This post is an entry for SEO Chicks’ contest SEO: The Next Generation, which challenges folks who’ve been in SEO less than a year to predict what the industry will look like in the year 2022. This post is not meant to be taken seriously, nor does it refer to current or planned future services offered by Bruce Clay, Inc.

January 2022:

It seems like only yesterday that augmented reality (AR) contact lenses were considered just a toy for video gamers, a weapon for Special Forces commandos or a tool for rescue workers. Now I catch myself wondering how I ever got along without them.

I’m reminded of the early ’00s, when cell phones seemed to go from novelty to necessity overnight. But no one suspected how quickly mobile AR would become so ubiquitous. By the fourth quarter of 2022, 60 million Americans will be wearing some sort of AR device, and the rate of adoption isn’t expected to level off for at least another year.

We’ve already seen massive upheaval in the search engine marketing industry (along with the usual yahoos screaming that SEO is dead) and the coming year promises even more change, as companies shift ad budgets toward augmented reality marketing, including tactics like psychosocial-based hypertargeting and In-Real-Life (IRL) remarketing.

With that in mind, here’s a look at some recent developments in the SEM industry, as well as a peek at where we’re headed in 2022.

User Attention: The New Trust Indicator

In the first decade of the 21st century, search engines used a site’s linking profile to gauge trust and authority. This led shady webmasters to buy and sell links in an effort to pay their way to the top of the SERPs, and eventually forced search engines to switch to social indicators as their primary metric of Web authority.

That switch, of course, led to the buying and selling of Likes, +1′s, Friends, Followers, etc. in the second decade of the 21st century.

Now it looks like the third decade will be less about artificial social signals like Facebook Likes and Google +1′s, and more about genuine, natural engagement between an object and a user. (And besides, how much do you like something when you “Like” it, anyway?)

AR devices track a wealth of data about what wearers see, say and do – and Google and other search engines are now using that data to measure what they’ve been after all along: user attention.

After all, aren’t links and Likes just crude proxies for user attention?

Better yet, search engine marketers now have access to data about user responses. Google Analytics just added a new section, “Expressions,” which has a slew of awesome new metrics. Not only can SEMs track the amount of time users spend looking at a page, but also see data about users’ reaction to content – including my favorite metric, the percentage of people who roll their eyes after viewing an ad.

Google’s Matt Cutts recently announced that Eye Roll Rate is “not expected to be a major ranking factor in organic search.”

Mobile Augmented Reality (AR) Devices

Forget about staring at that tiny screen on your smartphone, and toss out those bulky projection glasses. New functional contact lenses by Microsoft, Innovega and Sony are the latest in AR wear, seeing strong sales even after the holiday season. Expect Apple to instantly grab a 15 percent market share in early spring when they release their much-anticipated iPeer lenses:

More Privacy Issues with Facebook EEG measurements

Facebook is under fire for giving advertisers access to more biometric data from users. Now, in addition to heart rate and perspiration, marketers will gain access to real-time electroencephalograph (EEG) measurements in order to gauge the effectiveness of ads.

The company insists that user privacy is, as always, one of their greatest concerns, and that their intention is simply to provide users with the most relevant ads possible. CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded publicly to accusations of mind control: “No one is forced to join Facebook.”

Hypertargeted Marketing to Friends

Why not let users’ friends advertise to them? Since November, Facebook’s FAdPro service has let marketers automatically hypertarget ads for individuals based on their psychosocial profile. Draw up an ad, set your desired input fields, and FAdPro will do the rest. Here’s an example of what some people are doing:

In-Real-Life (IRL) Remarketing

In-Real-Life (IRL) Remarketing programs are popping up in malls all across the country. Software tracks and monitors shoppers, and decides what deals and specials to advertise to them. All this happens automatically, without any human having access to personal data.

I’ll use an ad called the “15/15 Special” to demonstrate how IRL retargeting works.

Ms. Gupta comes to the mall to do some shopping. Her first stop is a little trinket shop where she likes to browse but rarely makes a purchase. This time, however, a certain glass vase catches her eye. She knows just the perfect use for it. It’s even reasonably priced, compared to the rest of the shop’s items.

But she ultimately decides it’s still just a little too expensive, and goes off to do the rest of her shopping. The mall’s analytics program tracks where she goes and what she pays attention to, and decides that the 15/15 Special is appropriate for her.

On her way out, having completely forgotten about the vase, Ms. Gupta passes by a hypertargeted billboard that flashes a custom advertisement at her:

There’s that vase! With 15 percent off, there’s no reason not to buy it now. And even though 15 minutes is plenty of time to get to the Trinket Shoppe, she hurries anyway: the ad haunts her from every hypertargeted billboard she passes, the seconds visibly ticking away.

Sure, we’ve all had negative experiences with IRL remarketing. There’s something uncanny about ads that literally follow you around town. Some states are even allowing restraining orders against marketing campaigns.

But remarketing serves a useful function – without it, how would consumers remember what they want to buy?

Department of Justice Data Request

Under a new section of the Patriot Act, the US Attorney General’s office last month served Google, Facebook and Microsoft with warrants for access to their users’ search, traffic, biometric, GPS and financial data.

This demand from the U.S. government, which has civil libertarians up in arms, requests that Google, Facebook, Bing and other major search/social engines provide the Department of Justice with unrestricted, real-time “firehose” feeds of user data.

Privacy advocates warn that the government will be able to engage in warrantless spying on citizens, but the DOJ insists that the data is necessary in order to identify and stop potential acts of terrorism.

Onward into 2022!

