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In Search of Voodoo: Empathize to Optimize Your Customer’s Journey on the Search & Social Web

I get to meet a lot of professionals in the marketing, advertising, communications and public relations industries where topics of conversation often revolve around content. Concerns about where to start, what tactics work best, how to plan, produce and promote all come into play right along with staffing, integration with other channels and measurement.

Of course, if you try hard enough you can worry yourself out of a job when it comes to developing a solid approach with content marketing.

On the one hand, there’s a temptation to spend a lot of time and resources developing “the perfect” strategy. On the other hand, you could also just start cranking out content and see what sticks.

Neither of those approaches really work well in a practical way. What does work? There’s one thing that can help answer many of the concerns marketers have about content and that also helps you cut to the chase for practical implementation: Understanding the customer journey.

Google Think Insights has a great post with tools to help marketers better understand how different content and channels affects customers during the buying cycle or customer journey to online purchase. Check it out and then come back.

Welcome back. Google has some of the best content marketing, don’t they?

There’s a saying that goes something like, “Walk a mile in a man’s shoes to really understand where he’s been” that reflects what a lot of companies don’t consider when creating their digital marketing plans.

Understanding the customer experience from awareness to consideration to purchase folds well into the core principle of Optimize – to empathize with your customer and understand how they discover, consume and act on information. By doing so, you can create a practical digital marketing plan that optimizes for attraction, engagement and conversion.

To put that idea of customer empathy in action, I put myself in the position of a customer and documented my journey from curious social browser to a highly motivated searcher.

I started on Facebook, asking my network (as many people do) for�recommendations�on things to do and see in Portland. Immediatley, Melodie Tao not only made several recommendations including Powell’s Bookstore, Voodoo Doughnuts and Portland City Grill, but she pointed me to a blog post where she had documented her visit to Portland. �Pretty awesome right? I received many more suggestions from other friends too.

But is that all I needed to take action? Maybe for some people. But I needed more information, especially about Voodoo Doughnuts. So what do you do when a friend recommends something and you need to get more details? Where do you go to get more facts and information as well as to validate their recommendation?

Yes, that’s right. You Google it.

Lucky for me the search results for “vodoo doughnuts” reveals a cornucopia of useful information including reviews, local information, coverage in local and national press, the business website, map, address and even photos of the product.

That was enough for me. I knew I needed to include Voodoo Doughnuts in my presentation. If for nothing else, to experience the freak of sugary gastronomy that is known as a “Bacon Maple Bar“.

Arriving at the store didn’t disappoint and of course I had to take photos. And what do you do with those photos?

You use them when you check in on Foursquare.

Then share to Instagram and Pinterest of course.

The Takeaway:

Think about the ways in which your target audience discovers, consumes and acts on information so you can give them what they want. �Optimizing for the customer journey means bringing in content, social media, search, advertising and even PR to help your brand become the best answer whether customers are asking their friends on Facebook or searching on Google.

It may not be practical to literally put yourself in your customers’ shoes, but maybe there’s an opportunity for a virtual “ride along” by talking to sales and business development staff or product marketing at your company. As much pressure as there is for ROI, don’t solely focus on optimizing for transactions, but optimize for experiences as well.

Is there a proactive effort at your company to map the customer journey? If you have multiple, distinct customer segments, do you identify the sales cycle for each group? What are some of your challenges and successes?

Photo: Shutterstock

Guest Blogging vs. Guest Posting – Imagine A World Without Links

For several months now debate has continued about the merits of guest posting, the relationship between content and links, backlinks, publishers and signature links, guest posting, and comments.

It's sad to read articles about the decline in the importance in guest blogging. It's pure drivel and the irony is not lost on many a marketer. All this does is confuse people and tie in two separate discussions that should remain independent in many ways but are, however, intrinsically tied with a black hat ribbon.

It's time to shed a little clarity on the subject in a simple format.

The Confusion

In the run up to Penguin 2.0 people have talked about two aspects of guest blogging:

Spam, backlinks, comments, and irrelevant content and outreach.Content marketing strategies and guest blogging and outreach.

We all know that Penguin 1.0 was aimed to stop people "gaming the SEO" system. As I have mentioned in several past posts we subsequently witnessed a huge shift toward content marketing. Guess what? Guest blogging became an even more important part of many a content marketing strategy.

