Winter 2012 Edition of Visibility Magazine by Visibility Magazine

THE MAGAZINE FOR ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES

Visibility www.visibilitymagazine.com

Winter 2012 | $9.95

How to Choose the Right Affiliate Manager By Geno Prussakov

The Business Case for Pinterest By Jennifer Dunphy

The Hard Freakonomics of Search Marketing for Small Business By Rob Laporte

The New Age of SEO, Explained By Gary Hagins

YouTube What?

By Josh Dalton

Multichannel and Attribution Modeling By Daniel Laws

departments

06 Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Note

Read all about the latest happenings with this growing magazine.

08 Featured CEO: Malcolm Cowley

From a mid-stage online business entrepreneur to the CEO of Performance Horizon Group, Malcolm Cowleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success story is one that gets many to sit up and take notice.

11 Quarterly Round-Up

Snapshots of all that is happening in the world of internet marketing. Get the scoop on all the news and views in the world of internet marketing. Latest news related to products, tools and strategies being unveiled.

18 Legal Corner

Travis Crabtree looks into the different legal issues to do with the ever-changing world of online marketing.

30 Product Review: Searchmetrics

Visibility takes an in-depth look into Searchmetricâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to use and customizable suite for businesses.

41 Vendor Spotlight

Keeping trust as the centerpiece of their organizational vision, DISC Inc has made the world of search marketing honest, transparent and accountable for many a client.

60 Upcoming Conferences

A guide to upcoming internet marketing related conferences around the globe. At these conferences, you can listen to the insightful experiences of the leading names from the internet marketing industry.

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features

12 How to Choose the Right Affiliate Manager

Geno Prussakov reveals the 5 pillars of affiliate program management that are guaranteed to get you results and will steer you clear of pitfalls.

16 Multichannel & Attribution Modeling

Daniel Laws takes an in-depth look at the importance of measuring your online marketing efforts; helping you to make the most of what you have.

23 The New Age of SEO, Explained

Gary Hagins explains the new era of SEO and how it has evolved.

26 The Hard Freakonomics of Search Marketing for Small Business

Let’s face it: there are some harsh realities that should no longer be ignored when it comes to search marketing. Rob Laporte takes the lead and fills in the gaps so that you can avoid the pitfalls.

43 The Business Case for Pinterest

The phenomenal rising of Pinterest makes an interesting case study on what really “works” online. Jennifer Dunphy breaks it down to make sense in this success story.

56 YouTube What?

Josh Dalton reintroduces us to the forgotten miracles of YouTube as an effective marketing tool for small and big businesses alike.

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editor ’ s note Hi Readers,

Visibility EDITOR Julie Lynn

As we head towards the end of 2012, it’s a good time to take a step back and look at all the happenings of the past year. A lot has happened this year. From the hype surrounding gadgets that hit the market to the world economy that got everyone to sit up and take notice of what’s happening. And as always there have been lots of developments and trend shifts in the world of online marketing. It’s been a year of small business success stories and tried and tested strategies were complemented by brand new ideas and innovations. Suffice to say, 2012 has been an exciting year for online marketing. A buzz word that I found has made its way back to the top of mind for many online marketers is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing has been a fruitful strategy for many businesses for years now, and recent trends have shown that it continues to be a popular and beneficial route to adapt. Seeing the keen interest that many marketers are showing towards affiliate marketing, we at Visibility have decided to bring to you some more inside information so that you can also make the most of affiliate marketing for your business. Josh Dalton’s article “Youtube What?” looks at how this popular portal is often forgotten by businesses; “The Hard Freakonomics of Search Marketing for Small Business” looks at what small businesses can do to keep abreast with complex search marketing trends; in “The Business Case of Pintrest” Jennifer Dunphy’s looks at the websites phenomenal journey in such a short time span; Daniel Law’s “Multichannel and Attribution Modeling” tells us how we can extract value from our marketing strategies by effectively measuring them; and Geno Prussakov lets you in on the do’s and don’ts of affiliate marketing with “How to Choose the Right Affiliate Manager”. The above mentioned is just a sneak peek into the mixed bag of information and updates that we have in this edition, which any online marketer will find useful. As always we are eager to know if you found this edition useful and what more you would like to read in our upcoming editions. We look forward to your comments and suggestions. And we are more than happy to hear from you if you would like to submit an article to Visibility.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jeev Trika SENIOR PROJECT EDITOR Neeraj Kumar ASSISTANT EDITOR Cameron Kriss SENIOR EDITOR Bonnie Hagen STAFF WRITER Ajay Govind SENIOR DESIGNER Armando Rangel

Happy reading! Julie Lynn Editor Visibility Magazine

Shari Thurow | Omni Marketing Interactive Chad Udell | Float Mobile Learning

Visit us at WWW.VISIBILITYMAGAZINE.COM Mailing Address: PO Box 1073, Plymouth, IN 46563 Editorial Department Phone: 800-380-4165 Editorial Department Fax: 888-559-8909 Letters to the Editor: editor@visibilitymagazine.com Visibility Magazine, LLC SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INDIRECT DAMAGES RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO, OR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE THE MAGAZINE AND THE MAGAZINE CONTENT, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY. Visibility Magazine, LLC WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY MISPRINTS.

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featured ceo

Malcolm Cowley,

CEO

Performance Horizon Group A

t age 22, Malcolm co-founded the buy.at affiliate marketing network, and over the next six years, he and business partners expanded the company to 100 employees and secured relationships with 250 leading international brands in the affiliate marketing space. In 2008, AOL acquired buy.at for $125M. In addition to heading Performance Horizon Group (PHG), Malcolm also invests in early to mid-stage online businesses in the performance, music and gaming sectors in the UK and China.

Tell us about your background and your role in the company

Coming from the affiliate marketing space, I identified a need for brands to directly manage their performance marketing relationships and make marketing campaigns more effective and cost efficient. After we built up and sold buy.at to AOL, we immediately began working to launch PHG and develop our enterprise-level SaaS platform, ExactView. As CEO of PHG, I oversee all aspects of the company’s global growth. I take a hands-on role in building this new model in the performance marketing space, which Forrester predicts will be a $4.5B market in the U.S. by 2014. My vision is to provide a solution to this growing market need and mature with the way brands track and manage their affiliate marketing campaigns with proprietary customizable technology.

What are your main services?

PHG is a leading provider of performance marketing technology to some of the world’s biggest brands. Our flagship product ExactView enables global brands and agencies to manage their key performancemarketing partners in-house, across multiple digital channels including social and mobile. ExactView offers the following main services,

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Winter 2012

all of which are customizable to fit the brand’s KPIs: 1. Tracking & Reporting – PHG offers a robust tracking technology designed to unify client’s performance marketing efforts and allow them to view real-time data in clear and understandable way. 2. Enterprise Technical Support – PHG’s technical specialists help evolve a company’s modern platform. 3. Finance-as-a-service – PHG offers

brands approval and payment services for their campaigns including bill payments, partner payments and invoice management. 4. Campaign Management Tools – PHG simplifies challenges for brands by managing multiple campaign assets to ensure effective decision making. 5. Account Management – PHG provides dedicated account managers and a sophisticated interaction platform for managing brand relationships.

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organization and developing the team’s skills. Nothing beats experience in terms of personal development, and our board has worked with brands including Yahoo!, Forbes, P&G, BBC, AOL and MGM Studios— just to name a few. Their market experience and continued involvement with other boards offers the entire PHG team an invaluable opportunity for development and success.

What do you see as the future of the industry? What will be the challenges? Do you anticipate any drastic changes?

What makes your firm different from other companies competing in your industry?

PHG has many competitive advantages based largely on ExactView and our ability to better serve large brands. Big brands need big brand solutions and a compelling reason to change the way they manage their performance marketing. ExactView’s technology and architecture is new, meaning faster real-time data without delays, and flexible tools that help turn this data into actionable information. We built the platform on proprietary APIs, allowing for better and faster customization and integration with third parties. For example, Google Analytics and Dart Tracking data can be added and used within the system. Because ExactView is a white-label solution, companies can customize and build the system in ways that work best for them.

Tell us more about your firm’s success story

In the 13 months since we launched Performance Horizon Group, we’ve secured relationships with 25 top brand customers and track partners in 23 countries including the U.S. and UK, which really illustrated our vision to be a global company. While we consider every client we bring on to be a success story, I would have to say our biggest success is related to our funding. DN Capital and Greycroft partners currently back us and have both been amazingly supportive and helpful by introducing us to potential clients and helping us grow as a company.

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According to you, what are the most important questions a potential customer should ask a company before choosing a vendor like you? We’re a software-as-a-service company, but the performance marketing space can be tricky to navigate without experience. The most important questions anyone looking for performance marketing tracking and management solutions should ask are: 1. What are the platform’s origins? 2. What is the experience of the people supporting it?

At PHG, our founders and team have been in the performance marketing space for years. We founded and developed one of the UK’s largest performance networks and continue to innovate in the performance marketing space.

What are some of the myths in your field?

One big myth is that performance marketing is easy money. I’m sure everyone has seen the ads about working from home and how easy affiliate marketing is if you just buy the right system or adopt the right process. Truth be told, as with all things, hard work and dedication are what guarantee success. Using tools like ExactView can make tracking and managing campaigns more effective and efficient, but time and energy are still required.

How do you develop your skills in this continuously changing environment?

We have an incredibly committed board of directors who dedicate themselves to our

Change is a given in this space, and being prepared is of course the key to long-term success. One big challenge for brands is the data tsunami that continues to build and how to process immense amounts of data that’s coming in the future into understandable and actionable information. This is also a challenge for Performance Horizon Group as we look to scale in order to handle and help brands make sense of more and more data. There’s also certain to be some consolidation of vendors in the coming years, which will lead to a smaller market and present a greater barrier to entry for new players. The largest change is likely to come from the client side. As we become a more connected and global society, we increasingly find a need for global tools. Any vendor in our space who can’t support a business on a global level is likely to be left in the dust.

Where do you see your firm in the next 5 years? What about you personally? While this business is changing rapidly, we see ourselves well positioned five years from now. Brands in this channel are becoming increasingly focused on finding cost effective ways to reach consumers and optimize data. A brand’s performance spend is directly linked to ecommerce growth, and from a macro perspective, we’re prepared to meet the market demand as both of these continue to increase. Our strategy to succeed over the next five years is to focus on supporting existing approaches like social and real-time data analysis while keeping an eye on the next big things such as app development the ever-growing mobile space. On a personal note, I hope to achieve unparalleled success for our team, our board and our VC backers. Maybe I can even take that vacation I’m always talking about but never seem to get around to. n

Winter 2012

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quarterly round up Internet Access Report by UN

Microsoft and its smartphone

As per a UN agency, more than a third of the world’s population now has access to internet, while mobile phone usage has augmented to around six billion, increasing by more than 600 million in 2011. But the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has pointed out massive discrepancies in the cost of services, with the poorer parts of the world liable to pay the most.

Microsoft is now going to have its own smartphone. If we exclude KIN from their records, this is the first time Microsoft is launching a self-branded smart phone. Apparently, the implications of this phone are much more than what it seems. Eldzar Murtazin, an industry insider, has written about ‘MSFT’s windows phone plans and has also explored reasons for this release; as in a lot of ways, this could absolutely end up backfiring.

Also, the ITU said in its 2012 report on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that, “on the back of the increase in broadband services worldwide, the number of people using the internet grew by 11 percent over the past year, i.e., 2.3 billion people,”.

It is thought that the large marketing support MSFT and its partners have given to the Windows Phone has been a failure. Which is curious since, everything is seemingly good: the OS; is easily the second or third best option. Maybe they view it as a failure because the App library is lacking, but consumers just don’t seem to care.

Macau, Norway and Singapore topped the list of 161 countries highlighted in the report. In terms of affordability, Togo, Niger and Madagascar are least affordable. For the third world countries of Africa, having access to internet means paying almost seven times more than in the developed nations of Americas; and 20 times higher than Europe in 2011. According to the agency, almost 1.1 billion subscriptions by the end of 2011 were mobile phones with broadband; which exhibited the sharpest growth of all ICT sectors between 2010 and 2011. Brahima Sanou, director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, said that despite a surge in mobile phone broadband, “prices for ICT services remain very high in many low-income countries”.

Nokia and AT&T, made all of their retail employees in the U.S. use the Lumia 900 as their personal phone for a month before it was released. Their promotional event was held in Times Square and rumored to have spent around $10 and $15 million on marketing. Why would such amounts and measures have been taken if the product being marketed was not actually good?

The report also said that income from the telecommunication sector has now crossed $1.5 trillion USD, which is nearly 2.4 per cent of the world’s GDP.

There are more interesting things left; according to Murtazin: the royalty fees for MSFTs for licensing the Windows Phone OS to manufacturers like Nokia, HTC (2498) and Samsung (005930) are given back to them in marketing dollars. Not

And that is all just a start; they will soon be a hub with their PCs, laptops, smartphones, desktops and tablets, but only if MSFT takes entire charge and retains control over. MSFTs market share will probably be roughly half of Android and iOS combined in coming times. Considering this, what happens to the Windows OS licenses could be scary. Allocated marketing budgets for Q2 2013 include no support at all from Windows partners and MSFT will spend a huge amount on its own smartphones and trying to augment the profit for both smartphone and tablet market before 2013 ends. HTC declined to comment on anything related to free licensing and MSFT was not able to say anything when this article was published.

Internet Access Report by UN Gearing up with Apple Inc.’s new navigation tool, Google stretched its’ Street View maps feature to augment images of roadways and attractions in the U.S. and several other countries. Images for an estimated 250,000 miles of roads worldwide have been updated. Virtual strolls by popular tourist attractions have also been improved, according to a California based company the ‘Mountain View’ on blog post. Apple decided to build its own application for navigation with improved iPhone software, now giving back to Google whereas Google had provided them with the Google map program since its debut in 2007. Google enhanced Street View to its maps feature for mobile browsers and

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known previously, besides Nokia and MSFTs relationship, a similar arrangement for marketing existed outside as well. This would mean Microsoft is paying OEMs to make this Windows Phone; if you see that Microsoft licenses the company’s vast patent portfolio to windows phone licensees. With no revenue from a smartphone’s operating system, it is imperative for Microsoft to make strategic changes. When companies like Google and Apple are supplying their operating system and upgrades for free, Microsoft cannot get away with charging $300 for an operating system. Making self-branded smartphones is important not only because of better control of the experience from start to end, but also that they get to make money on hardware as well.

made the service available to iPhone users that didn’t have this built into their handsets. Apple’s turn by turn navigation was heavily faulted as it gave unreliable landmark searches, unnecessary routes that got the users irritated, and attempting travel by public transportation became extremely difficult. The new application was released with the new iOS6 software and it runs, iPhone, iPad, and iPoad Touch. Apple was also criticized for its maps, but sold a record of 5 million handsets of iPhones in the debut weekend. Apple claims that its mapping features are being used by 100 million mobile devices. Google since 2005 has been working on improving its mapping software further by using satellites and cars to find data for better accuracy and reliability.

Winter 2012

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How to Choose the Right Affiliate Manager By Geno Prussakov

ne of the most commonly committed, and altogether one of the deadliest, merchant mistakes is adopting what I call an autopilot approach to affiliate marketing. In part, this tendency is conditioned by a fallacy that affiliate marketing is so simple that all you have to do is just launch your affiliate program, announce it in your blog and in affiliate forums, insert it into affiliate program directories, and affiliates will come. They indeed will. However, unless your affiliate program is closely managed and each affiliate is scrupulously reviewed before approval and monitored after approval, you may run into some serious troubles down the road. As every serious marketing campaign affiliate programs must be managed. When it comes to affiliate program management I like to picture it as at a façade of a building that rests on five pillars. This is because, in essence, every affiliate program manager should be expected to manage the program on the following five “pillars”: (affiliate) recruitment, activation, (compliance) policing, communication, and (program) optimization. Yes, this is enough of work to occupy someone’s full day. And it is the subject of how one can effectively choose that “someone” (to manage their affiliate program) that the rest of this article will address.

Qualifications to Seek Is there a set of qualifications an affiliate manager should be expected possess? Well, since as an occupation this is still a fairly new one, there is no exact set of qualifications typically required to work as an affiliate program manager. You can take the qualifications in the following list and adapt them to your own industry. The following attributes comprise some basic prerequisites for an affiliate manager. College Degree Three- to four-year bachelor’s degree should be the acceptable minimum.

