that's a wrap for SMX East! Thanks to Cindy Krum, Eric Lander and Kate Morris, who took time out of their whirlwind schedules to come on SEM Synergy and, of course, thanks to all the great speakers who didn't hold anything back when it came to sharing with hungry audiences. All that's left to post from the conference is the highly-attended Give It Up: White Hat Edition panel, which will be hitting the blog November 7.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/10/08 at 1:17 PM | Comments (4)
See more entries in Google, Live Search, Liveblog, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines, Yahoo, smxeast2008

October 9, 2008

Get SEO Into All the Right Places of the Development Life Cycle

People are beginning to trickle out as we're reaching the end of the sessions. Their brains are probably stuffed to the brim. What a marathon it's been! Let's get our sprint on for this penultimate leg.

Jessica Bowman, Founder, SEOinhouse.com, is both moderator and a speaker for this one.

What people think SEO is:

  • Little tips that need to be incorporated into the project
  • Code tweaks
  • Something that only programmers need to worry about

These are the reasons SEOs aren't usually brought in early enough in the life of a project. The biggest misconception is that IT thinks that one conversation with SEO means your project is search engine friendly.

Great SEO programs are integrated, much like usability, findability and design efforts. SEO becomes part of the corporate DNA that causes you to build a great product. It's well integrated with IT:

  • Prioritization discussions
  • Release planning
  • Existing workflows
  • Change management systems
  • Highly involved in project documentation

Typical Development Life Cycle with SEO

Project inception > requirement gathering > designing > front end development > back end development > QA testing > live on site

SEO is usually brought in during the end front-end development when it really should be involved since project inception. It needs to be considered at the beginning and end of project inception: at the beginning and end of requirement gathering, at the beginning and end of designing, at the end of front-end development, at the beginning of testing and at the beginning of the live on site stage.

It may seem like it would be more expensive to do it this way, but it's actually more expensive not to bring SEO in from the beginning because otherwise it requires more work to get up to speed and change things that have already been done in a search engine unfriendly way.

What It's Like with Full SEO Integration

Project inception:

  • The business sponsors talk about the idea.
  • The business sponsors reach out to SEO to get their take on SEO opportunities.
  • The SEO team does research for SEO requirements. They brainstorm for potential opportunities. They look at competitor sites for their SEO strategies. They identify what people are typing into search engines related to this subject area and they identify requirements to make the new section maximize opportunities.

Scope document:

  • SEO contributes to the scope document.
  • Include SEO success factors in the document.
  • Report the potential SEO traffic lift and the potential SEO revenue gain.

Once the project is approved and scheduled, requirements gathering starts.

Requirement gathering - meetings:

  • Everyone gives their requirements.
  • SEO sits as a key stakeholder in all sessions.
  • SEO listens for content areas that can be leveraged for SEO and functionality being requested that may not be search engine friendly.
  • SEO contributes by explaining requirements for search engine friendliness, how to take ideas further with SEO and any potential functionality being requested that may not be search friendly, how to make it search friendly and what to review in more detail during analysis.

This is where most SEO programs go wrong. Most SEOs only worry about SEO requirements, but the real money is bringing the ideas further and examining extra functionality.

Analysis and design - wireframes and design comps:

User experience and SEO meet on wireframes before they are presented to the project team.
Have a discussion when the project is about 80 percent complete.

Front-end development:

  • SEO QAs HTML code for search friendliness. It's quick, easy and cheap to make search friendly HTML code tweaks here.

Back-end development:

  • SEO is involved as needed.
  • At this point it becomes very expensive to make changes.
  • Development pro-actively reaches out to SEO for input and clarification.

Quality assurance testing:

  • SEO QAs for SEO requirements and search engine friendliness.
  • SEO enters bugs into the same system as IT.
  • Some bugs need to be fixed pre-release and it can take months to a year to clean up a mess in the SERPs.

Project deliverables that need SEO input:

  1. Scope document, project charter document
  2. Product release document
  3. Project plan
  4. Wireframes and notations
  5. Visual design mockups
  6. Page specifications
  7. Use cases, user stories
  8. Technical specifications that are not all related functionality

Let's Get Realistic

Most SEO teams don't have this kind of time. They are leveraging other people to pull it off.