The dark side of SEO began to cast a wider shadow over the content marketing world with an even steeper rise in blog comment spam, links, and dubious and irrelevant requests to webmasters and blog owners to consider crap guest posts.

When people talk about Penguin's evolution and discuss guest blogging and Google publisher paranoia, it's important to remember that we're talking about Point 1 above. The conversation should focus on spam and dodgy backlinks, irrelevant content marketing, and spam networks.

We aren't talking quality, consistent and relevant content on quality publications.

A World Without Links

Let's imagine for one moment that we had a world without links. Publishers went back to print material. Do you think people wouldn't write for this magazines and publications and offer thought leadership, best practice advice, and opinions. I don't think so.

Google likes good content, relevancy, and uniqueness.Google doesn't like spam, irrelevant content, spam, and dubious backlinks.

A very simplistic way to look at this, I know, but this is aimed to be a very simple post with a very simple point.

Google set up Author Rank to encourage content creators and bloggers to publish insightful, relevant, and regular content. Point 2 above.

People who write and talk about issues with guest blogging need to focus on the separate issue of low quality drivel, over linking, and spam comments and links. Point 1 above.

The Good Guest BloggerEstablished authors continue to write for quality publications.They write quality, insightful, opinionated, and timely content and do this to share experience, thoughts, and knowledge.In my opinion, an earned quality, relevant link is fine in these circumstances.The Bad Guest Blogger

Writes sporadic and irrelevant content with too many links and little substance of "off topic" themes

The Plain Ugly "Blogger"Networks and "bloggers" who aim to "game" the backlink, comment spam, and content marketing ecosystem.Their guest blogging strategy is a pure dark art linking strategy in disguise.Their outreach strategies are aggressive aimed to push irrelevant content to an audience that isn't topic targeted.Final Thought

If you're going to write a post on guest blogging and speculate about Penguin 2.0 and the challenges that publishers face, then focus on the ugly and try not to draw in the good side of guest blogging just for an over sensational headline or a spike in traffic. Don't confuse the two points above. Take links out the equation and guest posting becomes a different kind of discussion.

I decided to place no links in this post but you can share it on Google+ and share with your friends on social media channels. Feel free to comment. Oh the irony.

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5 Content Lessons & SEO Opportunities From Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's is a leader in fashion in the brick and mortar world. But how does a store with history back to the 1800s adapt to the new online world? Let's look at a few tactics Bloomingdale's uses in content marketing to find a few SEO opportunities.

Content Marketing Lessons1. Solve a Problem To Make a Sale

Finding the right jeans, for many women, is like finding a diamond in the rough. Bloomingdale's understands its customers and made that search easy with an interactive Denim Seeker feature.

Not only does it describe why each jean was selected, but it uses real women, showing a keen understanding of its customers and the larger discussion of body image in fashion and pop culture.

2. Stay Fresh, Stay Relevant To Customers and Search Engines

Bloomingdale's Guide To a Fashion-Packed Life, with interactive features and fun, flirty copy is updated monthly to adjust with the season.

This helpful guide for the fashionista is also fresh content for the search engines. The “What to Wear Where” section shows how product descriptions should be: engaging, personalized, and ending with clear calls to action.

SEO Opportunities3. Finish What You Start

Bloomingdales put together a long list of fabulous designers. It's the first item in their navigation bar. However, clicking on a designer name leads to a plain results page without any context.

Bloomingdale's SEO opportunity is to include descriptive content about the designer to add interest and weight. Pages like this, if not handled with best SEO practices, could fall under Panda.

4. Look But Don't Touch?

Visuals are amazing tools to pique interest and sell clothes. As Pinterest's traffic generating reports prove, images are powerful.

However, usability is important too. If a product is featured in a lookbook or other image on a retail site, adding a link back to that specific item can increase conversions. Here, the retailer hasn't linked images to the items below.

Don't make your customers search harder than they have to for the product you're showcasing. Missing links may be the difference between a sale and wasted traffic.

5. Image Is Not Everything

Images are important, but an image alone doesn't always provide the visitor enough information to seal the deal.

The Denim Seeker highlights why each jean is right for every body. That type of thinking should go into all product descriptions, whether a leather handbag or a Persian rug:

What problem does this product solve?How should a visitor picture themselves with this product?