There are some exciting developments on horizon for 2022, with some of the key advancements being:

• The number of AR device wearers climbs to 60 million in America.
• Artificial social signals such as Likes and +1′s becoming less influential on organic rankings, while actual user attention gains importance.
• Tactics that were once only feasible online, like hypertargeting and remarketing, become possible to implement in real life.

I can’t wait to see what new developments arrive during 2022; if the past is any indication, the only predictable thing about the SEM industry is its sheer unpredictability.

Google recently reminded webmasters that page Titles matter and are an important part of the search results displayed. Why did Google write another post about “better page titles in search results” when the majority of webmasters already know that relevant descriptive Title tags are an important component of a properly constructed Web page?

The short answer is that people do not always follow the basic principles they know are correct. Oftentimes this is a result of the fact that webmasters find themselves pulled in multiple directions. Thus, when developing a complex website, descriptive Title tags are frequently no longer the top priority. On many occasions a webmaster’s client is more interested in meeting specified deadlines and how a page renders in the browser. The inevitable result is that since clients do not care as much about taking the time to look at the source code to see if there is a descriptive Title, neither do many webmasters.

However, Google primarily uses the tag, if one exists, to display the hyperlinked headlines users’ see in the search engine results pages. Since that is the case, this is likely a reason Google elected to spend the time to remind webmasters of the value it places on page Titles.

But for some pages, a single title might not be the best one to show for all queries, and so we have algorithms that generate alternative titles to make it easier for our users to recognize relevant pages. […] Other times, alternative titles are displayed for pages that have no title or a non-descriptive title specified by the webmaster in the HTML. […] Another common issue we see is when a webmaster uses the same title on almost all of a website’s pages, sometimes exactly duplicating it and sometimes using only minor variations. Lastly, we also try to replace unnecessarily long or hard-to-read titles with more concise and descriptive alternatives.

Google provided further encouragement to use <title> tags by encouraging a visit to their updated help center that contains their page detailing best practices to use when constructing a <title> tag. As a follow up, Google proceeded to remind webmasters that if either a page’s title is not descriptive or does not exist then it will use an algorithm to display a title it deems most appropriate to users. A warning is also added to that Google is more likely to replace duplicated titles across WebPages, titles that contain only minor variations, and <title> tags that are needlessly lengthy.

The bottom line and takeaway is that even certain seemingly small and fundamental components such as page titles still matter. Therefore even though there is much more involved in SEO as the search landscape continuously evolves, it is important not to overlook the basics by placing an exorbitant amount of effort on the other and newer factors.

Our first newsletter of 2012 is packed with search marketing goodness, and we’re giving you a sneak peek into this month’s articles before it hits inboxes everywhere. If you love this edition, go ahead and subscribe to our SEO Newsletter; it’s a great way to ensure you’re up to date on the industry’s hot topics and provides a deeper glimpse into some of the trends and issues online business faces every month. So, without further adieux, here are the highlights of January’s SEO Newsletter.

16 SEM Predictions for 2012 by Bruce Clay

This month, our feature article kicks off with Bruce Clay giving 16 predictions for 2012. If you’ve been following our newsletter over the years, you know that about this time each year, Bruce offers his forecast into what lies ahead in the search marketing climate.

This year, he touches on:

• Budget predictions for search in 2012
• Emerging SEM disciplines
• Web marketing conferences
• Impact of Google+
• AdWords costs
• Local SEO
• Offshore labor for SEM
• Content publishing

Plus, check out the link in the article to his 2011 predictions to see how they panned out.

Understanding Search Plus Your World

Our Back to Basics article gives the nuts and bolts of “Search plus Your World,” Google’s new search results that rolled out just this month, plus some extra insight from senior SEO analyst at Bruce Clay, Inc. on if the new search function did, in fact, kill SEO.

In this article by yours truly, I cover:

• How Search+ works: How Google+ factors into the results, what else you can expect in the new search results, what kind of content is featured in the SERP and the various options for viewing results.
• What the implications of Search+ are: Why brands, the public and the government might be concerned about this new search function by Google.
• What personalized and non-personalized results mean: Understanding some of the ranking factors in the various results views.
• If Search+ killed SEO: We explore how SEO factors in a new Search+ world?

Google’s Freshness Score and Why it Exists

The ability for search engines like Google to determine the “freshness” of Web content is required to return the most relevant results. Enter Google’s freshness score. In this article by Brent Yorzinski of Bruce Clay Australia, he dives into the step-by-step fundamentals of Google’s freshness score, how it influences what we see in the search results, and why the freshness signal in Google’s algorithm leaves much to be discovered.

Since the flat site architecture concept appeared on the SEO horizon and gained some traction around 2010, many SEO consultants got it wrong. The flat site architecture concept is related to the click distance between pages in a site, and how relevancy is distributed according to internal links structure — yet has nothing to do with URLs.

The main misunderstanding was, and unfortunately still is, that you have to get rid of directories in URL structures. Although it is widely agreed that you may want to keep URLs short and locate keywords close to the root or left part of the URL, there are many reasons why you should keep a certain structure of folders or directories there. This is what I’m going to explain in this post.

After the flat site architecture concept was introduced, many SEO consultants freaked out and changed their structures from something like:

• myautoparts.com/engine-parts/cooling/audi-a6-quattro-engine-timing-belt-kit.html

To:

•  myautoparts.com/cooling-audi-a6-quattro-engine-timing-belt-kit.html

Or even worse:

• myautoparts.com/audi-a6-quattro-engine-timing-belt-kit.html

Another example:

• mycorporatesite.com/blog/women-accessories-design/top-fashion-trends-for-2012.html

To:

• mycorporatesite.com/top-fashion-trends-for-2012.html

A little warning: If, for any reason, you do decide to remove directories from content page URLs, never get rid of category pages. Following the previous examples, do not destroy URLs/pages like:

• myautoparts.com/engine-parts/cooling/

Or:

• mycorporatesite.com/blog/women-accessories-design/

… Because they represent a great space/opportunity for a better content strategy, keyword allocation and internal link building. This is SEO 101, but just in case.

