tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21388913420995874532024-02-19T08:49:44.291-08:00SEM Booty BlogA hitchhiker's survival guide to search marketing and social media.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-49978165657486743002010-04-12T05:34:00.000-07:002010-04-12T08:19:58.875-07:00SEM Booty Moves to WordPressYou can now read the latest SEM Booty Blog posts (as well as all older blog entries) at my new address: <a href="http://sembooty.wordpress.com/">http://sembooty.wordpress.com/</a><br /><br />Here's why I moved over to WordPress <a href="http://bit.ly/97LTwn">http://bit.ly/97LTwn</a><br /><br />Looking forward to seeing you there.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-58378124693319751642010-04-05T05:52:00.000-07:002010-04-05T08:22:36.068-07:00Why Should Companies Have a Social Media Policy?It seems like everyone and their mothers have a Facebook account these days. Whether you create, share or simply consume social content (and many do all three), it's not hard to notice how far social media has come in the past few years, and how it continues to rapidly expand in both personal and professional use.<br /><br />This is why a corporate social media policy is a must for companies, particularly when it comes to raising awareness of company efforts and most importantly, to provide positive guidelines for those wanting to participate (and usually these people will, regardless).<br /><br /><strong>Raising Awareness About Company Efforts</strong><br />A Social Media Policy document that is shared throughout the company, provides an ideal opportunity to share with all employees (whether they are in marketing, or finance, or IT, or sales) a basic understanding of your social media strategy and the places where you are currently active.<br /><br />This is particularly important in larger corporations, where people outside of the marketing group may be less aware of what is being done. It's not uncommon to hear employees suggest that "We should have a Twitter account", even if you did set one up several years ago. It's an ample opportunity to provide people within the company a better understanding of your social media direction, your areas of focus, and why.<br /><br />Have a section in the document that provides a simple high level view of what you are trying to achieve, important areas of focus, where you are actively involved (and where you are not). Also share Forum URLs, your Twitter handles, your YouTube channels..., as well as what you use these for and outcomes you are trying to drive with it (be it listening, talking, energizing or supporting).<br /><br /><strong>Providing Positive Guidelines</strong><br />The word "policy" often screams out "constraint", "orders", "rules", and all the things that you're <em>not</em> allowed to do. But it doesn't have to be that way.<br /><br />A Social Media Policy can be kept positive (and should be). It's not so much about telling people that they can't participate in this or that, rather it's about focusing on what they need to think about when they <em>do</em> participate, and encouraging them in the right direction.<br /><br />Examples of common guidelines and rules of etiquette may include:<br /><br /><ul><li>Being responsible for what you write </li><li>Exercising good judgement </li><li>Understanding the concept of community and conversations </li><li>Bringing value </li><li>Ongoing commitment<br /></li></ul><p>These are all positive things.<br /><br />So if you haven't already, the time to think about your company's social media policy is now. Here are a few resources and examples to help you on your way:<br /><br />- <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/">10 Must-Haves for your Social Media Policy</a><br />- <a href="http://econsultancy.com/blog/5049-16-social-media-guidelines-used-by-real-companies">16 Social Media Guidelines Used By Real Companies</a><br />- <a href="http://www.exchange.telstra.com.au/training/flip.html">Telstra's 3Rs of Social Media Engagement</a><br />- <a href="http://www.kodak.com/US/images/en/corp/aboutKodak/onlineToday/Kodak_SocialMediaTips_Aug14.pdf">Kodak Social Media Tips</a> </p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-13510456270226203872010-03-29T05:07:00.000-07:002010-03-29T08:07:10.821-07:00Google-China: What Does it Mean for Search Marketers?By now, you would have read about <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-stops-censoring-in-china-38576">Google's move</a> to redirect all traffic from Google China to Google Hong Kong.<br /><br />There's been a lot of political discussion about the move and how the <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/25/china-hands-down-new-rules-on-media-coverage-of-google/">Chinese Government</a> will react (EG: Will they block access to Google Hong Kong? Will it set in motion an even bigger social media site blocking spree? etc). There are many questions that remain unanswered, but in the meantime, what does this mean for search engine marketers?<br /><br />Here are 3 tips to consider over the coming weeks.<br /><br /><strong>1. Monitor Your Performance Closely</strong><br />First and foremost, if you are doing search engine marketing in China, make sure you watch your paid performance closely over the coming weeks. Consider your strategy and budget splits between the engines you are using (Baidu and Google being the major players), and be prepared to tweak your approach the moment you start seeing anything strange happening.<br /><br /><strong>2. Keep an Eye on Baidu Costs and Performance</strong><br />With Google's move, competition on Baidu is likely to increase:<br /><br /><em>i. More PPC Ads</em><br />Baidu recently updated their user interface to up the number of page advertisers from two/three ads, to six; an early indication of Baidu taking advantage of the move. With double the on-page competition, you may start to see a decline in Click-Thru Rates and Clicks, and an increase in Cost Per Click (CPC); meaning less bang for your buck.<br /><br /><em>ii. More Advertisers Switching or Moving Budget</em><br />Another implication is that more advertisers may start flocking over to Baidu as part of a preemptive move, potentially driving CPCs even higher.<br /><br />So if you haven't already, start paying attention to how you can <a href="http://bit.ly/baidu-seo">organically optimize your pages for Baidu</a>.<br /><br /><strong>3. Look out for an Emerging Entrant</strong><br />Baidu has always been the Number 1 search engine in China, but now that its main competitor is gone (sort of), who will emerge to replace them? Will it be one of the smaller local engines, like <a href="http://www.sogou.com/">Sogou</a> or <a href="http://www.youdao.com/">Youdao</a>? Or perhaps, a larger engine that is yet to step foot on Chinese soil? Bing would definitely be a likely contender on these shores in an attempt to take market share.<br /><br />Watch this space. The coming weeks will be an interesting one.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-83726605986296583132010-03-22T05:26:00.000-07:002010-03-25T15:56:41.616-07:00Free Search Marketing Tools I Couldn't Live WithoutOther than Google AdWords there's a ton of really good free tools out there for search engine marketers. Here's a list of five free tools that dominate my bookmarks.<br /><br /><strong>1. Rank Checker</strong><br />Rank Checker is a handy plug-in that allows you to quickly see where you are ranking for a keyword. It covers all Google country domains and some Yahoo country domains.<br /><br />I found this particularly useful when going through optimization excercises for China, Japan, and other non-US locations. You'll need Firefox to use this one.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Go to </span><a href="http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker"><span style="font-size:85%;">Rank Checker</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Click the Download button </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Right click the Rank Checker icon that appears in the bottom right of your browser </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Right click "Options" </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Select your Google domain and click OK </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Left click the Rank Checker icon in the bottom right of your browser </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Type in your website domain </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Type in your keyword </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Click ADD</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> Click START</span><br /><br /><div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAWGxFgQRZR-5ci6IxQELI4Z3hZQ-qefs6Wfr3J6hCiEADpZUnQAoJeOAbWk0-D22FQPUCHreQMWajB4VjDhv8uPUa-s-xFp1IOT7i4hL6Plm46pNQ4S_axxQF3IgvaFEBEXOrmDEc25Q/s1600-h/rank-checker-example.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449730948026449170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAWGxFgQRZR-5ci6IxQELI4Z3hZQ-qefs6Wfr3J6hCiEADpZUnQAoJeOAbWk0-D22FQPUCHreQMWajB4VjDhv8uPUa-s-xFp1IOT7i4hL6Plm46pNQ4S_axxQF3IgvaFEBEXOrmDEc25Q/s400/rank-checker-example.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;">Rank Checker Example: google.cn Keyword Checks in Simplified Chinese</span></div><br /><br /><strong>2. Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer</strong><br />Inbound links and anchor text are very important factors when it comes to SEO. The key is getting another site to link through to your Preferred Landing Page, using the keyword you are trying to optimize for. If that site happens to be a high authority site (for example, a .gov or a .edu), then you benefit even more.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.webconfs.com/anchor-text-analysis.php">Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer</a> helps you to identify what sites are linking through to you, and what link labels (anchor text) are being used. Unlike some other link/anchor text tools, you don't have to sign-up or upgrade to a paid account in order to see all the data.<br /><br /><strong>3. Google Ad Preview</strong><br />As people within an organization start to become more aware of search engine marketing, a bad thing that can happen is if internal people repeatedly perform a bunch of searches and click on your PPC ads. Believe it or not, I had to explain just last week about the difference between paid and organic search, and the pay-per-click nature of sponsored links.<br /><br />Another bad scenario would be if internal folks repeatedly search on the same keyword and don't click on your PPC ads. Why? Because Google will remember and think that the ad (your ad) isn't relevant to that searcher, and so won't serve it up to them again. This is often followed by a string of Emails asking, "Why aren't we showing up in Google anymore?". Argh.<br /><br />This is why I've found the <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool">Google Ad Preview Tool</a> a quick and useful way to test and see what is showing up without adversely affecting what appears. This is also a good tool to share with other inquisitive minds in your organization. What's also nice is that you can select the Google domain and display language, so it's not just limited to the US.<br /><br /><strong>4. Keyword Niche Finder</strong><br />Google Adwords is where most of us go to do our regular keyword research. But if you are interested in spending a bit more time doing long-tail keyword research, check out Wordstream's <a href="http://www.wordstream.com/keyword-niche-finder/">Keyword Niche Finder</a>.<br /><br />This is a more recent discovery (thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/larrykim">Larry Kim</a> at the SearchFest conference). For me, it's been helpful in finding those three to five word long-tail queries that are becoming more and more popular. Although overall volume may be lower on these keywords, conversion rates are often much higher, so it's important to balance these into your keyword mix.<br /><br /><strong>5. Google Translate</strong><br />Whilst I would never use <a href="http://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> to translate any public-facing content (always best left to the native speakers, I'm sure you'd agree), I've found it a very useful tool to "back-translate" local language content that is provided to me, particularly when it comes to keywords and PPC adcopy.<br /><br />You'd be amazed at how many weird things I've uncovered doing this, including adcopy that is off-message and use of non-customers facing keywords... the list goes on. If you work in a centralized worldwide role, make sure you have this one bookmarked in your favourites; it can save you from some uncomfortable questions later down the line. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">What free seach marketing tools could you not live without? Please feel free to share any gems.</div><div align="left"></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-47354281697250240562010-03-11T05:31:00.000-08:002010-03-26T15:58:07.733-07:00My Top 5 Takeaways From SearchFestThe fourth annual SearchFest conference was held in Portland this week, and what a conference it was.<br /><br />SearchFest has definitely grown up a lot since the first one I attended in 2008; attendance was booming and there was a line-up of first-class speakers including, Rand Fishkin, Eric Peterson, Marty Weintraub, Matthew Inman, and Matt McGee (to name but a few); not to mention all of the Pacific Northwest talent.<br /><br />My only disappointment was not unlocking the Swarm Badge on Foursquare. Only seven other people checked in out of an audience of about… 400 people? (at a guess). Maybe Foursquare uptake isn't as high as what I thought.