Create a champion for each team in the development life cycle:

  • User experience design
  • Visual designers
  • Copywriters/editors
  • Programmers (front-end and back-end)
  • QA testers

Train the team on SEO:

  • SEO won't be in every meeting or conversation.
  • Engineers view SEO requirements as bells and whistles until they have the knowledge.
  • When trained, development can help you execute SEO in every project.

Tips for training:

  • Continuing education
  • Train on the aspects of SEO each role needs to know
  • Don't just list the SEO requirements - show examples
  • Be cautious about using your own site as an example
  • Reinforce the top three things you need to be changed

Get SEO into the project plan template:

  • Basic SEO tasks are consistent with each project
  • SEO reviews for additional tasks needed project by project

Incorporate SEO into existing guidelines and standards:

  • All development projects abide by company standards and guidelines
  • Get SEO best practices and standards into existing documentation (UED guidelines, visual design style guides, programming standards)

Create SEO knowledge centers:

  • SEO portal gets answers at your finger tips , online
  • Open office hours - the same time each week when team members can get answers
  • Continuing SEO training to keep SEO requirements at the top of mind

This isn't happening everywhere. Bringing these things to your company will put you ahead of the competition.

Matthew Brown, Director of Search Strategy, New York Times Co., is up next.

What you're expected to bring to the table:

  • Basic on-page SEO tactics
  • Fundamental keyword marketing strategy

What you should bring to the table - audience development:

  • Near psychic ability to interpret competitive markets or opportunities
  • Good grasp of server side technology and how scripting plays a role
  • Ability to conduct SEO testing on specific tactics or new strategies
  • At least basic knowledge of the domaining world
  • Social media and other flavors of marketing

Can it all be so simple? It needs to be distilled for others to understand.

When SEO is involved:

  • Pure play SEO is a major business driver
  • New site sections
  • SEO traffic predictions are essential
  • Specifications and documentations are typical of re-launches and layout and navigation changes
  • Design and development phase
  • Content creation of any sort

You're probably not going to get a site jump 85 percent growth in search traffic, but if there are basic changes and crawl barriers to eliminate, addressing those should result in double-digit growth.

Bob Tripathi, Search Marketing Strategist, Discover Financial Services, has learned that you should make the project managers the warriors to fight your case by giving them the numbers and getting them in the know. Executive buy-in is also key to getting in at the right level of the development cycle.

Q&A

Who are your best internal advocates and champions?

Bob says it's the project managers or your extended team working for you day in and out. Matthew says that if you're a resource for others, they'll start spreading the word that the SEO team is where to go for help and answers. Jessica says that UEDs are amazing advocates for the user experience but you need to get them to believe that they have two users to design for: humans and search engines. She also thinks the product or project manager is a good representative, as well as the person in charge of documentations.

Are there any tools or programs you use to stay organized throughout the life cycle of a project?

Bob uses Excel and his project management team uses Microsoft Project. Jessica uses a spreadsheet for personal use but when she's at meetings she brings whatever the team uses. Matthew suggests Basecamp because it's easy to share with others on the team.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/ 9/08 at 11:37 AM | Comments (3)
See more entries in Liveblog, SEO Tips & Tricks, Search Engine Optimization, smxeast2008

October 8, 2008

Advanced Keyword Research Tactics

Welcome to the final day of SMX East. These sessions may be last, but they're certainly not least important. I haven't grabbed coffee yet but think this one will rock, so I'll do my best to turn my brain on.

Gordon Hotchkiss, President and CEO, Enquiro, is moderating and says he's glad the audience came this early, early morning after Search Bash. He says that the audience knows the basics of keyword research, but during this session the speakers will let us know the next steps to take.

Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance.com, says that keyword research is important because search engines are looking for clues to what Web pages are about. Keyword research is a never ending cycle. There's a graphic with brainstorming and discovery, keyword evaluation and keyword expansion all pointing to each other in a circular way. Making your Web site better will help increase traffic.

Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources

Keyword lists from within the company:

  • Review company Web site and print collateral
  • Press releases
  • Often too much insider jargon
  • May or may not be customer's lingo

Site search box:

  • Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are actually using and looking for
  • Gives insight into the number of words searchers are using
  • Can follow visitor's path and see if site converts
  • Useful source for long tail keywords
  • Make sure you collect site search data

Intel from offline conversions:

  • Phone and in-store conversions are an often-overlooked resource.