1. Structured URLs Help Semantics

You already know that from a search engine perspective, a site is not a big bag of unordered words. Search engines try to make sense of text by analyzing how those texts are organized in main topic and subtopics. URLs are the ID of every page, so the more they reveal about how the content is structured, the better. An example of how relevant directories at URL structures can be is the breadcrumbs you see frequently on search engine results pages (SERPs):

It is true that the typical HTML breadcrumbs in a page can trigger them to appear, but I’ve seen many cases where the only reason for that was a clear, organized URL structure (showtimetickets.com/concerts/rock-pop/) with no HTML breadcrumbs at all.

Tip: Add specific semantic markup to breadcrumbs in combination with a coherent URL structure and your chances to get breadcrumbs in the SERPs skyrocket.

Example:

Take the URL: http://www.overstock.com/Clothing-Shoes/Womens-Shoes/692/cat.html. Have a look at the HTML code of page breadcrumbs to see the semantic markup:

You don’t want to miss that extra click-through rate, right?

2. Exhaustive Indexation Control

A common task of SEOs is checking how many of the pages in their sites are indexed by search engines. It should be simple: list of URLs in a site, list of URLs indexed at search engines and compare. Not so, especially at large sites. Trying to make an exhaustive inventory of indexed URLs to find out the non-indexed ones can be a real pain. Even worse, Google’s site: command is not going to show more than 1,000 URLs.

The no-brainer trick here is to use site: command for sections of the site URL delimited by directories. Once you get a number of indexed pages smaller than 1,000, it is not hard to list them all out of the SERPs by using the OutWit Hub Firefox plugin, for example.

Of course, it takes time to collect all URLs indexed by section, but this is one of the reasons they pay us SEOs, right?

The second step is comparing the indexed URLs with the ones available at the site. Your XML Sitemap should work like a charm and list absolutely all URLs; unfortunately, this doesn’t happen frequently. Use some of those tools that simulate a bot crawling your site like Screaming Frog Spider Tool or Xenu Link Sleuth. Both are able to crawl and list all URLs below a certain directory, but Screaming Frog does that by default. If using Xenu, it’s something you have to configure before a crawl job.

In any case, you can probably see how handy structured URLs can be for the finest indexing control.

3. Better SEO Traffic Analysis

Measuring SEO performance is a remarkable chunk of time in any project. It was always important to me, but after the Google Panda algorithm update rocked our world, it became essential to analyze organic traffic by sections of the site.

Content drilldown reports are nothing without the proper URL structure.

Reports based on pages are way useful and easier to manage when we can filter groups of URLs to break down by sections and, again, having directories at URLs makes regular expressions easy as pie; this is a real advantage. Otherwise, you would end up having the mother of all regex, and the uncertainty of leaving part of them out of the bucket to analyze.

If your URLs have not been carefully crafted, traffic analysis is going to be the worst of your nightmares (believe me, I’ve been through that) unless you make perfect use of virtual pageviews. The CMS of your site has extra fields in the database to handle readable names, and the code logic to populate those virtual pageviews; unlikely to happen and an expensive solution.

For example, the URL:

• myautoparts.com/audi-a6-quattro-engine-belt-kit.html (no directories here)
• VPv _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/engine-parts/cooling/audi-a6-quattro-engine-belt-kit.html'] (Directories inserted by code logic at page tracking level with category names coming from database to cover the lack or    real categories at URL level)

An E-Commerce Scenario

It is quite common at e-commerce sites to have URLs reflecting directory categories and subcategories of products, for example: /engine-parts/cooling/ — but when it comes down to product level, they are all allocated under something like /products/audi-a6-quattro-engine-belt-kit.html — completely out of their natural allocation under corresponding categorized URLs.

I usually dislike this solution, but it is handy to solve duplicate content issues where one product belongs to several categories at the same time. If you must do this, use something better to describe what you sell other than just “products”  – it could be /auto-parts/. And at least use one directory for all products. Do not place them directly under root domain.

One of the advantages is you can easily guess at-a-glance how much traffic product pages get. I always include a chart in SEO e-commerce dashboards that shows:

• Total visits from organic traffic
• Visits that view product pages
• Visits that added products to shopping cart
• Visits that completed checkout process

This gives me a very nice perspective of how my SEO performs while converting visitors into clients.

In sum, don’t fool yourself with misconceptions. Before making any decision in your SEO, think about the pros and cons. We have reviewed three primary reasons why you should do a clever use of directories in URLs for a better SEO. Those reasons are:

• They reinforce the search engines semantic understanding of your content.
• Indexation control is easier to manage while having directories.
• Full profit of analysis capabilities thus better insights from your data.

Convinced yet?

Hate to say I told you so… scratch that. This time it feels good.

Last month we let you in on the new direction of SEM Synergy: short-form video with an experimental format (Q&As, site reviews, couch-side kick backs). Today we’re happy to present to you the first video episode of the SEM Synergy Web series.

Topic du jour: Google instituting a ranking penalty on its Chrome browser after paid links were uncovered.

Find the transcript for the video below, and check out the Bruce Clay, Inc. YouTube channel for a look at our still evolving platform for the video series. If you like it, come back tomorrow as we dissect the process of producing and publishing video content. As we learn, we plan to share our experiences with trying to create a sticky and interesting show. To that end, I do my best Larry King impression as we dive into a hot and timely issue.