<br /><br />Anyway, here are my five key takeaways from the conference:<br /><br /><strong>1. Bing Maps (cool, but creepy)</strong><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/stefanweitz">Stefan Weitz</a>, Director at Bing, and all round funny presenter, brought big smiles to the early morning crowd. As part of his presentation he demo'd how Tweets can be overlaid onto Bing Maps. Thanks to the geo-location setting on Twitter mobile, you could see tweets coming out of different buildings, streets, parks, trains… all over the map, literally! As an example, here’s one tweet that came out of the Governor Hotel on SearchFest day. Bryan, I see yooouu…<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFjaGeLxrdt0CrZXMNLzUch3h37lHmpqBruNG5kWj-G4JjQ6doQoAVdO1plR0CBbG7vezebCVWtRYGE_MSC6As1h7WwP81C449vNPRfcj_MeSSrJsolayfj2D-L87v8KbfqtmvooeWnQ/s1600-h/Bing+Maps+Tweet.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447148045813728322" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 261px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFjaGeLxrdt0CrZXMNLzUch3h37lHmpqBruNG5kWj-G4JjQ6doQoAVdO1plR0CBbG7vezebCVWtRYGE_MSC6As1h7WwP81C449vNPRfcj_MeSSrJsolayfj2D-L87v8KbfqtmvooeWnQ/s400/Bing+Maps+Tweet.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;">Bing Maps Overlaying Twitter Feeds</span></div><br />As a lover of all things geeky, I find this very cool, but can also see how this could creep some folks out – people who are creeped out about Foursquare are likely to have a coronary over this one. But as the Social Media panel quite rightly observed, in order to get something (ie. better sharing and transparency of information and knowledge), you usually have to give something up in return (ie: your privacy… as with any social media).<br /><br />Creeped or not, you should definitely go and check this out.<br /><br />> Go to <a href="http://www.bing.com/maps/">Bing Maps</a><br />> Download Bing Maps Beta (bottom left of page) and install Silverlight<br />> Click on "Map Apps" (bottom left of page)<br />> Click on "Bing Twitter Maps" button<br /><br /><strong>2. SiteLinks are your friend</strong><br />SiteLinks are those extra links (and sometimes images, plus extra links) that Google displays in search engine results. <a href="http://twitter.com/Szetela">David Szetela</a>, from Clix Marketing, provided a really useful overview of this.<br /><br />SiteLinks give you almost 2x the real estate in search, and can take searchers deeper into your site to the page of relevance (great, especially when keyword intent is ambiguous). Google claims a 30% average increase in click-thru rate for SiteLinks, but David has seen double that for campaigns he has worked on.<br /><br />Not everyone is eligible for SiteLinks. You need to be ranking in the top spot for the keyword you are targeting and have good domain authority, among other factors. To see if you are eligible, be sure to check in your Google Adwords Account (if you are, you will see a SiteLinks call out). Or if in doubt, speak with your Google rep.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVT5nI8qPlnLAv2T18Sw-2pANNXeQqDcFDu6CD4NKwZSmw5Kbgxdu8QG7mDDugU-xd9x-bMbh-cuuPs1CIdNvZgs_3SDY_WKnknnxXYLtua0GjmYlfbGHDaSkBtC2fVffN_dIBFM_hDAk/s1600-h/sitelinks-wordpress.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447145849403018866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 317px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVT5nI8qPlnLAv2T18Sw-2pANNXeQqDcFDu6CD4NKwZSmw5Kbgxdu8QG7mDDugU-xd9x-bMbh-cuuPs1CIdNvZgs_3SDY_WKnknnxXYLtua0GjmYlfbGHDaSkBtC2fVffN_dIBFM_hDAk/s400/sitelinks-wordpress.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;"> Google SiteLinks Example</span></div><br /><strong>3. Don’t put blogs in the corner</strong><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/jenniferlaycock">Jennifer Laycock</a> won my vote for key takeaway at the Social Media Strategy session. Her winning statement: Blogs should be at the center of your social media strategy. There are a number of reasons why:<br /><ul><li>Blogs provide an environment where people don't feel like they are being sold to (even if they are) </li><li>In social media environments, people are more likely to link through to a blog than link through to a corporate site </li><li>There are too many distractions in other social channels (think related video links on YouTube); and lost people lead to lost conversions </li></ul><strong></strong>Therefore, your Blog should be the go to destination from other social media tools (EG: Forums, Twitter, Facebook) that you use.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>4. Facebook: Be there, or be on the <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/266900.html">dole</a></strong><br />I always scrunched my nose up when it came to marketing on Facebook. Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/aimclear">Marty Weintraub</a>, I am now a convert (and luckily, still have my job).<br /><br />You’ve probably heard that if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest country in the world. Well, when you translate that to Internet use, Facebook is half of the Internet. Yes, half. HUGE. Therefore, in Marty’s wise words: “Not being in Facebook paid search is negligent”.<br /><br />Now some of the B2B-ers out there may be rolling their eyes right now, but Marty is a smart guy. When he says things like "B2B rocks at Facebook and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise” we should listen to him. In his 12 minute presentation (which just blew the entire audience away), he served up 62 different Facebook segment examples – ranging from tree huggers to bio-medical engineers. And these weren’t piddly lists of people either; these numbers were in the hundreds of thousands, some in the millions.<br /><br />Experiment and see how many of your customers you are missing out on in Facebook by going to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/advertising/">http://www.facebook.com/advertising/</a><br /><br />Bottom line: Facebook PPC is like Google SEO. You need to be there.<br /><br /><strong>5. Drag your manager along</strong><br />Sometimes your manager needs to hear things first hand, from the experts. In the web analytics session, <a href="https://twitter.com/erictpeterson">Eric Peterson</a> hit it on the nail for me:<br /><br /><em>"Data doesn't analyze itself. You need people. The question is not "Do we need…?", but "How many…?"</em><br /><br />When smart people like Eric and <a href="https://twitter.com/avinashkaushik">Avinash</a> say that you need to be equipped with a hoard of analytics ninjas, your manager has no excuse not to listen. I also overheard a similar Twitter comment from a social media session going on at the same time:<br /><br /><em><a href="https://twitter.com/ECdavies/status/10234312606">@ECdavies</a>: Community Manager- It can't be done in an hour a day.</em><br /><br />So if you didn't already, bring your manager along with you to the next conference so they can hear this first hand... and of course to see people’s reactions when you tell them how many staff you have (or rather, don't have). Just saying :)<br /><br /><strong>Bonus Takeaway</strong><br />My final takeaway (though it doesn't take a social media "expert" to figure this one out) is that Twitter is the bomb. It has given me the opportunity to connect with some amazing people in the search and social marketing field, which is so refreshing, especially when you work client-side and have few (or no) like-minded people to geek out with, or bounce ideas off of.<br /><br />I met some top Twitter friends for the first time at SearchFest, and I can say hand-on-heart that although I use Facebook for the people I know, I use Twitter for the people I wish I knew.<br /><div align="left"></div><br /><br /><div align="left"></div><div align="left">You can catch up with all the action from SearchFest by using the event hashtag <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23searchfest">#searchfest</a> </div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-66554789745691118502010-03-08T06:32:00.000-08:002010-03-08T10:35:31.985-08:00The Rise of Social SearchA while ago I asked the question, <a href="http://bit.ly/search-social">Why should search care about social?</a> One good reason is that social channels are search engines too, and a vast amount of searches are being conducted within social media.<br /><br />If you've attended any major search marketing conference in the past two years, you'll hear in at least one presentation that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. In fact, three of the top 20 search engines (YouTube, MySpace and Facebook) involve search within a social network (Odden, 2010).<br /><br />This highlights the importance for search marketers to take into account social media searches when doing keyword research. Here are some tips to consider, looking specifically at YouTube, Twitter and Facebook:<br /><br /><strong>YouTube </strong><br />YouTube serves up hundreds of millions of videos per day so, as with Google, it's important to ensure that your video content is optimized in order for it to show up in well in searches. Lucky for us, YouTube have their own <a href="https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool">Video Keyword Research Tool</a>.<br /><br />This is a great way to find the most popular video keyword searches so that you can include these keywords in your title, tags, description and links. I also like it since it uses the same interface as Google's Keyword Tool.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpruX4oFFETxt7yeSmUtInRo3lEj5mH4Y9Z3EPqUPRr5nrM9ayny6gqsbpReJnwMwmXayvkuyVJLlA43ftre78jp-tSE_bhqm8Ap1yqSb2oiW2BQFF5OsmrV6xMRorjyFutuEvwNQxgYQ/s1600-h/youtube.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446305528529201506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 353px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpruX4oFFETxt7yeSmUtInRo3lEj5mH4Y9Z3EPqUPRr5nrM9ayny6gqsbpReJnwMwmXayvkuyVJLlA43ftre78jp-tSE_bhqm8Ap1yqSb2oiW2BQFF5OsmrV6xMRorjyFutuEvwNQxgYQ/s400/youtube.JPG" border="0" /></a><em><span style="color:#666666;">YouTube Keyword Research Tool</span></em></div><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Twitter </strong><br />Twitter is an excellent listening tool where keyword research is concerned.<br /><br />Last week, Twitter hit <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/04/twitter-10-billion-tweets-2/">10 Billion Tweets</a> and counting. So far, search engine efforts to integrate Twitter into Real-Time Search results have been rather "meh". So many people continue to search for content in Twitter using, for example <a href="http://search.twitter.com/">Twitter Search</a> and <a href="http://hashtags.org/">Hashtags</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/twitterlist-lowdown">Twitter Lists</a> is also a great way to see how others categorize you or your company. If you take the list names and descriptions that you appear in and paste them into <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a>, you can generate a word cloud. This can show you quite quickly, what keywords people are using to categorize you or your company.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzKEN0jzpQ8p56AqNX7t7iM8bO253T1ilrHBW_oMCHX-k2K-XPOwRAPMQAeD26x2V4oNzYzun9acENS7C6EbDg5FuUaqzlqxBu-m0sp8E_NYRxZOmhlT0jWBH7npH_p8pa62Tfkxxblws/s1600-h/wordcloud.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446304727807471842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 329px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzKEN0jzpQ8p56AqNX7t7iM8bO253T1ilrHBW_oMCHX-k2K-XPOwRAPMQAeD26x2V4oNzYzun9acENS7C6EbDg5FuUaqzlqxBu-m0sp8E_NYRxZOmhlT0jWBH7npH_p8pa62Tfkxxblws/s400/wordcloud.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><span style="color:#999999;"> </span><span style="color:#666666;">Wordle Example:</span> <span style="color:#666666;">Word Cloud Based on Twitter Lists</span></em></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong>Facebook</strong><br />By using the search box and then clicking "Posts by everyone" in the left nav, you can start to monitor conversations happening based upon keywords you type in. You can also limit results to certain geographies and by post type (all/links/status updates/wall posts/notes) in the drop down lists that appear above the results. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left">This is a good way of listening to conversations, but can be a little limited when it comes to deeper keyword research and analysis. There's rumors that Facebook are working on a better tool for page owners, but until then this is as good as it gets. </div><div align="left"></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-75046774976161027992010-03-01T05:50:00.000-08:002010-03-01T08:18:36.581-08:00How to Measure the Success of a BlogI finally reached the chapter in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Web-Analytics-2-0-Accountability-Centricity/dp/0470529393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267419588&sr=8-1">Web Analytics 2.0</a> about social media measurement. In this chapter, <a href="https://twitter.com/avinashkaushik"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Avinash</span> Kaushik</a> highlights some interesting ways to measure the success of blogs. So to celebrate the 6 month anniversary of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">SEM</span> Booty (I can't believe it's been 6 months already!), I wanted go through the process and apply some of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Avinash's</span> success measures to see what I could learn, and find areas for improvement over the next 6 months.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjYrKHYiYn4OnfMlfCXyx4Mw4DQrHq-dyKAdflGJeyeuA4V03I9CZvdUjho4Oe0yYWYZwuni1wkPSZA9Q3soEAF8vBBhdB7obl0d3UmKSKceguGYW_PLdTiwNkiTxvs3Uk9Ty72YqXbg/s1600-h/blog-scorecard.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442688703437048690" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 398px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggjYrKHYiYn4OnfMlfCXyx4Mw4DQrHq-dyKAdflGJeyeuA4V03I9CZvdUjho4Oe0yYWYZwuni1wkPSZA9Q3soEAF8vBBhdB7obl0d3UmKSKceguGYW_PLdTiwNkiTxvs3Uk9Ty72YqXbg/s400/blog-scorecard.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="color:#666666;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">SEM</span> Booty Scorecard</span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><strong>1. Do I deserve to be successful?