Bloomingdale's falls victim to its large product palette. It doesn't add custom product descriptions to its fast-changing item pages, giving customers an excuse to look elsewhere. Bloomingdale's also misses the boat on video content, which Macy's has already incorporated into their item pages.

Major retailers have the resources to create stunning graphics and beautiful sites, but that doesn't mean they can skip the detail work. Smaller retailers should follow the example of consultative, problem-solving features like the Denim Seeker.

Even without the interactive graphics, the real-world approach can give incremental gains to the site. Because smaller retailers can often move faster or are working with a more focused product palette, they can quickly capitalize on any flaws or opportunities the big brands have left open.

Bottom line: There's always room for improvement, even for a big brand.

Poll: How Do You Measure Business Blogging Success?

I recently completed developing and recording 2 modules for a business blogging program with the DMA. �One of the most interesting portions (in my opinion) of the material addressed measuring blog success. There’s no one right answer because the purpose for business blogs can vary from branding to sales.

Since bloggers often read other blogs, I’m counting on Online Marketing Blog readers to take this quick poll to identify what the most common goals for business blogging are. There should be enough options to address whatever purpose you have for your blog. You can pick up to 3 choices.

Pick your top 3 measures of success for business blogging

Engagement: comments, links (36%, 65 Votes)Improved brand recognition (31%, 56 Votes)Build thought leadership (31%, 55 Votes)Search engine rankings (31%, 55 Votes)Better communicate with customers (30%, 53 Votes)Traffic to the blog (27%, 49 Votes)Coverage by media and other blogs (18%, 32 Votes)Traffic to the corporate web site (16%, 28 Votes)Sales leads (16%, 28 Votes)Industry Recognition (13%, 23 Votes)Sell products (12%, 22 Votes)Improved customer satisfaction (11%, 20 Votes)Page views (9%, 16 Votes)Time on Site (6%, 10 Votes)Ad revenue on the blog (5%, 9 Votes)

Total Voters: 179

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A bit of Online Marketing Blog trivia: This is our 51st poll!

IAB: Paid Search 62 Percent Of Global Mobile Advertising Revenue In 2011

The IAB released�global mobile ad revenue estimates for 2011, building on its earlier release of US mobile ad revenue data. The IAB says that total mobile ad revenues, on a global�basis, were $5.3 billion last year.�(See our related Marketing Land coverage.)

One of the most striking things about the report is how much paid-search dominates all other ad categories — even more than on the PC.�According to the IAB mobile paid search revenue was just under $3.3 billion in 2011. In North America (mostly US) it was a little over $800 million.

If these numbers are accurate we know a great deal more about Google’s mobile ad revenues. That’s because Google probably represents more than 90 percent of mobile paid search advertising. It may control more than 95 percent in fact — commensurate with Google’s dominant market share.

Google also controls a substantial portion of mobile display advertising too.

In the US paid search revenue is 46 percent of total advertising revenue on the PC. Mobile paid search revenues are 48 percent of the total according to the IAB data above. That’s pretty interesting.

There was previously an eMarketer forecast that projected paid search would grow to dominate mobile advertising by 2014 or 2015. It appears that the opposite is true: paid search is already dominant; now it’s up to the other formats to catch up.

Google To EU: We’re Always Open To Algorithm Suggestions

Yes, Google might consider changing its ranking algorithm in response to an EU anti-trust investigation. However, that would fit in with Google’s general practice of changing its algorithm on a regular basis in response to anything the company thinks will improve its results.

According to the UK-based Telegraph, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday that “Google could be willing to change some of its algorithm methodology in search,” to avoid potential fines or other penalties that might be coming as part of the European Commission’s antitrust investigation against Google now in progress.

The investigation was formally undertaken last year as a result of the complaints of multiple companies and Google competitors. The European Commission is looking into a number of issues and questions, including the self-referral of traffic to Google’s other properties. We’ve written extensively about these questions in the past (see related entries below).

This Schmidt statement opens a huge “can of worms” both for Google and European regulators. What might the changes be and would regulators be involved in confirming them? Google certainly doesn’t want to open the door to ongoing monitoring of its search results or algorithm by regulators. But how might their sufficiency be determined otherwise?

Would there be different search algorithms in Europe vs. the US?

