Friday, July 29th, 2011
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Chances are you’re in one of three categories regarding Google’s latest social network, Google+. You’re either:
- Banging at the gates of Google+ to get a prized invite,
- Already in Google+ but struggling to understand it, or
- Still clueless about the whole G+ ordeal. Aren’t Facebook and Twitter enough? Now Google throws this into the social media mix?
Right now, getting into the walls of Google+ is kind of like getting through an airport: it’s all hurry-up-and-wait time. You raced to get an invite, but now you’re sitting and twiddling your thumbs, waiting for users to arrive.
Most people still aren’t on Google+, and those that managed to get an invite still have no idea what to do with the thing. Circles? Sparks? Hangouts? The most common stream on G+ is “I have no idea what I’m doing on this thing.”
The good news for savvy businesses? You get to gain a jump on the competition by being an early adopter of G+. As fledgling Plus users slowly figure out their latest social media acquisition, you’ll one of the first up-and-running Plus users in the field.
Step One: Choose Your Profile Picture Wisely
Even more than Facebook or Twitter, finding a killer profile pic is essential on Google+. Your picture acts as your virtual calling card; it’s the first and the only thing G+ users see when they come across your name.
Google+ requires square-shaped avatars, so choose accordingly. Select a high-resolution image that will immediately grab G+ users’ attentions– but make sure it’s relevant to your business.
Step Two: Sort Out Your Circles
You know how you have one lump of people who “follow” or “like” you on Twitter and Facebook? That one lump is comprised of various interested parties: potential clients, colleagues in your field, or the three immediate family members you convinced to join your page when it was still in its infancy. Whatever you share goes out to the entire lump of people.
On G+, everything’s sorted out in separate circles, and you choose what you share amongst those circles. It’s kind of like having various virtual mailing lists for all of the people in your life. You can send an article you’ve written solely out to your colleagues or share a business special amongst your past clients. Create a VIP Club for your frequent customers or post pictures of your newborn that only your family can see.
Step Three: Invite People to Follow You
Google+ allows you a relatively lengthy introduction space, so use it wisely. Write an engaging introduction that invites people to follow you. G+ introductions also allow links, so be sure to link to your website and your various social media profiles. Also, make sure your page’s searchability is set as “Visible in Search” so people can find you on Google.
Step Four: Utilize Sparks
Sparks are essentially a live Google feed for something you’re interested in. For example, a “Movies” spark would keep you easily updated on movie reviews, upcoming films, or casting rumors. Utilize this for your business by easily following industry trends. For example, if you’re a content writing business like Copypress, you’d follow things like “SEO Copywriting,” “Social Media Marketing,” “Blogging,” etc. Then with the click of a “Share” button, you can easily share applicable links with one or more of your circles.
Since G+ is still brand new, you’re not competing with mega-businesses like you would on Twitter or Facebook. Jump in now and build your audience before the G+ waters get too crowded for you to stand out!
Image Source: Topgold via Flickr
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Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimization | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Landing pages are heavily used to attract customers to where you want them on your website: the sales payment page being the ultimate objective for most ebusinesses. Like everything else in life, there are right ways to go about creating a landing page and a million wrong ways. Creating a good landing page is vital because this is what many first time users are going to see of your web presence, and you cannot afford for it to be the last they see of you!
Here is our simple, 7 –step program to creating a landing page which works:
Step One: Identify the USP
Every business and product will have a USP – Unique Selling Point. Your USP may be you are the cheapest company in your zip code for your product or service, provide the tastiest food, the coldest beer, the fastest, the cleanest, the loudest, the closest, the “whatever” you do which sets you apart from the rest of the competition.
A USP will usually be combined in your primary headline, but it may be relegated to a secondary headline where you already have a short and sweet headline. A good example is this one from Amazon:
“Earth’s Biggest Bookstore”
Step Two: Briefly Outline Benefits
Your USP headline attracts attention, but now you have to satisfy the customer’s initial curiosity. You should have ONE paragraph, using BULLET POINTS to answer this question from your customer, “Why do I care this product or service?”
You are outlining benefits here – what will this product do for your customer. For example:
- We are the cheapest which means you save money – GUARANTEED!
- You get the best quality – GUARANTEED!
- We deliver next day nationwide which means you don’t have to wait – GUARANTEED!
Go back and edit this paragraph continuously until you have just bare bones, so taking line one:
- We’re the cheapest so you save money – GUARANTEED!
Step Three: Use a Picture
This is known as the “Hero Shot”; think the cowboy in the Marlboro ads or the hunk in an aftershave campaign or the smiling couples for Viagra commercials. They show the product in use, giving context which either forms an empathetic connection with the customer or appeals to their aspirations.
Typically, the hero shot will be a photo, but it can also be diagram showing where the product fits into an existing problem which is typically experienced by your target market readership, or it may be a chart showing where you rank with the competition (top!) or a simple graphic selling a number, e.g.” 50% OFF!”
Step Four: Set the Context of Use
Context of use is important, and this is closely related to step 3 and the Hero Shot. Context of use provides the user with “real life” application; for instance, if you are selling a beverage, show it being drunk – if its beer, show it being drunk in a bar; if it’s champagne, show it being drunk on a yacht on a blue sea.