</strong><br />According to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Avinash</span>, this is the foundation of all blog metrics. To answer this question, you need to look at something called, "Raw Author Contribution" which is:</div><ul><li><div align="left">Posts per Month = Number of posts / Number of months blogging </div></li><li><div align="left">Content Created = Number of words in a post / Number of posts </div></li></ul><div align="left"><em>My Key Takeaways</em><br />My frequency of posting (4.6 posts per month) is not bad and my posts are consistently around 600 words which I think is a good balance - not too short, but not huge amounts of detail either. The frequency is definitely in line with my aim of posting at least once a week, on a Monday [My Grade: B].<br /><br /><strong>2. Is anyone reading my content?</strong><br />It's great to be able to write down thoughts and experiences, but one of my goals is to share this information with other marketers who may also find this interesting. To help answer this question, we can look at two indicators:</div><ul><li><div align="left">Number of Followers/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">RSS</span> Subscribers</div></li><li><div align="left">Most Read and Least Read Posts</div></li></ul><div align="left">The number of followers/subscribers to your blog are an indicator of those people who have taken an action to say. "Yes, I am interested and the content is relevant to me". And by looking at the posts that generated the most (and least) views, you can start to understand what content helps you grow, and what does not.<br /><br /><em>My Key Takeaways</em><br />I have 10 Followers right now. The number has been very slowly increasing over time, but I would definitely like to attract more by focusing on the most popular content areas. Looking at the most read posts to date, it looks like emerging social media subjects, as well as content about the intersection between Social Media and Search Marketing consistently drive the most traffic [My Grade: C].<br /><br /><strong>3. Is my blog generating conversations?</strong><br />As <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Avinash</span> points out, blogs are a social medium. So it's not just about pushing out information, but about encouraging dialogue, conversations, and contribution. One way of looking at this is by using a "Conversation Rate" calculation:</div><ul><li><div align="left">Conversation Rate = Number of Visitor Comments / Number of Posts </div></li></ul><div align="left"><em>My Key Takeaways</em><br />For every post I write, I get 0.62 comments; and for every 597 words I write, my visitors write 20 words. There is definitely room for improvement here. Comments seem so few and far between that every time I do get one, it literally makes my day. Maybe by taking a stronger view on topics will help to encourage more feedback (EG: Twitter is not a strategy post) [My Grade: D].<br /><br /><strong>4. Are people talking about my content?</strong><br />According to Avinash, this measure of success is about looking at the ripples caused by your blogging efforts, and asking "how viral is my content?". One way to look at this is through Tweet Citations (how many people tweet about your post):</div><ul><li><div align="left">Tweet Citations = Number of Tweets / Number of Posts </div></li></ul><div align="left"><em>My Key Takeaways</em><br />From what I was able to track, there's been a total of 60 tweets related to my posts, which means that for every post, I generate an average of 2 tweets. Again, there is room for improvement here. Focusing down on the popular topics may help. Testing of different titles, and experimenting with the way that they are written, may also have an impact [My Grade: C-].</div><div align="left"><br /><strong>Summary</strong><br />This was a useful exercise to go through and I would recommend anyone with a blog to go through the same process; it's quite an eye-opener. Overall, I gave myself a C, so there's plenty of room for improvement and best of all, I know where to focus that improvement. Finally, if you haven't already, pick up a copy of Avinash's book. It's been a great read for me so far.</div><div align="left"></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-43905551371116814382010-02-22T06:44:00.000-08:002010-03-03T10:46:30.698-08:00How Small Businesses and Enterprise Companies can use FoursquareI've been a Foursquare user for about three months now. At first the idea of people knowing where I was (or not), was a bit unnerving. I guess the "dangers" of social location have been brought even more to light with the recent coverage about <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/02/17/pleaserobme/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pleaserobme</span>.com</a><br /><br />Recently though, I've been thinking more about the business applications of Foursquare, not just for local businesses but also for larger/enterprise ones. First up though, here's a bit of background (most of you may already be familiar, but just in case):<br /><br /><strong>What is Foursquare? </strong><br /><a href="http://foursquare.com/">Foursquare</a> is a location-based social networking application that is growing fast; US visits to Foursquare have rocketed by 50% in January compared to December alone (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Experian</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hitwise</span>, 2010).<br /><br />So what's it all about? You use the Foursquare app on your mobile phone to "Check-in" to different places - be it the gym, your work, your local grocers, an airport... basically anywhere. If Twitter answers the question "What are you doing?" then Foursquare answers "Where are you (doing it)?".<br /><br />This information can also be linked to your Twitter and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Facebook</span> accounts to let the people in these networks know where you are. Or you can choose to limit this information just to your Foursquare network, should you not want to share this with your wider network.<br /><br />To encourage use, there is also a gaming element to Foursquare. As you check-in to more/different places you earn "Badges". For example, on your first check-in you unlock a "Newbie" badge; and you unlock the "local" badge when you check-in to the same place three times in a week. Right now there are 32 badges that are available to unlock.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQr5PB71woOrrTaiAXMLr2gJzMurlZVBR9HhRg3yJCJTOnNEpCfsavK_e1-whOYEPRQ-MtXbU39bs9_4A4G_N9FIOrr216av_zg_HHiP3spGq6piZXI1vtBVuZ4DbqfdGwpja5Op7IPY/s1600-h/badges.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440015651513190450" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 312px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 313px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQr5PB71woOrrTaiAXMLr2gJzMurlZVBR9HhRg3yJCJTOnNEpCfsavK_e1-whOYEPRQ-MtXbU39bs9_4A4G_N9FIOrr216av_zg_HHiP3spGq6piZXI1vtBVuZ4DbqfdGwpja5Op7IPY/s400/badges.JPG" border="0" /></a><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;"> Example of Foursquare Badges</span></em></div><br />Last, but not least, if you happen to be the person that has the most check-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">in's</span> to a particular location, then you earn the title of "Mayor" of that place. Of course you can be ousted as Mayor at any time, should someone else check in more times than you do. When this happens, you receive an Email to notify you of your ousting, and by whom. If you have Foursquare linked up to your Twitter account, then it will also send this out as a tweet.<br /><br />When I explained Foursquare to someone recently, it sounded really dumb, but it's surprising how addictive and competitive it can get, especially as more people start to join up.<br /><br /><strong>So What are the Business Applications of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Foursquare</span>?</strong><br /><br /><em>Local Businesses and Stores</em><br />One of the main aims of Foursquare is to encourage people to explore their neighbourhoods. So it is quite easy to see how Foursquare can be used by <a href="http://foursquare.com/businesses/">local businesses</a>, including:<br /><br /><strong>Rewarding <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Mayorships</span></strong><br />Do you remember in the 90's when loyalty cards first started to take off? Well, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">mayorships</span> could be the new loyalty card in the making. There are many examples of businesses who are starting to use Foursquare to reward such loyalty, including <a href="http://foursquare.com/venue/99130"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Mio</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Gelato</span></a> in Portland, where the mayor gets a free coffee and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">gelato</span> scoop; and <a href="http://huyton-dominos.blogspot.com/2010/02/dominos-pizza-huyton-joins-foursquare.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Dominos</span> Pizza <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Huyton</span></a> in Liverpool where the mayor gets free pizza. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Nom</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">nom</span>.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4WlyQhcZAaXL7IxH1dAHt__JQG_dtQxv8drodLITkZ7MzNEWlgOjN75yucvoTCxERt4lBUn8w7PIkyO5tlKe6dV-rjm6qF7hnG8-RU1hncEJlXRkOj9ONT0rBmdxdffFPx3I7wGZuOc/s1600-h/dominos.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440015588745800626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 329px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 362px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4WlyQhcZAaXL7IxH1dAHt__JQG_dtQxv8drodLITkZ7MzNEWlgOjN75yucvoTCxERt4lBUn8w7PIkyO5tlKe6dV-rjm6qF7hnG8-RU1hncEJlXRkOj9ONT0rBmdxdffFPx3I7wGZuOc/s400/dominos.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;">Rewarding <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Mayorships</span>: <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Domino's</span> Pizza Example</span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;"></span><br /><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left"><strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong>Rewarding Check-ins</strong><br />Local businesses can encourage people to keep coming back by also rewarding them for their check-ins. For example, a reward may be given for a first check-in to an establishment, or for multiple, returning check-ins (such as five check-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">in's</span> in one month). It's a good way to encourage people to keep coming back, especially when the prospect of becoming the mayor of a popular place is a difficult title to achieve.<br /><br /><strong>Using Location Information to Flag Special Offers</strong><br />If a person checks-in to a place nearby your business, then Foursquare can flag "Nearby Special Offer" for your establishment. This is a great way to raise awareness of your presence, especially if you are a newer business that has just set up. It also helps to encourage people to come visit your store. As an example <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Boyds</span> Coffee in Portland flags a special 15% discount when you check-in nearby with Foursquare. </div><div align="left"><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2OrI05EDJfDlAvoBt5nbJasbhmiL2r-6zL6_UnWCuWpOEh7Rkbi5h5Qu3V94qytJs44Y0TQtrWsy23mzv_esUoUWc3EzU3bUAyDQuQo5m2bIkIZ0Iqt8Rr_kTGE3FyOI7FzPV1OEJOU/s1600-h/photo-boyds-checkin.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440010034408010962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 282px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 339px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2OrI05EDJfDlAvoBt5nbJasbhmiL2r-6zL6_UnWCuWpOEh7Rkbi5h5Qu3V94qytJs44Y0TQtrWsy23mzv_esUoUWc3EzU3bUAyDQuQo5m2bIkIZ0Iqt8Rr_kTGE3FyOI7FzPV1OEJOU/s400/photo-boyds-checkin.jpg" border="0" /></a><em><span style="color:#666666;"> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Boyds</span> Coffee Special Offer Example</span></span></em></div><br /><strong>Encouraging People to Write Tips</strong><br />Another nice thing about Foursquare is that people can leave tips (which serve as recommendations) for different places they have visited. People in their network will be able to see these tips and can add them to their "To-Do" list. Encouraging people to leave tips on their experiences can be a good way of gathering positive reviews, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">particularly</span> when users have a good number of local connections.<br /><br /><em>Enterprise Companies</em><br />When it comes to enterprise or B2B companies, the application of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Foursquare</span> becomes a little less obvious. Most of the ones I am aware of revolve around things like events, exhibitions and conferences. In fact, Foursquare has the potential to work very nicely where event marketing is concerned.<br /><br /><strong>Rewarding Check-ins</strong><br />Check-ins could be used to help encourage booth traffic. Use the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">geo</span>-location feature to add your booth location as a place on Foursquare and then encourage people to check-in, for example, to get entered into a free drawing.<br /><br /><strong>Special Offers</strong><br />Another idea would be to offer a free giveaway to the first 20 check-ins at your booth. If people check-in to the conference center, or building in which the event is being hosted, then you can use the "Nearby Special Offer" feature to flag the special for your booth.