Use keyword research tools to expand your options and refine your selections. Some tools include:

  • Google Keyword Tool
  • WordTracker
  • Trellian Keyword Discovery
  • Google Insights
  • Google Trends
  • Hitwise
  • GoodKeywords.com
  • adCenter Labs Tools
  • Microsoft adCenter Add In for Excel
  • Nichebot
  • ComScore
  • SpyFu
  • PPCProbe
  • SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool

The Long Tail Concept and Finding New Opportunities

Long tail identification techniques:

  • Keyword concatenation
  • Permutations
  • Alternate spellings and common misspellings
  • Brand and model numbers
  • Modifiers (geo terms and adjectives)
  • Regional language
  • Searcher behavior (navigational, informational, transactional)

Sources:

  • Log files
  • Site search
  • Thesaurus
  • Tools

Speaking to Audience Segments

Her technique is to divide and conquer:

  • Different visitors have different goals.
  • Targeting pages to speak to each audience segment will be more persuasive.
  • Identify visitors, segment them and target pages to meet those customers' needs.
  • Ways to segment include by searcher behavior and by the stage in the buying process.

If you match your keywords with your segments, you'll bring your conversions to another level.

Evaluating Keyword Performance

  • Track keyword performance mercilessly.
  • Use PPC as a test bed for conversions.
  • Purge low performers.
  • Play up successes in SEO.
  • Analytics is key to evaluating performance.

Ariel Bardin, Product Management Directory, Google, works on making AdWords a better product. He will be showing us some of the tools available to mine the database of intentions by playing with them on the screen.

The first tool is Google Analytics. He's going to focus on the map overlay, which shows where traffic is coming to the site from, and the content overview section. He's going through the page to see different data that's available. He says that playing with this data will help you make sure you're maximizing your ROI.

With the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, he recommends plugging your URL in for suggested keywords. He also recommends entering text in the text area to help with categorization if it seems inaccurate. He says that they recently started showing the actual numbers for search volume and trends.

Google Insights lets you see the Web search volume for a keyword and how it breaks down among locations. You can see rising searches, including break out searches which have seen a rapid spike. This way you might be able to catch which keywords are on the rise before your competition has.

One new feature lets you look at keywords and placements together. This helps you manage keywords and placements in the same ad group to contextually target the placements you choose. You can choose placements that reach your target audience and also add keywords to contextually target your placements.

Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear, is going to talk about buzz mining and the intersection of keyword research and social media.

Social Keyword Suggestion Methods

Part of the overall marketing mix is social engagement and they try to have search influence that. If you find out what people are talking about in certain channels, then you'll be able to speak to them about what you know they're interested in. Social sites are congregation points for hundreds of millions. Hot topics define each community and influencers moderate social search. You can gain huge insights into your product.

It's about finding authoritative content and scraping it for contextual insight, then extrapolating with lateral stemming. In social communities you can see the tag cloud clearly and find out what people are talking about. You can sometimes even measure individually or on average. Advise keyword research by what people are talking about.

An example to think about as a jumping off point:

  • A large candy and baking supply ecommerce site creating a blog feed.
  • There is power to SEO and recurrent content.
  • The blog will help to truly serve and engage customer base.
  • Hiring writers, installing WordPress, planning promotion and avatars, etc., will be needed.
  • It's a big investment of time and cash so there's insight needed regarding content with viral productivity.

StumbleUpon can give you tremendous insight. To get to the tag cloud, type gibberish in the search box. There's the recently hot and the most popular of all time. You can see that people at SU like chocolate and that there are featured chocolate sites, which is the authority content chosen by SU users. By looking at the sites he found a good one and plugged the URL into the Google Keyword Research tool. Keyword clusters are generated and you can begin constructing the keyword list. Do this over and over again to continue building a list.

Buzz Pocket Mining

  • Socially advised keyword research
  • Great for content ideas, SEO and PPC
  • Yields easy to promote keywords and content
  • Take note of authority users in your travels
  • Create your own pages to scrape from walled gardens to gain insight regarding particular users, groups, etc.
  • Exploit each tool's unique stemming features

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/ 8/08 at 9:06 AM | Comments (3)
See more entries in Liveblog, SEM Events, SEO Tips & Tricks, Search Engine Optimization, smxeast2008

October 7, 2008

Legally Speaking: Recent Legal News About Search

Jeffrey K. Rohrs, our moderator, is a "recovering attorney" but he still likes to moderate these types of panels. I agree that legal issues can be very interesting and, of course, important.