Transcript: Is Google’s Penalty for Chrome’ Paid Links Fair?

Virginia: Good evening. Paid links. Google’s public enemy number one. An SEO tactic warranting serious penalties. So what happens when the search giant gets caught red handed? Were the self-imposed consequences fair? What will the long term fallout be from this reversal of fortunes? Joining me in the SEM Synergy studio today are search industry veteran Bruce Clay, senior SEO analyst Maryann Robbins and software development engineer Michael Terry.

Bruce, what has been the most troubling aspect of this event coming from a law abiding, white hat SEO perspective.

Bruce: I think the biggest problem that everybody faces is that people who do not have quality content, that have not developed a website appropriate to ranking can go pay money and rank. You have a tendency to get at the top. I think from Google’s vantage point, it’s the same as a white hat’s vantage point, if they don’t do something about it pretty soon, whoever has the most money to spend on links is going to own the ranking.

Virginia: So is that what really bothered you about this situation?

Bruce: Yes and no. We’ve had people come to us who have seen penalties as a result of it. That doesn’t bother me that there’s a penalty. I think I’m bothered more that they’re so difficult to detect and so many people are still getting away with it.

Virginia: Maryann, you’ve worked with clients who have suffered from paid links penalties before?

Maryann: Yeah, I had a major client that was affected by paid links by another division in their company. And they were not responsible for the purchased links; it was another division that they had no control over. And they were, as a site, penalized for that link and it was huge massive result in lack of rankings for that division that was not responsible for it. And it took a lot of work to get rid of that penalty, to get back into Google’s good graces. And the other division had to remove their links for them to regain the rankings for that major keyword that they were not buying links for.

So, with the situation with Google in this case, they have at least penalized themselves a little bit for having purchased links. But they didn’t give themselves, maybe, as much of a death blow as some other sites have gotten when they have been caught. At least in that situation they are sending a signal that if you are caught purchasing links you will be penalized. But they didn’t go as far as they do when they catch other sites purchasing links.

Bruce: And even their prior history with themselves – Google Japan was buying links – mostly because in Japanese it’s difficult to optimize on page. And Matt Cutts actually at one point cut them off from a PageRank 8 to a PageRank 4 sitewide. Well, when that happened clearly their rankings were impacted. Somehow that didn’t seem to happen to Google.com. It was very, very localized to a particular keyword to a particular area, where it didn’t impact overall, globally, Google’s rankings. It was spotty.

Virginia: The penalty didn’t seem to be in parallel with previous penalties?

Bruce: Neither with their own penalty of a Google property or the way they have penalized clients.

Virginia: Michael, it seems to reveal vulnerabilities in the PageRank system.

Michael: This is making it a little higher profile, the concept that if a bunch of links coming from low quality sites point to another site, it can be penalized. And in the circles that I run in, this might not have been as well known, and there are a lot of hackers and security testers, people who would like to expose flaws in the system. And what’s to stop people from creating giant networks of cheap, low-quality sites that just scrape from other sites, and then pointing links to people that you want to hurt, either for profit or for fun. A lot of people like to do these things just for fun.

I really think that there wouldn’t be a great way for Google to detect these things and I feel like there should be a feature. Bruce has brought this up before and I think it’d be pretty easy to put something in Webmaster Tools or what have you that allows you to disavow links you don’t want pointing to your site and hurting you.

Virginia: You’ve talked to people at Google about a nofollow from the other side.

Bruce: Yes, and in fact I think it was at SMX Advanced, Matt Cutts on the podium, while he was up on a panel, actually did a show of hands of people in the audience who would like to be able to disavow inbound links. The problem, clearly, is that it is possible for a competitor to go buy links that come to my site and for Google to not know who bought them, and therefore they could penalize me for that paid link. It’s not fair for me to get a penalty when I have no way of turning them off and I have to demonstrate to Google that I’ve fixed the problem and stopped being evil when I was never evil in the first place. So, having an effective “I can nofollow it from the receiving end of the link and have it not hurt me,” something like that would be a very, very good thing. It has been discussed and Matt has indicated it is somewhere on the list.

Virginia: Sounds like for today, we can rest assured that Google is penalizing itself and has sent the message that paid links won’t be tolerated. What it means in the future for further features and technologies remains to be seen. Thank you, guys, for spending time with us today.

Do you have any thoughts on Google’s paid links policy? Was it an appropriate deflation or is there just no real justice in a world where Google is judge, jury and executioner? Leave a comment or video response. And look to the Bruce Clay blog for recommendations for recovering from a paid links penalty. This has been SEM Synergy with Bruce Clay, Inc. See you next time.

Audience: SEOs and Internet marketers
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It’s the end of the year, and you can count on one thing. Or maybe ten things. Or possibly five things. You know, the list of top X – trends, memes, lessons of the past year or year to come.

Yes, content of this variety is entertaining link bait, luring us to laugh, scratch our heads and pass it along. But more importantly, these posts give us pause to evaluate our successes of the past and opportunities for the future, knowledge that ensures next year will be even better than the last.

It’s with that perspective that we bring you the top of the top lists. Just like mom was always teaching you new things, here is the mother of all end-of-the-year posts of interest to online marketers.