The field of the degree depends on your vertical industry, but marketing and advertising, business studies, business administration, e-commerce, psychology, and communications are good general ones to favor. Experience A minimum of two to four years of work experience, out of which one and a half to two years should be affiliate marketing experience. The longer, the better, but more experienced affiliate managers obviously tend to cost more. Also, when I say “affiliate marketing” experience, I do not mean affiliate manager experience only. Affiliate marketing history is full of examples of how great affiliates also became tremendous affiliate managers. Please keep this in mind. Knowledge Basic HTML, graphics applications (such as Photoshop), basic e-commerce operations. Skills Excellent verbal and written communication skills, analytical skills, attention to detail, ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, organizational, and people management skills. Character Self-motivated, highly initiative, enthusiastic, outgoing, flexible and responsive. The following skills, knowledge, and abilities are not compulsory but may be preferable for your business: negotiating, research, copywriting. Knowledge Specific software applications, specific affiliate network/platform knowledge, connections both within the affiliate marketing industry and within your vertical, foreign language(s) may be a plus, database concepts; and PHP and JavaScript knowledge may come handy too. Abilities Willingness to travel. You’ll want them to participate in conferences and shows -- to promote your brand and your affiliate program. Education and Certification No certification is necessary to practice affiliate program management, and neither is there really a unified certification accepted across the industry. Various companies run seminars on affiliate program management, which last

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anywhere from one day to a weekend. These are generally very informative and practical. Attending a seminar will undoubtedly enrich one as an affiliate manager, as well as help in the networking aspect of the business. Attending affiliate conferences (especially niche ones like Affiliate Management Days, for example), networking, and other relevant events helps one grow in the knowledge and increase the list of your contacts in the industry. I always encourage merchants to attend conferences and seminars, even if your affiliate program will be run by a dedicated manager. Although it may not be necessary to know all the ins and outs of the industry, every business owner who runs an affiliate program must understand the basics. Otherwise, how will you be able to make sense of the metrics and what is going on in your affiliate program? So, although certification is not necessary, educating yourself is a must. Those working on a tight budget may not be able to afford attending the previously mentioned events right from the start. It is no reason for despair. There are multiple affiliate marketing blogs, message boards, white papers, magazines, broadcasts, and research articles published online. Do not let a day pass without learning something new. Sir Francis Bacon stressed, “Knowledge is power,” while Margaret Fuller wrote, “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.” When you do not heed these wise words, they undoubtedly find themselves and their affiliate program wandering in the dark.

To Outsource or Not to Outsource? ...that is the question! While looking at your affiliate program management options, you will have a choice to make: entrust the management of your program to an in-house staff or hire an external agency to handle your affiliate program management. Outsourced affiliate program management services are provided by some affiliate networks, as well as by standalone outsourced program manager (OPM) companies (like AM Navigator which I run, for example). Your choice between an in-house or an OPM manager will depend on the size of your business and your own capabilities. If your business is not a very large one or you have plenty of time to educate yourself in affiliate program management, I highly recommend managing the program on your own. I myself have gone the route from an online shop owner to an affiliate program manager and, later, to an outsourced program manager. In school I was especially impressed by accounts of the first Russian emperor, Peter the Great’s learning experiences. He was known for striving to learn everything firsthand, from the inside out. Experience is an invaluable asset, especially if this experience is directly related to your particular business. If you have the capability, do try the waters of affiliate program management yourself. If, however, business management is consuming a lot of your time and you have no way of taking on additional responsibility or hiring an extra office worker, I encourage you to look into outsourcing your affiliate program’s management to an OPM. An outsourced program manager—when compared to one who is in-house—can save you a lot of money, without compromising (or often increasing!) the quality of the program’s management. Below you may find a table which outlines the key benefits of having an affiliate program run each way:

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Cross-comparison of in-house vs. outsourced affiliate program management options

Business relationship Training Experience Equipment and software Connections

In-house manager

OPM Agency

Subordinate

Partner

Require

Not Required

Varies

Substantial

Provided by Company

Present

Varies

Significant

Payment

Dependent on average job rate

Flexible

Payment Structure

Salary + benefits + bonuses

Retainer + performance bonus

Accountability

Tight

As defined in contract

Confidentiality

Easy to control

Look at reputation, location + safeguard by contract

Dependent on subjective factors

Present

Noninterruption of work

To summarize, to some degree, your decision on the program management route will be conditioned by the size and structure of your company, as well as its strategic environment. The primary benefits of hiring an OPM include the experience, expertise, and connections that a good OPM brings to the table right away. Among other obvious benefits you may also mention avoidance of health/401k benefit expenses, office space, computer costs, and training expenses. The ostensible disadvantage is a looser accountability, but with a properly worded contract, you can define the types and frequency of the reports you want to get from your OPM. Generally, however, outsourcing the management of your affiliate program leads to better price-quality inferences. Also, there are also synergetic options to consider: both have an in-house person responsible for the development of your affiliate program (and ensuring that affiliates have everything they need to do their part effectively) who also works closely with an experienced OPM. Whichever route you choose go -- both in deciding the above-addressed question, or in anything else that pertains to your online marketing -- always remember the following words by Aldo Gucci: “The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.” n

Award-winning affiliate marketing expert Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov is the founder of AM Navigator, and chair of Affiliate Management Days conference -- the first and only professional forum on affiliate program management. He authored bestselling A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing (2007) and Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day (2011), and is an internationallyacclaimed speaker, consultant, and affiliate marketing evangelist.

Winter 2012

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mobile marketing

5 Ways Custom Mobile Apps Build Brand Advocates

obile technology is a powerful tool for generating brand advocacy in a multichannel marketing environment. Although brands typically use mobile ads, SMS campaigns, check-in rewards and other mobile initiatives to promote advocacy, some brands are turning to custom apps as a more subtle way to recruit new generations of advocates. The customer loyalty space is hot, and even small businesses are getting in on the act. Companies with adequate resources to invest are turning to corporate-branded apps. But the best brand advocacy apps aren’t promotional; rather, they provide consumers with instructional content, tips and tricks, how-tos, do-it-yourself suggestions and other types of informational or educational content. For example, Robitussin’s Relief Finder app is designed to help cold and flu sufferers identify the appropriate over-the-counter product based on specific symptoms. Benjamin Moore offers an app that allows DIY painters to match the color of a photo on their mobile devices to the company’s 3,300 paint colors. Although neither of these apps features heavy promotional messaging, they are both extremely effective at increasing consumers’ affinity for the brand and improving the frequency of shared brand content through social networks.

Generating Advocacy with CorporateBranded Apps Custom mobile apps serve each brand’s targeted goals and outcomes. But in general, there are several ways corporate-branded apps can be used to generate advocacy among consumers. 1. By Leveraging Strategic Timing Custom mobile apps are designed to present brands to the right consumers at the right times, leveraging strategic moments to create affinity and advocacy. Take State Farm’s MoveTools app, which was specifically designed for consumers who are moving to a new home, a time period in which many are also shopping for insurance products. The app gives movers checklists, tips

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and more without overtly pushing its home or renter’s insurance products. 2.. By Solving a Unique Consumer Problem The process of creating a custom brand app can deteriorate into a minefield of distractions and lost opportunities, especially when team members advocate for the inclusion of features that have little to do with the app’s primary purpose – the creation of new brand advocates. So from beginning to end, the development process must focus on creating new brand advocates by solving a unique consumer problem rather than providing consumers with a confusing assortment of secondary features. 3. By Strengthening the Brand’s Core Qualities Although the content contained in a corporatebranded app isn’t necessarily promotional, custom apps must feature consistent brand messaging. Apps that introduce new messaging or unfamiliar branding elements fail because they try to accomplish too many things. Use a familiar color palette that your consumer base already identifies with. From the consumer’s perspective, your brand should not get in the way of his or her interaction with the application. The minute it does is the minute it stops being useful. The best apps make it easy for consumers to become advocates because they reinforce the concepts and characteristics consumers already associate with the brand. 4. By Differentiating the Brand in the Marketplace Custom apps leverage informational content to communicate distinctive brand elements to cross-sections of consumers. In many cases, corporate-branded apps simplify complicated products or concepts, successfully differentiating the brand as a consumer-friendly alternative in a marketplace characterized by competitive (and often confusing) messaging. Consider your app as not just a tool to bring new

customers on board, but also as added value to provide to your current customer base. For years brands have launched campaigns on new websites, microsites or splash pages. Now mobile apps offer another option for engaging with the ever-increasing smartphone population. 5. By Delivering Actionable Insights and RealTime Analytics Branded apps create advocates by delivering value and information to consumers. But they can also deliver value to the brand through actionable analytics. Marketers can use embedded analytics to determine interest around new concepts or conduct A/B testing on visual elements, for example. By incorporating analytical tools into the design process, brands gain visibility into consumer behaviors, social media tracking and other insights that can be used to improve brand exposure and advocacy. For custom apps to be effective, they need to be offered to consumers free of charge. Even though the brand has invested time and resources in app development, the idea is to get the app onto as many mobile devices as possible and to calculate return on investment by brand advocacy measurements rather than by the revenues earned through app sales. The app development process also needs to be consumer-centric. The content contained in the app should be relevant and up to date. Because mobile users tend to rapidly abandon corporate-branded apps, the design process needs to address how the app will provide lasting value. But most importantly, custom apps should feature ample social sharing tools, enabling the organization to build advocacy by maximizing social networking opportunities. n

As managing director of Float Mobile Learning, Chad Udell designs, develops and manages interactive Web and mobile projects. Chad has worked with industry-leading Fortune 500 companies to develop customized interactive content. Chad is the author of Learning Everywhere, a new book offering mobile guidance for the enterprise. Follow him on Twitter at @visualrinse.

Winter 2012

Visibility

MULTICHANNEL & ATTRIBUTION

MODELING

By Daniel Laws

ith all of the numerous marketing tactics and strategies that businesses are using to grow revenue, it has become increasingly important that we effectively measure these strategies. We can then show value and assign credit to tactics that are generating impressions, leads, and sales throughout every phase of our marketing campaigns. Analytics has and will continue to pick-up momentum within organizations globally, but we’re still looking at analytics in isolated scenarios, such as “digital analytics” or at the tactical level with direct mail or mobile. The ability to look at marketing from a multichannel perspective as well as model attribution will help businesses understand the value of each marketing tactic and their impact on conversions. So, what do I mean by multichannel marketing? Simply put, multichannel marketing is marketing using many different marketing channels to reach a customer. Attribution modeling is the practice of giving credit to all of the marketing channels for insights into marketing programs that generate sales and conversions.

Why Should You Care about Multichannel Measurement?

In many cases, customers are going beyond the initial impression of a product or service. It’s been said that it takes about 8-15 touch points before a conversion, and customers are using every possible touch point to make more informed decisions.

These customers are getting smarter, leveraging all of the information at their disposal to get the facts about a product or service prior to purchasing. Businesses are utilizing numerous marketing tactics to acquire new customers. We’re setting up Facebook pages, doing email marketing, implementing outbound calling, creating content, and running PPC campaigns, but how do we know what our potential customers are really seeing? Marketers want to keep their jobs, we want bigger budgets, and we want to be looked at as more than a “necessary business expense.” We need to

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• • • •

provide proof of successful programs to both internal and external stakeholders. By measuring which marketing tactics potential customers are seeing and whether they converted as a result, we will put ourselves on the path to greater insights, such as: What tactics work best among different audience groups? What tactics are more important for conversions? What tactics generated the most value for the cost? What tactics should we reconsider for future campaigns?

This type of information is important during strategic discussions. It will help companies use the facts from previous campaign experience instead of the highest paid person’s opinion.

Why Should You Care about Attribution Modeling?

Attribution Modeling can provide your business with comparative values across paid search, organic search, mobile ads, email, and more. By using attribution modeling, you can obtain insight into the impact of marketing tactics to drive sales or conversion generation. It also provides businesses with a

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method to create budgets based on real values and improve campaign results.

Conclusion

By implementing attribution modeling to your campaigns, your business will be able to achieve greater insights into questions such as: • Which marketing tactics are the most valuable for customer conversions? • What’s the most effective marketing mix? • What’s the truest funnel and sales process length to plan campaigns? • How do online & offline media play a role with interactions? • Types of Attribution Modeling • There are several types of attribution models to choose from. Below are a few of the most common models: • First Click: attributes 100% to the first touch point and can help you understand which campaigns create initial awareness for your brand or product. • Last Click: attributes 100% of the value to the last channel before a conversion or sale. • Equal Value: provide equal value to all tactics across the campaign. • Time Decay: assigns the most credit to touch points that occurred nearest to the time of conversion.

The many types of measuring and modeling provide opportunities to test and implement new or enhanced approaches that can improve campaign performance and generate higher returns on investment. It’s not just about technology, rather, it’s about putting an idea in place and testing it. Agencies and businesses alike are measuring and implementing attribution models with everything from spreadsheets to outsourcing. Regardless of what your business chooses to do, make sure that the method is effective for your business, positively affects prospective customer outcomes, benefits your marketing mix spending, and provides opportunities for progress. n

Multichannel Marketing & Attribution’s Impact on Optimization & the Customer Experience

With multichannel marketing and attribution modeling, businesses can get the information to better understand how digital channels work together and optimize their digital advertising for a better prospecting experience, which all should lead to more customers. These tactics can also give businesses guidance when making changes to the marketing mix and invest more effectively based on the findings. In theory, if you’ve identified the marketing mix that generates conversions and resonates with your audience, you can work to improve the effectiveness of these tactics for optimum performance, a better conversion funnel, and more sales.

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Measuring multichannel marketing and modeling attribution will help companies more easily justify marketing spends, create effective marketing mixes based on the value of every tactic, and provide visibility into the conversion funnels and sales cycles of their prospects. They will also give businesses greater insights into their audience’s makeup and behaviors that will ultimately impact campaigns’ outcomes.

Daniel Laws, Jr. is founder and president of DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC (www. dabrianmarketing.com), a leading Internet marketing company since 2008 that specializes in search engine marketing & web analytics in Reading, Pennsylvania. He has over 10 years of internet marketing experience in the Philadelphia area. He is a Google AdWords Certified Individual, Google Analytics Qualified Individual, member of SEMPO, and has his M.B.A. with an emphasis in Marketing.

Winter 2012

Visibility

legal corner

Keeping Your Online Promotion Legal

ou have read that user generated content contests, online sweepstakes and other interactive promotions are great branding ideas? While easy to do and effective, have you thought about the legality of it all? Most interactive promotions that give the consumer something fall under one of three categories: (1) sweepstakes; (2) contests; or (3) lotteries. I’ll start with contests because that is the easiest to define. While the laws in each state differ, generally speaking, a contest involves an entry by the contestant that is judged with the prize going to the winner. User generated content such as videos, photos and posts are common approaches and are treated the same as your ability to hit a 40-yard field goal at halftime. As you will see below, making sure the entries are actually judged on their merits rather than picking a winner by mere chance is of utmost importance. Although your contests is not likely to be challenged, the better qualified the judges are, the more likely the winner is really picked on its merits and not selected just so your accounts payable person can get back to work.

Is my sweepstakes a lottery? Distinguishing between a lottery and a sweepstakes can be a little more difficult. I know you are thinking of course it is not a lottery. After all, you are not giving away millions, just a chance for a free hamburger. A lottery consists of three basic elements: 1. You are offering a prize which can be anything of value. 2. The game is based solely on chance with winners chosen at random. 3. To participate, the consumer has to provide some consideration.

If you have all three of those, then you have a lottery. If no one has to provide any consideration to participate and you simply chose at random the winner of out of all the submissions, then you have what the law usually calls a sweepstakes. If your “sweepstakes,” includes the three elements above, you may call it whatever you want, the law would call it a lottery. The third element of consideration is what may trip you up. Consideration is the legal term for something of value that is exchanged between two parties to an agreement. Most of the time, consideration is money. That is why the Megamillions Powerball is a lottery. The sucker, I mean consumer, pays $1 (consideration) to be chosen at random (chance) for a big pot of money (prize). Unless you are the government, lotteries are generally illegal. (Raffles for charities would fit the definition, but there are usually strict rules governing charitable raffles in each state).

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Written by: Travis Crabtree

Sweepstakes often provide an entry for a customer once they buy an item. To avoid it becoming a lottery, any such sweepstakes must also include a way for the customer to enter without paying for the product. That is why you usually see the fine print that says you can enter by sending a post card with your information on it.

Non-monetary consideration Consideration can be things other than money as long as it provides value to the other person. An argument could be made that providing private personal information in exchange for a free hamburger could be considered “consideration.” There do not appear to be any challenges to a sweepstakes suggesting an email or other personal information is “consideration” that would convert your sweepstakes into a lottery. Like with most things, a sliding scale may develop whereby simply “liking” a company’s Facebook page would not be “consideration,” but providing an email, preferences, health information or other “sensitive” information may be. Requiring someone to text a code that charges the customer more than the standard phone company text messaging charge likely would be “consideration.” According to an article by Gabriel Karp from the Michigan Bar Journal called “Navigating the Law of Interactive Promotions” from 2010, “approximately 33 states have statutes or case law stating nonmonetary consideration is not deemed consideration for purposes of lottery laws.” The safest thing you can do to avoid any issues (in addition to hiring counsel to review your program) is to allow consumers to do an alternative method of entry. Perhaps, I don’t want to “like” your page or give you my email address, phone number, physical address and give you access to my contacts list on my iPhone. You should allow the consumers who want to enter the sweepstakes to send in the postcard with the information you need to notify them so you can always say people could have entered without providing anything of value to you.