Has Schmidt “gone rogue” or is this Google’s official position? This is a huge concession potentially and we’re trying to speak to Google directly about it.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: I’ve had a chance to follow up with a spokesperson from Google about the article. He highlighted the fact that Schmidt himself isn’t quoted directly on making any algorithm change. Instead, that’s the Telegraph reporter’s paraphrase of that portion of the discussion.

So, I asked, “Would Google consider changing its algorithm in response to the EU investigation?” I was told that Google already changes its algorithm constantly, for a variety of reasons, as the company decides makes sense.

A good example was last year when Google made a change so that merchants with bad reviews would be less likely to rank well. So potentially, Google might make an algorithm change in response to EU concerns, just as it makes changes in response to many concerns — but that ultimately, it would have to be because the company agreed that making a change was best for its users.

Google also stressed that to date, it has no feedback from the EU about any particular recommendations, to its algorithm or businesses practices in general. The investigation is still on-going and may take months to complete. I always also given Google’s previous statement on the investigation:

Since we started Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry–ensuring that ads are always clearly marked, making it easy for users to take their data with them when they switch services and investing heavily in open source projects. But there�s always going to be room for improvement, and so we�ll be working with the Commission to address any concerns.

I’ve updated our story with a new opening paragraph added above the original opening, to provide this further perspective. I’ve also changed the headline from “Google To EU: We’ll Consider Changing The Algorithm” to “Google To EU: We’re Always Open To Algorithm Suggestions,” to better reflect what Schmidt seems to have been saying.

(photo by jolieodell via Creative Commons)

Related entries:

European Google Antitrust Questionnaire RevealedGoogle Says “Ciao” To Antitrust Claim In ItalyEuropeans Go “Fishing” For Bad Google Behavior In Anti-Trust InquirySpanish Want Google To Police Libel On The InternetItaly To Regulate YouTube & Other Video Sites Like TV StationsGerman Govt. Says Google Analytics Now VerbotenSurvey: 77% Of Americans Oppose Search Engine RegulationOnce Again: Should Google Be Allowed To Send Itself Traffic?Companies Ask Courts, Regulators To Restrain Google To Compensate For Own Competitive Failures

Google's Top Charts Offer Engaging Visuals for Popular Searches Over Time

Google has launched Top Charts, allowing users to visualize and share the most-searched people, places, and things in more than 40 categories, all the way back to 2004.

Derived from Google’s Knowledge Graph, the data is featured in Google Trends and updates dynamically. Users can choose from categories such as actors, animals, and athletes to scientists, software technology and sports cars.

Here’s what Top Charts looks like when you land there:

Google Top Charts are sharable, too. Users can embed select charts that allow others to explore the data and share again.

Here’s a couple interesting comparisons from searches in 2013 versus 2004 using those embeddable charts. Just click on any one of the trending searches within the embedded chart for more stats.

In Search of Voodoo: Empathize to Optimize Your Customer’s Journey on the Search & Social Web

Of course, if you try hard enough you can worry yourself out of a job when it comes to developing a solid approach with content marketing.

Welcome back. Google has some of the best content marketing, don’t they?

To put that idea of customer empathy in action, I put myself in the position of a customer and documented my journey from curious social browser to a highly motivated searcher.

Yes, that’s right. You Google it.

That was enough for me. I knew I needed to include Voodoo Doughnuts in my presentation. If for nothing else, to experience the freak of sugary gastronomy that is known as a “Bacon Maple Bar“.

Arriving at the store didn’t disappoint and of course I had to take photos. And what do you do with those photos?

You use them when you check in on Foursquare.

Then share to Instagram and Pinterest of course.

The Takeaway:

Photo: Shutterstock

Online Marketing News: Biggr Flickr, Kmart Strikes Again, Yahoo Takes A Tumblr, Twitter Cards, Penguin 2 & SEO FUD

Kmart is at it again with a clever follow up to their highly popular video “Ship My Pants” that has had over 17 million views. The play on words this time is “Big Gas Savings” with over 1 million views in 2 days. Like the Old Spice videos that went ballistic, the question remains: They’re very creative and popular, but will these videos get shoppers in stores and buying at Kmart?

Flickr is Biggr. Users now get 1 terabyte of storage. I’ve been a pro Flickr user for many years and during Yahoo’s pre Marissa Mayer days, it had an uncertain future. Now Flickr is adding 1,000 x more storage for users and some new features including full resolution of images and new sharing functionality: “Upload once, send to any device, any screen, any friend, and any follower.”