Facebook Memes of 2011

Organic Facebook marketing has thus far been tricky, as the standard for post quality is high on a network people consider very personal. Some of the more blatant appeals for attention often fall flat as they’re perceived as too hard-sell. However, 2011 brought on a meme that makes self-promotion on the platform more acceptable. In the spirit of ask and you shall receive, “lms,” short for “like my status,” got people comfortable with requests for like love. Other Facebook memes of the year included planking and DJ Skrillex, and trendy topics on the network included Osama Bin Laden’s death, Charlie Sheen’s wild winning wizardry, and the making of a new princess.

Twitter’s Top Tweets Per Second

Staying on the pulse of trending topics is a time-tested strategy for putting out content that’s already proven to interest an audience. On Twitter, trends by location and across the globe feature prominently on a user’s home page. Hashtags allow users to classify their comments and are a staple of the vernacular. Both of these characteristics make Twitter an easy service in which to identify and jump on the bandwagon of trending topics. As Twitter looked back on its year, it saw the highest spike of tweets per second in its history, as 9,000 TPS were reporting Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement. Another top TPS-getter was Steve Jobs’ resignation.

YouTube Rewind of 2011

If your organization produces video or is thinking of doing some digital dabbling in the coming year, get familiar with the most-watched videos and channels on YouTube. I don’t know that I’d want to admit to taking advice from top video views winner Rebecca Black, but marketers can be proud that an ad made the top 10 list. Volkswagen’s “The Force” commercial has all the makings of viral video gold. A top channel of the year wasExpertVillage, all informative videos answering everyday questions. By sharing your expertise you can build a reputation as helpful and gain leadership standing in online communities.

Funniest SEO Threads of 2011

If you ever hang out in forums, you’ve likely stumbled across some unintentional humor. On Search Engine Roundtable, we find a 2011 roundup of funny forum threads. It’s nice to end the year on a light note, so enjoy the story of a poor kid who can’t get his dad to stop spamming his site. Dads do the darndest things.

Top 10 Tech Trends for 2012

Finally, we can close 2011 by looking ahead to the bright, exciting promise of 2012. Bruce’s annual SEO industry predictions will be coming to the SEO Newsletter in the new year, and with his track record, I’m very interested to peer through his crystal ball. For the broader tech industry, we turn to Mashable monarch Pete Cashmore, whose constant contact with digital culture makes him just the man to call out next year’s top tech trends. Of special note to marketers and online business are click-free social sharing, or social gestures, and HTML5. However, all the trends in the list point to a more personal and life-integrated tech experience, with seamless sharing and device interaction.

Bring it on, 2012.

Postscript: All next week we’ll be doing our own end-of-year evaluation of our liveblogging coverage from the eight search and social media marketing conferences the Bruce Clay team attended in 2011. Tuesday through Thursday here on the blog you’ll find the distilled wisdom experts shared across the country on topics including SEO, paid search, local search, social media marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, branding, apps, conversion.

Audience: In-house marketers
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes 

Recently, I asked how you boosted your in-house Web marketing this year. It was a follow up question to the post I wrote in January 2011 on tactics to apply for the coming year. This week, we’ll cover the second part of the original January post, “3 Ways to Boost Your In House Marketing in 2011: Part 2.” First, we’ll do a recap of some of the tips I offered for 2011 in the areas of local, social and conversion optimization. Then, I’ll provide a compilation of some of the resources we’ve offered over the year to help you in those areas.

Focus on Local

Local search engine optimization was a hot topic this year. In January, some of the tips given were focused on businesses geotargeting their sites for the cities they serve, claiming and optimizing a Google Places page, and taking a more local approach to PPC. Since then, we’ve learned tons of tactics on how to make local SEO work for us. Check out some of these articles, blog posts and interviews we’ve done over 2011 for a recap on local search tactics:

• Local Search Rankings (September 2011): In this very informative session at PubCon Vegas 2011, Michael Dorausch gives insights into some of the local search tactics that have been successful for his local chiropractic office online.
• SEM Synergy at SMX Advanced (September 2011): In this episode of the SEM Synergy webcast, Virginia Nussey interviews Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing and speaker at SMX on local SEO tactics.
• Local Internet Marketing: Drive Traffic Online and Offline (August 2011): Explore why local search will only continue to grow and get tips on how to successfully launch a local business online for the first time in this SEO Newsletter article.
• 10 Image Optimization Tips for Local SEO (July 2011): This informative how-to post by guest author Chris “Silver” Smith of KeyRelevance teaches us tips for an often-ignored area of local SEO: images.
• Google Places Optimization Best Practices (July 2011): An in-depth SEO Newsletter article by Virginia Nussey on why Google Places is important for local search and how to optimize it.
• Quick Tips: Optimizing a Site for Local Search (May 2011): This post gives readers some high-level tactics they should implement when optimizing their sites for local search.
• Local SEO on a Budget: Power Marketing Without a Website (March 2011): In this SEO Newsletter article, we explore all the resources available to local businesses for Web marketing, even if they don’t have a site.
• Checking out Location Check-in Services: Why They’re Good for Business (February 2011): This post looks into why and how business should use check-in services like Foursquare to market to customers.

Dive into Social

Social media marketing continues to grow and evolve, as does our understanding of how to measure it. In the January post, I talked about how social was becoming more of an “authority” signal to the search engines than ever before (and this was pre-Google+ even). I highlighted Facebook and LinkedIn as two social networks worth spending time with for business marketing. Let’s dive into some of the information we’ve delivered over the year to help you with social media marketing.