Mark Rosenberg, Of Counsel, Sills Cummis & Gross P.C., says that there are a lot of legal issues being addressed at the moment. The press and politicians are starting to care about the legal ramifications of search marketing.

Privacy Concerns in Behavioral Marketing

There's a general squeamishness about private user data being collected and there was a Congress committee hearing recently. We'll probably see a consent or opt-out mechanism coming out of this.

Google and Antitrust Scrutiny

Google has 60 percent of the search market and may have as much as 80 percent of paid search, so they're a large presence. The words antitrust and monopoly are being used by the media in reference to Google. It's only when the market position is abused that antitrust regulations come into play. The current scrutiny will only increase if the Yahoo deal goes through. In anything it does, Google probably realizes that everything they do will be scrutinized.

Trademarks and Search Marketing

There hasn't been an alignment between Internet commerce and brick and mortar commerce. According to a growing number of courts, search marketers can use their competitors' trademarks if certain qualifications are met. Trademark law says that the use of a trademark that will likely cause confusion is prohibited. Usually it's a simple matter of asking yourself why you're using someone else's trademark.

Why and How Am I Using Someone Else's Trademark?

The following are permitted ways to use another's trademark:

  • To identify a product or serviced offered on a site
  • To let users know that a site offering a product or service
  • To make a comparison
  • To let a user know the site selling a generic version

It will likely be okay if there is no other readily identifiable way of identifying the trademarked product or service.

Courts don't care if Internet users cannot see the trademark. Most courts believe that Meta tags are the most important factor in search marketing and so consider use in a Meta tag to be infringement. You may think that a user that ends up clicking on the ad and getting to your landing page will be savvy enough to realize where they are. Initial user confusion, however, is not acceptable. There's an exception in Michigan, but I'm personally not going to worry about that. Sorry Michigan readers!

Improper Trademark Use

These are the ways you can't use another's trademark:

  • Overuse
  • Overly claiming
  • Causing confusion
  • Using the logo
  • Something that suggests affiliation or sponsorship

Fake Articles

He hasn't seen any cases on this issue but his guess is that courts will find such action to be confusion.

Jonathan Hochman, Founder and President, Hochman Consultants, will share with us a cautionary tale. The names have been changed to protect the innocent! So Violet runs a home security business. She installs alarms throughout the U.S. Nemesis is her competition. Benedict is who Violet hires to build her site and manage a PPC campaign. They start small and nobody bothers with a contract.

Then, Benedict realizes that Violet is making lots of money. He starts looking for a better deal. Benedict meets Violet's competitor, Nemesis, and they start to work together. One day Benedict locks Violet out of her AdBlurbs PPC account. Violet goes to Bobble, the search engine, and asks for help. Bobble says, sorry, but we're not here to dictate ownership. Then Benedict clones Violet's AdBlurbs account, providing multiple copies to Nemesis. Violet sues Benedict and Nemesis. Violet got a preliminary injunction granting custody of the AdBlurbs account and removal of the copies. Then, Bobble asks Violet to pay her balance due for AdBlurbs. Violet shrieks that Bobble must pay high damages for denying access to her account.

The judge had never heard of PPC advertising, but she figured it out within ten minutes. Ancient legal concepts like property and agency can be applied to online assets. Common sense prevailed and it's decided that the person who pays the search engine and who pays the manager probably owns the account.

Evidence Cited

As an expert witness for this case, Jonathan cited the following evidence:

  • Domain registration info of landing pages
  • AdBlurbs change history. Transactions are logged and date-time stamped.
  • PPC account peculiarities, such as misspelled keywords and account structure, are like fingerprints.

SEM Assets

PPC accounts are valuable business assets that may include trade secrets:

  • Keyword performance history
  • Ad version test results
  • Quality score

Replacing these assets can be expensive.

Four Important Questions

  1. Do you have a contract with your consultants/clients that specifies who owns what? Is your relationship work for hire?
  2. Have you read the search engines' Terms and Conditions?
  3. Who has access to your SEM accounts? Can you revoke access? Can you get locked out?
  4. If you leave your agency, can you take your accounts with you? Are they portable?