Why all the fine print? To make matters worse, each state usually has different laws that apply. That’s why some promotions are only available to residents of certain states. Not only that, if you are running promotions on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, those sites have their own rules. For example, as of this writing Facebook required each promotion to include: (a) a release of Facebook; (b) a statement that Facebook is not sponsoring the promotion; and (c) a disclosure telling participants who is receiving the information. Now you know why there is all the fine print or fast talking at the end of the promotion. You really can blame the lawyers. It’s okay, we’re used to it. n

Do you have a legal question you want answered in the next column? Send your questions to legalcorner@visibilitymagazine.com.

affiliate marketing

7 Deadly Sins of Affiliate Program Mismanagement

ffiliate Marketing. Is it one of the strongest, most ROI-driven channels in your online marketing mix, or is it an untamed, outof-control, hodgepodge of confusion? If you aren’t aware of the following 7 sins, it’s likely the later for you.

Sin 1: The Wrong Network or Software

Most affiliate programs need to be operated on an established, name brand affiliate network. Many merchants fall into the trap of simply enabling the “affiliate tracking software” which comes pre-installed with many web hosting packages. This may seem like a cost effective route, but it’s more often than not a recipe for disaster. Unless your company is a household brand name, hosting your own affiliate software is likely a poor choice for you. Check your ego when you ask yourself this question…Are you really that big in the consumer mindscape? No? Time to choose an affiliate network (or networks) to partner with. The strategy for every merchant is different; some will benefit from a multi-network approach while others will not. When you work with a network, the first thing you must evaluate is the crowding versus opportunity of your vertical within that network. You run a dating site, and your first choice network has 53 dating programs already running? Maybe you should consider a different network. Working with an established network brings a host of advantages to your affiliate program: an established brand name, affiliate trust in your brand, regular and predictable commission payment cycles, fraud controls, verified tracking systems, and so on. Again, the strategy for each merchant is different. The above are some of the basic questions you must ask yourself before taking that all-important first step.

Sin 2: Auto-Approval

Okay, you have your affiliate program up and running. Now, check that box to auto-approve all affiliate applications…STOP! Why would you even consider such a thing? Yes, manually reviewing and processing affiliate applications takes time out of your already-busy schedule every day. Not doing so is potentially putting you on the fast-track to cyber-death. The CEO of a well known sporting goods retailer (who shall remain anonymous) once got an email from a close friend. This friend had sent him a link to a pro-Aryan race site where his ads were prominently displayed (the Aryan race…closely associated with Hitler and the Nazi agenda). The content of the email boiled down to “I bet you didn’t know you were on this site”. The friend was right. The CEO came down hard on his marketing team, demanding more control be taken, and more attention be paid to the types of sites his brand was represented on. Did the marketing team seek out this placement on purpose? No. They were an unfortunate victim of allowing auto-approval in their affiliate program. True story. Don’t make this mistake. Your brand is priceless. Control it. Protect it. Be selective with it.

Sin 3: The Wrong Strategy

Your affiliate program is live, you’re manually approving affiliates…now what? Implement your strategy! Affiliate marketing is just like any other channel of online marketing in that you must approach it with a clear set of goals, and a roadmap for reaching those goals. You will not get what you want out of your affiliate program if you do not first decide how you are going to get there. Are you too focused on one type of affiliate? Do you have any diversity in the types of partners who are driving sales for you? Do 90% of your sales come from the same five affiliates (hint: the answer here should be no)? Are you adopting a loss-leader mentality [exclusively]? What about those affiliate Terms and Conditions….Are they too restrictive? Too loose? Have you even written them? These are all important questions with no single or simple answer. The answers depend on your site, your margins, your competition, and your goals. Failing to ask and answer those questions will result in nearlyguaranteed failure.

Sin 4: The Wrong Management

Who is managing your affiliate program? The head of your marketing department who has multiple other responsibilities? An introvert, uncomfortable picking up the phone or striking up conversation with new faces while attending a conference? Maybe just a rookie to the industry? None of those types are necessarily the wrong

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choice. However, you can vastly increase your odds of success by hiring a proven veteran who comes with their own years-thick rolodex of successful relationships. Affiliate program management is massive set of constantly moving pieces and shifting priorities. Whoever you have steering the ship, ensure they know what they are doing before they start.

Sin 5: Nexus Law Reactions

The Nexus laws being passed in a growing number of states present real concerns for merchants who operate affiliate programs. Ignoring them is a bad idea. Not taking the time to fully understand them is an equally bad idea. Taking a knee-jerk reaction which negatively affects your affiliates and affiliate program in response to a Nexus law is the worst possible idea. Nexus laws demand your time, attention, and respect. They also demand strategy for your affiliate program. Don’t burn a bridge by taking a blanket approach. Read the laws and understand both their written word, and their intent. It is 100% possible and realistic to successfully, safely, and confidently work with affiliates from Nexus states, while remaining in full compliance with the varying laws.

Sin 6: Ignorance is Bliss

Remember the unfortunate ad placement example for the sporting goods retailer? This alone should be proof that ignorance is NOT bliss. Let’s take a less extreme case though, just to get past that “It won’t happen to me” trap. Have you ever had an affiliate suddenly appear out of nowhere to dominate your program with their staggering sales volume? Do you know where those sales are coming from? Sure, this is often 100% legitimate and the result of the hard work of the affiliate combined with your successful and strategic program management. But what about those…other….times. If you cannot easily and accurately identify where your sales are originating from within your affiliate program, you have a problem. What if your PPC policy has been violated (intentionally or unintentionally, it doesn’t matter)? What if your lead gen form was used within a forced registration for a new online gaming site? What if those orders simply came from Canadian traffic and you can’t ship there? If you don’t know where the sales came from, how can you determine if they are valid sales or not? Do you want to pay commission on sales that you couldn’t fulfill? I didn’t think so. Honestly, most affiliates out there don’t want you to either. Affiliates are your partners, should be treated as such, and want to be treated as such. Working together to drive the right kinds of sales for your business is the route to a successful, long-term, affiliate program.

for a pick-up game in a corn field. In affiliate marketing, we’re talking about the assumption many merchants make by thinking that simply having an affiliate program in existence is enough to drive affiliate-generated revenue. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Again, check your ego at the door and understand that regardless of what your brand is, how well known you are, and how big consumer desire is for your product or service, building an affiliate program does not automatically equal success. How many affiliate programs exist today? 10,000? 100,000? My official guess is A LOT. What makes your affiliate program more worthy of the attention of affiliates, who have the option to work with nearly any brand they want? Oh wait; you have a great brand name, and a great payout? So do many of your competitors. Actively manage your program. Strategize. Partner with your affiliate partners. Ask the tough questions, and answer them honestly. And just when you think you have it all in place and running like a well-oiled machine, keep evaluating and growing. The only way to find success through your affiliate program is to give it the time and attention that it both requires and deserves. When managed correctly, an affiliate program can become a huge portion of your overall sales, and should also be a hugely positive ROI-generating marketing channel. Don’t break any of the deadly sins, and you’ll be okay. n

Matt Enders is the CEO and founder of MGECOM, Inc., the leading outsourced affiliate program management firm. Matt has over 10 years of affiliate management experience and has owned/operated MGECOM since it’s inception in early 2006. MGECOM is headquartered in Cary, NC and boasts a team with nearly 100 years of cumulative affiliate-industry experience.

Sin 7: That Line from “Field of Dreams”

Everyone knows it, but here it is: “If you build it, they will come”. In the movie, they’re talking about the former greats of baseball getting together

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Winter 2012

Visibility

FREE SEO Analysis and Quote Call Now! 901-672-7243

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info@highervisibility.com

The New Age of SEO, EXPLAINED By Gary Hagins

earch Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been an exercise to hit a moving target—a practice beholden to the major search engines and their constantly shifting algorithms. Over the past 2 years, there have been a number of changes to Google’s algorithm that have disrupted the way SEO accounts have typically been run. This, in turn, necessitates a fundamental shift in the way that clients must consider SEO, and agencies must service SEO accounts. No longer can we use the once “tried and true” methods— e.g., obtaining mass back links to push our clients sites to the top of the SERPs—and reap the rewards of high visibility and click through rates. It is time for SEO to evolve. Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s always going to be a place for specific traditional SEO functions such as proper onsite optimization powered by clean, fast-loading

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companies in the SEO industry follow a similar set of standards when addressing issues like writing meta tags, building botfriendly site navigation and constructing internal links.

code and backed up by extensive keyword research. There is also still a place for traditional link building methods such as quality directory submissions, blogger outreach, as well as content production and distribution, which have always been fundamental tenets of any SEO strategy. Over time, however, this type of optimization and these traditional SEO functions have become a commodity and most

To stay ahead of the curve, however, and truly innovate, SEOs and their clients need to stop thinking of ways to brute force or trick the algorithms, and instead expand and redefine a traditional SEO engagement into what it has always meant to be: a highly specialized inbound marketing channel and set of cross-channel best practices, guided by business analysis and a healthy dose of creativity. Creativity is key in properly distinguishing your brand among of a sea of competitors, all of whom may be firing at the exact same bull’s-eye.

Winter 2012

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Start by understanding that many other pieces of the search landscape have changed—for example, SEOs can no longer ignore social media. News breaking on Twitter is frequently pushed to the top of SERPs, and anyone signed into a Gmail account sees personalized search results based on whom they are connected to on various social media platforms. While social signals have not supplanted links in the algorithm yet, the search engines are constantly looking for ways to better refine their results— ads included—and for now these social channels are getting a lot of attention. Don’t get the wrong idea, link building still matters. Matt Cutts said so himself: “So there’s this perception that, yes, everything will go social or links are completely obsolete and I think it is premature to reach that conclusion. I don’t doubt that in ten years things will be more social and those will be more powerful signals but I wouldn’t write the epitaph for links quite yet.” And it’s likely to continue mattering (at least in the near future) but social engagement is quickly approaching equal importance. Any client who begins an SEO engagement should make sure to let their team know right away if they have received any kind of warning about unnatural links. Be sure to pay close attention to whether the warning says you have unnatural links on your site as opposed to unnatural links pointing to your site, as the course of action to be taken is different for each. If the client has received such a notice, before a full-fledged SEO campaign should be conducted the website’s back link profile should be thoroughly audited, and removal requests made to as many of the offending websites as soon as possible. Be aware that link

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building efforts that were once industry standard practices—“black hat” and “grey hat” efforts like submitting to automated directories—are now considered pure spam. Unfortunately, it may be very difficult to contact some of the webmasters of many of these sites, and if you do, they may then expect to be paid to remove the offending link. During this process, it is important to keep meticulous records of such efforts to accompany any reconsiderations requests to Google. Once you’ve started or completed this process you should begin building quality links and undertaking other regular SEO activities as well. Some quality links fall into the category of paid sponsorship. Yes, this may be shocking: not all paid links are bad. Navigating the waters of paid sponsorship can be tricky—for the most part, the FCC and Google have not really been completely straightforward about what is okay and what is not—but for the time being it seems to basically boil down to: • Go ahead and write sponsored posts, but disclose that they are paid posts when doing so. • Go ahead and solicit and/or compensate reviews, but you cannot specify that they must be positive when doing so.

Even so, this is still a nascent area of law and has yet to be fully defined. If you do decide to seek such an arrangement, it is important not to get tunnel vision when considering how you might engage with bloggers to write sponsored posts. Just as content is different, the arrangements you may make with such website owners or bloggers are bound to be different. Additionally, this is why it’s important to have the time to research and see what’s going on inside Google over a broad cross-section of clients and industries—you may just get some new ideas. There’s a new buzzword in our industry: “content marketing”. But, there’s nothing new about it! “Content marketing” is exactly what Google wanted you to do when they said, “content is king” for the better part of a decade and barely anyone listened. Well, the bell has tolled and now it is time to do what SEOs in the know have been doing all along—creating interesting, engaging and quality content that attracts users, formatting it so the bots can find and index it, and then spreading the message through social media evangelization and blogger outreach. The difficult part, the part that requires a creative strategy, is coming

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up with that interesting content, even if you are in an industry that’s perceived to be as dull as dishwater. Consider the case of Will it Blend, a series of infotainment videos with nearly two million views on YouTube each, and each of which contributed to an excellent CPL in the form of links back to the blender manufacturer’s site. The company simply shoots video of their blenders trying to blend things such as iPhones, golf balls, Justin Bieber dolls or even a whole chicken. The creativity to come up with something unique that fascinates and captivates must be inherent to any “content marketing” campaign, as must the expertise to format it properly for consumption by users and by search engines. Remember that at its heart Google is an advertising company. They need quality content to put ads around, and if you can give them what they want, you are more likely to be rewarded with high SERP positions and lots of high-converting traffic. We live in a world that’s becoming increasingly mobile, with Internet traffic from mobile devices expected to surpass that from desktops sometime in 2013. There are 2 billion smart phones in the world, with another 600 million being sold every year, and the tablet market has also exploded with the introduction of the iPad and Kindle Fire, as well. Mobile is yet another consideration that can no longer be ignored. Google even has a separate mobile algorithm, and site speed optimization in conjunction with design for a different type of browsing

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experience are keys to success in the mobile channel and reaching consumers where their purchase/conversion intent is highest. Finally, it’s important to make sure your site is optimized for conversion—make sure that users sign up for your email list, download documents, fill out a form, make a reservation, buy a product or pick up the phone. This type of conversion rate optimization should extend all the way to recommendations across all platforms (especially smartphones and tablets), to ensure that all visitors have an optimal experience, no matter what device was used to access the information. Adaptive website design and schema markup are also valuable extensions of SEO into conversion rate optimization and all these avenues together ensure maximum ROI on your digital spend. Although it can be argued that conversion optimization or social signals do not fall under the umbrella of SEO, it is simply a matter of semantics—they both use the same canvas on which to create and the same technology driven solutions to measure success. More and more companies enter the digital space every day, and the ones that are already there are needing to spend more and more to keep up. It takes a creative strategy to not only go after the big money keywords everyone wants—e.g., broad terms like “shoes”, “lamps” or “appliances”—but also to identify long-tail opportunities and tailoring a strategy for them.

We know that longer tail queries have higher purchase/conversion intent and as such, traffic for those queries is often more valuable than the traffic for the broadest terms, where queries tend to be more informational and casual. Successful campaigns must consider integration with all digital channels, and all stages of the conversion funnel both on and offline. Our industry now has analytics tools now that can track a sale from the first point of contact on Twitter, to an exploratory site visit on a cell phone browser, to a final purchase conversion on an iPad, and back to a return visit on a desktop PC. Such technology can be difficult to implement and tricky to interpret, but proper application of these tools and the savvy to decode the data they provide can help businesses maximize the ROI of any digital marketing efforts. This technology can help take you through the start of the campaign through completion. So, who is helping you hit the target? n

Gary Hagins is the COO of SEOP.com, a full service online marketing agency featuring such services as search engine optimization, social media marketing, pay-per-click management, affiliate marketing, and website design and development. He has worked as a website developer and software engineer for the past 12 years. He is a technology addict who likes to read, draw and play chess in his spare time.

Winter 2012

Visibility

The Hard Freakonomics of

Search Marketing for Small Business

By Rob Laporte

Executive Summary

More Tactics, More Complexity, More Costs

Increasing complexity and competition in search marketing push it beyond the budgets of ever larger small businesses. The rate of this increase is accelerating. The top search engines and agencies try to ameliorate this trend by offering simpler, cheaper solutions which merely slow this trend. Exploiting fear and innocence, many firms sell false expectations about the ROI of more, if still barely, affordable packages. This article elucidates this trend and suggests remedies that help but don’t wish away the hard Freakonomics that amplify disparities between the haves and have-nots in search marketing.

My argument rests on two simple truths about search marketing. • Positive ROI in search marketing requires ever greater resource allocation, as essential tactics emerge that require more expert labor and more software support. • The losses incurred by not doing the relentlessly mounting minimum grow because of greater competition for the same top ten positions and because search engines increasingly require that websites do more to be OK.

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A complete catalogue of essential tools and tactics introduced just in the last two

years would take several pages. Here are a few random examples. The Google Webmaster Tools suite addresses ever more crucial aspects of SEO health, like soft 404s, problematic parameter strings, harmful incoming links, website speed problems, and more. The accelerating semantic web’s micro-formats promise better click-through rates--for your competition if you don’t implement them. Panda and Penguin pose risks or actual damage if you don’t address relevant website attributes. Website redesigns risk loss of search engine positions and history if 301 redirects aren’t implemented properly--not to mention other PageRank Sculpting (see the Fall Edition of Visibility). Google Places recently merged with Google+ for Business, requiring more work to make or preserve gains in local search. A good SEO plug-in for WordPress that deals with duplicate content produced by archives, categories, and authors should be researched and implemented. New and evolving PPC tools and tactics, like broad match modifiers, multi-channel attribution, analytics content experiments, and re-marketing, are needed to achieve or retain positive ROI.