• An Introduction to the Brand New Google+ Business Page (December 2011): This SEO Newsletter article from Sara Borghi of Bruce Clay Australia is packed full of information on optimization techniques for a Google+ business page.
• SEO + Social Media 4eva (September 2011): In this SEM Synergy webcast, Marty Weintraub of aimClear shares  practical tips for advertising on Facebook with interviewer Virginia Nussey.
• A World of Insights: Google Analytics and Facebook Tabs (September 2011): This how-to piece from Bruce Clay Australia dives into adding Google Analytics to Facebook tabs to further explore how people are interacting with your Facebook page.
• 5 Steps to Migrating Your Personal Facebook Profile to a Business Page (August 2011): When is the right time to turn a personal profile into a business endeavor? This post explores that, and gives step-by-step instruction on how to do so.
• A Guide to the Google +1 Button (July 2011): As we learn more about the Google +1 button, we discover new ways to use it in our Web marketing. This how-to article from Bruce Clay Australia gives tons of tips on Google +1.
• Spread the Word with Social Buttons (May 2011): Social share buttons help you spread that valuable content across the Web. Learn more about these helpful tools.
• The Value of a Facebook Fan: What’s it Worth? (May 2011): This post explores how fans translate to ROI for a business, what value different types of fans bring, and why a fan is just one important metric in a sea of many.
• Everything You Need to Know about Social Media ROI – a Chat with aimClear (May 2011): In this interview with aimClear staff Merry Morud and Lauren Litwinka, tons of advice on social media tools, metrics and implementation is revealed.
• Sorry, but Social Media is not Like an Old Friend (January 2011): Building a social media community takes engagement, personality and commitment. Here’s some tips on how to tackle all three.
• Picking Twitter Tools for Your Business (January 2011): Understand the different things Twitter tools can do, and pick the right tools for the job.

Begin Conversion Rate Optimization

You’ve got traffic and engagement, now what? The discipline of conversion rate optimization allows you to test and discover what users want to increase conversions. In the January 2011 post on ways to boost in-house marketing, I outlined some of the things you might want to include in a CRO program, including learning about personas, eye-tracking research, analytics and landing page optimization.

But, there’s so much more.

Conversion rate optimization can be woven into any step and any discipline in Internet marketing, from designing a site and the content written on it, to paid ads to social media and beyond. Let’s have a look at some of the conversion optimization topics we explored this year:

• How to Write a Call to Action (December 2011): Great calls to action take into account both best practices of copywriting and conversion optimization. This SEO Newsletter article explores the concepts behind calls to action and how to approach it.
• Emo CRO: Get the Conversion, Go for the Gut (October 2011): Emotional appeal is often an important part of conversion optimization. Here, Virginia Nussey shares tips on how to use emotion, images and storytelling to boost conversions.
• A Simple Process to Send Highly Converting Traffic to Your Website with YouTube (September 2011): YouTube is a huge opportunity to market and garner targeted traffic. Learn more about this in a post from Bruce Clay Australia.
• 3 User Feedback Tools to Help You Convert (August 2011): Scott Fowles of Bruce Clay Australia shares tips on the top three tools for purchase that offer great insights for conversion research.
• Conversion Tools of the Master Craftsman (August 2011): CRO gurus Tim Ash and Bryan Eisenberg talk tools in this liveblog post of an SES San Francisco 2011 presentation.
• How to Setup a Basic Conversion Testing Strategy (January 2011): Research, creative development, testing and reporting – these are all tactics in a healthy CRO strategy. Learn more about these areas and how to tackle them.

Audience: DIY marketers at small and medium-sized B2C businesses
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

I’ve got good news and bad news.

I’m four chocolates into my Advent calendar. Yum!

I’ve got four fewer days to shop for holiday presents. Yikes!

For businesses that means 20 days left to draw in customers and beef up the 2011 bottom line. If you want to attract sales over the next few week, think about these fascinating facts from an infographic on the Future of Online Holiday Shopping (based on 2010 trends):

• Shoppers completed 83 percent more online transactions.
• Retailers enjoyed a 60 percent increase in total online sales revenue.
• Around 5.6 percent of Black Friday traffic came from mobile phones in 2010 – a 26.7 percent year-over-year-increase.

Now, just as Santa’s beginning to make his list so he can check it twice, take a moment to consider this list for last minute holiday-focused marketing.

Here are 5 measures you can take to squeeze the most out of your site and maximize sales before the lights go out on the holiday shopping season.

1. Sweeten the Deal: Offers that Pop and Email Subject Lines that Beg to Be Opened

Cyber Monday may be over, but shoppers are still ready to be convinced by a discount that can’t be passed up.

One way to reach consumers that I’ve noticed is working particularly well on me personally is a great offer via email. iContact put together a holiday marketing guide presentation including some tips for a sparkling email subject:

1. Useful
The offer of 20% off is valuable to the email’s recipient.

2. Ultra-Specific
The subject line is clear: the recipient can save on fall clothing for one more day.

3. Unique
This promotion stands out because instead of offering a discount at the end of the season like most retailers, Piperlime offers it at the beginning. Plus, the reference to “smokin’ slippers” is unusual and catchy.

4. Urgent
“Last day!” pushes the recipient to read the full email sooner rather than later

Check out 20 subject lines that stand out for ideas that might work for your business.

2. Don’t Forget Mobile!

One major way shopping behavior has changed over the last decade is the ubiquity of mobile devices. For small and mid-sized local businesses that means two things.

1. Make sure your local search presence is locked down and optimized.
2. And make sure your site is mobile friendly. A dedicated mobile browsing experience is preferred by people looking for answers on the small screen.

Your customers are on their mobiles comparing prices while shopping in a store. They’re searching for the closest brick-and-mortar store that caries a particular brand or product. And they’re pulling up websites on their mobiles.

As a result you should allow your business to be in the running during price comparison tasks. You must list your brands and products on your site and in your local business listings. And you’ve got to have a mobile-friendly site.