<br /><br /><strong>Develop Special Badges</strong><br />Some companies have made good use of the gaming component of Foursquare to encourage people to check-in. For example, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">CES</span> Consumer Technology <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Trade Show</span> developed their own special <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">CES</span> 2010 badge when visitors checked in to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Las</span> Vegas Convention Center. Intel also designed their own badge for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">CES</span> visitors who came to see them.<br /><br />Large events like this are also good opportunities for people to unlock the Swarm badge (where 50+ people have checked in to the same venue).<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiW8X0X2b0k9zFH_DhvBkLgShAzCQbDxABgMRp4Uu7TK6CO92yDtAuY5yMqjgOmTzbWPT_d8jx6pHlyJpw7e5gGrm4B5cFYfKCiJN0K5SuZwjyjuQQIdmFLu2XlYVDAnawppDzCi6svrQ/s1600-h/special-badges-full.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440009952249013474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 323px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiW8X0X2b0k9zFH_DhvBkLgShAzCQbDxABgMRp4Uu7TK6CO92yDtAuY5yMqjgOmTzbWPT_d8jx6pHlyJpw7e5gGrm4B5cFYfKCiJN0K5SuZwjyjuQQIdmFLu2XlYVDAnawppDzCi6svrQ/s400/special-badges-full.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> <em><span style="color:#666666;">Special Badges: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">CES</span> 2010 and Intel at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">CES</span></span></em></span><br /></div><br /><br /><div align="left">Please feel free to share any other ideas or business applications you have seen for Foursquare.</div><div align="left"></div></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-39553478541853548782010-02-08T05:59:00.000-08:002010-02-25T09:52:57.291-08:00Search is not a SiloSearch is not a silo. This was the core message at a Search Marketing Conference I attended last week, and provided plenty of food for thought.<br /><br />Search engine marketing is a relatively new practice when comparing it to the more traditional marketing tools, like advertising and PR. Yet, it is still just one component within the overall promotional mix. So as search marketers it is important for us to take a holistic approach and integrate it within the entire marketing toolset.<br /><br /><span style="color:#666666;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">"Search is the lead singer in a rock band. The other marketing channels are the instruments that support search" (</span></em><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://twitter.com/mktgmann">Russ Mann</a>, Covario, CEO)</span></em></span><br /><br />This makes entire sense, and is necessary in order to take the benefits and efficiencies of search to the next level. However, this is not without challenges. Organizationally, it requires us to educate and work closely with our marketing counterparts to ensure the integration of search within marketing programs. Secondly, in order to show the real benefit of integrating search with other media, better attribution models are needed.<br /><br />Right now, search holds a privileged position when it comes to attribution. Attribution is where credit is given (attributed) to the last action (often click) that the customer makes. Since search is often geared towards the end of the funnel, it tends to take the credit (more often than not); some may argue, over-credited at times. This is just the reality of how a lot of analytics systems are set up within companies.<br /><br />The reality, of course, is that conversion does not just happen at one particular point in time, or generated by just one particular medium. Rather it is a journey where many different media can work together, and contribute, towards that last click prior to conversion. Therefore, better attribution models are needed in order to assign credit in multi-channel programs.<br /><br />This is not an easy task due to the vast amount to data it can yield, not to mention the lack of technical expertise and in-house resources, to name a few. It is, however, an important piece of the puzzle we need to solve in order for us to:<br /><br />- Fully garner the benefits of search across multiple channels<br />- Better understand the touch points leading to a conversion<br />- Make better marketing decisions moving forward<br /><br />Thanks to <a href="http://twitter.com/covario">@covario</a> and all the presenters at the InflectionPoint '10 Conference last week (Twitter event hashtag: #ip10).Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-59971687172504883512010-02-01T05:44:00.000-08:002010-02-15T18:39:47.717-08:00A Guide to Baidu Search OptimizationBaidu is China's biggest search engine, commanding an impressive 64% market share, compared to Google's 31%. And with China replacing the US as the world's single largest growing economy (Enquiro, 2007), it is definitely a force that cannot be ignored for global search engine marketers. Yet as I was researching SEO for Baidu, it became apparent that there wasn't a whole lot of information available, at least in English, on how to rank well naturally for it.<br /><br />To follow, is a brief summary of what I was able to find so far, starting with the basics. I'll continue to add to this post as I find out more.<br /><br /><strong>Use a .cn Domain</strong><br />Baidu seems to favor websites which use a Chinese domain (.cn). This is understandable since Baidu is a Chinese search engine, for the Chinese people.<br /><br /><strong>Use Chinese Language Content</strong><br />In Baidu, very few searches are conducted in English. Therefore, it is important to translate your content into local language (ie: Simplified Chinese) in order to stand any chance of ranking well.<br /><br /><strong>Avoid Certain Types of Content</strong><br />Since content is controlled by the Chinese Government, Baidu is very sensitive to certain types of information. For example, adult content or other Government "forbidden keywords" are censored from search results. Using such words will not only negatively impact your pages, but potentially blacklist your entire web site.<br /><br /><strong>Optimize on Page Content</strong><br />Optimize your Heading, Anchor Text, Body Copy, and Meta Descriptions, just as you would for Google (see the <a href="http://bit.ly/SEO-HABIT">HABIT SEO Checklist</a> for tips). Unlike Google, Baidu continues to make use of Meta Keywords as a factor of rank, though it seems to be placing a little less emphasis on this recently.<br /><br /><strong>Inbound Links</strong><br />Where links are concerned, Baidu takes into account links from both external sources as well as links from within your own site. Quantity is more important than quality. More recently though, they seem to be following in the footsteps of Google and placing more emphasis on external links.<br /><br /><strong>Keyword Research</strong><br />When doing Keyword Research, Baidu has a <a href="http://index.baidu.com/">Baidu Index</a> tool that can provide you with estimate search numbers, similar to the Google Keyword Tool. The catch is that interface is in Simplified Chinese, but Google Translate can help non-speakers to some extent.<br /><br /><strong>Additional Useful Resources</strong><br />- <a href="http://bit.ly/6VTgpc">Chinese Search Engine Engagement</a> (Enquiro, 2007)<br />- <a href="http://ow.ly/T07r">2009: A Battle Ground in Chinese Search</a> (Digital East Asia, 2010)<br />- <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-says-no-to-china-censorship-33390">Google Says No to China</a> (SearchEngine Land, 2010)<br /><br /><em>--- Update 15-Feb-2010 ---</em><br /><br /><strong>Use a Chinese IP Address</strong><br />Websites that are hosted in China are prefered by Baidu, and will significantly improve your rank.<br /><br /><strong>Refresh Your Content</strong><br />As with Google, keep your content fresh and updated, since Baidu favors newer content over old.<br /><br /><strong>Aim for 6-12% Keyword Density</strong><br />Keyword density is still seen as an important ranking factor by Baidu to determine page relevancy.<br /><br /><strong>Keep Your Page Sizes Down</strong><br />Due to poor connectivity, Baidu’s crawlers will often crawl only the first 100-120k of a page. So keep your page sizes down, with the most important content and keywords toward the top of the page.<br /><br /><strong>Don't Forget About Alt Tags</strong><br />Remember to use your keyword in the image alt tag. As with Google, Baidu also uses this information to determine the relevancy of a page.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-9593355910626041502010-01-25T05:53:00.000-08:002010-01-27T10:56:14.082-08:00The Great Firewall of ChinaLast week, I was in Shanghai to do search marketing training and exercises to help improve our search marketing efforts in China and the Asia Pacific region. It was pretty interesting timing given the whole <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-says-no-to-china-censorship-33390">Google-China</a> debacle going on right now.<br /><br />What I found most interesting was hearing some local perspective on the issue. The small group of people I spoke with (probably about 20 or so) all agreed that Google moving out of China would be a bad thing - they believed (and hoped) that it wouldn't happen, and that a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">truse</span> would eventually be made with the Chinese Government. I guess time will tell.<br /><br />So going in, I was aware of the censorship issues in China, but I guess I didn't appreciate the extent of it - particularly where social media is concerned - and how disconnected I felt. Literally, it was like losing a limb. Here's an example of five popular social tools I tried out:<br /><br /><strong><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Facebook</span></strong> is blocked. I remember being in China less than two years ago and was able to access <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Facebook</span> just fine. But when I think about it, the social media scene has come a long way in just two years.<br /><br /><strong>Twitter</strong> is blocked and I was unable to access it through <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">TweetDeck</span> or any other desktop application. In <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Brizzly</span>, you are able to log in, but the feed doesn't show up, making it about as useful as not being able to log in in the first place.<br /><br /><strong><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Blogspot</span></strong> should be re-named <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Blockspot</span>. At least last week I had a good excuse for not posting to my blog since I couldn't access it! However, I am told that blogs (just not those on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Blogspot</span>, I guess) are quite popular amongst the Chinese audience.<br /><br /><strong>Foursquare</strong> is not blocked. I can see how the government could find Foursquare useful, but I suspect that it's availability may be due to the uptake not being as high as tools like Twitter and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Facebook</span> (yet). If you "Check In" or do a "Shout Out" on Foursquare it does feed through to your Twitter account, so everyone on Twitter can see it (just not you!).<br /><br /><strong>YouTube </strong>is blocked, of course, and didn't appear in any of the search results.<br /><br />The interesting thing is that despite many of these popular tools being blocked, China is still quite active in the social space (as an example, check out Forrester's <a href="http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html">Social <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Technographics</span> </a>Profiling Tool). They are active, just not in the same channels as we may use in the west.<br /><br />So what do the people of China use? An important question for a company's global social media strategy.<br /><ul><li>There are a number of local <a href="http://thenextweb.com/2009/04/01/attack-chinese-twitter-clones/">Twitter equivalents</a> going around, though I can't yet comment as to how popular these are, or the profile of the users. </li><br /><li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina.com"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Sina</span></a> is a very popular website destination for local news and information, with about 10 million active users. On the site, they host a <a href="http://bbs.english.sina.com/">Forum</a> where people can post and discuss issues. </li><br /><li>In addition to Forums, Blogs (of the non-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Blogspot</span> variety) are also popular.<br /></li><li>Probably the most noticeable (and closest to real-time) tool I saw being used was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">MSN</span> messenger (or equivalent). It kind of takes me back to the early 2000's, but nonetheless this seems to be a very popular social tool. Whilst sitting in meetings, almost everyone had messenger constantly running with messages popping up every few seconds, accompanied by cute "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Manga</span>-style" avatars. </li></ul><p>So that was my first-hand experience of going cold-turkey in China (Note: These were results based on going through "normal" channels that most people would use. I'm sure there are clever ways to bypass the firewall). </p><p>Whilst researching for my trip I also found that there was not a whole lot of information about how to optimize pages for the biggest search engine in China - <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Baidu</span>. So in my next post, I'm going to share what I did manage to find out.<br /></p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-59122074650804845082010-01-11T05:14:00.000-08:002010-01-11T09:06:59.222-08:00What Happens When Your PPC Budget is Cut in Half?It's the moment any marketer dreads; budget cuts.<br /><br />This happened a lot to me last year, and I know I'm not the only one. 2009 was a truly horrible year for a lot of folk. But this story does have a silver lining, thanks to the proof in numbers that search marketing can provide.