Protect Your Property

  • Google: Create your own account and allow the manager to link via My Client Center.
  • Yahoo: Create an account and add a revocable login in for the manager. Don't use a sub-account.
  • Microsoft: Create own account. Give your login to the manager and hope they are honest. Don't use a sub-account.
  • Ask: Create own account and a login for the manager.

Roy Shkedi, Founder & CEO, AlmondNet, will be giving us an operational perspective of using behavioral targeting and where it fits in the law.

Consumer Behavior

Behavioral targeting is the delivery of ads to a person, wherever they go, based on their observed online behavior. Post-search behaviorally targeted ads are delivered based on purchase-intent data. Use searched trademarks to behaviorally deliver your ad to your prospect on the sites he or she spends 95 percent of their online time on.

BT Legal Challenges

Data ownership:

  • Who should be rewarded for the valuable data?
  • Who owns the data?

Data is owned by whoever the consumer gave the data knowingly and willingly:

  • Visited sites
  • ISPs

Are data owners allowed to share data with others? The sharing of PII (Personal Identifiable Information) requires data owners to task for consumers' permission (opt-in)

Privacy is the biggest challenge faced the behavioral targeting industry. BT requires data scale. An opt-in solution historically does not generate a very large scale. Data scale requires an opt-out solution. What determines when opt-out is enough and when opt-in is required? As a rule of thumb, if you have PII you need to ask for opt-in.

Who monitors the implementation of privacy safeguards? So far, the industry does through the NAI (Network Advertising Initiative). But congress is watching. He believes self regulation of the industry would be better and a behavioral targeting initiative is seeing some adoption.

Deborah Wilcox, Partner, Baker Hostetler, LLP, will be looking at two cases that have caught her eye.

To the Top of Google

Punchclock.com owned a federal trademark registration for "punch clock". It was for time clock and computer payroll software. Punch-clock.com was Canadian but sales were in the U.S. as well. The U.S. company sent a cease and desist in 2001. In 2007, they filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court. The defendant punch-clock.com ranked higher on Google. Alexa traffic rank was much lower for the plaintiff than for punchclock.com.

The Canadian defendant did not defend the litigation and just ignored the lawsuit. The judge found trademark infringement, cybersquatting and unfair competition. The judge transferred punch-clock.com to the plaintiff and awarded $100,000 in cybersquatting statutory damages, plus $30,000 in attorneys' fees and costs.

The judge also awarded over $1 million in corrective advertising damages. They figured that it would take $136 per day to purchase keywords from Google for seven years for the following keywords:

  • Punch clock
  • Punch clock software
  • Punchclock
  • Punch clocks
  • Punch time clock

The $1 million was reached because the judge multiplied the number you get when you multiply $136 per day for seven years by three since it was considered a willful violation. Today a search for any of the terms doesn't show punchclock.com because the company actually isn't bidding on the terms.

Acknowledgement Page

TrafficSchool.com and eDriver were both referring drivers to traffic schools. eDriver was using the domain DMV.org and designed the page to look like an official government page. At the end of the page was a small disclaimer that says it's not owned, operated or affiliated with a government agency.

DMV.org saw 70 to 80 percent of its traffic coming from top search engine placement. The consumer confusion led to the finding of false advertising.

The court found that the plaintiff also had "unclean hands" because it had also registered DMV domains. So, no money damages went to the plaintiff, but the court ordered a mandatory acknowledgement page for the defendant. Now, before anyone can get to the site there's a page that states that the site is a private site not affiliated with a government site. They also had to redesign the site. DMV.org dropped in the Google rankings.

Takeaways

Courts are still grappling with search engine marketing and how to remedy infringement. Businesses need a careful legal review of:

  • Domain names
  • Content
  • Consumer confusion (this is key)
  • International issues

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/ 7/08 at 4:43 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Liveblog, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, smxeast2008

Googleopoly

Finishing out the day on the Issues Track, let's take a look at Googleopoly! Our moderator is Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP, Marketing, ExactTarget, and he'll be the one asking the questions. Our speakers are: James Grimmelmann, Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School; Shelly Palmer, Managing Director, Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC; Kevin Ryan, CEO and Founder, Motivity Marketing; and Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikia Search.

What does it take to be considered a legal monopoly?

James says a monopoly is simply when you're the only one selling something. There's nothing illegal about having a monopoly. The thing is, you can't do unfair things to get one and once you have one, it's not legal to exploit it to discourage competition.