3. Appeal to Last Last Minute Shoppers

Turns out that the fastest growing holiday shopper subset is the power-procrastinator. According to a Search Engine Land report, “Consumers have come to expect stronger promotions late in the season, and even later ‘final shipping’ dates from their favorite retailers. Both these features encourage this strong finish to the season. Retailers who don’t offer these things will undoubtedly lose these late season sales to competitors who do.” You can take advantage of last-minute shoppers desperation without feeling dirty if you give them a great deal. Makes for a win-win winter wonderland.

4. Suggest the Perfect Gift for Fill-in-the-Blank

Kids’ imaginations go into overdrive this time of year – putting out cookies for the big man in the red suit and even some carrots for his hooved help. But cut back on the imagination when it comes to drawing in customers. Paint a clear picture of the kinds of people who would benefit from receiving your product or service as a gift. Position your product or service as a gift for the ___ (insert hard-gifters here, like the man who has everything or dear, sweet Mom).

I like this list of gifts to give the guys in your life because it spells out the kind of guy who would like these particular products. Do the same for your products, making clear why it’s the ideal gift for all the different consumer communities that apply.

Consider who your audience personas are or who your target communities are. Create a page or content dedicated to gift ideas for each that will serve your business year round.

5. Dress Up Your Site

You don’t have to makeover your whole site for the holidays, like a lot of big brands can afford to do. It’s not necessary to add a bunch of holiday related keywords to your whole site to rank this time of year.

But maybe you could add the website equivalent of a red bow or dash of glitter. By that I mean, consider including a graphic on the top of the site featuring a deal on shipping for the holidays, or a box on the home page that says something about gift ideas for different people who commonly are found on a holiday shopping list.

Any of those tactics sound doable? Pick a couple to help you boost your business’s online presence as you cruise down the final stretch of the shopping season. Just don’t fret. There’s no need to sneak in tomorrow’s calendar chocolate today. Unless you want to. Goodness knows I won’t judge.

Interested in understanding and optimizing the new Google+ business pages? How about a recap of Google’s big-news algorithm changes of 2011 and how to tackle them? Or what about a tutorial on writing calls to action, or best practices for mobile website design? All this and more is in this month’s SEO Newsletter, published today. This post dives into the highlights of December’s issue.

Feature: SEO Strategy and 2011 Google Algorithm Updates

Google admittedly has hundreds of algorithm updates per year, and 2011 saw some dramatic impacts as a result of some of the more notable algorithm changes, including the Panda Update and the new Freshness Update, announced just last month. In this piece by Virginia Nussey, she explains key algorithm changes for 2011 and possible tactics on how to respond to them.

The Panda Update was all about quality Web content, and Virginia explains the iterations of Panda throughout 2011 with some tactics to address it, including:

• Becoming an online resource centered on education and research.
• Adhering to Google’s quality standards.
• Using linking and site architecture to theme content.

The newest update, dubbed “Freshness Update,” affected approximately 35 percent of searches and targets those queries that Google believes requires more updated information. This includes:

• Recent events or hot topics.
• Recurring events.
• Topics that require frequently updated information.

For more on strategies that can apply to the Freshness Update, check out Virginia’s tips in December’s feature article.

Back to Basics: How to Write a Call to Action

Great calls to action incorporate savvy copywriting and an understanding of conversion optimization backed by marketing goals, data through tools and wisdom about the audience. If all of that seems overwhelming, don’t let it scare you off from beginning to experiment with them. In this Back to Basics article by me, Jessica Lee, I’ll cover some foundational concepts about calls to action, including:

• Defining a call to action and how it relates to the discipline of conversion optimization.
• How to identify and understand your audience with the tools available to marketers.
• How to write calls to action that speak to a clearly defined audience.
• How to begin testing and experimenting with calls to action for a higher conversion rate

Check out the article for more in-depth information on how to write a good call to action.

International — BCI Australia: Intro to Google+ Business Pages

Google+ business pages were unveiled in November, and many were excited to see this logincal next-step development to the search engine’s social community. Sara Borghi of Bruce Clay Australia delves into what you need to know about this topic, and how to create and optimize Google+ business pages.

In her article, Sara gives a step-by-step guide on how to create the page, plus gives tips on how to customize it, including:

• Taglines: What words best describe your page?
• Photos and images
• Optimized and targeted “about company” content
• Special inks to other company channels
• Adding to Google+ Direct Connect

Other tips on adding immediate value to your Google+ business page include:

• Sharing photos.
• Promoting profile on your website.
• Monitoring analytics once Google+ is integrated.
• Mention users of Google+ in posts.
• Follow the right people and pages.
• Link the page with AdWords account.

Sara also delves into Google+ versus Facebook versus Twitter, in addition to the business pages’ potential impact on SEO. Check out all these great tips and more in a very thorough analysis of the Google+ business page.

International — BCI India: Mobile Website Design Optimization Rules of Thumb

In this article, Siddharth Lal of Bruce Clay India delves into growing need for websites to be mobile friendly – especially since Google recently announced mobile-optimized pages will perform better in AdWords, driving more mobile traffic at a lower cost.

In his article, he shares a mobile-ready website development checklist that includes:

• Screen size.
• Use of flash.
• Simplifying navigation.
• Heavy image and JavaScript management.
• Rehauling content.
• Mobile design.
• Proper redirection for mobile.
• Googlebot-Mobile redirection.
• Mobile site maps.
• URL structure.
• Mobile application versus dedicated mobile site.

In the article, each of the bullet points above have further information for tackling a mobile-ready site, and he also offers several resources that can help you on your way. A very informative piece overall on getting your feet wet with mobile-friendly websites.