<br /><br />So getting back to the story; what exactly happened when half of my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">PPC</span> budget was taken away?<br /><br /><strong>Month 1 – Continue running campaigns as before, at the reduced budget<br /></strong>The first month was the "control" month (aka the "oh shit" month). Nothing was changed in terms of campaigns, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">adgroups</span> and keywords that were running. The only change was the amount that was spent. This is what happened:<br /><ul><li>Clicks through to the web site: Down 53% </li><li>Key actions indicating an intent to purchase: Down 25% </li><li>Online conversions: Down 46%</li><li>Revenue lost (est): 9.5x more than the budget cut </li></ul><p><strong>Month 2 – Use the reduced budget to fund top keywords only</strong><br />To be fair, if your salary was cut in half, you <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">wouldn</span>’t continue to splurge on things. You would take a look at your expenses, downsize, and cut out certain luxuries to try and live within your means.<br /><br />So in the second month, I focused campaigns back down to basics. The budget was used to fund only the top-performing keywords – those which drove the most traffic and highest quality. As a result, many <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">longtail</span> words went unfunded. This is what happened: </p><ul><li>Clicks through to the web site: Down 61%</li><li>Key actions indicating an intent to purchase: Down 12% </li><li>Online conversions: Down 25%</li><li>Revenue lost (est.): 5.3x more than the budget cut</li></ul><p>Month 2 showed some interesting results. When comparing the different approaches it seems that you drive less volume (clicks) when you limit yourself to “head” keywords (this makes sense as you are casting a much smaller net), but as a result you drive better quality results compared to just spreading the budget thinly (as in Month 1).<br /><br />As a side note, I believe that the Month 2 approach is not a sustainable long-term solution for the reasons highlighted in a previous post: <a href="http://bit.ly/assist-keywords">Understanding the Importance of Assist Keywords</a>.<br /><br />So comparing the two months, Month 2 was better than Month 1. However, that’s not to say that it was good in its own right – especially when the result was still 5x less revenue than the budget that was cut (and we're talking big numbers here).<br /><br /><strong>Month 3 – I got my budget back, plus a bit more</strong><br />After two months, I was fighting the budget bearers off with sticks. Looking back I like to see this exercise as more of an experiment, even if it was a forced one.<br /><br />The results proved a point and served as a reminder of how kick-ass search marketing can be when it comes to metrics and accountability. So if you find yourself in this situation, make sure you keep on top of the numbers, and share it with the people who hold the purse strings.<br /></p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-34395990625173048912010-01-04T05:37:00.000-08:002010-01-11T08:45:19.944-08:00My Top Three Reads for 2010First of all, a very happy New Year to everyone. The Christmas/New Year weeks have been filled with lots of eating and resting and it's been great to be able to recharge the old batteries. Over the past couple of weeks I've continued to keep in touch with search and social developments through Twitter, and have read many predictions of what different people think will happen in 2010, as well as some interesting reviews looking back at whose 2009 predictions came true.<br /><br />I'm not going to jump on the Mystic Meg bandwagon. Rather, I wanted to share with you my top three reads that I will be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">book worming</span> through in the new year. My reading list resolution, I guess.<br /><br /><strong>1. Web Analytics 2.0 (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Avinash</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kaushik</span>)</strong><br />Now usually when I see anything with the words "2.0" in it, I will run a mile with my fingers down my throat gagging. But for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Avinash</span> I make an exception, since the man is brilliant.<br /><br />I've already read about a quarter of the way through this one. I love <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Avinash's</span> unique approach that makes smart analytics understandable and fun. My favourite part from the book so far:<br /><br /><em>"At my first analytics job... I asked a lot of questions about the use of data and the 200 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Webtrends</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">reports</span> that were being produced. At the end of two weeks, I turned off <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Webtrends</span>. For three weeks, not a single human being called about their missing 200 reports. 200! In a multi-billion-dollar company!".</em><br /><br />My key take-away so far is that people investment in "Analysis Ninjas", rather than simply tool investment, is what is needed to yield results that make a difference to the bottom line. Although <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Avinash</span> is Mr. Google, he presents different software options along the way, often playing down Google solutions (maybe even too much).<br /><br /><strong>2. The Art of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">SEO</span> (Erik <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Enge</span>, Stephan Spencer, Rand <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Fishkin</span>, Jessie <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Stricchiola</span>)</strong><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">SEO</span> is going to be a much bigger focus for me in 2010. Although this is still on my "to get" list, I've seen some great reviews for this book, and with the impressive list of author names on this one, you can't really go wrong; for example, Rand is the co-founder of the excellent <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">SEOmoz</span></a>.<br /><br /><strong>3. Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Robert <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Kiyosaki</span>, Sharon <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Lechter</span>)</strong><br />I've really been enjoying reading Paul Harrison's <a href="http://urbanjunglesurvival.wordpress.com/">Urban Survival Blog</a>. Paul recommended this book in his latest post, "<a href="http://urbanjunglesurvival.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/getting-off-my-hamster-wheel/">Getting off my Hamster Wheel...</a>". Although this book is not about search or social media per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">se</span>, it serves as a good sanity check, I believe, for anyone who spends half their life in an office. This book is about two conflicting ways of thinking about working and business.<br /><br /><br />I'll let you know how I get on. If anyone has already read any of these, please feel free to post your thoughts on them.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-79042910899957235912009-12-21T06:10:00.000-08:002009-12-21T06:10:39.389-08:003 Steps to Getting Optimized on a Global ScaleI challenge you to a test.<br /><ul><li>Take a selection (maybe 10) of your most important <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">SEO</span> keywords</li><li>Identify the local language equivalent in your most important markets, outside of the US</li><li>Get someone in your local country office to type in each keyword in the local engine (one Google, one other), and record your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">SEO</span> rank</li><li>Then also get them to record your competitors' rank. </li></ul><p>If you are ranking well, then no need to read any further - congratulations for being awesome. If, however, your results are on the scary side, then join the club. Here are 3 basic steps for helping you get back on track:<br /><br /><strong>Step 1: Set up Local Language Sites</strong><br />So I sort of lied - I know that this is far from a basic step, especially if you are starting up from scratch. But if you are a global company, then it's close to impossible to rank well organically for important local language keywords without having a local language site.<br /><br />One work around (or cheat) would be to sponsor local language keywords in order to show up on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">PPC</span> side, also translating your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">adcopy</span>. Of course, when this person then gets taken to an English language site, they will likely be a little pissed about it, and rightly so. So you should not be surprised when you see significantly lower conversions when doing this.<br /><br /><strong>Step 2: Build Your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">SEO</span> Keyword List </strong><br />If you haven't already, then make sure you have an <a href="http://bit.ly/seo-keywords"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">SEO</span> Keyword List</a> in English. This should consist of your most important keywords (and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Prefered</span> Landing Pages [<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">PLPs</span>]) that you want to be appearing for in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">SERP</span>.<br /><br />Then take these English keywords and ask your local country contacts to help translate them into the appropriate local language(s). Now because several different translations may exist for the same English keyword, you want to make sure that you have identified the best one – best in terms of both volume and quality.<br /><br /><em>i. Volume</em><br />Check for estimate search volumes using the <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal">Google Keyword Tool</a>, and the "Country" and "Language" toggles. Generally speaking, the higher the keyword volume, the better as you don’t want to be spending lots of time optimizing for a keyword translation that no-one is searching on. However, with this you also want to take into account quality, as high volume keywords can sometimes be too broad.<br /><br /><em>ii. Quality</em><br />The best way to check for quality, is to look at your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">PPC</span> results (in particular, some kind of quality score or conversion indicator) for that keyword. If you’re not sponsoring the keyword already, then test it out in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">PPC</span> first (about two week's of data is usually sufficient).<br /><br />In addition to simply translating your English keywords, you can also get other good ideas for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">SEO</span> keywords from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">PPC</span>, so remember to check out <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">PPC</span> keyword performance for each language. You may come across a keyword that doesn't work well in terms of an "English keyword translation", but works fantastically within that particular country.<br /><br />Important note: It’s really important to get your keyword list right (as you will spend a lot of time optimizing your site for these words), so don’t skimp on the time/effort to put these lists together - it will save time in the long-term.<br /><br /><strong>3. Optimize Your Local Pages</strong><br />Once you have your keyword list in place for each language, optimize each local language <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">PLP</span> according to the keyword. At a minimum, make sure you optimize according to the <a href="http://bit.ly/SEO-HABIT">HABIT</a> checklist.</p><p>Then of course, continue to monitor, optimize and add keywords to improve your placement and presence over time.</p><p></p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-60491130157687045502009-12-14T05:47:00.000-08:002009-12-14T16:01:03.601-08:00Google gets Personal, Quick, and Snappy...but have they also got sloppy? Last week, Google made three interesting announcements regarding search marketing. Here's a quick summary, and some thoughts around these:<br /><br /><strong>1. Personalized Search</strong><br />It seemed inevitable that search needed to evolve from a general to a more personalized level. Google's Personalized Search attempts to do just that by using past search history to serve up more relevant results for each individual. This is the case regardless of whether you are signed into Google or not, and it seems that Google have made the opt-out process quite difficult to figure out (not to mention that most searchers will likely be oblivious to it). This, of course, brings up the question of privacy, even more so since there has been talk of cookies being opt-in in Europe in 2011.<br /><br /><em>What does this mean for SEOs?</em><br />Results can now rank higher or lower based upon an individual's past click behaviour rather than just the search algorithm. This makes SEO harder to optimize for (even more so than before) and can make SEO measurement more complex; measures of success will need to move beyond a traditional rank metric.<br /><br />To see more, watch Google's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKuG2M6R4VM">Personalized Search</a> Video.<br /><br /><strong>2. Real-Time Search</strong><br />Relevance has always been a big factor in good search results, but with the continued rise of social media, recency is becoming more and more important.