The user interface has also been updated with the removal of small thumbnails and photos leading the experience, vs. text based navigation. I for one and looking forward to jumping back into using Flickr more often from the desktop, tablet and mobile. Via Flickr, Fast Company.

Arguably the big news in the SEO world this week was the roll out of Penguin 2.0, Google’s algorithmic webspam fighting effort. If your site is engaged in link buying, high volumes of exact match anchor text, or other link focused manipulations to improve search results, there’s a Penguin out to get you. More on Penguin from Matt Cutts, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch and of course, TopRank’s advice on Penguin 2.0 for Content Marketers.

Speaking of SEO and spam:

Google Notifies Sprint Of Spam Penalty; Seeks Advice In Google Help Forums. Apparently a portion of the Sprint site that was open for users to publish content was cited by Google for spamming. This is not a unique situation as Search Engine Land reports, since the BBC and Mozilla have had similar situations. Initially there was no help from Google outside of the notification but Matt Cutts eventually stepped in. As Barry notes in the SEL article, this is a tough one for brands to monitor, but they must if they expect to retain search positions and traffic form the almighty Google. Google Forum Thread. Thanks to Brian Larson for the heads up on this one.

Oh, How Pinteresting!, Introducing More Useful Pins for food, retail products, and movies. This week the nearly 50 million member strong Pinterest added a new feature directed towards commerce: Rich Pins. The new feature will make additional information available besides an image and description which many anticipate will give users more motivation to click through. Since Pinterest users tend to spend 70% more than buyers referred from non-social sites, there’s plenty of motivation for marketers to take advantage of these new features. Via Pinterest Blog, The Content Standard, Marketing Land.

Twitter announces ‘Lead Generation Cards’ to help brands drive qualified leads. Twitter has upped the ante for lead generation by adding 6 types of Twitter Cards as an advertising option for brands. Twitter cards (Summary, Large Image Summary, Photo, Gallery, App, Player and Product) make it possible for marketers to attach media experiences to Tweets that link to brand content. When someone expands your Tweet, they see a description of the offer and a call to action. Their name, @username, and email address are already pre-filled within the Card. Via Twitter Advertising Blog, TNW.

Yahoo has agreed to pay $1.1 billion for blogging platform and social network Tumblr, which is 6 years old and has 100 million blogs and about 300 million unique monthly visitors.What is Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer getting for all that Yahoo cash? Cats, porn and a lot of opportunity to connect with a very attractive demographic. Via Wall Street Journal.

But wait, there’s more!

Yahoo continued the buying spree and purchased a startup that powers games played on smartphones, tablets, consoles or personal computers called PlayerScale for an undisclosed sum. Via TechCrunch.

In other news about the social web:

According to a new Piper Jaffray study, Teens’ interest in Facebook is dropping but their use of Twitter has grown by 50% in 1 Year. I suspect the growth of teens’ use of Instagram and Snapchat is also on the rise.

Nutella Thanks Its Biggest Fan, Founder of World Nutella Day, by Sending Her a Cease and Desist reports AdWeek. But according to ABC News, they then took it back. When legal acts without social media savvy, it can be a sharp sting that gets them on the right track.

From the TopRank Online Marketing Blog Community:

Empathize to Optimize Your Customer�s Journey on the Search & Social Web – Carrie Morgan says: “A fantastic read on the same topic is Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, A must for every marketer to be familiar with! Nice post, Lee!! Great job story-telling. =)”

7 Steps to SEO at Scale, Patrick McFadden says: “Plan a Multi-Faceted Approach” Yes! The struggle many face with marketing online is a misguided impulse to put various tactics into separate boxes, instead of seeing each as an aspect of one strategic process.To this day, I see people referring to content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) as three different things � as if each is a tactic that can get you there alone. The smart way to treat these things as a holistic strategy.”

What are your thoughts on this week’s online marketing news? Was Tumblr a good call for Yahoo at 1.1 Billion? Do you like the new Flickr? How about Penguin 2.0 – is it doom and gloom or more like, “meh”.