Are you hearing concerns from advertisers regarding the Google Yahoo deal?

Of course advertisers are concerned because they assume a partnership between Yahoo and Google is intentionally vague so as not to be understood. The world doesn't know what it doesn't know, and people generally don't know that having one source of information on the Internet is a bad thing.

Does Google's growth in the domestic market concern you?

Chris thinks we're going to see competitive responses. In China, Microsoft revealed a new suite of tools that they're going to have which show quite a bit of transparency. He doesn't think that Google's monopoly is bad, and he sees competition coming about.

Hitwise is reporting that Google has a dominance in the video space, which appears to be propped up by the search space. Is that concerning?

Shelly says there several things to think through. First, Google is an ecosystem and it's not likely to go anywhere. The chart shows that Google, if left unchecked, is pretty much unstoppable. But not only is Google a medium, it's a metric. That's a new place advertisers are finding themselves. Google is the metric of how to do other media that has become ingrained and will be hard to unseat. He's only concerned from the perspective of how advertisers will handle the circumstance after never having seen this kind of shift before.

Now Jeff pulls up the Wikipedia page for "Googleopoly" and it's a sad little page. (Go at it, marketers!)

Share your thoughts on Google growth and how it fits into your view as a competitor.

Jimmy says that search doesn't trend naturally toward monopoly. Like big brand spaces, there are reasons why some are going to be big and others are going to be small. He says if he can launch a search engine he's going to be super thrilled to get even 2 percent of the market. To launch in the advertising space is much harder.

Jeff shows a chart of one company's client's paid search spend for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Google is up at the 70 to 80 percent line, Yahoo is around 15 to 25 while Microsoft is hovering around 5 percent. So what does this mean for the monopoly issue?

James says that from a market share perspective, Google is crossing the point of being considered a monopoly. At around 75 percent, some could start seeing monopoly, but the real question is if they are doing anything to clobber competition.

Jeff asks the audience who is an advocate for the deal, no one raises their hand. Almost everyone raises their hand when he asks who is a skeptic.

Advocates

  • 11 members of Congress (CA)
  • Ayn Rand Center
  • Google
  • Overstock.com
  • Publicis Group
  • Randall Stross (Author, Planet Google
  • Yahoo

Skeptics

  • American Antitrust Institute
  • ...

Ugh, the slide is gone and I missed the whole skeptics list. You'll have to forgive me. :( I did notice that the list of skeptics was longer than the list of advocates.

Are you a skeptic or an advocate of the deal?

Kevin likes Google's culture and admires how they've added to the working environment. He doesn't see people being thrown under the bus. Part of him says that that's a great thing and maybe life would be better if we could all join collectives. The other part of him sees Android, Chrome, and many more things pointing to one dominant source of information, and he views that as a bad thing.

Shelly says that personally he could care less if the deal goes through or not. But, speaking as a representative of advertisers who need to buy advertising, it's not a good thing because the mash-up will take the advertiser's ability to target the distinct differences of the two audiences. As a buyer and a planner he can't be effective. But Yahoo wouldn't do the deal if they didn't think they need to do the deal. Advertising has always competed to the death, but that's not done in technology because there's no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Jimmy says that Yahoo made a huge mistake by not being bought by Microsoft. It looks like this deal is the alternative to the failed Microsoft deal. To Yahoo this is a like giving up on something that should be a core part of their functionality. But his concerns for monopoly factors are that if you're big enough to be a player you don't want to sign everything off to the biggest guy.

Chris says that the deal has been suspended indefinitely. He also heard news today that Yahoo's and AOL's talks about merging have heated up. He doesn't think the Google Yahoo deal will ever occur.

James says that it makes him sad that some large center of innovation has folded. While Yahoo lost the edge years ago, the recent effect is that someone else out there who was figuring out a good way to build tools for advertisers is now lost.

Shelly says that a combined Yahoo AOL would be a content behemoth, but they still can't translate that value into wealth. To the level that Microsoft could buy that combined entity is funny. He also thinks it's funny that the evil empire talk used to be reserved for Microsoft.

Kevin says that Google built everything organically while Yahoo tried to build through acquisition. He thinks we're comparing apples to Buicks (hah!) because the two follow totally different strategies.

Is Google using their market power in organic search to propel YouTube, Google M