<br /><br />Google's Real-Time Search results sit in the middle of the SERP and automatically flow as new information comes in, mainly from Twitter (though it also includes results from Google News, Google Blog Search, Friend Feed updates and others). Alternatively, you can also click on "Show options" and "Latest" to see a page just with real-time results. Here's what it looks like:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ58n-zRVdEqNEFfFBNFHoumcLGgxZwyDcFIxpGoMqQK-m9_bYzTSjflbcaT1B4bAHsbqNxNxbSAxd6NM9EYvzt7IBeIqQ05tF1y3zoMNIMH40n7OS4uAOlddnCxIIQrRuxreyvgHv5_I/s1600-h/realtimesearch-google.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414965345244784770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 316px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ58n-zRVdEqNEFfFBNFHoumcLGgxZwyDcFIxpGoMqQK-m9_bYzTSjflbcaT1B4bAHsbqNxNxbSAxd6NM9EYvzt7IBeIqQ05tF1y3zoMNIMH40n7OS4uAOlddnCxIIQrRuxreyvgHv5_I/s400/realtimesearch-google.bmp" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#666666;">Example of Google Real-Time Search Results (Show Options > Latest)</span><br /><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Although the results are integrated into the SERP, execution doesn't seem to be the cleanest - which begs the question of whether Google launched real-time search as a knee jerk reaction to Bing. Many reviews I've read have also commented that the results are below par and can be easily influenced, though Google claim that only information that is highly relevant (and not spammy) are included... though actual results suggest otherwise.<br /><br />Other questions also arise regarding Google's current implementation. For example, with the real-time search results appearing slap-bam in the middle of the SERP, will this mean more people investing in PPC in order to gain more control of their presence above the fold? And will it encourage people to spam more to try and influence real-time results?<br /><br /><em>What are the implications for search marketers?</em><br />Regardless of current execution (which will hopefully improve), search and social are becoming more and more intertwined. Quite simply, web marketers need to get their search marketing and social media strategies in order as the two continue to converge.<br /><br />Read more about <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-real-time-search-31355">Real-Time Search</a>.<br /><br /><strong>3. Google Goggles</strong><br />Google Goggles (launched in Google Labs) allows you to simply take a picture (with an Andorid phone) to search the web. It doesn't work for everything and a valuable business application right now is questionable. However, it is pretty neat in a geeky, experimental kind of way.</div><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left">Some of the things you can do include:<br /></div><ul><li><div align="left">Finding out what businesses are nearby</div></li><li><div align="left">Identifying objects, places and landmarks</div></li><li><div align="left">Identifying products through barcodes</div></li></ul><div align="left">See <a href="http://wysz.com/wyszdom/2009/12/google-goggles/">Google Goggles</a> in action.</div><div align="left"></div></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-63112580170785888802009-12-07T05:30:00.000-08:002009-12-07T11:22:05.668-08:00How to Achieve Success in PPC Reseller Programs<p>On more than a few occasions, I've been asked to take part in joint <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">PPC</span> programs with resellers. Sometimes the programs have worked really well, other times they have been less than inspiring.<br /><br />Overall, I've seen mixed results. Here's a few thoughts on some of the lessons learned and what worked best:<br /><br /><strong>Bidding</strong><br />Although having <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">PPC</span> placements by both you and your resellers mean less shelf-space available to your competitors, competing on bids with your resellers is not always the most efficient use of money, especially when budgets are tight. By pooling resources together you can work to improve placement and increase coverage throughout the day. Collaborating on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">day-parting</span> can also work well to reduce bidding conflicts.<br /><br /><strong>Analytics</strong><br />Probably the most important thing is to make sure your reseller has good site analytics in place. There's no point in driving your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">PPC</span> traffic to the reseller site if they can't track what happens to these people once they hit their site. This may sound obvious, but shoddy, even non-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">existent</span>, tracking has happened more times than I'd like to remember.<br /><br /><strong>E-commerce</strong><br />Resellers are exactly that; they are about selling. More often than not, the expectation is that resellers have e-commerce capabilities on their site. Therefore, targeting <a href="http://bit.ly/sem-intent">intent</a> through specific "buy" phrases can work well to encourage online purchase (even more so if your own site lacks e-commerce). However, remember to make sure that your reseller's site can track your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">PPC</span> investment through to online sale.<br /><br /><strong>Dedicated Landing Page</strong><br />Be prepared to drive traffic and key conversions for keywords away from your site to the reseller. This is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ok</span>, as long as they have tracking in place and searchers are being moved towards a sale. However, be sure that the reseller is landing searchers on a page focused just on your products (for example, a dedicated landing page or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">microsite</span>). Remember that if the reseller also sells competitor products then you risk the visitor wandering towards competing products, from your paid ad.<br /><br /><strong>Channel Conflict</strong><br />If you have a number of resellers covering the same geographical areas and products, then you risk channel conflict issues, particularly if your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">PPC</span> program is just with a selected few.<br /><br />If this is the case, then sometimes it is best to make joint <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">PPC</span> programs a part of Reseller Certification. For example, companies with many resellers often organize their authorized resellers into different levels (such as Platinum, Gold, and Silver), depending on business requirements. The higher their level, the more support the partner receives. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">PPC</span> Co-Op programs could be part of this support. </p><p>As an example, in order to benefit from joint <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">PPC</span> programs, the reseller has to:</p><ul><li>Be a platinum-level partner </li><li>Have e-commerce capability</li><li>Have robust website analytics in place </li><li>Have a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">microsite</span> dedicated to your products</li></ul>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-31260945357008555862009-11-30T07:05:00.000-08:002009-11-30T08:01:04.004-08:00Putting SEO Back in the SpotlightWhen I look at SEO and PPC as part of the search marketing mix, I know how important the role of SEO is. I've heard what the experts have said and read the studies that tell me things like how searchers trust organic results more, and that searchers click on organic results more than paid.<br /><br />Yet despite knowing this, when I look back at my past search marketing plans, 80% of the plan details were focused on PPC, whilst only 20% was on SEO; almost as if it were an after-thought. Maybe it was because it seemed easier to just throw money at paid search. Afterall, it requires less effort, is easier to control (you can turn it on or off in an instant), metrics are often easier to track, and since big media investments are being made then detailed targets and metrics have to be clearly set out up front.<br /><br />But what about SEO?<br /><br />The skewed PPC focus had been bothering me for a while. So with web tracking more in order than prior years, I was able to delve into comparative metrics.<br /><br />When comparing SEO to PPC, I found that in the past year, SEO delivered:<br /><ul><li>10% more clicks than PPC </li><li>4X more key conversions</li></ul><p>It was the conversion comparison that struck me most, since these were *big* numbers (a key conversion in this case was where the visitor provided information about themselves and indicated an intention to purchase). Yet this shouldn't have been a big surprise. I guess seeing data specific to your business helps to bring the message closer to home. </p>So the moral of the story:<br /><ul><li>Don't put SEO in the corner. Organic search delivers, so it should always be at the forefront of search marketing and your plans.</li><br /><li>Yes, SEO is free where clicks are concerned but it doesn't mean that you don't invest in it. In order to flourish, it needs to be given the necessary time, resource, and commitment it so clearly deserves. </li><br /><li>And last but not least, get your web tracking in order. It will provide you with the most valuable insight relevant to your business.</li></ul>For me, at least, it is time to put SEO back into the spotlight.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-46689766252972767732009-11-23T06:37:00.000-08:002009-11-23T08:23:59.902-08:00Social Media 101: Q & A EssentialsOn Thursday I took part in a Social Media 101 panel, held by <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/">Business Wire</a> where I met lots of interesting people; some new to social media and some more experienced. There were many good questions asked by the audience. Here's a small selection of some of these.<br /><br /><strong>Should businesses use Facebook or Twitter?</strong><br />There is a view that you should just jump straight in, use the tools, and see where it leads. Personally, I disagree with this approach. The question shouldn't be about whether to use Facebook, or Twitter, or both. Rather, the questions should be:<br /><ul><li>What is it you want to achieve? </li><li>Can social media help you to achieve this? </li><li>Are your customers using social media? </li><li>And if so, what social media channels they are using? </li></ul>This can help form the beginnings of your social media strategy, from which tactics can be derived. Maybe you do find that Twitter is more suited to your business than Facebook (or vice versa). But maybe you find that blogs and community forums are better at achieving your objectives. At least by approaching it this way, you aren't deep diving into tools or losing sight of what it is you are trying to achieve.<br /><br />Also check out:<br /><a href="http://bit.ly/2R6wkx">The "5 Knows" of Social Media</a><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/no-twitter-strategy">There is no Twitter Strategy</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Do you have any tips to get started?</strong><br />I always recommend to read the book <a href="http://bit.ly/Search-Basics-Pt1">Groundswell</a>, if you haven't already. The POST method (People, Objectives, Strategy and Technologies) in this book will really help to structure your thoughts for your social media strategy.<br /><br />Also if you don't fully understand the workings of some of the tools, a good way to gain a practical understanding is to simply experiment and try them out personally in order to get familiar with the workings and nuances of them.<br /><br /><strong>How do you separate work from personal?</strong><br />For myself, it is very easy to keep work and personal separate in the social space. For business, I share content related to the company I work for, that helps solve our customer's challenges, and for personal I focus on my interest in search and social media. There is a very clear line.<br /><br />However, the line is more blurred for someone who may be a consultant in the social media field. Adding in non-business related information helps to make them and their personal brand more human. But there are ways to make businesses more human also, including a person picture, using conversational language, and having a person update tweets rather than just using it as an RSS feed.<br /><br />Also check out:<br /><a href="http://bit.ly/4f7FET">10 Tips for Using Twitter for Business</a>.<br /><br /><strong>How do you get lots of followers on Twitter?</strong><br />One view to get lots of followers is to follow lots of people in the hope that they follow you back. However, sometimes it's all too easy to get wrapped up in number counting. What is more important is to focus upon quality of followers over quantity. As an example, you may get a high number of responses from a demand generation Email, but if those responses don't convert into a lead or a sale, then the number of responses you get is almost arbitrary.<br /><br />A better approach is to provide interesting content and make use of popular keywords within your tweets so that you show up in searches. This way you attract followers who are interested in your content, rather than the "I'll follow you and you follow me" approach.<br /><br /><strong>What are common mistakes in Social Media?</strong><br />Probably the biggest mistake is thinking that you can't make a mistake. I think Charlene Li put it best by saying that at the end of the day, mistakes are inevitable because social media is about relationships, and no relationship is perfect. The key is to learn from your mistakes and learn from them quickly so that you don't do it again.<br /><br />Another common mistake to make is to believe that you are in control of social media. Just because you have a plan in place doesn't mean that you are in control. People will always be having conversations about you, your brand, your products, your competitors. The best you can do is to ensure that you are listening to these conversations so that if anything negative does get said, then you can address the problem quickly and in a positive way.<br /><br /><br />Thanks again to Business Wire and @laurentoday for inviting me to take part in the event.