SES Toronto Early Bird Rate Expires Tonight

The Early Bird rate for SES Toronto 2013, which kicks off June 12 and runs through June 14, ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. ET. If you haven't registered yet for the search and social marketing conference, today is your last chance to register at the lowest rate and save $300!

SES Toronto brings together experts and leading vendors of the industry to share with you their expertise and solutions. More than 30 sessions on the agenda will cover key topics and updates in SEO, social media, analytics, content marketing, and more.

Jeffrey Hayzlett, a business and marketing executive, bestselling author and contributing editor with Bloomberg television, will give this year's opening keynote, Driving Change and Growth for Marketers. It will offer insights on how to drive strategic, lasting change and sustain momentum.

Bing Ads Evangelist and SEW contributor John Gagnon will start Day 2. In his keynote, Trends and Techniques for Digital Marketers & Data Geeks, Gagnon will look at case studies and discuss actionable patterns around keywords correlation, share of voice, and other techniques for you to build an effective marketing campaign.

You can also meet with and learn from more than 20 industry experts at the Meet the Experts Roundtable Forum, as well as connect and network with industry peers during the numerous networking events throughout the conference.

Ready to join us for SES Toronto 2013? You can register here.

A Recipe for Better Blogging: Optimize & Socialize #bweny

On Saturday I participated on a SEO panel at the first Minneapolis TECHmunch food blogger conference put on by Babette Pepaj with the help of local foodies like Stephanie A. Meyer. As prep for the event, I outlined a few things that I thought food bloggers might find useful for helping to improve organic search traffic to their content. Of course these tips aren’t limited in their usefulness to food bloggers, they apply to anyone interested in creating awareness, attention, interest and engagement with themselves or their brand.

I will be giving a track keynote at BlogWorld�this week on Thursday morning (9am) covering bigger picture topics and specific tactics to help attendees to better use blogs as content marketing tools. Here’s the presentation info:

Search, social media and content marketing are converging, and consumers are using numerous ways to discover, consume and act on content. In this session, you�ll learn how to use content marketing best practices to design information that inspires audiences to share, buy and recommend your brand.

Key Points
1. Learn the framework for an optimize and socialize approach to content marketing
2. Understand the framework for optimizing across the customer lifecycle
3. Know the difference between KPIs and business outcomes for web and social measurement

But back to the TECHmunch presentation, here’s a few of the tips I shared using the old, “Dinner Party” metaphor:

Audience � Who�s coming to dinner?
What makes your blog unique and how does that satisfy a need for a particular audience? What do they care about? What are they searching for? What topics relevant to your blog do they talk about on the social web? Empathize with their information needs and language to anticipate topics that will be interesting and sharable.

Keywords � What do they like to eat?
Take your understanding of what your target audience cares about and translate it into search phrases and social topics. Develop a reference document or keyword glossary with scores for popularity and competitiveness to serve as guide for editorial and SEO. Keyword use on the blog as well as with social sites helps relevant search visibility. Use of popular and relevant social topics can inspire sharing and interaction.

Content Plan & SEO � Which ingredients?
Create an adaptable editorial calendar to outline topics, titles, descriptions, keywords, tags, media types, promotion channels and ways to repurpose content. �Apply keyword glossary phrases in topic selection, post titles, post copy, file names and link text. �Write title tags for search engines and on-page titles for readers and social shares. �Think of the blog as a hub and build promotion channels as spokes around it. Create content that deserves to be the best answer to the questions your target audience are searching on or asking about on the social web. Make sure your blogging platform is configured as search and social media friendly using plugins such as AllinOneSEO and social sharing widgets like AddThis.

Links & Social � How will we invite our guests and help them spread the word?
Participate in and grow social networks daily. Tweet, RT, Plus, Pin, Like, Update and Comment where it makes sense to the audience you’re trying to reach. With your blog as the hub, many of your spokes will be social media and network websites that you can promote content to. Monitor mentions of your blog or keywords on social sites for interaction opportunities using social media monitoring services as simple as socialmention or Trackur or try these search queries replacing toprankblog.com with your own blog’s domain name:

https://twitter.com/search?q=toprankblog.comhttps://plus.google.com/s/toprankblog.com/postshttps://www.google.com/search?&ie=UTF-8&q=site%3Afacebook.com+inurl%3Aposts+%E2%80%9Ctoprankblog.com%E2%80%9Dhttp://pinterest.com/source/toprankblog.com/

Make it easy to share posts and inspire social sharing within the networks your active on. If you contribute content to other blogs or websites, always ask for an author link back to your website.