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People who have worked in search marketing for a few years could add to the above list ad nauseum. Merely monitoring risks, never mind addressing them, takes ever more time. These are all costs that increase constantly.

More Competition, Less Forgiveness Most small businesses can’t or wont devote sufficient resources to search marketing, but only a small percent of businesses have to do so in order to multiply competition and erode your positions. The top ten (or page one) positions in search engines remain just that, so if in a given year 1% of 1000 businesses decide to invest sufficiently, that adds ten to the top ten, which is a 100% increase in competition. Someone has to go down to make room for the new investors. In a broad sense, SEO is a bidding platform like PPC: as more competitors invest in SEO, any one competitor must invest more merely to tread water. The search engines know that good businesses with helpful website content may not have the resources to follow the ever-growing list of rules and tools. Yet the search engines probably surmise that even a weak correlation between (1) adherence to the rules and (2) other good business practices justifies giving higher rank to the few who do invest sufficiently. The evidence at my firm and in the reports of other firms confirm that indeed the search engines are becoming less forgiving of SEO technical problems and a lack of proactive SEO. More rules + more competition = more costs.

Help on the Receding Horizon To counter this trend, the search engines and many search marketing firms have been working hard to offer economical solutions for small businesses. For example, Google Places and now Google+ for Business offer relatively simple and inexpensive ways to get local coverage. AdWords Express greatly simplifies PPC for small businesses. Search marketing firms and software providers offer relatively low-cost monthly payments for turnkey solutions. Revealing the true costs of these solutions relative to results would take many pages, but let’s look at two cases and then return to the general Freakonomic principles. AdWords Express is quick and simple to set-up, and Google does most of the ad management, yet one reliable report showed that at best 1/3 of AdWords Express users benefit. (Sorry I can’t

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link to this report; I heard it on a podcast, and please trust me that it was convincing). Put on your Freakonomic goggles, and you’ll clearly see that even if AdWords Express succeeded for everyone now, in a matter of months a mounting base of users would eliminate competitive advantage. Another case is Hubspot.com, a turnkey web marketing suit for small businesses. HubSpot offers to small businesses good tools and education for between $200 and $600 per month (as of this writing), but someone has to spend the most precious resource of all--time--acting on the information. Google’s and Bing’s webmaster tools continuously add useful new features, but again someone’s precious time is needed to actuate those features. Social media marketing conjures the mirage of a panacea. Freakonomic goggles reveal that successful social media takes lots of time. Anecdotes of great ROI ignore the industry-wide costs vs. returns on reasonably intelligent deployment. The law of increasing competition and complexity--in driving traffic to a wholly new channel in order to then drive traffic and customers to your website--will quickly level the cost-effectiveness of any social media channel. I’m not saying that small business should not use these and other tactics. I am saying that ROI will rapidly decline and in many cases may already be negative.

Solution: Prioritizing and CRO As search marketing done right exceeds the reach of small businesses, rigorous prioritizing becomes vital, while enthusiastic experiments and gut-driven forays increasingly fail. This means that small businesses must find a trusted advisor who knows enough to predict the ROI of all web marketing tactics (see my article on “Simple ROI Projecting and Tracking” at www. visibilitymagazine.com/disc-inc/rob-laporte/ simple-roi-projecting-and-tracking]. Agencies must offer not necessarily what they’ve done and packaged but instead a list prioritized by ROI and perhaps including items that are not what the agency specializes in or does at all. When my firm addresses small budgets, we explain and price the most cost-effective tactics, but propose a fee less than the total of those tactics, promise to cherry-pick sub-tasks of each tactic, scale back formal reports on deliverables, and train the client to do any tasks for which their competence

and available time are adequate. My firm also provides a priority spreadsheet that itemizes all worthy tactics and includes a column that factors, from other columns, our cost, the client’s time (cost), and importance ranked 1 through 5, with importance based on predicted profit. Of course that spreadsheet requires billable time and ample knowledge derived from lots of past research time, but it allows the client to best allocate scarce resources. One web marketing tactic that may be less subject to the law of increasing complexity and competition is conversion rate optimization. True, as more small businesses do this, more must do it to keep pace, but one is not constrained to top ten positions in the search engines, and the tools for split A-B and multivariate testing are getting simpler to use. Moreover, conversion rates can often be increased substantially by applying known usability rules, without testing. Doubling conversion rates and thus web-based leads and/or sales has the same impact as doubling relevant traffic, and the increases are not subject to the tyranny of sudden changes in search engine algorithms. Business ethics, not to mention basic human decency, often require that search marketing firms tell a small business the hard truth that the small budget holds little or no hope of success. Reminding prospects of their expenditures in, say, direct sales or non-web advertising sometimes encourages raising the budget to sufficiency. Not surprisingly, especially given our country’s general decline in truth-telling, many firms exploit small business’s fear and ignorance by offering packages whose negative ROI won’t be realized until long after the client has paid. This hurts the whole search marketing industry. Good ethics married with disciplined knowledge helps everyone, as they always have. n

Rob Laporte is founder and President of DISC, Inc., which has specialized in SEO and SEM since 1997. Rigorously focused on ROI, DISC has clients worldwide, of all types and sizes. DISC offers SEO, paid search, social media consulting, conversion rate optimization, SEO’d site design and build, and SEO training. www.2disc.com, rob@2disc.com, 413-584-6500.

Winter 2012

Visibility

seo

Six New Best Practices to Strike SEO Gold

f you’re responsible for marketing or developing websites, you already know that the phrase “build it and they will come” doesn’t apply. You have to help people find your site. In fact, you have to work pretty hard to be found. And while there’s various ways to do this, nothing brings as much traffic to your site as major commercial search engines. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be high on your list of imperatives. If you’re not continually optimizing your site to boost and maintain your search engine rankings, your company will likely experience a poor return on investment for its online marketing efforts. Major shifts in the area of search have been taking place over the past few years and companies that don’t adjust their SEO strategies accordingly have already or will soon sink to the bottom of the results page. While keywords, page titles, and meta descriptions are still important to your SEO strategy, there are other aspects that are increasingly becoming critical. This paper gives a fresh perspective on today’s best practices for improving and sustaining SEO and maximizing your results for generating inbound traffic to your site.

Best Practice #1: Update Your Strategy for Mobile – Now Mobile devices are rapidly changing how and where we access the Web. Google reported that mobile search increased five-fold worldwide from 2009 to 2011.1 Why is this relevant to your SEO strategy? Desktop and mobile Internet access is not the same and the two are diverging more every day. Search behavior and search results are different, and the fact that mobile devices have smaller displays means that it’s much more important to rank in the top two or three positions for mobile searches. Take keywords for instance. You may need different keywords for mobile because how and what people search for when they are on the go can be vastly different than when they are in the office. Mobile users typically know what they are looking for and are using search to find it. In addition, local searches dominate mobile search and for that reason local rankings may appear based on the user’s location. So keyword choices for your mobile site need to reflect local search options if you have brick-and-mortar locations. Location-specific keywords should be included in content and page titles where applicable. Of course, all this assumes that you are optimizing your site for

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Winter 2012

mobile viewing, too. Because you don’t want to lose prospects once you get them to your site. You need to ensure that the mobile experience is satisfying, delivers relevant content, and makes it easy for the visitor to take action.

Best Practice #2: Focus on Fresh, Relevant Content Today more than ever, content is SEO gold. Over the course of 2011, Google rolled out several algorithm changes called Panda Updates plus Google Freshness Updates – all with a strong emphasis on quality, freshness, and relevance of site content. Google Panda ushered in the era of original, accurate, authoritative content helping sites rank above those with low-quality content. Plus, the Google Freshness Update factors in the “freshness” of a website’s content as a ranking factor. What this means to you is that relevant, fresh, and original content is now critically important to your Google search engine ranking. And most importantly, compelling content not only helps you drive traffic to your site, it helps engage and convert visitors. You can help to develop fresh content by putting together an editorial calendar for content for the year, including ideas and timing for content that covers major topics of interest for your customers, seasonal themes, audience-specific pieces of content, new product launches, blog posts, Tweets, and more. This will help ensure that you’re creating fresh content on a regular basis.

Best Practice #3: Utilize the Dynamic Duo: Paid and Organic Search When it comes to search engine marketing (SEM), both paid and organic search are essential components. And increasingly, analysts are reporting that paid and organic search work best together - you need both to maximize your online marketing results. One benefit is that you gain more “real estate” on the search results page. But findings show even greater benefits than simply gaining more visibility: increased conversions and higher revenue per visitor. A study by Razorfish confirmed the synergy of a combined paid and organic search strategy: At least half of conversions and revenue happening through paid search are preceded by organic search visits within the previous seven days.

Best Practice #4: Have a Solid Social Media Plan What does social media have to do with SEO? Turns out, social has a lot to do with search these days. Social cues such as being “liked” or Tweeted about now impact your search engine rankings. In 2011, Google rolled out its own social media network: Google +.

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With Google+, users can click a +1 button to indicate their approval of your site or content, similar to Facebook’s “Like”. Google+ users can even click +1 to indicate approval of paid ads. A Google+ user may notice that Google presents search results based on personal recommendations. And social content that gets a +1 will show up next to a related ad, which helps drive greater ad performance and lower cost per lead as more qualified prospects click on the ad. This is why you need a solid social media plan that includes identifying which social channels your customers frequent, tracking social conversations and trending topics, developing optimized content and keywords based on this insight, and regularly sharing that fresh content. By ensuring you can easily create and post relevant content to social channels on a regular basis, you’ll not only improve your search rankings, but reach more potential prospects when your content is linked to, liked, or shared.

Practice #5: Test, Test, Test This is a best practice that is very often neglected. Why? Two reasons: One is that most people think testing is too time-consuming and complex and besides, who has time to create multiple versions of landing pages, content, and other elements? The second reason is that people are worried about hurting their rankings by testing.

analysis, reporting, research, actions, and more. This will help you not only organize and plan your efforts, but enable you to communicate your plan to others in the organization as well, which goes a long way towards encouraging collaboration across various marketing teams.

The fact is that testing is the proven way to optimize your SEO and SEM results.

Conclusion

Let’s zero in on site metrics first. Your site metrics not only signal your site’s performance, but they may influence your search engine ranking. While we don’t know all the ranking signals Google uses, metrics such as time spent on your site, the load speed of your site, and even bounce rate may impact how Google views your site.3 You should track these metrics and try to improve them as part of your SEO strategy. There’s also concern that making changes and testing may hurt the SEO you’ve already done. Testing is the only way to glean the information you need to optimize. Don’t avoid testing because of the fear of hurting your rankings. Be informed on how to conduct A/B tests accurately and effectively without risking diluting your previous SEO efforts. Increasingly, website platforms are moving beyond focusing solely on content management to now include tools for today’s digital marketer. If you’re in the market for a new web content management system, look for a solution that offers capabilities like testing, analytics and personalization in one integrated package, or one that integrates with your existing business and online marketing applications, rather than working within siloes.

Best Practice #6: SEO Requires Constant Vigilance You need to manage your presence, constantly and strategically, to account for new developments in how search engines filter content. Google alone makes about 500 changes to its algorithm every year.4 That’s why it’s important for you to remain vigilant, adjusting and refining your SEO efforts in response to significant changes in search engine algorithms and online marketing trends. One way to ensure your SEO strategy gets frequent attention is to create a 12-month plan with milestones and deliverables that cover

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Gone are the days of focusing on meta tags, keywords and linking as the core of your SEO strategy. You need to create a broader SEO strategy that incorporates the six best practices described in this paper. By adapting these best practices to your organization’s unique needs, you’ll have the basis for an SEO strategy that can help you more easily adapt to changes in search engine algorithms, visitor behavior, and device types. Armed with a thorough, up-to-date SEO strategy and supported by a robust web content management system, you can raise or maintain your search engine rankings and generate high levels of high quality traffic to your site. n

Sources: 1) http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-newfeatures-to-mobile_14.html 2) http://razorfishsearch.com/2011/08/11/ paid-and-organic-search-why-the-marriage-of-both-is-important/ 3) http://www.webpronews.com/ google-algorithm-bounce-rate-ranking-signal-2011-05 4) Reuters, “Google Algorithm Changes Detailed,” November 2011.

Ted Prodromou is the Online Marketing/SEO Analyst for Sitecore, a leading Web Content Management Software Vendor. With 30 plus years of experience in technology management and consulting, and over 19 years of hands-on internet experience, Ted has blended his technical and marketing expertise to help organizations harness web technologies to improve business performance. Since 2001, Ted has focused on Search Engine Optimization, Web Marketing, and now Social Media, helping companies maximize their exposure on the Internet. Ted is also the author of two business books: The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business and The Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business.email: tpr@sitecore. net, phone: 415-380-0600, website: www.sitecore.net

Winter 2012

Visibility

product review

Searchmetrics Suite EDITOR RATING

Very Good

Bottom Line

s they grow bigger, many businesses find that it becomes difficult to keep all their data in one place and to keep it up to date. And on top of this there’s the challenge ofmaking sure they don’t lose sight of data quality. After all, numbers are only numbers until they are analyzed and they start to tell you something. The key to making sure your data works for you is to ensure that you have the right SEO analytics software. ith so many names available to the market, it’s a good idea to turn to a tried and tested product that guarantees results. Searchmetrics Suite has an entirely revamped look with new and improved functionality and an already very popular, intuitive and easy-to-use interface. One thing that definitely helps is that it’s been created by people with the right know-how. The developers’ extensive experience and knowledge on propriety search visibility, keyword link, and social data makes the whole business of SEO analysis, site optimization, and competitor insight a whole lot easier to handle. We all know that not everyone needs the same set of products and services. Andthat is where Searchmetrics Suite’s customization works so well. It would be accurate to say that Searchmetrics Suite is an ideal solution for SEO projects, but the developers have taken the whole deal one step further by offering a customizable suite so that you only pay for the data and functions that you use for any specific project that you set up. Understanding the core foundation of good SEO, Searchmetrics Suite supports On-Page Optimization so that a website’s technical and structural characteristics are improved. We have been into SEO long enough to know that one of the most important indicators of success is the selection of suitable and profitable keywords that define your actual market segment. Keeping this in mind, Searchmetrics allows you to choose your keywords broadly as well as in detail. The end result is project visibility and more in-depth SEO perspective.

www.searchmetrics.com

Price • Searchmetrics Suite Enterprise – Price on Request • Searchmetrics Suite Business - $949

Features Unlimited user accounts Credits (for export and API) Discount for API Credits Mail/PDFs reports receiver Reports with own graphics/text Phone support Initial training Keyword queries Benchmarks Domain rankings Keyword rankings Ranking analysis SERP spread Keyword potential Tag potential Competitive ranking Competitive dynamics Backlink analysis

Pros • Simple, straightforward, and professional project management and keyword queries • Keyword suggestions • Lets you track your competitors • Large selection of country/search engine combinations • Practical optimization suggestions for pages and keywords

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Winter 2012

www.visibilitymagazine.com

Searchmetrics Suite has extensive experience in the field of SEO, with presence in more than 76 countries worldwide. Its popularity is partly down to the fact that the software monitors more than 100 million keywords and 75 million domains in addition to all major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Naver, and Seznam. And Searchmetrics focus on quality extends to a siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s backlinks;. with its detailed and comprehensive backlink analysis, Searchmetrics Suite will help you take complete charge of the entire off-page analysis process. The Link Manager and Hubfinder will help you enhance your structured link building programme, once you have conducted quality off-page analysis. With so much data going in and out of the system, tracking and monitoring start becoming all the more important. As SEO measures have evolved to become more complex and expensive, Searchmetrics steps in and takes care of the data tracking and monitoring by showing you all the important metrics and KPIs in one go. And the option of going into greater detail is always just a click away. Just as important as having your own quality SEO data in place is, is knowing what competitors are doing. Searchmetrics will let you analyze where your competitors stand by displaying keywords from your self-defined market segment in correlation with the keywords of your selected group via an excellent feature called Converge group. Software works better if it also intelligent and Searchmetrics Suite gives you clear, easy answers to which pages are are ranking highly and which should be ranking better. This is where the keyword optimization analysis page works best; by telling you which domain URL ranks best for selected keywords and which have more potential and why. It gives you clear instructions on what you have to do in the areas where improvement is required. A very popular component of the Suite has been Searchmetrics Essentials, a toolset that lets you monitor the pulse of your social optimization. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to use because it is flexible, you can purchase it as part of the Suite or independently. And with this software to support their online presence, users can be assured that they will gain fast entry into search engine and social optimization, with the largest and fastest database available. At the end of the day, what really works for the Searchmetrics Suite is that it is innovative yet easy to use. It provides suggestions that are practical and can be applied by the user to get effective results. And the cherry on top is the transparency when it comes to costs - with no hidden costs to catch you off guard. n

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Winter 2012

Visibility

mobile privacy

Search. Social. Mobile. Oh My! How to Optimize For Today’s Digital Era

eading brands have matured beyond the search bar as they seek solutions to optimize their online presence. Today’s leaders are searching for solutions that reach customers and their behaviors using a more holistic approach to search, social and mobile marketing. To successfully position and grow brands online so that the investment of digital assets are reaching the level of awareness and sales necessary to compete in today’s digital era, we need to stop approaching online optimization as separate silos and consider the full life cycle of the customer’s journey. Today’s silos include three types of optimization experts. 1. Search SEO experts dominate the search bar implementing a keen knowledge of algorithyms and generating content, specifically important keywords and links. 2. Social Social experts top the social streams on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms by implementing expertise like Edgerank and more through sharing likes, photos and more. 3. Mobile Mobile experts provide not only mobile sites, but develop apps and other technologies needed for the 1.2 billion mobile users.