Additional News You May Have Missed

And in case you missed Bruce Clay Europe’s big news of the month, managing director Ale Agostini announced a search marketing book he and Bruce Clay co-authored for the European business community: “Trovare clienti con Google,” or in English, “Finding Customers with Google.”

Packed with up-to-date paid search and SEO methodologies and tactics, the book is currently in Italian but may soon be available in other European languages. Readers can expect to learn how to increase visibility in the search results and generate more qualified traffic to a site, in addition to turning Web marketing into a powerful advertising and marketing strategy, and much more.

Check out all the news for the month plus our hot topic on Google’s new menu bar redesign and the implications that, in December’s SEO Newsletter, Volume 97. Our SEO Newsletter resumes in January 2012 – if you’re not already on our mailing list, sign up now!

Audience: In-house marketers
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes 

Back in January of this year, I wrote a post on 3 ways to boost in-house Internet marketing in 2011. Since then, many of us have poured blood, sweat and tears into our Web marketing, and have a lot to show for it. Still, ensuring in-house Web marketing keeps its momentum is no easy task. Since we’re rounding the end of the year, I thought we’d revisit that two-part post I wrote in January 2011, recap some of the information we offered (you can do a little mental checklist of what you’ve done so far this year), and add some additional resources to reference from our blog posts over the year, in case you still need some fresh ideas.

In the first of the two-part post, I outlined these numbered items as things that can help boost in-house Internet marketing in 2011:

1. Actually focus on Internet marketing. At the beginning of the year, I said there were still many companies that had not yet made Web marketing a priority. Nearly a year later, reports show some businesses were planning to make strides in that area, but there’s still much work to do – for both in-housers and agencies. In this post, I’ll share some newer data about what planned spend and resources on Web marketing looked like for 2011 since my post was published.
2. Get Buy-In. Nothing kills budget and resources for Web marketing faster than decision makers who don’t understand the value of it. This ongoing process has many in-housers pulling out hair in an effort to keep colleagues and executives educated on the importance. In the January post, I shared some initial ideas on how to tackle this. In this post, we offer more tips that just might help your in-house Web marketing strategy.
3. Start training. Training staff in Web marketing, committing to continuing education and partnering with expert consultants are just some of the ways you can make the in-house Web marketing plan solid and fresh. Training keeps you up-to-date on evolving search engine strategies. In the January post, I shared training courses, blogs, websites and events that can help you and your staff do just that. In this post, we’ll recap tactics and insight that emerged from 2011 conferences.

Actually Focus on Internet Marketing

The first tip of the January 2011 post was to well, actually get focused on Internet marketing as part of the mar-comm plan. In the post, I pointed out that many small businesses (and big businesses alike) still had not dedicated resources to this, and it still rings true today – almost one year later.

The truth is, there’s still much work to do in Web marketing across the board, which means plenty of work for in-house online marketers as well as online marketing agencies and consultants.

A SEMPO report released in April 2011 reinforced that notion with its “state of search marketing” data, showing the search engine marketing sector was a growing one, despite other industries that experienced a downturn in the slowed economy. As for the 2011 forecast, the report estimated growth at 16 percent in 2011. We’ll await next year’s report to see how that prediction fared.

And along with the growing sector was a growing interest in businesses to invest in Web marketing this year. The SEMPO report revealed more than half of the companies surveyed planned to increase spend on SEO in 2011. However, it showed that approximately half also reported they spend 10 percent or less of their SEO budget with service providers.

So, if you’re an in-houser with similar stats, the next question is, how do you best utilize that budget and also fill in the gaps? This brings me to the second tip I gave for boosting Web marketing in 2011: receiving buy-in.

Get Buy-In

Making in-house Web marketing successful is an age-old question that seems to never have a definitive answer, but there are certainly many strategies. If you’re still struggling with buy-in and implementation, we offered several blog posts on the topic of in-house tactics here over the past year; check ‘em out:

• (February 2011) Implementing In-House SEO: What You Need to Succeed
• (March 2011) How SEO Agencies Boost ROI for in-House Marketers 
• (March 2011) 6 Important Considerations When Switching SEO Agencies 
• (April 2011) You’re Not The Boss of Me: Why SEO Confuses and Threatens Some Execs
• (May 16) Large-Scale E-Commerce SEO: An Interview with REI 

Start Training

Last but certainly not least is training and education. This can be the single-most important component of a successful Web marketing plan. With the search engines changing rapidly year over year (we saw dramatic changes in 2011 in so many areas of online marketing), keeping up with trends and tactics is a must for any in-house marketer.

In the January post, I gave several training courses, websites and blogs that were great resources for staying up-to-date on all-things Web marketing (including our very own SEO training classroom). And while the tried and true value of that original list still holds true, we did see a lot of new ideas emerge from the 2011 conferences I mentioned in the January post.

We had a packed year of search marketing events and luckily, Bruce Clay, Inc. was there to cover the sessions you may have missed. Here’s a recap of our 2011 conference liveblog coverage, so you can get a sense of the hot topics and trends of the year, and gain insight on how you can continue to tackle them in-house:

• PubCon coverage (November 2011)
• Wappow! Search and Social coverage (September 2011)
• SMX East coverage (September 2011)
• SES San Francisco coverage (August 2011)
• SMX Advanced coverage (June 2011)
• SES New York coverage (March 2011)
• SMX West coverage (March 2011)
• DOMAINfest coverage (February 2011)

What were your big wins in-house this year, and did any of the tips in this post play a part in that? Please weigh in with a comment below, and stay tuned for Part 2 of this post next week!