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-72222416781864681952009-11-16T05:37:00.000-08:002009-11-16T14:20:12.032-08:00The "5 Knows" of Social MediaI love social media. I can say with complete confidence that I am one of the biggest supporters of social media in my company. But at the same time I am also one of its biggest critics.<br /><br />When I think about social media, my head explodes with all of the possibilities it brings - being able to listen to our customers, engage with them, help them to solve problems, share solutions. But at the same time I have to face the harsh realities of working in a highly accountable, under-funded and under-staffed marketing organization, during one of the crappiest economies that most people have seen in their lifetime.<br /><br />This is why, before jumping on the social media bandwagon, it is important to consider and understand the "5 Knows" of Social Media:<br /><br /><strong>1. Know Your Audience</strong><br />Are your audience using social media within the industry in which you operate? And if so, which social media tools are they using (for business, not pleasure)? If you are a global organization, then how does this differ by region and country?<br /><br />If you don't know the answers to these questions, then you need to consider how to get this information. Forrester have a useful <a href="http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html">Social Technographics Tool</a> that can provide general information by gender, age group, and country. Is this enough to provide you with what you need? Or do you need to get more customer-specific data, for example from:<br /><ul><li>Website or Email surveys </li><li>Customer focus group research </li><li>Third party research (such as industry magazines) </li></ul><p><strong>2. Know What You Want to Achieve</strong><br />What is it exactly that you want to get out of social media? Do you want to lurk and listen to customers' conversations to gain a better understanding of their challenges and views? Do you want to engage and interact with them on a regular basis? Do you want to embrace their ideas and use these to drive product development? Do you simply want to support existing customers? What about branding vs. demand considerations? Different tools have different levels of reach when it comes to branding, demand and traffic.<br /><br />Knowing what you want to achieve from the outset will help you best determine which social media tools (of which there are so many) will best accomplish your objectives. It will also help to keep you on the straight and narrow, so that you do things for the right reasons, not just because it's cool and everyone else is doing it.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>3. Know What You Can (And Cannot) Track</strong><br />Showing a direct link between social media and ROI is extremely difficult. So it is important to understand that in most cases, the metrics associated with social media will be softer measures, centered around engagement and awareness. For example:</p><ul><li>The number of subscribers to your blog </li><li>The number of retweets and clicks on tweeted links </li><li>The number of active forum members </li></ul><p><strong>4. Know How to Integrate Social Media Within Your Marketing Mix</strong><br />Social media may be relatively new, but in the grand scheme of things it is just another tool in the marketer's tool box.<br /><br />More and more companies are finding opportunities to successfully leverage social media with other marketing communications tools. For example, BestBuy's Twelpforce (who provide technical advice to people on Twitter) was supported by a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25zcavXj97I&feature=player_embedded">TV advertising campaign</a>, Paid search ads and spawned a ton of PR coverage.<br /><br /><strong>5. Know How Much Time and Resources are Needed</strong><br />Social media requires a lot of time and commitment, and so to do it properly requires adequate budget and resources. Blogs can be updated daily. Tweets can be updated hourly, or by the minute. Posts on forums need to be continuously monitored and addressed.<br /><br />In a way, social media is like a child. Once you have it, you can't just return it when it starts to scream and poop. You're stuck with it. Content and relationships need to be maintained on an ongoing basis, unlike a direct mailer or E-comm which you might send out once a month and not have to think about or work on again until the next time.<br /><br />Once you and your content is out in the social universe for all to see, there is no undo button. There may be a "discontinue account" button, but it's at the risk of disappointing the fans and followers you do have (as an extreme, just think of the upheaval caused when Miley Cyrus gave up Twitter!). In which case, do you risk a potential back-lash from the people who are possibly your biggest advocates?<br /></p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-40908004978976962662009-11-09T05:24:00.000-08:002009-11-09T16:37:51.529-08:00The Twitter List Low DownTwitter Lists has been available to some lucky users in Beta for a while, but last week saw its full roll out to the rest of the Twitter universe.<br /><br /><strong>What is Twitter Lists?</strong><br />Twitter Lists is a feature in Twitter that allows you to categorize the people you follow. Right now, you can create up to 20 lists, and each list can have up to 500 users. You can make the lists public (for everyone to access) or private. Here's an example of what it looks like:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf294y3gASmIWes_tDCu1o9MTpozic41sbw2IWvKOhtudfUiLw5CRAClFa4vs2U-jZl0X8JbkSCoDQKX1YsVIId0ryaKCIU2WeAZhAFKJ6PXII7h14hj-_9VeUevbDNjwzL-kCI-YFah8/s1600-h/TLists.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402259676127334834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 227px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf294y3gASmIWes_tDCu1o9MTpozic41sbw2IWvKOhtudfUiLw5CRAClFa4vs2U-jZl0X8JbkSCoDQKX1YsVIId0ryaKCIU2WeAZhAFKJ6PXII7h14hj-_9VeUevbDNjwzL-kCI-YFah8/s400/TLists.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#999999;">Twitter Lists Screenshot: Create your own lists and be added to others' lists</span> <div align="left"><br /></div><strong></strong><div align="left"><strong>Why is Twitter Lists Useful?</strong><br /><br /><em>1. Better Organization</em><br />Twitter Lists allow for better organization of your followers, particularly if you follow a lot of people. It also makes it easier to filter tweets from different groups of people which is helpful if you follow a bunch of Twitter addicts who like to tweet every minute, of every day!<br /><br />For example, if you just want to see what is going on amongst your friends in "real life", you can create a list that just includes the people you personally know. You could also organize a list of people who tweet about social media and a list of people focused on search marketing, and then easily see what information is being talked about for each of these different areas.<br /><br /><em>2. Provide Recommendations</em><br />If you have taken the time to create a list and add people to it, then that often implies a recommendation for those people, for the field you have categorized them into. Public-viewable lists also allow an easy way for users to find and follow people in lists that have been created.<br /><br />There has been speculation that Twitter Lists could be the death of <a href="http://mashable.com/followfri/">#FollowFriday</a>. Personally, I think Follow Friday will continue to live on, since list creation is not something everyone will take the time to do. Rather, Twitter Lists and Follow Friday have the potential to complement each other. For example, rather than listing individual people in a Follow Friday, users can now just link to a Twitter List.<br /><br /><em>3. Identify Influencers</em><br />When a person has been added to many lists (and there is a similar categorization across those lists), you can start to gain an idea as to who the big players or influencers are in that field. This provides another way of judging big Twitter influencers, in addition to just looking at the number of followers a person has (particularly since there are ways to cheat the system where follower volume is concerned).<br /><br /><em>4. Positioning By Others</em><br />Twitter Lists provide interesting insight into how followers view you. This can be particularly eye-opening for companies on Twitter. How is your company's brand, positioning and values defined by your customers? And how does this differ to your corporate definition? As an example, @comcastcares is currently on 330 lists, ranging from various technology and service-related descriptions (such as <a href="https://twitter.com/WebDH/tech">tech</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/guyatcarphone/twittercustomersupport">customersupport</a>), to more emotional categorizations ranging from <a href="https://twitter.com/HarrisonPainter/brands-i-respect">brandsirespect</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/Doubledown_InSL/punks-asses-and-idiots">punkassesandidiots</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Additional Twitter List Tools</strong> </div><ul><li><div align="left"><a href="http://listorious.com/">Listorious</a> provides a directory of public Twitter Lists</div></li><li><div align="left"><a href="http://listiti.com/">Listiti</a> provides Twitter List Email Alerts<br /></div></li></ul></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-46804126630953759702009-11-02T05:54:00.000-08:002009-11-02T08:20:06.391-08:00Search Goes SocialLast week was an eventful week for search and social marketing. First there was the announcement that Twitter had signed deals with both Bing and Google to give them access to its full feed of public tweets. How exactly the search engines intend to use this real-time information from Twitter remains a little fuzzy, though Bing does already utilize some of this in <a href="http://bit.ly/real-time-search-wars">Bing Tweets</a>.<br /><br />On the same day Google announced a separate "Social Search" experiment in Google Labs. Google's Social Search displays links and updates based upon the searcher's own social network. The idea is to show personally relevant search results based upon your social connections. Why? Because people trust information more from people they know or are connected to.<br /><br />The results (currently appearing at the bottom of the standard search results page) are based on various information sources, such as:<br /><ul><li>Gmail contacts</li><li>Google reader subscriptions</li><li>Social networking profiles on your Google profile</li><li>Friends on other services, including Flickr, FriendFeed, Digg, YouTube...</li></ul>These search results also tell you how you are connected to that person; a nice touch.<br /><br />There has been much talk about the growing convergence of search and social as well as predictions of their marriage in the future. But these are promising signs of the major engines taking serious steps forward where social media is concerned.<br /><br /><strong>Learn More</strong><br /><br />To check out Google Social Search yourself, go to <a href="http://www.google.com/experimental/">Google Labs</a> and join the Social Search Experiment.<br /><br />To understand <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpTjP6h6Ms&feature=player_embedded#">How Google Social Search Works</a>, watch the YouTube video by Matt Cutts.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-28298758484083858722009-10-26T05:23:00.000-07:002009-10-26T14:23:30.665-07:00How Search and Social Solved my MoveI'm doing the dreaded apartment move at the end of this month. But the move this time around has been a slightly different experience from the last. This time, I was more aware of how search and social could help make things easier, and I gained some key takeaways about how my own experience can help me to become a better search and social marketer.<br /><br /><strong>Boxes</strong><br />The main problem when moving is trying to figure out how many boxes you need. I did a general search on "moving boxes" and although it wasn't the top organic result, U-Haul (the only brand I recognized in the top three organic positions) appeared, which was a bit of a surprise since I only know them for their vans, and not for boxes.<br /><br />I clicked on the U-Haul link and got taken directly to a page with customized moving kits. Once on their site, U-Haul help you choose box types and quantities depending upon the size of your home (ranging from a dorm room up to a 2-bed house). So easy. They also allow you to customize the kit you choose. For example, if you didn't want a tape gun then you could just take it out and add another medium-sized box instead. Furthermore, if you overestimate on the box front, then no problem, as U-Haul buys back any unused boxes from you!<br /><br /><em>Key Takeaways:</em><br /><br /><ul><li>Being in a top 3 organic position really is golden (above the fold, page 1, within the "golden triangle") </li><li>Scent from keyword, to SERP listing (copy), to landing page is key </li><li>Brand recognition plays an important role in click-thru (even if the brand is appearing for an area in which you don't normally associate that brand with) </li><li>Landing page guarantees help to reinforce trust and move people through the decision cycle </li></ul><strong>Movers</strong><br />After my last DIY moving experience, I came to the wise decision of hiring movers to do it for me. However, finding movers is a slightly more complex task than finding boxes. It requires a higher investment, and there is a much bigger trust factor involved. Care is one concern, as is reliability (ie: not having someone drive off with my entire life's contents in the back of their van!).<br /><br />Rather than do a standard Google search, I first went to Angie's List to get an idea of reliable movers in my area. Angie's List is specifically focused on ratings and reviews of home service providers. Due to the nature of this site, I associated a higher trust factor with the reviews on here, rather than from the web at large.