Solution: Optimization Beyond the Silos Lee Odden understands the need to opimize in each of us. No matter what we do, we all seek to optimize, to make better, perfect and continue to improve. Lee, author of Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing clearly articulates a new approach for modern marketing optimization as we implement strategies that successfully “connect customers with brands along the full sales cycle of the customer journey.” The ultimate customer journey begins with an awareness and interest and leads to consideration to purchase, then to sales, retention and advocacy. By now, you have realized that you need to have a web site, a site that can be found online. You also understand how your customers need to have proper capabilities to share and engage with your online brand. And, with mobile commerce expected to reach one in eight U.S. consumers by 2015, the need to be optimized for mobile usage is critical. Before you run to your nearest Smartphone to ask Siri for help to optimize your online brand holistically, here are three tips on take the first steps in changing the silos into true optimization for today’s digital era.

Optimization: Strategy Over Tactics C-Level executives understand the importance of being found online. With the 12 billion Google searches per month that lead to 89% of purchasers to buy, there is no doubt that the science behind search is a necessary component to B2B and B2C business growth. Understanding the algorithms is critical, but combine the social sharing and mobile interactions that drive online behaviors and move customers to act beyond the clicks, and suddenly there is a concoction of customer touch points that must be considered. Today’s marketing strategy requires an understanding of the online user behavior and how it relates to the overall customer activity and multiple touch points. Online optimization must begin with the marketers identifying and executing appropriate activities based on a customer lifecycle model that includes the full range of the customer touch points: Awareness > Knowledge > Consideration > Selection > Satisfaction > Advocacy > Loyalty. Remember, search optimization doesn’t end on the first page of Google. Considering the strategy over the tactics is the key to ultimate optimization that digital marketers need to be searching for and implementing.

As online usage continues to grow, people are using search, social and mobile more now than ever, but online brands won’t benefit from the online optimization techniques from these silos of experts. Successful brands require a holistic approach to optimization.

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Optimization: Longevity Over Linkbait Online optimization has evolved from measuring just the click and traffic results. Once the full lifecycle of customer behavior is understood, the

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value of online engagement is found in the longterm relationship. While many online experts are using linkbait strategies that salivate for that one click, Lee describes this approach as “a one-night stand” of online optimization. This sort of online jack-in-the-box traffic management does not build trust and conversion that really meets the needs of anyone except the linkbait SEO developer. An accumulative collection of results that impact the end results has more of an impact on the overall success and growth. Ask yourself, what are the real results our online brand is seeking? Is it in the one time click, or a long term relationship? Seek and reward the results from your online optimization experts accordingly.

Optimization: Quality Over Quantity Jason Falls, founder of Social Media Explorer, an education products company and author of No BS Social Media comments that true online optimization for search, social or mobile technologies cannot be found be creating more content, “With eight trillion text messages sent in 2011, your online message must be intentional, it must “wow” the customers you are seeking to reach and keep.” Although a press announcement published on your website, or placed on a free newswire service may be helpful to boost SEO results, but, users won’t likely recommend a company’s press release to their friends on Facebook.

A press announcement is informational and can help with search, but limits the spreadability factor. To take advantage of the social sharing and mobile viewing that increases exposure, today’s online optimizer must be producing content that is more infotaining in nature and publishing the infotainment through a variety of social and mobile technologies. Publishing infotainment in addition to press announcements is an example of how to mix the search with social and mobile to gain the highest potential of online optimization. This is one example of how online brands can optimize their online optimizing for optimal success. As brands continue to grow online, today’s leading digital marketers will look beyond the silos of search, social and mobile for solutions. The online leaders will be successfully implementing these holistic optimization techniques. Will you be optimized for this digital era? n

Since 1999, Andrea Cook’s consultancy, The Midas Center has provided awardwinning services to help build brands and buzz. Through her latest practice, EventCorrespondent.com, she captures expert content while reporting live, on-site as an event correspondent from industry-leading events. Follow @andreacook via Twitter or Google The Midas Center. You may also contact Andrea directly: acook@ themidascenter.com or (574)936-7058.

APR 15-16, 2013 Accelerating the Sales and Marketing Funnel

SAN FRANCISCO

SAVE THE DATE DemandCon is the world’s first conference dedicated to managing the complete sales funnel, top to bottom. Join us for in-depth sessions and a variety of hands-on workshops geared specifically to meet the needs of sales and marketing professionals.

www.demandcon.com/sanfrancisco/2013

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Winter 2012

Visibility

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video marketing

Best Tools for Jumpstarting Your Online Video Marketing

hat is a company to do with limitless options for marketing your business? Video still remains a growing and effective method for spreading your message and increasing awareness. Why? Lets explore some statistics:

integration are invaluable for the invested marketer. With plans from free to $239.00 per month, you are sure to find a plan and the support to make video marketing a successful venture.

• 1.8 Million Words: That’s the value of one minute of video, according to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research. • The average user is exposed 32.2 videos in a month. • 100 Million Internet users watch online video each day. • 75 percent of executives who told Forbes that they watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week. • Mobile video viewers are projected to reach 54.6 million in 2012. • The U.S. population is expected to spend almost 40 percent more time online watching video this year than it did in 2011. • 167 million U.S. citizens have watched online video in 2012 so far.

Google AdWords now offers promoted videos that appear on top and beside search results. Would you rather click on a simple text-based search result, or a dynamic video thumbnail?

Weeding through the tools available on and offline can be a bit overwhelming. There are indeed tools for budgets that know no bounds and those that require a little more attention to every penny:

Vimeo Vimeo may easily be considered YouTube’s high-class cousin as filmmakers created the site with the intent to share their creative works. Like all things good on the Internet, it caught on. The rules at Vimeo are far more stringent than those of YouTube or other free services. Businesses are allowed to use the paid version, VimeoPro for video hosting and distribution. For $199.00 per year, Pro clients have 50GB of storage with up to 250,000 plays. Vimeo has no caps on bandwidth and offers HD video up to 1080p for superior quality. Vimeo also offers portfolio sites and options for SEO enhancement and analytics.

Wistia Wistia is for those that are serious about investing in search engine rankings and understanding your viewer to the tee. Wistia’s Video Heat Map is an in-depth analytics tool that shows you who’s watching, how much they are watching, what sections of your video they have watched multiple times, and when they skipped the boring stuff. Wistia is all about video marketing and is built to suit. Their customizable tools for videos that match the design of your website to seamless email

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Use Google AdsWords with Video

This cost-per-click model allows advertisers to segment customers based on demographic or keyword search, and you only when users click on ads or watch ad videos. If you choose to use this mode of advertising, enjoy viewing metrics like impressions, conversions and viewer demographics via Google AdWords.

Oh Yeah, What About Content? The content of your video must first and foremost engage your user. Pro marketers chime in Internet-wide to say a professional scriptwriter is not necessary. However, hiring a writer can establish an outline and critical, quick fire one liners needed to engage your audience. What matters most is providing a genuine and authentic view of your company, product, service, and overall brand. Whether you are working with a creative team or doing it yourself, keep it real and keep your message on point with a succinct naturally flowing conversation that can continue in your next video marketing piece. Engaging a viewer comes down to information that is not only entertaining but useful as well. The power of video is only as good as the content.

Transcription has Value If you are creating videos that offer directions, tutorials and even longer product descriptions, using a video transcription service is good way to bolster your message. Companies such as GMR Transcription turn your video into readable content for your audience. Transcriptions of your videos are also valuable for SEO as search engines are focused on content rather than graphics and video. Likewise, transcriptions can be downloaded from your website for those in your audience who want to refer back to a certain section or the complete content of your video. Jumpstarting a video marketing campaign is worth the investment of your time and resources. Whether you are posting through free services such as YouTube or ready to take the plunge with Vimeo or Wistia, your video marketing campaign can go from nonexistent to viral with a little time, some attention and a lot of creativity. n

Laurel Gray is an Editor at Large for ManagementDegrees.net. ManagementDegrees.net is a site dedicated to providing management school and degree program information to prospective college students.

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Predictive Analytics Innovation February 20 & 21, 2013

San Diego, CA

Featuring Presentations from: Petsmart Microsoft Coca-Cola eBay And Many More...

Driving Business Success Through Data Analytics The Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit brings the leaders and innovators from the industry together for an event acclaimed for its interactive format, combining keynote presentations, interactive breakout sessions and open discussion. Contact David Barton to request an invitation: +1 (415) 692 5496 or dbarton@theiegroup.com

analytics.theiegroup.com/pa-sandiego

link building

The Death of Paid Link Networks And what to do if you got nailed...

hhh... Remember the days when you could just subscribe to a paid link network of your choice for as little as $49 and watch those rankings head upward every week. No need to get involved in the messy muddiness of “white hat” SEO, no need to build relationships with webmasters and spend days upon days researching and developing high quality, share worthy content... Those were the days my friend. And no, I’m not talking about pre-2008, or even 2011, I’m talking about 2012. Working in the casino SEO industry, it was quite common for me to see the top 20 competitors for any given keyword heavily loaded with blatantly obvious paid links in their backlink profile. And when I say “blatantly obvious”, I really mean it. I’m talking about an oddly placed “online casino” anchor text link, randomly dropped into some unrelated text on a camping accessories site... Yuk! Why would SEO’s pay for this you ask – because it worked, and it worked really well (perhaps in part due to the lack of social signals in the adult industry) – up until February 2012 when the Google Venice update came along. “Oh dear” sigh the SEO’s who’ve been riding the paid link wave. What shall we do now? Google (at least seems to) have cracked the paid network scheme good and proper with the Venice update. What came as a major shock and SERP shakeup for the industry was subtly summarized on their “Inside Search” post: “Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years.” Change the way they evaluate links they certainly did. Whilst paid link networks have enjoyed resilience to big G to varying degrees, this update seemed to truly slice the hearts of paid link networks. Whilst the ramifications are huge, it’s really no surprise (and I don’t understand why they didn’t do this earlier):

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• Problem #1: Most link networks featured all their customers’ links on all their sites. You can have as many unique c-class IPs as you like, but the exact same outgoing links on every site is bound to leave a nasty footprint. • Problem #2: Most link networks use spun content across their sites, and drop batches of links to minimize the workload (why load up one customer’s links when you can upload 5 customers in one whack?). The crappy spun content and batching of links (both in context and timing) is a dead giveaway. • Problem #3: The link network business model is inherently flawed. In order to get buyers, you need to market your service. When you market, Google can easily catch you. You think you’ve got a new client whilst a “Google undercover operative” is smiling from cheek to cheek... So link networks (or at least the ones following the above model) are biting the dust and you’ve seen your rankings plummet. You shed a tear and stare hopelessly out the window wondering what to do next. Worry not – I’ve put some starting points together:

Get Back To Basics – On Site The good old days meant that you could enjoy high rankings without too much concern about the actual quality of your site (to varying degrees of course). That mindset needs to change: 1. Clean up that site – if the Panda update didn’t motivate you to go through your site and clean up the crap, now’s definitely the time. Assess every page from tip to toe and ask yourself these two questions: • Is this page 100% necessary or can its purpose be combined into another really power packed page? • Is this page the very best that it can be? If it’s purpose is informational, is it up to date? Is it comprehensive? Is it the best answer to a users question? If not, you know what to do... 2. Speed up that site – As SEO’s we all know that site speed is a ranking factor, yet how many of us have really put in the blood,

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sweat and tears to make our sites super-crazy-lightning-fast? Yes, its a little complicated for the un-initiated, but with some effort and a few questions, you can get that site of yours blitz-fast which not only means better rankings, but better conversions (and yes, conversions do matter to a good SEO, a lot!)

you can better explain in a video. Create as many how-to videos and promote them wherever you can. It’s amazing how linkable videos are, and the more people link to your video, the more juice flows to you. PS – Youtube isn’t the only video sharing site – be sure to utilize the likes of DailyMotion, Vimeo, etc

3. Assess those analytics metrics – Another common flaw of the modern SEO is a tunnel vision when it comes to Google Analytics. Just admit it, all you really want to see is how much traffic your awesome keywords have driven! That’s all good, but it’s now time to really start scrutinizing bounce rate, time on site and average pages per visit.

Think out of the box

• Improving your call to action and conversion funnel equates to a lower bounce rate and higher conversions – it’s a no brainer. • Investing in some video for your site not only gives you pretty thumbnails in the search results, but also increases time on site, general conversion and overall coolness! Do it. 4. Do the things you’ve always wanted to do, but were too scared to – when your site was ranking number 1 on Google, it was understandably risky to go tinker with design layouts, script upgrades, CRO and split testing (among other things). If you’ve taken a bump to page 2, you may as well make the most of it and get those changes done. When you’re back on top, you’ll enjoy the rewards of an overall better site.

Get Back To Basics Off Site Those paid links are now worth very little and suddenly your backlink portfolio is looking rather bleek – you realise that you may have been just a touch to reliant on those “miracle” networks. Never fear though – where there’s a will there’s a way, and the fact that you’re still reading means that there’s definitely a will!

Directories are a logical foundation Quality, relevant listings on legitimate local directories (ie, not purely developed for the purposes of selling links to desperate SEO’s) are a good starting point. Take a quality over quantity approach and put some tender loving care into those submissions. Also try to go for the premium option (if your budget allows) with a view to getting some (real!) qualified traffic from it. The same approach can be taken in joining industry forums, commenting on relevant blogs and so forth. Add value – don’t spam.

Foster those relationships Let’s be honest, guest blogging is hard work and that’s exactly why it’s worth your time. Get in touch with industry related webmasters, be authentic and give before receiving. Put your best foot forward and I guarantee that you’ll find a rose or two amongst those harsh thorns.

Social is essential You may have been neglecting social media (especially if you’re in a particularly niche or adult market). The good news is that its never too late to get involved. Get setup on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus (remember to connect your G+ account to your site). Again, authenticity is key – give and ye shall receive.

Video is the ultimate content Another underrated platform/tool for link building is video. You don’t need to be Vanessa Black to benefit from the Youtube community. Whatever industry you’re in, there’s something that

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Sure, you’ve heard this a million times before. The difference is that right now, you NEED to listen. Every motivational speaker will tell you that you need to think radical thoughts in order to achieve radical results. This definitely applies in SEO. Use these ideas to get that old think-box ticking: 1. Got eBooks? Why not submit them to a handful of premium ebook directories and document sharing sites (think Issuu, Slideshare, Docstoc, etc) – even better, apply for submission to Amazon and the iTunes store. It will cost you a little, but the payoff on a quality ebook will make it worth your investment. 2. Got cool images/graphics? There are a ton of wallpaper sites just waiting for your content. Crack open Photoshop and make some wallpapers out of those cool stock images. Even better, invest in some screensaver software and leverage those images to score links from screensaver sites. 3. Got videos? If you’ve already invested in video, you’ve inadvertently created some pretty cool podcasts. Even if you haven’t, I’ll bet that laptop has a microphone which allows you to enter the world of podcasting. Use that industry expertise to start a podcast. There are hundreds of podcast directories ready to not only link to you, but send a healthy stream of traffic. These are just three ideas but the concept is simple and highly scalable – take stock of your content equity (in whatever format it may be) and leverage it. Convert it to a new format, add to it, subtract from it – do whatever, just be creative and get those links that nobody else has thought of.

Be Smart Many a great link building idea is crushed by the realisation that a serious time commitment is required (at least at first). For example, guest blogging means spending a LOT of time building a list of publishers, emailing them, etc. Guess what? You don’t need to do that – hire someone on elance for $100 – I assure you they’ll do a much better job. Come on – no excuses... Successful link building in a post-Venice era is obviously going be more challenging than shopping for links. Yes, this does mean a greater time investment and thought overhaul, but the upside is incredible and makes it all worthwhile – now creativity and innovation are ranking factors. Money can only buy so much. Your ability to think outside the box is now the real equity. Welcome to a new world of SEO innovation. Jumpstarting a video marketing campaign is worth the investment of your time and resources. Whether you are posting through free services such as YouTube or ready to take the plunge with Vimeo or Wistia, your video marketing campaign can go from nonexistent to viral with a little time, some attention and a lot of creativity. n

Derek Jansen+ is an SEO educator, providing customized SEO training and implementation in Southern Africa. He has authored a free SEO course and specializes in casino SEO.