Tools � Which cookware, dinnerware?
Evaluate competitors rankings with SEMRush.com, Validate your blog with Google Webmaster tools, Manage your SEO efforts with Raven Tools, Research keywords with Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Research social topics with socialmention.com or Radian6, Measure blog content performance with Google Analytics, Monitor inbound links with Majestic SEO. �Leverage a social media management platform like HootSuite to organize, schedule and publish social content.

For more good resources on optimizing your blog for better performance on the search and social web, check out Google’s new Webmaster Academy and of course if you want a deep dive, get a copy of Optimize.

Kenshoo: Global Search Spending Grows 15%, CPCs Drop in Q1 [Report]

Has search lost its luster? Global search spending continues to grow, but costs-per-click (CPC) may be stagnating, according to Kenshoo's Global Search Advertising Trends report.

The report found that, globally, search spending for Q1 2013 is up 15 percent year-over-year, while click-through-rates (CTRs) are up a very positive 62 percent. Total search spending in 2012 was up 32 percent from 2011.

On the other hand, the global average CPC dropped. At $0.39 in Q1 2013, it was at a five-quarter nadir, although it's not that far below the $0.41 CPC of Q1 2012.

It seems that many search marketers have not caught up to the mobile revolution, however. In both the U.S. and UK, desktop devices, while accounting for the lion's share of clicks, see spending outpacing click-through rates. U.S. desktop CTRs were 81 percent of all, while desktops garnered 86 percent of the search spend. In the UK, CTRs were 72 percent of total, while spending was 75 percent.

Mobile devices account for 19 percent of all U.S. paid search clicks, but 14 percent of spending; in the UK, mobiles account for 28 percent of paid search clicks versus 25 percent of spend.

The discrepancy was most notable on mobile phones. In the U.S., they grabbed 9 percent of clicks against 5 percent of ad spend. In the UK, phones delivered 12 percent of clicks and 8 percent of spend.

The report is based on aggregate data from approximately $3 billion worth of campaigns managed annually through Kenshoo. Focused on big brands and major advertisers, the company offers campaign optimization, targeting, integration and attribution through Kenshoo Enterprise, Kenshoo Social, Kenshoo Local and Kenshoo SmartPath.

Social media is certainly sucking up all the buzz, but is this what's depressing CPCs? Not according to Aaron Goldman, CMO of Kenshoo.

“Social is certainly hot, but we're not seeing it cannibalize search budgets," Goldman said. "Rather social is being funded from other channels, such as display and offline."

He adds that social ad platforms including Facebook Exchange are taking budget from other ad exchanges and networks.

This article was originally published on ClickZ.

Google Cuts 100 Recruiters; May Replace Up To 70 Engineers Due To Office Closures

The Google Blog wrote that Google may have to cut up to 70 engineering jobs. Google implied the cuts would be due to the engineers based in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden not being willing or able to relocate to Google’s Mountain view headquarters.

Google explicitly made a point to say that their “long-term goal is not to trim the number of people we have working on engineering projects or reduce our global presence, but create a smaller number of more effective engineering sites.”

Why is Google being so defensive? Possibly because of Valleywag’s Google’s Loss of Innocence: 100 Jobs Cut where Owen Thomas seemed to have beat Google to posting the news. Is Google’s blog post a response to Owen, where he described the cuts as a “crushing blow to Google’s self-image?” I am not sure, the timing between the two blog posts were fairly quick.

But we all know Google has been getting a lot of press over the confirmed layoffs of contract workers, that was a rumor lingering since November. As Owen wrote, during the last downturn, Google “quite deliberately kept hiring while almost every other tech company shed staff; they were a legendary beacon of hope for Silicon Valley’s unemployed engineers.” Is Google losing that legendary status? Are they no longer looked at as indestructible? Is Google becoming hard up for money?

Postscript 1: Shortly after the engineering-related announcement, Google posted again to announce that they’re eliminating approximately 100 positions in their recruiting department. “Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring,” says Laszlo Bock, Google’s Vice President of People Operations.

Postscript 2: Google contacted us to stress that they don’t expect to cut 70 engineering jobs. Rather, they have about that many people who might not be willing to relocate when three offices are closed. They hope most will. But if some can, then those people may leave Google — but the engineering positions will be filled by new hires.