Obviously photographic imagery and video are excellent for doing this, but you can also invoke context of use by displaying a client list or by using testimonials.
Step Five: Get the Customer’s Information
Ask for the user’s email and/or contact information – this is extremely important for all landing pages, but it is especially vital for landing pages selling to other businesses (B2B). In this instance, a landing page’s primary objective will probably be lead generation and unless you gain the contact information, you fail!
The best way to get contact information is to ask for it, typically providing some freebie or promotional pricing for a limited period. Use a privacy statement too – this enhances your professionalism.
Step Six: Provide a 2nd Chance Safety Net
Not every visitor will turn into a converted lead or sale and you will experience a substantial number of users who are interested in you but not ready to buy now. Provide them with a second chance to do business with you, known as a safety net, and this can take many different forms:
- Add a button for the user to subscribe to your Facebook profile, Twitter feed or other social media presence you maintain;
- Offer to email a reminder;
- Offer a freebie download such as a whitepaper; or
- Bookmark the page.
Step Seven: The Call to Action
This is the ultimate purpose of the landing page – the final act you want the user to perform and at some point you have to ask them to do it. The call to action may be to buy your product, it may be to complete a survey, to navigate through to a sales page, to pick up a phone and call your sales team, to add themselves to your email bulletin…whatever it is that you want the user to do before they leave the landing page.
Examples include:
“Meet the World’s Best Browser” and immediately below is the download box for the Firefox browser
“Things Mac” placed immediately above a download box and a “Purchase: Buy things Mac now” box
“NCover helps .NET teams all around the world deploy applications with fewer bugs” and placed below is a download box with an offer in it, “Download NCover – 21-Day Free Trial
Posted in Site Reference, Website Conversion | 19 Comments »
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Good news travels fast; bad news travels faster. Recent spurt in cases of rampant, and sometimes baseless, negative online publicity has affected brand image of many companies. In 2005, a single post by a blogger criticizing Dell’s support services pulled down the company’s reputation by a couple of notches. The corporate world is waking up to the necessity of playing an active role in online reputation management.
Online Reputation Management involves not only analyzing all that is being written about your brand online but also repairing any damage found and constructing a positive image. A successful ORM campaign should involve public relations and search engine marketing. You have to ensure that good things are being said about you on various websites and these websites get top search engine rankings.
How to monitor/track your online reputation
Regular monitoring of online media will help you keep tabs on your public perception. It will also alert you in cases of copyright violations, competitor smear campaigns, domain squatting, etc.
There are many online tools you can use to keep one step ahead and take immediate action. Google Alerts is the most popular monitoring tools that will track and inform you if your brand name comes up in news, feeds, videos, blogs and web results. There are blog-specific search tools like Technorati and Feedster. Twitter Search and Social Mention can also help you catch the buzz about you in social networking sites.
How to repair your online reputation
With the growth of user-generated media like blogs, Tweets and Yelps, the chances of creating negative publicity have also increased. The first step towards tackling negative comments is to create your real presence in popular consumer-generated websites. Responding to your critics on these sites will build trust around your brand. In cases of inaccurate projections, you can request the comment authors to pull down their posts by giving substantial evidence.
Press releases can be posted on popular press release submission sites. Expert articles pertaining to your industry can be submitted to reputed sites with back-link to your website.
You can also buy domains with your brand name (for example if your company is called blush, blush.com, blush.net or blushsucks.com are some domain names you can book) to prevent people with malicious intent misusing them against you.
Not to keep picking on Dell (I’m using a Dell computer right now), but here is a negative site that could have been snagged to prevent bad publicity: http://www.ihatedell.net/.
Sometimes, repair can be a long-drawn exhaustive process. Companies often use search engine optimization techniques to push down negative websites and increase the visibility of websites with positive content.
How to improve your online reputation
An important step in improving online reputation is creation of positive sentiments through various content platforms. This means you have to fully use your online assets. Start by optimizing your corporate website so that it gets top search engine rankings.
Leverage your relationship with your partners to include information about your company on their websites. Set up and maintain blogs that highlight your products, customer testimonials, services and company-related news. This idea involves grabbing as many of the search engine results as possible on the first page of search results. Using high ranking partners will help tremendously.
A proactive online reputation management initiative goes a long way in helping people and companies. It’s one of the best tools to gather useful feedback from customers. In cases of complaints, it gives companies a chance to take early action and prevents build up of a sudden crisis. Above all, what makes ORM a critical business strategy is the role it can play to influence a rapidly growing force called the online media.
Posted in Reputation Management, SEO Strategies, Site Reference | 4 Comments »
Monday, April 19th, 2010
Infographics, or information graphics, have been around for as long as man has been able to draw. The earliest cave paintings are a form of infographic as they pictorially depict the life and activities of our very distant ancestors. Thousands of years later, we still readily understand them. The infographic underwent significant development in the 20th Century and an infographic, rather than written or spoken language, has been used in our first communication effort with extraterrestrials!