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vendor spotlight Contact Information DISC, Inc. 73 James Street Greenfield, MA 01301 (2nd office in Brooklyn, NY) 413-584-6500 www.2disc.com Hello@2disc.com

Mission Statement

ounded in 1995 and specializing in search marketing since 1997, DISC is a “first generation” firm where our long experience offers wisdom that distinguishes hype from what really works. Trustworthiness is our guiding principle.

Trust is earned by basing all work on sound research and by employing first-rate people who work directly with clients to first prioritize by ROI and then implement with honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Trust as a Guiding Principle Trust is the single most important aspect of a business relationship. It is all the more important when proffering complex and arcane solutions that are vital to the client’s success.

DISC’s mission is: 1. To serve as a trustworthy guide through the jungle of web marketing. 2. To use our comprehensive knowledge and wisdom to ease our clients’ minds and realize the results they seek. 3. To prioritize by ROI all web marketing options, so that clients gain maximum returns as quickly as possible.

Customer Profile Because search marketing done right is costeffective for almost any business, DISC serves all kinds and sizes.

In the early 1990s, after several years working in market research, DISC’s founder and CEO did his PhD work on the Renaissance honor code reflected in Shakespeare. He and his team make paramount the honoring of clients’ trust. Trust is enacted in search marketing in the following ways. Honest and accurate prioritization. Marketing managers are experiencing a growing need for trusted advisors who can help prioritize by likely ROI the myriad options in web marketing. DISC has pioneered simple yet powerful spreadsheets that predict ROI and thus enable clients to invest with confidence. Sharing intellectual capital: DISC believes in passing intellectual capital to clients, so that they can manage as much in house as they have the resources to do. Hiring highly qualified people. A search marketing firm is like a hospital: The building and receptionists may be great, but what you really want to know is who the heck is holding the scalpel over your anesthetized body. DISC’s key people average over ten years experience and have histories of consistent and documented success. Continuous, disciplined research to ascertain what works best with the least risk to clients. Publishing thoughtful and enduring articles, to advance the search marketing industry and to help forge information and knowledge into wisdom.

Excellence in Technical SEO Technical SEO is the most important and demanding part of SEO, and usually it is the most cost-effective. It includes CMS & Database SEO, which is mostly about adding proactive SEO to website publishing systems, while technical SEO per se resolves search

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engine blockages in code and servers. Blockages can undermine all other SEO work and pose mounting risks of sudden losses in organic traffic. The top search engines, Google especially, are continuously adding more technical SEO rules while becoming less forgiving of lapses. Insight into the intricate machinery of technical SEO is offered by DISC’s Fall ’12 Visibility article, “PageRank Sculpting: Why and How to Do It” (www. visibilitymagazine.com/disc-inc/rob-laporte/pagerank-sculpting-why-and-how-to-do-it).

The Linguistic Heart of SEO An SEO Einstein would beat the best of us everyday. There’s no upper limit to the expression of genius in the linguistic arts and sciences of SEO. Keywords research software is essential, but a mind makes countless crucial language decisions in every step of SEO. DISC’s SEO workers past and present harnesses great education and outstanding aptitudes in language.

PPC by a Linguist-Programmer Language aptitudes are obviously essential in PPC keyword selection and in the haiku of PPC ads. Equally important is ensuring that each click converts at the maximum rate. When the PPC guy can also code landing page enhancements, PPC management is more efficient. DISC’s Dale Webb is a full partner at DISC with an honors BA in English literature, programming certification from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a passion for learning conversion rate optimization from the best books and websites and from hands-on experience. He has applied these qualifications to PPC management for over nine years, generating an impressive procession of monthly reports on clients’ escalating profits.

But Who Are We, Really? DISC is all of the above, but we’re also people with real lives, struggles, comic quirks and, yes, lives outside of work. Trust is strengthened when you know something of the nonprofessional facets of the people to whom you give thousands of dollars. Rob Laporte--oh heck, let me just say “I.” I’m 40, no 50, darn, ten years just flew by. Loving knowledge of all kinds, from global finance to quantum physics, I’m in touch with my emotions, if reading smoke signals eight miles away on a windy day can be considered in touch. For years I’ve done weekly volunteer work for troubled youth, and I’ve learned that “Mother Theresa was a Junkie”--helping others feels really good. Thanks to, oh I don’t know, the Fall of Man or that time my pet mouse died when I was six, I have a largely unconscious fear of loss, which can make me a little too conservative with clients’ investments (hence all the ROI projection spreadsheets). I wouldn’t make a very adventurous loan officer. Yet I delight in adventure, and the search marketing field is one wild and rewarding adventure into a brave new world. I don’t have space here to portray other DISC people, but I hope you get the idea: we at DISC believe that trust in business is really trust in people, and, well, there are genuine people behind these words. Let’s talk. n

Client List, Past and Present

Brands you’d probably recognize: Barnes & Noble, Boston Acoustics, Denon, Merantz, Smith & Wesson, Vermeer, Lamps Plus. Other Clients: Hull Forest Products, The Home Store, Vermont Chamber of Commerce, Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce, Jerry’s Artarama, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, UMassOnline, Alfa Aesar, hundreds more.

Company Executives Rob Laporte, President. BA, MA, ABD

Dale Webb, Full Partner. Honors BA in English Lit., Certificate in Web Technology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. With DISC since 2001. Jennifer Williams, Junior Partner. BA in Cognitive Psychology, Smith College. With DISC since 2006.

Services Offered SEO, paid search, conversion lift, SEO’d site design & build, training, social media marketing, and prioritizing all of the above according to likely ROI.

Recognition “First Gener” (generation) search marketing firm, practicing since 1997. Google AdWords certified. Multiple degrees and technical certifications. Thought leadership by frequently publishing insightful and truly useful articles in print.

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The Business Case for

By Jennifer Dunphy

interest came into the picture in March of 2010 as a closed beta version operating on an invitation only basis, like many other social media outlets in their infancy had preceding them. It wasn’t until August 16th of 2011, when Time Magazine listed Pinterest as one of the “50 Best Websites Of 2011”, that it really stormed onto the scene and began to gain real momentum. By December of 2011, Pinterest had become one of the top 10 largest social networking sites according to Hitwise data. What really grabbed my attention about Pinterest was what happened in the following month. In January of 2012, Pinterest managed to drive more referral traffic to retailers’ websites than Google, LinkedIn, and YouTube COMBINED. Better yet, Pinterest overall is now the 4th largest referral network only falling behind Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Now if that doesn’t scream business opportunity, I don’t know what does. Once Pinterest’s popularity began to increase, many businesses saw the opportunity to tap into this extensive social image network as a marketing platform while it was still “fresh”. They saw it as an opportunity to better connect with their targeted audience and to improve their organic rankings in the search engines. But before we dive in too deep into the case for using Pinterest to grow your business, let’s talk about what Pinterest is.

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Pinterest, also dubbed as a “self-expression engine”, is a virtual pinboard where you can organize images from anywhere on the web into common themes ranging from fashion, travel, and food, to gift ideas, architecture and even business. With more than 10 million monthly unique visitors, Pinterest has established itself as the third largest social network, with Facebook reigning as number one and Twitter as number two. Pinterest can be used to plan an event, organize your to do list or redecorate your office utilizing the inspiration boards that you created. Better yet, you can easily “pin” images from all of your favorite sites on the web, or from other “pinners” that you follow, and organize them into one central location. Pinterest is like an aesthetic organizational masterpiece. It is a virtual scrapbook that is easier than ever to create and update to reflect your personal style and ambitions. And with societies decreasing attention span, Pinterest is perfect. It is almost all images, and no text. The images say it all!

Can Pinterest Make Me Money? So why does Pinterest have so many marketers and businesses salivating? Although Pinterest is the most popular among American women, the usage among men is gaining momentum and the demographics are shifting to a more gender balanced audience. The social site touts a more mature average audience, ranging from 25-44, which is ideal for marketers. Not only do they have more

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disposable income, but they are also busier than ever with their attention being pulled into many different directions, and Pinterest plays well with the time challenged professional. Nearly 30% of Pinterest’s 1.5 million daily users have a household income above $100,000 . Pinterest is also seeing a significant increase in users aged 45-54. Not only does Pinterest continue to grow in overall user volume, but is also expanding globally, increasing the exposure for anyone that is using the social network. Pinterest, like a business’s website when properly marketed, can serve as a virtual storefront. It has the ability to not only send people to your website, but also to your physical store location. Pinterest can help you to create a style trend, create the viral spread of a new product and best of all; it can help you to sell products. Better yet, you can easily target the type of people that are most likely to buy your products and services. How, you may ask? Examine your followers profiles; what types of boards have they created and what type of things are they pinning? If someone has created a board named “Dream Vacation” that is full of images of hotels and things to do in Costa Rica, chances are that they are really interested in visiting Costa Rica. If your business happens to be a hotel in Costa Rica, wouldn’t it be nice to be among their pins in their “Dream

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Vacation” board? It is not guaranteed business, but it is an opportunity to earn their business. The more people that see your pin, the more people are likely to re-pin your image, which in turn will send interested travelers to your website and hopefully your hotel. This will also help to increase your overall brand awareness. Imagine you own a business specializing in travel marketing, you can learn a lot about where people are interested in visiting, which can help you to perfectly target and craft the message for your marketing strategy specifically for them. In essence, by learning about the people that follow you and about those that you follow, you gain deep insight into exactly what types of products and services they want. If you have what they want, it is simply a matter of getting your images onto their pin boards and beyond. Easier said than done? Well…. Not really. It is all about creating an appealing strategy that makes people want to pin your images. Make your brand fun! Make your brand social. It is called “social networking” for a reason. Obviously, the quality of the image is critical. As the old adage goes, “A Picture Says 1,000 Words”. This couldn’t be truer as it relates to Pinterest. The better the quality of the image, the more likely it is to spread. It is also essential to create a plan that gets your followers engaged and keeps them coming back to you for the latest style trend, whatever your business may be.

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Companies large and small can capitalize on the skyrocketing growth of Pinterest. The Gap has made notable strides in using their Pinterest account as a valuable marketing tool. With over 14,000 followers and nearly 1,000 pins, they are creating a strong footprint of loyal pinners that are advocates for their brand. They even have one board named “Styld. By You” where their loyal pinners can contribute by uploading their own images of Gap outfits worn and styled by the Gaps fans. This is a great way to create buzz, but it is an even better avenue for encouraging engagement form their pinners and gaining valuable insight into their unique style and how they are wearing The Gaps clothing. Many other top online retailers are following suite and jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon. However, it’s not just well known brands that are capitalizing from Pinterest. Small businesses are reaping the rewards as well. Rod Works , a company offering unique iron work and home décor,

Pinerest and SEO Aside from the obvious growing popularity of Pinterest, your organic rankings may stand to benefit from a solid Pinterest strategy as well. This is just one more reason that your business may want to consider allocating resources in your digital marketing strategy to increase your company’s social capital on Pinterest. Although Pinterest should not be viewed as an SEO silver bullet, it can help to move up your company’s organic search rankings, especially for very specific and targeted keyword phrases. By creating increased social buzz around your company’s imagery, not only are you visually enhancing your brand for everyone that sees your pins, but you are also increasing the likelihood that other websites and blogs will point back to your website because of the images that you pinned, helping to increase the overall visibility of your brand. Aside from enhancing your websites overall link profile, you are also increasing your social signals and shares which the search engines love and this can only help to improve your websites organic traffic. But as always, remember to add value to the community and remember that this is “social media”. So be sure to socialize. Don’t just pin your own images. Interact with your followers and pin other images that may be of interest to them as well.

started as a small retail store operating a handful of stores, until one single “pin” changed it all. One day a DIY blogger uploaded a pin from one of her recent Do It Yourself projects that featured an iron rod from Rod Works, and that one pin single handedly created a domino effect that ended with Rod Works launching an ecommerce web store and drastically expanding their business. After the business changing pin, Rod Works was so bombarded with calls and emails for months that they launched their ecommerce website and now they are reaping the rewards of selling not only the iron rod from the pin, but also dozens of other unique product that they offer. As a marketer, what could be better? You have actual happy customers showing you how they utilize your products on a daily basis. This kind of coveted data is better than any marketing list a company could purchase. What people “pin” speaks volumes about who they are and what they like.

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So, what types of businesses are successfully using Pinterest for marketing? Due to the nature of Pinterest, lifestyle types of brands such as The Travel Channel are particularly successful in utilizing the medium. But don’t get discouraged if that does not fit your business profile. You may be surprised to learn that other business such as The Wall Street Journal are not only successfully leveraging the power of Pinterest with over 16,000 followers, but they are expanding their audience to a new reader demographic that is outside of their typical everyday reader. They are doing this by creating boards that focus on everything from fashion, beauty and yoga, to their more typical topics like business, top stories and tech & gadgets. Pinterest is all about collecting and sharing your inspirations, which for most people extends far beyond just business. This is one more way on which businesses can get closer to their customer on a more personal level. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have. It may stand to benefit from utilizing Pinterest. The most important take away to remember should be that good products + beautiful photographs + brand advocates = social power for your business on Pinterest. Is your business ready for the digital imagery revolution. n

Jennifer Dunphy, an accomplished sales and marketing executive, is currently the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Vayu Media . You can connect with Jennifer on the Vayu Media Blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest , Google+ and YouTube.

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web design

The Usefulness of Responsive Design Google’s latest game change puts designers and SEOs on the same page

ime was, search engines were incurious and largely illiterate. Way back, oh say, five years ago, robots were unable to read a good deal of the content on a typical web page. That’s why title tags and headers were so important for Search Engine Optimization – the bots couldn’t readily see what pages were about, so they were prepared to take the author’s (or optimizer’s) word for it, especially if that word were repeated over and over in the visible, static text. Times have changed. In the past couple years, search engines have become more and more proficient, not only at understanding the substantive content of web pages, but also at seeing through – and flagging – excessive manipulation, overzealous optimization tactics, and what can only be described as stretching the truth. In the wake of Google’s 2011/2012 Panda and Penguin updates, much has been written about the importance of creating ‘great’ content. It seems clear that content should no longer be built to ‘rank’ in the traditional SEO sense – that it should be built to satisfy: to be useful, sharable, and likely to be shared. Going forward, content creators must take into account that even merely providing an answer does not cut it anymore. People have to like you. Somewhat lost in the shuffle, however, is how that same usefulness factor relates to Google’s recent endorsement of responsive design.

The new best practice For those who may have been unresponsive lately, responsive web design (RWD), or adaptive design, refers to using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript which automatically resizes for different screen sizes and devices. Instead of having to build multiple unique sites for devices of different screen sizes and tolerances, developers can use RWD or sophisticated device detection scripts that run on the server and are transparent to the user to create a single site with one set of pages that adapts its display optimally on screens ranging from a giant desktop monitor to a tiny smartphone. More to the point, it allows for different creative elements, different calls to action, and so forth. Now, whereas Google had previously recommended separate mobile (m.domain) sites, or had remained, characteristically, either ambiguous or ambivalent on the issue, the search giant’s guidance suddenly shifted and hardened as of spring 2012, when the writ was unceremoniously dropped: thou shalt use responsive design. This edict signifies something of a sea change in one narrow corner of

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the industry. A cynic might postulate that Google never endorsed RWD simply because it was unable to deal with it effectively. Historically, it has certainly been the case that m-dot content has variously shown as duplicate, that searchers have alternatingly been directed to misaligned results for their device or screen size, that the developer community has vigorously appealed for better counsel. So why did Google not sooner preempt such problems and promote the undeniable good sense of RWD? So far, there has been no official comment on the rationale, but the writing is on the wall.

A change for the better If the unwelcome news is that marketers the world over just got a whole new set of marching orders – implying not just a sudden increase in workload and expense, but quite possibly a dramatic about-face in boardroom rhetoric and the hasty revision of last year’s PowerPoint presentations – the good news is twofold: RWD is great for the user, and it benefits SEO. As we shall see, these two aspects amount increasingly to one and the same. Let’s deal with the second point first. When websites host mobile-friendly content on a separate URL (subdomain or subfolder), two or even multiple versions of the same content entail – e.g., one for the desktop and another for mobile. This duplicate content issue is what led to Google’s indexing struggles and, ultimately, to its acknowledgement of RWD. The further challenge has to do with linking. Of course, we should all know by now that building links is on the outs; however, doing things that result in (good) links is still very much where it’s at. That said, in this bivalent scenario, links to one version (for example, Bear in mind that none of this has to do with mobile apps, which inhabit their own user requirements universe and have a separate set of exigencies.