<br /><br />I also sent a message out on Twitter asking if anyone could provide a recommendation. This is what happened:<br /><br /><span style="color:#999999;"><span style="font-size:85%;">[imeldak] Can anyone recommend any good residential moving companies in Portland Oregon?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[movingpro] @imeldak i'm not in ur area but B sure 2 check reputation w/ BBB, yrs in biz, awards 4 service. Reputation saves u $</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[imeldak] @movingpro Thanks. It's a shame I'm not in Cali, otherwise you guys would've been perfect</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[movingpro] @imeldak I'm sorry to! but check out our site there r lots of helpful tips 4 ur move <a href="http://bit.ly/NCPJY">http://bit.ly/NCPJY</a></span></span><br /><br />Call me a push-over, but based on this interaction, along with the helpful information I found on their site, I would now recommend NorthStar Moving Corp (@movingpro) to friends and family I have in California, and anyone else who was looking for a recommendation. I even did a Follow Friday for them.<br /><br /><em>Key Takeaways:</em><br /><br /><ul><li>Sometimes Google is not always the right search engine to use; it really does depend on the task</li><li>I trust recommendations based upon interactions with my Twitter contacts more than recommendations made on sites by complete strangers</li><li>Never underestimate the importance of listening to keywords on Twitter </li><li>Successful engagement on Twitter can earn brand advocates </li></ul><p></p>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-26068216731984408862009-10-19T06:22:00.000-07:002009-10-23T13:55:40.291-07:00There is no "Twitter Strategy"When it comes to social media, the focus - by nature - should always be on people and relationships, not tools. This means that social media planning does not begin with a Twitter strategy.<br /><br />If you've read any of my previous posts, you will be familiar with my disdain towards that popular question "What's your Twitter strategy?" *puke*. As we know, Twitter can be used to help achieve certain objectives and strategies, but should not be seen as a strategy in itself; it is a tool to get things done. Just like direct mail is one tactic that can be used to generate demand, Twitter is a tool that can be used to listen and engage with customers.<br /><br />This is important for people within an organization to understand, and it is more than just about being a terminology snob. Why? As with all planning, if you start deep diving directly into tools and tactics without knowing exactly what it is you are trying to achieve and why, then there is risk of completely missing the point, and wasting time and money on executing the wrong things, for the wrong reasons.<br /><br />This is why I've found it useful to use a matrix-like system to help organize thoughts and avoid the tactical deep dive approach. The headings (objective, strategy, tactics and tools) help provide focus for your ideas. You can then use this as a template to build out the details around your plan (not forgeting metrics, of course).<br /><br />Here's an example:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJgIDwz36QP8qbVSYlZ62hULhmwUsAmVqx5RgPBrJV4aCy1Poe1S7qIlAZSdkRpRiwl56Yn0EDgVXvX-eZAeCJSFiuKoFxwKBhG_d7LNNydIC-bH8x3wZ34qlXnohos-kb_ofBXCmosW4/s1600-h/smmatrix.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395901706980387138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 226px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJgIDwz36QP8qbVSYlZ62hULhmwUsAmVqx5RgPBrJV4aCy1Poe1S7qIlAZSdkRpRiwl56Yn0EDgVXvX-eZAeCJSFiuKoFxwKBhG_d7LNNydIC-bH8x3wZ34qlXnohos-kb_ofBXCmosW4/s400/smmatrix.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;color:#999999;">Planning Matrix Example</span><br /><div align="left"> </div></div>Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-45482665151348204312009-10-12T05:40:00.000-07:002009-10-12T08:25:32.145-07:00Should you Pay-Per-Click When Your SEO is Strong?You've optimized and optimized and you've finally managed to get that coveted SEO top spot. Time to turn off your PPC, right? Not so fast. One thing I've learned is that search marketing isn't always clear-cut.<br /><br />I often get asked why we continue to sponsor some keywords when we are already ranking high on the SEO side. So here's a quick summary discussing the benefits of doing SEO-only versus keeping PPC running alongside SEO.<br /><br /><strong>Approach 1: SEO-Only</strong><br />Once you have gained a top SEO position, then one approach is not to continue sponsoring these keywords in PPC anymore. Why cannibalize your free click stream with clicks that you have to pay for? If your budget is stretched then you can use this money to better support keywords that aren't showing up organically. Afterall, searchers trust organic results and according to Marketing Sherpa, the Top 5 SEO rankings command 55% of clicks.<br /><br /><strong>Approach 2: Combined PPC and SEO</strong><br />There is nothing in the SEO-only approach that I don't agree with. However, I do believe that there is value in keeping PPC running alongside SEO, particularly for those golden keywords that convert well. Here's a few reasons why:<br /><br /><em>1. Reassurance to the Searcher </em><br />Having a presence in both SEO and PPC helps to reassure a searcher that you are relevant to the search they have carried out, and that you are the right next step to click on. Sure there will be some cannibalization along the way, but often the combined clicks are higher than just having a presence in SEO alone. However, these numbers are worth testing out for yourself.<br /><br /><em>2. Shelf Space<br /></em>Searchers may trust SEO results, but almost 20% of them are still clicking on PPC ads (Marketing Sherpa). By appearing in both organic and paid search positions, you increase your visibility and in effect, double your shelf space in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). One more position that belongs to you, means one less that can be taken up by your competitors.<br /><br />If you are interested, check out this article by Kevin Lee (ClickZ) which explains more about the concept of <a href="http://www.clickz.com/3623308">Search Marketing Shelf Space</a>.<br /><br /><em>3. Control</em><br />Just because you are in a top SEO position today, isn't to say that you will stay there. SEO is very fluid and you have to constantly monitor and optimize in order to stay on top.<br /><br /><em>- Position</em><br />One benefit of PPC over SEO is that it is a lot more controllable. If having a top SEO and top PPC position is too much overkill, then look to achieve a balance. If you command a top SEO position then you can afford to bid slightly less for a lower PPC position - this way you are still providing reassurance to the searcher, maintaining that double shelf space, whilst not spending as much to achieve it.<br /><br /><em>- Preferred Landing Page</em> (PLP)<br />Sometimes your SEO entry doesn't lead people to the preferred landing page you want people to see when they click through from the SERP. With PPC you can control/tailor both the adcopy and the PLP to better match the intent of the searcher, or guide the searcher towards a particular outcome/conversion of your choosing.<br /><br />For example, if you do a search on the word "Google", "Google" appears in both the top SEO and PPC positions. The organic entry leads people to google.com, but the paid ad encourages people to "Make Google Your Homepage" with a direct link to that page.<br /><br /><br />There are fors and againsts for both approaches, but it is worth not automatically ruling out PPC when your SEO is strong, especially for those high-converting keywords. What is important, is to continually monitor spend and performance to make sure that your PPC is providing enough return.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2138891342099587453.post-62309684787993638072009-10-05T06:32:00.000-07:002009-10-05T08:17:13.839-07:00Q&A: Should Companies be Scared of Google Sidewiki?<strong>What the Heck is Google <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Sidewiki</span>?</strong><br />On 23rd September, Google unveiled a new toolbar feature for web browsers that allow anyone to add comments and notes about web pages - including your web page - in a sidebar. Users can make comments about the page as a whole, or reference specific content on the page. Here's what it looks like:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsDIyCbX4mvCZG8C_IMywLEO67vbLtuVbQN3xb2ZlgPG1PjjVK8_PtR5eh5nR06i7kks-O5L2KzF0rwS8f9FAHTEvyqKfVwqlVwvGb_rtcxCCcalMqtv_0ExJKOo_egn8dwMErQq0xwB0/s1600-h/sidewiki.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386949624719384082" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 274px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsDIyCbX4mvCZG8C_IMywLEO67vbLtuVbQN3xb2ZlgPG1PjjVK8_PtR5eh5nR06i7kks-O5L2KzF0rwS8f9FAHTEvyqKfVwqlVwvGb_rtcxCCcalMqtv_0ExJKOo_egn8dwMErQq0xwB0/s400/sidewiki.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><span style="color:#666666;">Google <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Sidewiki</span> - Allows Anyone to Comment on your Web Page</span></em> </span></div><br /><strong></strong><strong>Why, Oh Why?</strong><br />The social media beast continues to grow. Almost everywhere you look online, people are talking, commenting, interacting and rating companies and their products - be it through forums and blog posts; on Amazon, Twitter and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Facebook</span>; and now on your site too.<br /><br />According to Google, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Sidewiki</span> will help people to:<br /><ul><li>More easily contribute to any web page and help others</li><li>Learn from others who have visited a page before you</li></ul><strong>Isn't that a bit "Pie in the Sky"?</strong><br />Definitely. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Sidewiki</span> works on the basis that people are altruistic, and this is true to a certain extent. We see this all the time in forums - people like to help people and put their knowledge on stage. It makes contributors feel good and valued, despite there being no monetary gain.<br /><br />However, with the good, also comes the bad. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sidewiki</span> - as with most social media - opens things up to abusers who are not looking to add value, but rather to write insults, spread rumors and post spam. It also means competitors can go in and add comments, which could include tactics that tell visitors to go to their site and buy their products instead.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>What Does This Mean?</strong><br />Whether you like it or not, your web site just went social. Visitors can now voice their feedback on your pages using <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Sidewiki</span>. Unlike before, feedback is now attached to your site, rather than just through some disparate blog or third-party site. This means that if you're not already, it's time to seriously start listening, participating in and embracing feedback and interaction.<br /><br /><strong>So Should Companies be Scared?</strong><br />This depends on a number of things, including:<br /><br /><em>1. Audience Uptake</em><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sidewiki</span> comments are stored on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Google's</span> servers and only visible to those who have actually downloaded the tool and are aware of its function. So if your audience are early adopters of social tools, then they are more likely to be users compared to late adopters and laggards. Of these people, an even fewer <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">amount</span> will actually use the tool to make comments.<br /><br /><em>2. Brand Promoters</em><br />If you're brand is popular then your promoters will likely stand up against the detractors when it comes to negative comments and insults. If you don't have a lot of promoters, then it's time to gain them through listening and addressing concerns.<br /><br /><em>3. Abuse and Spam Issues</em><br />It seems that you get system abusers wherever you go these days. But how do you address this? There's a couple of options available, but nothing fool proof:<br /><br />a. Report abuse to Google - Abusers can be "identified" since users have to be logged in as a Google users. However, there is likely to be a time lag between Google addressing any abuse, plus anyone can sign up for an account or fake account.<br /><br />b. Usefulness Ratings - In <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Sidewiki</span>, comments can be rated as a thumbs up or thumbs down. From the few sites I've found so far (mostly B2C), it looks like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Sidewiki</span> puts comments in order of usefulness rating (as opposed to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">recency</span>), where comments with the highest number of thumbs up appear at the top of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Sidewiki</span> list, thus pushing the not so useful comments (such as spam) to the bottom.<br /><br />c. Address Issues With Your Own Comments - Monitor the posts and conversations, listen and address issues, encourage brand promoters.<br /><br /><strong>Check it out Yourself</strong><br />The best way to learn more about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Sidewiki,</span> see it in action, and of course keep a check on whether people are adding to your website, is to <a href="http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/index.html">download <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Sidewiki</span></a> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">yourself</span>.Imeldahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17002522922214114657noreply@blogger.com0