Infographics are widely used in our society, in mathematics, mapmaking, signage, news media, education, travel, medicine, politics and even religion. No aspect of our lives is untouched by the application of infographics.
So why are they so popular?
Infographics convey knowledge and advice, even mandatory orders, in a form which the human brain readily recognizes and associates with the information behind the representation. This is known as visualization.
Before man learned to read and write, he drew. Modern written language is itself derived from the development of drawings which became standardized into symbols and in turn, into recognizable letters and numerals we now recognize. Hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt are a good example of an intermediate written language which revolves around symbology and formed the basis for the development of vowels and consonants.
Graphical representation renders itself far more accessible and understandable by people; whether they understand the language of the designer or not. The reason why people accept so much information via infographics compared to text is explained by how our brains have formed over time. During man’s early development, we were not equipped with language, never mind the ability to read and write. Man primarily looked at the world around him, his eyes being the primary sense with smell, sound, touch and taste running distant also rans. Visuals are how our brains are “hard wired” to “read” as our default operating system – what we can visualize is our primary mechanism for taking in information as a consequence. A baby must learn to speak, must be taught to read and write but, they have no issue in drawing as soon as they can hold a crayon.
As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words, which is why, possibly, the most important infographic is currently aboard the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972 and is currently journeying through outer space – the first vessel to leave the solar system. It contains the Pioneer Plaque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque); a pictorial representation of humankind, our planet and solar system and where we are located. This is a powerful testament to the universal understanding provided by infographics which are not restricted by language barriers.
Visual language is universal for those who can see; imagine your car journey without graphical road signs for instance. Graphical images can be very quickly assimilated by the human brain, and render a meaning which is clear without the need to read text. In part, modern infographics are so readily understandable because we have become educated by the basic grammar of visual language. We know, for instance, that a bar running through a left-pointing arrow means, “Don’t turn left” for instance. Possibly the most important development in road signs has been the stick figure drawings that represent people (originating from the Munich Olympics in 1972).
Newspapers have probably done more to lay the basis for our understanding and appreciation of infographics than any other medium. In the 1970’s, British newspapers started to develop a series of charts and graphical representations to convey information in an understandable format to readers. This was rapidly picked up by USA Today when it launched in 1982, and spread to other mainstream media publications such as Time magazine.
Infographics have not been without their critics. Newspaper critics and traditionalists deride the “chart junk” which populates papers and the media. They argue that infographics demean the information being conveyed. At the same time, the idea that infographics are artistic has also received derisory comments from the art world. The idea that an infographic is where “art meets science”, is not widely accepted in the journalistic or art world, but nevertheless, the reading public clearly appreciates the graphical, and sometimes comical, representation of information.
What of the future? A notable exception to the long list of infographic applications is in television. Television has only recently embraced the notion of the infographic for transmission of frequently complex and large volumes of data in a visual fashion. Perhaps this is because television itself is a visual medium relaying information in real-time, i.e. without the need for a fast data burst to our brains. This does lead to the question – how much more powerful could a televised infographic be in relaying information to people? The televisual infographic is under development at this time, but how successful they will be we shall have to discover for ourselves as they start being broadcast on our screens.”
Sources
Posted in Out on a Limb, SEO Strategies, Site Reference | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Link building is something a lot of people struggle to do effectively. The problem isn’t always knowing how to build links, it’s sticking to a couple of tactics and ensuring they yield results before moving onto the next one. In this post I am going to discuss to one tactic you can implement straight away using Google Alerts & RSS Feeds.
1. Building Ideas
One of the biggest mistakes people make is treating link building as a numbers game. They build a bunch of links and never think about them again. You should treat every piece of content as a sales piece for the site you are promoting. The content should be topical and relevant to the industry you are in. It should be themed around popular subjects.. To get ideas for your content, build your own RSS Feeds as follows:
a. search.twitter.com
You can enter keywords in search.twitter.com and build a social feed for them. If you use RT “keyword”, it will tell you what people are retweeting. The feed is available at the top right hand corner.
b. Digg / Delicious / PopURLS
These 3 sites are not only great sources of information, but can be used to highlight popular content around your target keyword. All of them allow you to search on a particular keyword and sign up to that RSS feed. Again this will allow you to quickly scan through content and see what is being marked as popular.
2. Stalking Article Writers
Once you have decided on your content from step one, do some investigating on where this kind of content gets picked up. Go to Ezine Articles and find a similar article. Click into it and check right down the bottom for “Most Published EzineArticles in the <Selected Category>”. Select a couple of those article titles and punch into Google [intitle:”<Article Title>”]. This will build you a list of sites (link targets) that accept content you are going to write and also popular writers in your market. For each writer you deem the most popular (you guessed it), sign up to their RSS Feed on Ezine.
3. Tracking Your Links
You should now have produced a batch of content that is already been picked up my 3rd party sites in your market. What most people do wrong at this point is seed the content and then forget about it. This is where Google Alerts come in. Create an alert for every piece of content you seed out. Simply track the article title (in quotes). Within your Google Alerts, set these as “Feed” and pull them into a folder named for the keyword you are targeting. The default for these is “Email”
Now you have a bunch of great articles out in the wild being picked up by 3rd party sites. Each time an article is picked up, review the site and offer more unique content if it’s worth getting a better link from them.