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through content shared socially) bypass or rob equity from the other. Resolving content to a single site means having to build only one set of links, and eliminating the need for cumbersome, fallible and, for search engines, potentially confusing agent-specific redirects.

Colliding universes Now onto the real reasons we should all of us – publishers, marketers, SEOs and global citizens – embrace responsive design: it makes for a better user experience. Let’s return to the earlier observation about destinations increasingly being rewarded for being actually useful. This is a massive issue with mobile. Today, many mobile sites that use agent detection end up providing extremely poor post-click experiences and, of course, the vast majority of websites still don’t offer any kind of mobile experience. This is a search quality issue, and one which Google clearly wants to ameliorate. It stands to reason, therefore, that those who adhere to responsive design, and do it well, will be rewarded for their effort. Obviously, responsively designed websites make sense from an SEO and PPC landing page perspective, by encouraging conversions and transactions without the risk of device-driven dysfunction and resulting user rage. But the concept extends much further into pure UX territory. Consider how, and how often, the function and content of a mobile site should differ from the desktop experience. Good responsive design makes the most of every situation, by removing or reducing the visibility of less relevant content; repositioning and swapping out elements (such as replacing the desktop map with a ‘click for directions’ button on the smartphone); rethinking the clickpath, etc.

and enhanced user experiences leading to better… SEO! It would appear that the hitherto siloed universes of brand marketers and web marketers are finally colliding. From hereon in, SEOs, strategists, creatives, designers, developers and analysts will all need to be peering over one anothers’ cubicle walls, and perhaps even working in unison. n

With over twenty years’ experience in integrated marketing communications strategies and an award-winning creative background, Ken Dobell has specialized in online advertising, brand-building and lead-generation since the advent of the Internet. Prior to joining DAC Digital, he held a progression of senior leadership roles within the global interactive function of Monster Worldwide, both in North America and Europe. He also spearheaded a range of innovative online initiatives as vice-president of marketing with a major global franchisor. Ken is the creative mind behind DAC Digital’s powerful contentbased, long-tail marketing approach to online lead generation and conversion.

From this perspective of ensuring glorious user experiences across channels, platforms and devices, responsive design does spell more work. Whatever the potential development efficiencies, doing this well means sophisticated consulting, qualitative research, creative and user testing – not just combining two sites into one. Still, there are upsides: it is possible to align with Google’s guidance early and relatively quickly. And, as always, best practice has its rewards – in this case, higher conversion rates leading to increased value,

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Western methodology. Eastern pricing. 2012 Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s #1 SEO company

Internet Marketingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hidden Gem Website: www.seo.in Email: info@seo.in

ppc

How To Prevent Wasted PPC Traffic

un the search term report in your ppc accounts as it could save you hundreds and even thousands of dollars depending on what your budget is. Too often, we have potential incoming clients who are wasting literally thousands of dollars on irrelevant clicks and we know this from running the search term report. The search term report within ppc accounts shows what the searcher actually typed in which resulted in a click or impression of your ad. Let’s take for example “Joe The Plumber”. Joe is a plumbing contractor and created his own Adwords account. He is using broad match keywords such as plumber, plumbing company and find local plumber. Because Joe made his keywords on broad match type, he will come up under many variations of the word plumber / plumbing (even if these variations are not one of his actual keywords). After about a month of running his ads online, Joe notices that there has been very little leads for the amount he spent on clicks which was $3,000. Why is this happening? Well, after Joe contacts an agency for help, a search term report is run over the prior month and we noticed that 80% of the searches people typed in to get to his ad are irrelevant. For example, his ads came up under plumbing jobs, plumbing tools, plumbing certification and other terms that will not bring him business. Furthermore, about $2,400.00 out of the $3,000.00 Joe spent was in wasteful clicks. One could ask, why would someone click on my ad if it has nothing to do with plumbing jobs, plumbing tools and so on? The reason is because some searchers click on the first ad they see

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which “relates” to what they are looking for but then, when they are on your site and realize it is not relevant they will bounce. Other times, searchers do not click on your ad because they know what they are searching for and realize that your ad is not relevant to their search. The good thing about this is that you will not get the click which cost money however, the bad part about this is that too many searches to low click ratio will substantially lower your click through rate (CTR) and as a result, quality score may lower which may end up making you pay more for clicks, even relevant ones. The solution is for one to run the search term report at least twice a week to identify irrelevant keywords / phrases which should then be added as negative keywords. Negative keywords can be implemented at the adgroup or campaign levels. These keywords / phrases help prevent irrelevant clicks from going through and negatively affecting your account. For example, the phrase plumbing jobs should have the negative keyword “job” and “jobs” added as negative keywords because a plumbing contractor company probably does not want other plumbers

searching for employment and then clicking on their ad which cost money! One should also add negative keywords prior to the start of the campaign as well and not just when managing the account which includes running the search term report. Between adding negative keywords before an account is launched and running the search term report a couple times a week, traffic should be more relevant. To help improve relevant traffic even more, one technique that we like to use sometimes to help ensure even more protection against irrelevant traffic is to implement “phrase” match-type keywords / phrases. Phrase match keywords are done by placing a quotation mark at the beginning and then at the end of the keyword / phrase. For example, “plumbing contractor”. This tells the system that one must type in at least what is in the embedded sequence of “plumbing contractor” to trigger the ad to show. However, the nice part of phrase match type is that one can still type anything before or after the phrase. For example, best plumbing contractor. The only time the ad will not trigger is if the person searching did a query along with a negative keyword you have implemented. For example, plumbing contractor jobs. In this case, you have the negative keyword jobs and therefore, the ad would not show. It is not to say that phrase match type is the method to always go with as broad match and even exact match keyword / phrase implementation is useful at times however, we have found that phrase match type, when implemented correctly, along with

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all variations of keywords and phrases you want, provides a high degree of flexibility when coming up under searches you want and reduces irrelevant traffic. With adding negative keywords, selecting the best keyword match type for your account and running the search term report, your relevant traffic should substantially increase.

The search term report can be found in Google Adwords. To find the report in Adwords, go to your selected campaign, click on the keywords tab and then, a little below the keywords tab there is button that says “see searched terms”. From there, click on that and select the option, “all”. Be sure to also select a time period that you want to run this report. You can do this by going towards the upper right hand side of the account screen and selecting a time period. We recommend doing at least the “last 7 days”. Also note, that

the search term report will not work if you try running it from the time period of “yesterday” or the last two days of data. Data from this report will work from the last prior three days of data and on. For example, the ppc account runs on 8/27/12 and therefore, the search term data would not be available for that day until 8/30/12. Good luck, happy searching and monitor your account to ensure relevant traffic! n

Jason Losagio is the Founder and CEO of Internet Search Engine Advertising, LLC, a search engine marketing / ppc company that offers professional research, setup, management and advanced tracking within Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter (Yahoo/Bing) and Google Analytics. Internet Search Engine Advertising, LLC is a Google Certified Partner, ranked number ten in the country by TopSeo’s for pay per click management services and has an “A” rating with the BBB. The company has low operating overhead which enables us to provide very competitive pricing when compared to those with similar credentials. To learn more visit us at www.internetsearchenginepros.com We look forward to working with you and sharing in your success.

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content management

Marketing-Friendly Content Management System (CMS) Selection

ith advances in Internet and website management technology, the task of managing a corporate website, a role traditionally held by IT, has shifted into the hands of marketers. Ideally, content management is the marketing team’s responsibility. This is because the company’s capacity to reach targeted audiences with relevant, pointed content increases dramatically when marketing has the ability to do so. The evolution of CMS technology has made it easy for marketing to perform content management without relying on the IT department. In the current online market content is disseminated rapidly and in real time, which is how organizations need to be able to act to keep up. Unfortunately, many companies continue to use CMS technology that is inconvenient or inaccessible to marketing personnel. In many cases, the reason organizations aren’t using CMS solutions suited for the people responsible for the tasks is that IT– is still driving the CMS selection process which is easy to change.

Competing Interests in CMS Selection

The creation of a better CMS selection routine should go beyond simply transferring decision-making authority from IT to marketing and should address each of the competing interests that have a stake in the company’s CMS technology. In addition to marketing and IT interests, finance and other organizational stakeholders also have an interest in choosing a CMS that meets specific business requirements and operational criteria and should be considered in the process. Currently, IT is looking for the path of least resistance in the company’s content management technology. From their perspective, the organization needs a CMS solution that seamlessly integrates with the company’s existing information architecture and corporate intranet; they want a system

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that is extremely familiar and can be easily supported by IT team members. Although they have the right ideas in mind, when IT controls CMS decision-making, the outcome is often that the company uses SharePoint, or other sites that are less efficient for everyone involved.. But here’s the problem: marketing teams don’t like these kinds of sites because they require users to navigate a several steps and involve IT in timesensitive content management routines.

Marketing is looking for a CMS that is flexible, straightforward and easy to use.

When marketing is excluded from CMS selection, features that are important for day-to-day and long-term objectives have a tendency to be overlooked. Leading CMS technologies give marketers the ability to measure the impact of email campaigns, score prospects based on their on-site behavior, track landing page analytics, monitor site conversions and perform other activities that are critical to marketing – but not as important to IT. Because brand content is being leveraged as a competitive resource it should be fresh, relevant and responsive. If the company doesn’t use a CMS platform that can be easily accessed and utilized by marketing, the brand’s ability to compete in the area of content and messaging will be severely limited.

Tips for Choosing A Marketing-Friendly CMS

Although marketing needs to drive the CMS selection process choosing the right content management platform should still be a team effort and there are several steps organizations can take to choose the right CMS for everyone. • Set Goals. CMS selection should always begin with goal setting where marketing, IT and other stakeholders clearly articulate the outcomes they hope the new content management solution will achieve. For marketing, it’s particularly important to identify a comprehensive list of usage scenarios detailing how marketing team members will actually use the technology. Once goals have

been defined and communicated across all stakeholders, they can be used as a filter to help refine the process. • Evaluate Candidate Technologies. The process should incorporate a deliberate and thorough review process allowing both everyone to test drive candidate technologies and encourage stakeholders who are directly impacted by specific features to speak up. Additionally, it’s imperative to verify referrals for both the solution and the provider during this stage of the process. • Consider Alternatives. Sometimes the smartest decision is to not choose a CMS at all – or avoid choosing an internal content management platform. It’s common for companies to leverage externally hosted CMS solutions in order to fulfill limited content management requirements. Rather than engaging IT in the process of selecting an internally hosted CMS, the company can by team up with WordPress or another external partner. The advantage is that externally hosted solutions can be deployed more quickly and more affordably than internal CMS platforms – and typically require less input from IT stakeholders. CMS technology selection can be a tough process to find the solution that best meets each department’s unique needs.. However, now that CMS platforms have become sophisticated technologies organizations can take a more involved approach to choosing systems, which allows all stakeholders to have a voice. While giving IT authority over CMS technology may be convenient short-term, it can make things a lot more difficult for the organization to compete in the marketplace now that more than ever, competitive pressures dictate that the people responsible for generating content need the ability to directly publish and update content online. n

John Fairley is the Director of Digital Services at Walker Sands <http://www.walkersands.com/> , a full-service marketing and public relations firm focused on delivering growth for business to business clients.

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information architecture

Architecting Search-Engine Friendly Websites

he goal of effective information architecture (IA) is to make the products, services, and information on your website easy to find. Does this sound familiar? This is same goal that a search engine optimization (SEO) professional has. However, many of the skills that an information architect possesses are quite different from the skills of an SEO professional. For example, information architects focus on making website content easy to find via browsing, searching, and asking without compromising a positive user experience. Information architects also have a background in usability, as usability testing is used to verify and justify their deliverables. SEO professionals, on the other hand, tend to focus only on the search/retrieval part of findability. They tend to minimize or dismiss the importance of browsing and creating a usable, useful site navigation. Additionally, many SEO professionals possess technical skills. All too often, a website’s information architecture is based on a technical team’s mental model. Let’s be completely realistic: does your target audience have the same mental model as your technical team…or your SEO team? Of course not, and that is one reason that so many websites are difficult to use and difficult to understand. Technical architects end up making information architecture decisions…and that is a critical mistake. In reality, browsing and searching are equally important finding behaviors on the Web. They are intricately connected. If one is sacrificed for the other, overall findability is compromised. How many times have you done a Google search, clicked on a ranked result, landed on a Web page in the middle of a site, and then had no clue where you were inside of the site’s hierarchy? Or how many times have you found a really great website with outstanding content via your social network, yet that website is difficult to find via the commercial Web search engines? It almost seems as if browsing and searching are

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conflicting goals. What kind of website should you build: one that is easy to navigate, or one that is easily found on Google or another Web search engine? Should you build two separate websites: one for Google, and one for users? The tie that binds these two finding behaviors together is information architecture. The Information Architecture Institute (www.iainstitute.org) defines information architecture as organizing and labeling website content so that it is easier to use and easier to find. There are some very important words in this definition: organizing and labeling. In fact, four fundamental skills that information architects have is: • Organization • Labeling • Prioritization • Search/retrieval Let’s review these skills individually, and how each of these relate to the field of search engine optimization.

Organization

Information architects are skilled in categorizing, classifying, and organizing content according to user/searcher mental models. Organization is grouping related content into categories and providing user-friendly access to that content via global, local, and supplemental site navigation. There are many ways to organize website content including, but not limited to: • Date/time • Alphabetical • Numeric/series • Geography/location • Topic • Target audience • Task/process • Attributes/facets • Combinations of the above

taxonomy itself is not website navigation. Without a primary hierarchical structure, users/ searchers will often have a difficult time with orientation, which is establishing a “sense of place” on a website. Users/searchers orient every time they view a new Web page, and successful orientation makes them feel that a website is more dependable and trustworthy. Most taxonomies are based on a controlled vocabulary, which is a carefully selected list of words and phrases. Both information architects and SEO professionals know that a website’s primary taxonomy (and corresponding site navigation) should contain keywords whenever it is appropriate. The controlled vocabulary contained in navigation labels helps communicate aboutness to both searchers and search engines. Organization of content does not only include a vertical interlinks (hierarchical), which is something we see with parent-child and grandparent-child types of page interlinks (Figures 1 and 2). If a website only has vertical interlinks, it communicates to search engines that the home page is the most important page on a website. According to most users/ searchers, the home page is not the most important page on a website. The final destination page is often a product page, an article page, or even a category page.

All sites need a primary hierarchal structure, or a primary taxonomy, which ultimately transforms into a primary navigation scheme on the website. A taxonomy provides guidelines for site navigation, even though the

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Figure 1 (caption): Parent-child links. An example of a parent-child link is a category page (parent) that leads to multiple product pages (child).

Figure 3 (caption): Sibling-sibling links. An example of a sibling-sibling link is an alternative product link, when a product isn’t exactly what a searcher wanted.

page) and corresponding notes/specifications to be presented to the design and technical teams. A website’s technical architecture should closely reflect a website’s information architecture.

Another type of horizontal interlink is a cousincousin link (Figure 4). An example of a cousincousin link is an upsell link. People who bought a specific product often buy a closely related product, like purchasing the right size batteries to go with a wireless mouse.

Labeling

Most people assume that a navigation label is simply the text that is placed on a navigation button (formatted either in CSS or as a graphic image). While navigation-button text certainly is one type of navigation label, other Web-page elements are also navigation labels, such as: • Content labels (headings, subheadings, embedded text links within content) • Navigation labels (text on a navigation button, text link, or menu) • Document labels (page titles, URLs or Web addresses, file name) Content, navigation, and document labels are all important in the search engine optimization process. In fact, some labels also appear in search listings on search engine results pages (SERPs), particularly title-tag text and URLs.

Figure 2 (caption): Grandparent-grandchild links. An example of a grandparent-grandchild link is a Featured Product (grandchild) link that you might see on a home page (grandparent) or a top-level category page. In order to make product, service, article, and category pages appear more important to both search engines and searchers, a website must also includes a horizontal types of interlinks (Figures 3 and 4). One type of horizontal interlink is an alternative product link. In the event a product is not available (out of stock) or is not quite what the searcher wanted, what are the closest alternatives? Having 2-3 alternatives per product page connects closely related content semantically.

Figure 4 (caption): Cousin-cousin links. An example of a cousin-cousin link could be an alternative product link in a different category, or an upsell link. Of course, there are other types of page interlinks, but these are the most common ones. An information architect knows how to organize content into taxonomies, and then link related content to each other via other means. Sounds difficult? It is, because users genuinely do not organize and label content in the way that we personally believe they do. Information architects conduct usability tests to determine the ways that your target audience organizes and labels content. They do not determine content organization based on crawlability or the flowage of “link juice” as many SEO professionals do. When architecting a search-engine friendly website, the information architecture and corresponding navigation schemes should be established long before the site is built. It is not uncommon for an information architect to create a set of wireframes (blueprints for a Web

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Labels should be understandable to users/ searchers and unique. All too often, search engine optimizers try to create keywordspecific Web pages without considering how those pages should connect to each other. There is nothing wrong with having keyword-specific pages on a website. But if these pages are not a natural part of a website’s information architecture and do not connect to each other in a logical way? Then to a search engine and a searcher, they are undesirable pages. In other words, they are search engine spam, which are pages created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant, or poorquality search results. When architecting a search-engine friendly website, the labeling system should also be established long before the site is built. So whenever you add new content, you will have a general idea about where to place keywords within content and documents. Your technical team will have URL-structure guidelines. Consistency and reinforcement in a labeling system helps make site search results more accurate and helps a page rank better in the commercial Web search engines.