This is just one easy tactic you can implement straight way using RSS Feeds + Google Alerts. There are literally dozens of like these.
Searchbrat.com offer custom link building services to increase your sites visibility and ROI. Check out the full range of SEO Services being offered.
Posted in Link Building, SEO Strategies, SEO Tools, Twitter | 5 Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Many internet users believe that the real time web isn’t available to them. If you don’t update on Twitter, post pictures on Facebook, network on LinedIn – people think that they aren’t able to learn and benefit from the real time web. This is not the case – and tons of startups and new websites have launched which require no login, membership, or passwords to access. Below, are examples of how to benefit from these services, right now:
Anyone can search the real time web. You can visit Twitter and instantly perform a search to see what people are saying about a specific page. To learn more about the types of searches that the real time web works best with, this search tips page offers several categories for which to search from. All in all, the best part about a real time search is that its instant. Plus, each day it changes, so a search today will offer different comments and thoughts than a search for the same keyword 3 weeks from now.
If you want to see the hottest trends, head over to What The Trend which will summarize each of the hot topics on the web right now. In a format that can be compared to WikiPedia – the site allows any user to provide feedback as to why a particular topic is trending right now. Every day, something new is a hot trend on the real time web, and anyway can track them at What The Trend or a variety of other sources.
When people share links on the real time web, it is often about topics that are hot right now. Through compiling all of the links shared on the real time web, you are able to see which lends are the most important for a given topic right now. When you perform a real time search at Sency- you will see a tab for today’s most popular links. This will show you the most popular links right now for the keyword you searched for. If you check back a few days later, for that same keyword, new links will probably show up. SO, you can take advantage of the real time web to instantly see what links people are talking about, today, for the subject matter that is of interest to you.
So, familiarize yourself with these tools today, and you will find them becoming useful in your day to day internet browsing.
Evan Britton – Founder, Sency
Image source: http://soshable.com
Posted in Search Engines, Social Media Optimization, Twitter | 6 Comments »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Pick a social media site, any social media site. Amy Vernon probably has a presence on it, and a prominent one. She’s a top 25 all-time Digg submitter, a “Super-Mixxer” on Mixx, a power tweeter on Twitter and a highly influential Stumbler on Stumbleupon. 
She also maintains several blogs, including TVTyrant.com, iMommyTalk.com, and blogs.4bauer.com. Somehow, she still finds time to write for a slew of others, like Burbia.com, and HotHardware.com. Not impressed yet? Consider that she’s also a full-time mom with two kids.
But there’s more to the Vernon story. In 2008, she became the highest ranked female Digg user ever and today stands at number 19 according to SocialBlade. Recently, I caught up with Amy so I could learn about her rise to social media “maven-hood.” We also chatted about the one topic that no discussion with a top 25 digger would be complete without: the precise direction of social media (skip to the last question if you can’t wait).
Since Digg supposedly caters to a mostly male demographic, many are surprised to learn that a female has broken into the top 25. Do you think the type of content that becomes popular on Digg these days is slowly changing to cut across more demographics than it has in the past, or do you think the kind of stories that become popular are pretty much the same as they were, say, three years ago?
I think the key word there is “supposedly.” Things that are popular on Digg tend toward stuff guys (particularly geek guys) like, I guess – computers, gadgets, science fiction, Megan Fox, boobies – but for the most part, it’s about quality content.
I’m also a huge sci-fi and tech nerd, so I have a lot in common with a lot of the folks on Digg.
But, yes, there are more and more women on Digg all the time. You now might find a story about parenting on the front page where you wouldn’t have even a year ago. Even sites like Divine Caroline, Limelife, Women’s Day and Elle have had a reasonable amount of success on Digg over the years because the content submitted was interesting on a universal level.
When I look at your body of work and then realize that you’re also a full-time mom, the first thing I wonder is, how in the world do you have time to juggle everything. About how many hours of work would you say you put in during the course of a day?
It’s hard to quantify. Most of the time I’m awake, I’m doing something that is related to or considered work. But I can take breaks whenever I need or want to.
Some people were happy to see Digg’s shout feature eradicated. Others felt helpless–like the rug had been pulled out from under them. What did you think about Digg’s decision to remove the shout feature? Did you endorse its sudden death?
There were definite problems with Digg’s shout system. But I think it was a mistake for a social media site to eliminate the most social feature it had. There’s no way for users to communicate with each other directly on Digg itself. By the time it was gone, I probably used it more to just say hi to friends than anything else.
When people were going away for a few days, or behind, they’d just send a shout to their friends to update them. Now, you have to go elsewhere, to sites that have nothing to do with Digg — Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, IM — to communicate with other users. If someone’s a brand-new user to Digg, it’s hard for them to find a way to communicate with older users.
What do you think of the new Digg advertising system that allows Diggers to vote ads up that they like? Are you ok with it?
I’m fine with that, really. Digg has to make money, right? So they make it from ads. A lot of Diggers I know have AdBlockPlus anyhow, and so don’t see them – and Digg kindly made sure ABP would work on those ads. I sometimes vote on the ads, even. I’ve both dugg and buried ads, in fact.
Do you think the Diggbar helps or hinders the user experience?
When it first came out, it was a fabulous addition. You could send out the digg link in a Tweet or post it to your Facebook page and it was accessible both to your friends and followers who were Diggers and to those who were not.
But when Digg changed it so that you only got the frame if you were signed in to Digg and to a Digg landing page if you were not, well, it became useless to many Diggers, including myself. Diggers are only a small percentage of people whom I interact with on Twitter and Facebook. I refuse to send out links that force readers to click yet another time to get to the actual content.
When Digg banned the top five power user Zaibatsu, he took a big chunk of Digg’s audience with him to Twitter. In measurable ways, this was a game-changer. Do you think it’s wise of Digg to ban major players like Zaibatsu and Supernova17, or do you think Digg is better off in the long run taking a more hands-off approach?
I think Z’s move to Twitter was compounded by Digg’s decision to remove shouts and move communication to Twitter and Facebook. Those two things definitely had a measurable effect. I can’t say whether it’s “wise” for Digg to ban major powerusers or not, because I wasn’t privy to that decision-making and don’t know the full story. What I’ve heard doesn’t make sense, certainly. I think the main problem is that some people are banned for the same things that other people have been given second chances for.
Before the “big ban” of late summer/early fall 2008 (there was one big banning in August and then several smaller follow-up group bannings in the months following), people were given second chances sometimes if they were found to have used scripts and promised they’d never, ever do it again. When the big Ban Hammer came down on a huge swath of Diggers, however, no such allowances were made. Was that fair? No. But life often isn’t.
I have seen Digg give other people second chances before. In fact, I was banned for about an hour one day because a post I submitted from a legitimate site linked to a site where an item could be purchased. It didn’t occur to me that there was a problem with submitting it (it was a purse where the handle was a knuckleduster). And I had no financial stake in the item, either. I just thought it was cool. Once Digg told me the problem and I promised to never submit that kind of post again, I was reinstated.
After that, if I had any question whatsoever, I either avoided submitting it, or e-mailed Digg support to ask if there was a problem with it, if I just reallllly wanted to submit it. A few times they suggested the post in question might not be proper material to submit; other times they told me they saw no problem with it.
Look – Digg can’t be too hands-off. They have a TOU and have to enforce it. It’s really just a matter of consistency and of being willing to work with those who violate the TOU to give second chances when appropriate.
You’re a founding partner of iMommyTalk.com, a vlogging site where you post videos. If this site had a mission statement, what would it be?
Well, our tagline on all our videos is “Where mommies talk and we listen.” The idea is to start conversations with our community, but in a more personal way than just a regular blog. They’re one-person vlogs where we discuss a topic and ask for our viewers to put in their two cents. We’d love for more users to post their own videos on the site, too, which they can do. We’re still sort of in a soft launch, though, as Donna Chaffins (the founder and CEO) and I have rather hectic lives. As most moms do.
Some people build niche sites with an exit strategy planned right from the onset. They know what large sites or companies would be interested in buying them. Others know exactly who they want to ask for venture capital when their site reaches a certain milestone. What would you like to do with iMommyTalk? Any epic goals?
Sure, we’d love to make money from the site. In fact, I think one of our videos made a whopping 15 cents! (Can you buy anything for 15 cents anymore?) But for now we’d really like to share our experiences – as two relatively “regular” moms, in two-parent families. Not rich, not poor. We’re not incredibly snarky or polished. We’re just like our audience. We just want to connect with them and hopefully help put things in perspective for people. Our vlogs have ranged from how to deal with mommy guilt to whether it’s appropriate to ever drink in front of your children.
Stumbleupon has made some drastic changes lately. Are you a fan of the new Stumbleupon?
Well, to me the most significant change is in sharing, and I am a big fan of that. When SU first made the change from its previous incarnation to what’s now being called “Old StumbleUpon,” I and many others cheered the newfound ability to share en masse – send a post with just a few clicks to all our followers. But that quickly became a nightmare. I know people who soon unfollowed everyone because they wanted to use SU as it was meant to be used – to stumble onto new, interesting sites. If you have 99 shares in your Stumble bar at all times, you’re never experiencing the true enjoyment of the site. Then it just becomes a chore.
That said, SU did need to make it so you could share items with more than one person at a time. I just posted a blog item about Lost. If I had a dozen or so followers whom I knew liked Lost, I might want to send it to them to make sure they saw it. And chances are, they’d want to see it. But that’s not how it was being used. Now, you have to click on everyone’s name to send it, so hopefully that’ll make people less like to share everything with everyone.
Sometimes I just quickly cycle through my shares because it becomes overwhelming and I can’t look at it all. I stopped using the “share all” on a regular basis long ago, using it only perhaps once a week or if I was going to be out of pocket and wanted to let everyone know I wouldn’t be around to see their stuff.
Have you caught NComment’s comic strip portrayal of Digg? What do you think of his analysis?