Prioritization

Perhaps one of the more difficult tasks an information architect has is to determine the number and order in which labels will be placed on a web page.

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If you put too many links on a page, content becomes less findable because the sheer number of links is overwhelming. Try to find a single link on a website navigation scheme with 10 mega-menus. Mega-menus can be too wordy and difficult to scan.

rarely look past positions 1 through 3 when they show navigational intent. So they actively try to make specific websites appear consistently when navigational intent is clear. Here is something else that few people realize about SEO. Search engine optimization is not only trying to make desirable content easily found via the commercial Web search engines. It is also about making undesirable content invisible or less visible to the commercial Web search engines.

Additionally, if page content contains too many embedded text links, then content becomes difficult to read, and the very information that a searcher desires becomes even more difficult to locate. On the other hand, if you put too few links on a page, content also becomes less findable, because

users basically only have one chance and place to find that desired link. Orphaned–page content appears less important to search engines (because there is only one link to them). And orphaned-page content seems less important to users because that content is difficult to locate and discover. Therefore, determining the balance between too many and too few links is critical for overall findability and, believe it or not, search engine visibility. Once the number and types of links per page is determined, information architects need to determine the order in which links appear. To a search engine and a searcher, if you put a link first in primary navigation, you must believe that link is more important than the link you put last in primary navigation. If you put two embedded text links within an article, you probably think the first one is more important because you put linked to it before you linked to the other one.

Examples of undesirable content include but are not limited to: • Duplicate content • Search engine spam • Personalized content • Password-protected content • Forms

understand the characteristics of various page types and what Web searchers desire when they type a specific keyword or keyword phrase. So when you architect a search-engine friendly website, know that the one-size-fits-all approach to Web-page design and navigation ultimately leads to less findability. Different Web pages will have a different number of links and different types of links.

Search/retrieval

Search engine optimization is a term that many people misunderstand. To most people, it means optimizing a website primarily for search engines. In my opinion, SEO is optimizing a website for people who use search engines. There are 2 parts to that definition: searchers and search engines.

One common mistake people make is to believe that all links on a page are equally important, and they try to link to everything from almost every page on a site. Not only is this ineffective for searchers, it is ineffective for SEO.

Believe it or not, the “searcher” part of optimization is actually a known part of search engine algorithms. Search engines have been accommodating searcher goals and behaviors for well over 15 years.

Each page type on a website should vary in the number of links it contains. For example, a category page and a site index should contain considerably more links than a product or an article page. Software engineers who work at the commercial Web search engines try to

For example, if you want to go to a specific website and communicate that in your keyword phrase, that website’s listing will probably appear within the top 3 results on desktop, tablet, and mobile search results. Reason? Software engineers and researchers know that searchers

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An example of duplicate content to a Web search engine is site search engine results. Whenever we work on a website that uses a site search engine, we know that we must limit access to the site’s search engine results pages (SERPs) to Google and other commercial Web search engines. We can do this via a number of technical means, such as robots exclusion. An information architect might not be aware that some of their findability solutions seriously affect search engine visibility. Personalization, tagging, and faceted classification all lead to duplicate content delivery. And if a website delivers duplicate content to the commercial Web search engines, it lessens the number of pages available to rank. And the most appropriate pages on a website might not be available to rank. So the quality and quantity of Web pages that are available to rank are often compromised. So when architecting a search-engine friendly website, you must consider how to limit or prevent access to undesirable content as well as provide easy, user-friendly access to desirable content. Too few SEO professionals understand these building blocks of information architecture. How much does your SEO professional know? n

Shari Thurow is the Founder and SEO Director at Omni Marketing Interactive, a full-service SEO, website usability, information architecture, and web design firm. She authored the books Search Engine Visibility and When Search Meets Web Usability, and is a board member of the Information Architecture Institute.

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? t a Wh Y

eah I get it, no one’s really asking this question anymore. YouTube is used by people from around the globe, and in just a few short years, has become a big piece of our popular culture. That’s why it’s shocking to see so many businesses ignore this valuable marketing tool, even in 2012. To be clear, I’m not talking about paid advertisements on YouTube. I’m talking about creating videos for your business. I’ll begin by demonstrating the value YouTube can provide to your business. And if you’d like to give YouTube marketing a try, I’ve also included several simple strategies that will help increase the likelihood of your success. Let’s begin. I’ve provided two lists below. The first one lists the 10 most watched television programs of all-time. The second one lists the 10 most viewed YouTube videos of all-time. I’d like to invite you to review both lists and make some comparisons between the two. The results will probably surprise you, but they should also help you to visualize YouTube’s popularity and its impact on our world. Okay, okay, I can hear you loud and clear: “Views and viewers are different Josh. You can’t just compare them side-by-side in the lists above.” Well, there is some truth to what you’re saying. Views and viewers are different metrics, but in reality, they’re not that different. Actually they’re quite similar. Here’s the main reason why. Most Super Bowl viewers only watch the Super Bowl once. Measuring only one viewper-viewer essentially turns a viewer into a

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Most Watched Television Programs of All-Time*

Most Viewed YouTube Videos of All-Time**

Super Bowl XLVI (2012): (111,300,000 viewers)

Justin Bieber – Baby ft. Ludacris: (781,148,744 views)

Super Bowl XLV (2011): (111,000,000 viewers)

Jennifer Lopez – On The Floor ft. Pitbull: (598,468,992 views)

Super Bowl XLIV (2010): (106,500,000 viewers)

Eminem – Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna: (497,299,572 views)

M*A*S*H series finale (1983): (106,000,000 viewers)

Waka Waka (This Time for Africa): (493,002,133 views)

Super Bowl XLIII (2009): (98,700,000 viewers)

Lada Gaga – Bad Romance: (487,112,068 views)

Super Bowl XLII (2008): (97,500,000 viewers)

LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren …: (483,878,686 views)

Super Bowl XXX (1996): (94,100,000 viewers)

Charlie bit my finger – again !: (482,311,920 views)

Super Bowl XLI (2007): (93,200,000 viewers)

Michel Telo – Ai Se Eu Te Pego – Oficial: (434,800,726 views)

Cheers series finale (1993): (93,100,000 viewers)

Don Omar – Danza Kuduro ft. Lucenzo: (387,760,470 views)

Super Bowl XXVII (1998): (91,000,000 viewers)

Eminem – Not Afraid: (362,295,566 views)

Sources: (09/02/2012) http://www.buddytv.com/articles/the-voice/super-bowl-xlvi-is-the-most-wa-43819.aspx http://www.youtube.com/charts view. Think about it. Now, consider the results of our comparison. It’s obvious that YouTube is immensely popular.

So YouTube is popular. Now what? Well, you’re probably well aware of the high correlation between “popularity” and “value,” particularly

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when it comes to advertising. To better understand this relationship, I’ve created an over simplified equation to review:

popularity = value So I’m not really saying that YouTube is popular. What I’m really saying is that YouTube has the potential of offering a lot of value to advertisers. But this raises an important question. How much value? Let’s see if we can figure out the answer to our question using the information from above. Remember, the metrics in both lists are slightly different, so our results won’t be perfect, but we should get pretty close.

Calculating Value According to our first list, the most watched television program of all-time was Super Bowl XLVI, with 111,300,000 viewers. Because advertisers expected such a big audience to be tuned in, a 30 second ad played during the game cost an astounding $3,500,000. By comparison, the most viewed YouTube video of all time, Justin Bieber – Baby ft. Ludacris, has received 781,148,744 views as of the end of September. That’s 7 times the viewership of Super Bowl XLVI.* All things being equal, it’s logical to expect that 7 times the viewership costs approximately 7 times the price in ad time. And that’s not all. Something else also needs to be considered. Justin Bieber’s video isn’t 30 seconds long; it’s 3 minutes and 45 seconds long. That’s 7.5 times the duration of a Super Bowl ad. And if you really want to get technical, you can even subtract out the number of television

viewers that didn’t watch any Super Bowl commercials, but we won’t do that here. Now we can calculate the value this YouTube video has added to Justin Bieber’s brand.

Step 1: Calculate Price-Per-Viewer $3,500,000 ___________________________ =$.031 (111,300,000 Super Bowl viewers)

Step 2: Locate the Number of YouTube Views 781, 148,744

Step 3: Calculate the Time Multiple 3 minutes and 45 seconds ___________________________ = 7.5 30 seconds

Step 4: Put It Altogether ($.031)(781,148,744)(7.5)=$181,617,082.98 Wow!! Justin’s YouTube video has added an astounding $181,617,082.98 in value to his brand. Think about it. Justin is clearly not using this video to sell anything, or wait a minute…is he? Sure he is. No one is paying to watch Justin’s video on YouTube, but he’s hoping a percentage of viewers will eventually buy his CD or download his music (legally that is).

*Assumes that each YouTube view is unique and that each Super Bowl viewer watched the game once. Hopefully you found my example compelling, but many of you are still probably unconvinced. Maybe you’re saying: “Come on Josh. You’ve just shown us the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos of all-time. A typical YouTube video doesn’t get near that much attention.” Well again, you’re absolutely right. But to strengthen my case, I’ve listed 10 very compelling facts below that speak to everyone, not just the YouTube celebrities and noted personalities:

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• Over 800 million unique visitors go to YouTube each month. This is even more shocking if you take it one step further. By dividing the number of unique visitors by the world’s total population, you’ll discover that over 10% of Earth’s population visits YouTube each month. • Over 4 billion hours of YouTube video is watched every month. That’s 34 minutes and 25 seconds for each person on Earth or 5 hours for each monthly YouTube visitor. • YouTube had more than 1 trillion aggregate views in 2011. For you number jockeys, that’s roughly 143 views for each person on Earth and over 2.7 billion views every day of the week. • YouTube viewers subscribe to millions of YouTube channels every day. So what is a YouTube Channel? A YouTube channel is a lot like a television channel, only it exists on YouTube. YouTube channels give visitors more discretion, more information, and just about anyone can own one, or two, or three, or more. • YouTube is now available on approximately 350 million devices worldwide. If you’re counting, that’s a lot of devices. • YouTube’s mobile traffic tripled in 2011. That translates to more than 20% of YouTube’s total use. I wonder where this number will be in 5 years? • Approximately 500 years of YouTube video is watched every day on Facebook. That’s half a millennium each and every day of the week. • Over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute. That’s approximately 11.5 videos per second. • Around 100 million people respond (i.e. like, share, comment, etc.) to a YouTube video each week. That’s nearly 10,000 responses every minute of the day. • YouTube “likes” and “dislikes” are up approximately 100% since the beginning of 2011. On average, for each dislike a video receives, approximately 10 likes are given. Source: http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics These statistics blow me away, and the numbers are only going to get bigger as time goes on. Nearly every business has the ability to utilize YouTube. And the barriers to entry aren’t as big as you might think they are. At the most basic level, all you need is a camera phone and something meaningful to say. For those interested, I’ve included 10 simple promotional strategies for your YouTube video and 3 basic behaviors you’ll want to encourage in the next two sections.

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10 Video Optimization Strategies Okay, you’ve shot a video, and had time to edit it. Now it’s time to optimize it. These 10 strategies will help you stay relevant to your targeted keywords and viewers both. • Content: As they say in SEO, “content is king.” The same can be said for video. Make sure you have an awesome video with awesome content. You can test this by asking yourself this question: “By uploading this video to YouTube, am I providing unique value to the web?” If your answer is yes, you’ve got an awesome video. Be careful not to turn it into a sales presentation. YouTubers are too smart for that. Instead of pitching your products in your video, focus on building your brand. • Raw Video: Name your raw video file either a keyword or your brand name before you upload it to YouTube (i.e. netmark-intro.mov) • Video Settings: • Select an appropriate category that best describes the content and nature of your video • Privacy Setting: Public (This allows YouTube visitors to search and view your video) • License and Rights Ownership: Standard YouTube License (your other option, creative commons, allows others to reuse your video—this is really up to you) • Syndication: Everywhere (Why limit your potential audience?) • If you want viewers to engage with your video, then allow users to: • Comment • Vote on Comments • View Ratings • Enable Embedding (Allows others to embed your video on 3rd party websites) • Add a Video Date and Location (If possible, use your business address) • Video Title: Create a clever title for your video. Make sure to include keywords and your brand if there’s room. Your video’s title should be written for your targeted audience, not everyone, and especially not for the search engines. REMEMBER: If you don’t

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•

have a compelling title, very few people will click on your video listing. Video Description: Create a detailed description for your video. Again, don’t forget to mention your keywords and brand in your description. This is also a good place to add links to your website, Google+ profile, Facebook profile, Twitter profile, etc. Video Tags: Add relevant tags to your video. Again, make sure to include your keywords and brand here, but don’t over do it. Too many tags look spammy. You may want to include common derivatives of your keywords here. Video Transcription: It’s always best if you can upload your own transcript. If you let YouTube do it, there’s a chance they’ll get it wrong. It’s also preferable that you mention your keywords and brand in your video for added relevance. Video Annotations: Annotations are another great place for your keywords and brand, and if you’re like me, it’s also a great place to correct content errors or provide additional clarification. Video Thumbnail: Pick the thumbnail you think is best with your video, your brand, and your message. YouTube users will see your video’s thumbnail to the left of the title and description in YouTube’s video search results. Basic Promotion: • Embed your video on your website or blog • Scour the web for potential linking partners • Distribute your video to 3rd party websites

• Tell all your family and friends about your video (use email, social media, telephone, etc.)

Behaviors You’ll Want to Encourage Engagement is the lifeblood of your video. If possible, encourage your viewers to engage with your video or channel in the following ways: • Direct Responses: • Likes • Comments • Video Responses • Add to Playlists • Add to Favorites • Email Shares • Subscriptions • Social Shares: Similar to “direct responses,” 3rd party social shares (i.e. through Facebook, Twitter, etc.) helps YouTube gage the quality of your video. You should be the one kicking off the social sharing. • Video Backlinks: External backlinks pass PageRank to your video. PageRank has a strong correlation with search engine rankings. Encourage viewers to link to your video. Thanks for reading. If you’re feeling brave enough to try some YouTube marketing, remember the basic strategies discussed above. And let me know how you do, I’d love to hear about your experience. Best of luck! n

Josh Dalton and Terry Hansen consult with companies all over the world to improve customer lifetime value. They are partners in Netmark.com, a top ranking internet marketing agency located in Idaho Falls, Idaho. http:// core3solutions.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ shutterstock_90840971.jpg

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upcoming conferences Refer to this guide for upcoming internet marketing conferences from across the globe.

January 22 - 25, 2013 | IQPC Ltd

Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld, Orlando, FL, US Call Center Summit, the sister event to our flagship Cal Center Week Conference, focuses on high-level conversations that move from strategy to action. This year’s theme revolves around the very core of your business – the PEOPLE – both customer and employees and how to put them first every time.

January 23 - 24, 2013| SMi Group London, United Kingdom

SMi Group is proud to present the 5th conference in their highly successful series of Social Media in the Pharmaceutical Industry this January that will allow companies to focus on how to improve their existing social media strategies, how to innovate into the new and emerging techniques and technologies and enhancing their company’s engagement potential.

January 6 - 8, 2013 | BlogWorld

Rio Hotel and conference center, Las Vegas, NV New Media Expo (BlogWorld) will be held January 6-8, 2013 at the Rio Hotel and conference center. NMX is the world’s largest conference for online, new media, and content creators with dedicated tracks for bloggers, podcasters, Web TV and Video producers; not to mention some killer parties and lots of amazing networking.

January 8, 2013 | Parks Associates Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

CONNECTIONS™ Summit at CES, hosted by international research firm Parks Associates, is an interactive event focused on trends, emerging business models and technologies, and growth opportunities for companies developing products and services for the digital home.

January 9, 2013 | Lorman Education Services Audio Conference

BenefitsCan’t figure out why your marketing materials aren’t converting more people into paying customers? Well, 9 times out of 10 the problem isn’t YOU. It’s the copy! There is no other skill directly responsible for bringing more money into your business than copywriting.

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February 20, – 21, 2013 | Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit The Westin Hotel, San Diego, CA

The Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit will gather the industry’s most dynamic and forward-thinking executive operating in analytics, predictive modeling and Business Intelligence for two days of keynote presentations, interactive workshops and open discussion.

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