I can’t believe NComment finally finished Part II! I don’t mean it really as “finally,” because I can’t even fathom how much work all that detail took. I’ve looked it over two times, and will have to look another time for all the little bits, such as the “TechCrunch” candy bar by “Arrington’s,” written in the same script as Nestle’s (have to look REALLY close).
I haven’t met a single person yet, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, whatever, who didn’t think it was just spot on. It highlights all the problems with all the sites – and of course they all have problems. All the little things that make Digg goofy – all the memes, the inscrutability of the algorithm – are also what make it so addictive and lovable.
I can’t wait for part three, but I hope it doesn’t take eight more months.
However, if it does, I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
Where do you see social media in exactly five years–just kidding. I’m not going to ask you that; it’s a contrived question and unfair to throw a crystal ball at someone and ask them to read it. Let me ask you this instead: if you were building a social media site, what would you make its defining characteristic?
The main thing any social media site needs to insure is quality control. You can’t let the spam take over. I think Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit have such strong communities that were developed before spam started taking hold that it’s not as much of a problem on those sites. The community takes care of knocking those submissions down.
I think if a site could combine editorial controls with social voting, it could really take off. Original content, vetted and then voted on, with the most popular posts rising to the top. Hey, scratch that – I didn’t say anything. I think I need to go find a site developer.
You can follow Amy Vernon on Twitter at @AmyVernon and read her blog at amyvernon.net.
Posted in Out on a Limb, Social Media Optimization | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
SEO Predictions for 2010
Another year of search engine madness is about to come to a close. In 2009 we have seen the Google search engine display many variances and ranking fluctuations. So before we put on the swami cap and bring out Nostradamus SEO quatrains into the light, let’s recap some of the major Google changes and initiatives.
In 2009 The Google Search Engine:
Put more weight toward the keywords in the domain. In fact, keyword-rich domains could achieve top 10 rankings in less competitive phrases just on the weight of the domain name and a few onsite optimization tweaks.
We saw Google increase the visible space for the Adwords Sponsored PPC displays. The money maker for Google is encroaching more and more on the organic search results territory.
We saw name branded companies get extra weight in the organic results, not from normal SEO algorithm enhancements and features, but from manual Google manipulation.
Searchers’ IP addresses were instrumental in displaying Google Local results for major keyword terms in various 1 box or 4 box positions in the organic search results.
Customized Search and IP captured-related searches made search results for the unknown more focused on what you have visited in the past rather then the “true” organic listings.
The introduction of Caffeine by Google displayed more real time results from news, Twitter, Facebook and other sources and was displayed in various locations on the organic search results page.
There were many other factors that changed in 2009, but the ones above are the most prevalent (in our eyes) and affect the potential customer click through rate.
Now for the 2010 predictions:
With the introduction of the Caffeine Google Search Engine enhancements and the ability to display real time results, and more of the old “Universal Search” parameters of images, news, videos, et al. traffic from first page SEO results will decrease for organic results if you are not in the Top 3 for that respective search term.
Google will be displaying so much more data and manipulating the organic displays with their data enhancements that normal percentage click through traffic for front page results positions of 4-10 will dramatically decrease. Here’s what this should mean to the average reader and company: it’s time to increase your SEO budget now rather then be caught with your search engine traffic results in the gutter and scrambling to attempt to catch up.
Social media’s impact on search results will be misguided. Many will attempt and are attempting to divert budgets to create social media campaigns to attract visitors and catch the wave of potential search traffic. Organic search results in the future will display social media mentions in a live format. However, they will only be displayed for milliseconds as their display order is chronological. Link values from social media campaigns will have little impact on the organic ranking results.
Social media done correctly and for branding awareness and bringing like-minded people together is a great concept and can improve your marketability. But in terms of SEO rankings, the affects will be dismal at best. Your ROI will be your measuring tool to determine if social media is effective for you or not.
Google will continue its push to become a Broadcast Network for the Internet.
Many in the industry view Google as a Search Engine with products and services to display websites and enhance a webmaster’s efficiency. Unfortunately, that view is misguided. In 2005-ish this prediction was made, and every year Google positions itself away from a Search Engine environment and into a source to view data online. The broadcast network business model is like the major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC Fox etc.) that display shows to attract viewers. Commercial advertisers pay for that model.
Google will continue to promote, provide, and display data to attract viewers. They are targeting IP addresses to identify your location. They have brought the Google iPhone application to capture your mobile consumption. Google wants to know as much about you as it can so that it can tie advertisements directly to you. In terms of advertising dollars, knowing you can get your message directly to a “buyer in need” rather then a “channel surfer” will pay huge dividends in the end.
As Google continues to move forward and push the envelope of data distribution, Search Engine Optimization will become more target-focused. The ROI in SEO is up for grabs and will remain significant, as long as your budget, focus and SEO company can see the big picture and be able to adapt.
Posted in Google | 22 Comments »
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
It is no secret that Twitter is viewed as both marketing secret weapon and marketing bust. As a social networking tool, it has promise but what about Twitter as tool for increasing your business?
With the recent news announcements that Twitter is worth in excess of $1 billion amidst rumors of potential takeover and flotation deals, let’s take a look at why Twitter may not be worth the dime your company is looking to pay for increased web sales and exposure.
The internet and e-business is accepted as being a great way of doing business – costs are cut, geographical boundaries are overcome, new routes to market are uncovered and smaller companies are provided with fewer barriers to entry and get to compete with much larger companies on a level playing field.
BUT…there has to be a but!
The decisions you make when it comes to mounting marketing campaigns and establishing connections with customers and prospects, the established principals of offline, real-world marketing still apply.
So is using Twitter the most effective use of your company’s marketing dime?
TV Dominates the Internet in Ad Spend
Traditional, “old” media still represent better value for money when it comes to turning marketing dollars into solid sales numbers. This may seem out of sync with our perception of the internet – the internet dominates the news, it is cutting edge and at the forefront of developing new markets and ways of doing business but let’s take a hard look at the underlying numbers.
The average American adult spends almost 121 hours a month watching television but internet usage is dwarfed, coming in at only 30 hours a week. Given that the average adult is only going to spend a fraction of that 30 hours using Twitter, if at all, it is clear that spending your marketing budget on Twitter will be nowhere near as effective as investing in TV airtime.
Search Engines Dominate the Internet and Twitter is NOT a Search Engine
Search engines dominate how users find products and services and any other information on the worldwide web. Internet ad spend is concentrated upon search engine marketing and gaining rankings for their respective web sites in order to drive increased traffic which can be converted into sales.
Twitter is not a search engine – it is a real time communication tool with limited functionality.
Twitter has long been an outsider that has gained a following because of its quirkiness, but the platform has long suffered from service issues and up-time reliability (Hello, Fail Whale!). In other words, users have fallen in love with it but it doesn’t always work!
Controlling Social Media Campaigns is Like Herding Cats
Twitter's phenomenal growth has stalled recently. Why?
Twitter forms one of the main platforms for Social Media – online interactions and information sharing form the currency of these platforms but introducing your marketing and sales material is similar to gatecrashing someone else’s party! The idea that monetizing all those eyeballs using social media and Twitter is based on nothing concrete –which is why there is so much furor over the $1 billion price tag – there is no proven marketing model so how can Twitter attract your ad spend to begin with (which in turn is the basis for the company valuation). The graph above is from compete.com and shows the obvious flatline on twitter. What happens when the inevitable decline begins as users tire of the limited interaction and businesses divert ad spend elsewhere?
The Twitter Bounce Rate is >90%
In simple terms – the bounce rate is how many messages or emails are returned unread.
If 90% of Twitter users are “bouncing” mail and messages, less than 1 in 10 are valid or open to receiving messages – this makes merging and purging your mailing lists look like an exercise in gold mining – just imagine if you had 9 out of 10 direct mail pieces returned to your company!
Twitter Spam
We’ve already mentioned that Twitter attracts the quirky and the social environment is extremely quirky and subject to cult and herd-like mentalities. It is easy to be tagged as a “spammer” if you are simply posting messages which are effectively only, “Look at Me!” Twitter spam is a real problem as the medium is deluged with online marketers – just look at many of the companies which are active on Twitter – generally they are selling health and vitamins, sex or get rich quick schemes, and frequently all three!
We may be playing the devil’s advocate here and Twitter is an easy target, but there are often good and valid reasons for being an easy target. Will Twitter ever become a useful tool or will it just be something to pass the time for 140 characters? What do you think?
Of course, if you are Alyssa Milano, forget everything I said.
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter. 
Thanks to GraphJams.com
Posted in Social Media Optimization, Twitter | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
With over 70,000 followers, the CNN breaking news bot (@cnnbrk) is the third most popular “user” on Twitter. The bot posts stories sent through CNN’s breaking news email alerts, but, contrary to what the average Twitter user might believe, the account isn’t owned or operated by CNN. It’s actually the creation of London web developer James Cox, who built the bot simply because he wanted a way for CNN breaking news alerts to be delivered directly to his cell phone. I had an opportunity to catch up with James and ask him about the account’s creation and rampant success. I also got to the bottom of that burning question on the minds of Twitter users in the know: why is CNN allowing someone to infringe on their trademark?
Talk about the genesis of CNNBrk. Why did you decide to make it?
Back before @cnnbrk, I was looking for a way to get breaking news alerts onto a mobile device in any way possible; I wanted to feel connected even when I was out. It was sort of systemic from 9/11–knowing when to go find a TV set began to make more sense. It took me a while to find the CNN alerts. Back then it was all desktop tickers or other more convoluted streams (I even spoke to Reuters to see if access to their output was feasible). With the advent of Twitter, especially when it still delivered to my cell phone (I’m in the UK), it seemed like the easiest way to solve that problem, and so @cnnbrk was born.
Did you actively promote the account at the beginning or was its growth mostly organic?
This was the first announcement: http://twitter.com/imajes/status/1963133 – almost two years ago! I didn’t really do much else to promote it; I didn’t really have to. I have tweaked the page a bit to ensure it has decent Google rankings. The account is the 3rd or 4th listing for “CNN breaking news,” which is nice. At no point has Twitter even mentioned it in a blog post or email, so it’s been very organic.
You’ve mentioned that CNN has been in contact with you. Describe the nature of this contact. Have they given you their blessing?
We’ve had a few conversations. Blessing is a difficult word in mainstream media, but certainly the guys over at CNN have done a lot to protect and help me.
Do you think the sheer popularity of the account was what prevented CNN from forcing you to pull the plug?
The popularity has been a defining factor, certainly. I think CNN is aware of the real costs involved with seizing accounts and have done the right kinds of things so far to keep the status quo.
Your bot was at the center of controversy during the summer Olympics. When Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal of the Olympics, many Twitter users who planned on watching a taped, prime-time version of the event complained that @cnnbrk had spoiled the surprise for them. I found it bizarre that Twitter users who opted into a breaking news service would whine about receiving breaking news. What was your reaction?
Yeah, it’s a tough one. I certainly felt for the people who were looking forward to seeing the Olympics without the result being pre-empted. But I think it’s the same as any action replay: you avoid all forms of media till the game is on. There’s a great episode of The Simpsons where Homer ends up running around Springfield avoiding the score, only to be told it by Marge just before the game is on. At the end of the day, the world doesn’t stop, so news doesn’t stop. We’re very much in a 24 hour news cycle, where a story might live or die in the space of just a few minutes–you can’t expect it to pause.
I would think that a better reaction should have been for people to realize the potential for this to happen and choose how they wanted to avoid it. It was pretty amazing to see everyone pile on after the Bolt time and records were announced, as if people hadn’t had enough warning yet!
From my perspective, I chose not to pause the updates. There’s a healthy percentage of followers who are non American, and therefore un-encumbered by NBC’s tape delay.
When did it first hit you that your account was, for lack of a better phrase, “famous on Twitter?”
I knew early on that I was trending in the top ten/top five Twitter users; a bit of insider info and solid circumstantial evidence pointed me there. With the growth of tracking apps like twittercounter.com it’s more apparent. It also makes you realize you have to be responsible with how you choose to behave with it. I’ve been more and more careful not to add any non-CNN content into the feed of late, for example.
According to TwitterCounter.com, your account grows by an average rate of 275 followers a day. Assuming that your account’s growth can keep pace with the growth of Twitter, you’ll have over 170,000 followers within a year. Do you think this is likely to happen or do you see Twitter’s growth flat-lining?
Actually, the number is a bit depressed, and I’ve not seen any new sign-ups. I think the account has been temporarily flagged, which is annoying. I do fully expect to see the account scale in the same way twitter does. I think it’s responsible for a large number of new twitter users who discover it by Googling for breaking news. But it is also the sort of low volume account that people should subscribe to almost right away. It’d be great to see it as a suggested account, a sort of “Myspace Tom” if you like.
You can follow James on Twitter at @imajes, and if you’re not already receiving breaking news updates, you can join the masses at @cnnbrk.
Posted in Out on a Limb | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 17th, 2008
We live in an information society with the internet at our fingertips though broadband, DSL and mobile phones. We also live in a society that is comprised of consumers that have the ability to publish their words, thoughts and ideas in seconds through websites, blogs, and web 2.0 resources including micro blogging platforms such as Twitter.
Understanding and realizing that our customers are more tuned in and wired in than just a year ago is vital to protecting our name brand as well as tapping into the evolving consumer base we are attempting to persuade.
Over the weekend a valuable lesson was learned by a Fortune 500 company, and will soon be adapted across all channels of business relationships.
You see on Friday November 14, 2008 several wired in mommy bloggers took offense to a video advertisement that was on the Motrin website. The ad was geared toward “Baby Wearing Moms” and was rather insensitive to say the least.
A viral ground swell of disgruntled opinion towards the advertisement was fueled on the Twitter Micro blogging network. The Tweets continued and bloggers voiced their opinions.
By Saturday Night and into Sunday AM, 100′s of blogs and 1000′s of twitter accounts were active in their dismay of the Motrin websites and it’s marketing message. A viral and virtual boycott was formed and the public perception of the Motrin Brand sank lower the President W’s approval ratings.
By Sunday night and into Monday afternoon, the Motrin website was taken off-line to attempt damage control. As of this post the site is back up with a Public Apology.
The lesson that should be learned from this account, is the your consumers have public voices, and monoritoring your Keyword and Brand Name can stop a landslide of public disgruntled behavior. If the people at Motrin had a Simple Google Alert for their Brand Name, or set up and monitored a Twitter Search for their keywords and brand name, they would have been aware of the firestorm that was headed their way. Motrin took down the ad 4 days after the incident developed into a Butter Fly Effect.
By monitoring and reacting, the Tsunami of bad publicity could have been avoided and damage control could have been set in place earlier than Day 4.
The several lessions to be learned are:
Know your market
Understand your market
Keep tabs on your Public Images via Google Alerts / Twitter Searches via Brand Name Keywords
and above all, never underestimate the power of a mommy, her keyboard, and a internet connection!
#MotrinMoms
Posted in Blogging | 1 Comment »
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