Streetmap Lawsuit Accuses Google of 'Cynical Manipulation of Search Results'

Google is the subject of yet another anti-competitiveness complaint, this one from Streetmap.

Streetmap used to do a lot of business back in the 2000s. It still does of course, it's just that Google Maps does more business for more people.

The mapping alternative has had enough of this and, according to reports, has got some lawyers on the case and alerted the high court over its fear that Google is giving its Maps preferential treatment.

"We have had to take this action in an effort to protect our business and attract attention to those that, like us, have started their own technology businesses, only to find them damaged by Google's cynical manipulation of search results," said Kate Sutton, commercial director of Streetmap, in a widely reported statement that we first saw at Bloomberg.

A Google spokesperson told us, "We haven't seen this complaint."

Streetmaps' complaint was the second of the antitrust variety Google had to deal with last week.

Google foes FairSearch, made up of Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle among others, filed a complaint accusing Android of being a "Trojan Horse" and promoting Google apps.

This article was originally published on the Inquirer.

Those Special Google Logos, Sliced & Diced, Over The Years

I’ve been working on a project to classify all the special logos that Google has done over the years. Crazy? Perhaps a bit, but it’s interesting to see what Google has honored with special logos and the great increase in them recently. Besides, I like to organize things. Below, how Google’s special logos have evolved, including tips on which occupation to pursue if you hope to have your birthday immortalized by Google.

My project’s not done yet, but I presented some early findings at Ignite: SMX West in March. For those unfamiliar with Ignite, you have 5 minutes to present 20 slides on a particular topic. You can watch the video of my presentation at the end of this post, but I’ve also summarized my presentation in text, as well.

If you don’t recognize some of the logos below, that’s because in recent years, Google has targeted some logos to specific countries. Other ones are shown worldwide.

1998: First Doodle

In this year, the first ever Google “Doodle” appeared. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were heading off to Burning Man, and they wanted a way to effectively say they’d gone fishing. So the logo above was posted.

Most Celebrated Holiday: US Thanksgiving

Also that year, the first holiday was celebrated: Thanksgiving in the United States. It has been celebrated ever since, making it the most celebrated holiday by a Google logo. The 1998 logo is shown above, followed by some from other years.

Below, the most celebrated holidays as of March 2010:

US Thanksgiving leads, at the time I compiled these in March 2010, with 12 recognitions. Christmas / Holidays follow at 11, tied with Halloween. After that, Bastille Day, the 4th of July, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and New Year’s all came in at 10 recognitions.

2000: Multiday Logos

This year marked the first “multiday” logos, a series of logos that ran over consecutive days. In May, Google did a strange series of aliens for no particular reason, then a set for the Summer Olympics in Sydney (11 logos in total) and a series for the 4th of July.

Non-US Holidays

Also in 2000, the first national holidays celebrated outside the US got logos, France’s Bastille Day and Japan’s Shichi-go-san. St. Patrick’s Day was also honored for the first time, though ironically the logo was only shown in the US, not in Ireland.

This year also saw Mother’s Day get honored for the first time (shown globally in May, even though some countries like the UK celebrate it in other months), as well as� Father’s Day.

2001: More National Days

In 2001, Google celebrated more national days, as shown above. The USA’s 4th Of July continued to be recognized, along with France’s Bastille Day. Canada, Switzerland and South Korea all gained logos for their special days — as did the entire Earth for Earth Day. In addition, the Holi Festival in India and Chinese New Year were recognized.

Birthday Celebrations Begin

The first birthday was also celebrated in 2001, that of artist Claude Monet, shown above. Since then, many birthdays have been recognized. In general, Google is more likely to recognize the birthdays of artists, scientists and musicians than other occupations. Some other examples appear above, below Monet’s logo.

2002: Dilbert Does Google

In 2002, Google’s logo got a visit from well-known cartoon character Dilbert, when Scott Adams agreed to do a series.

2003: Anniversaries

In 2003, Google got crazy for anniversaries for the first time, celebrating the discovery of DNA and flight. Since then, special anniversary logos have continued, though sometimes the particular anniversary dates recognized are odd. I mean, the 36th anniversary of the lunar landing or the 48th anniversary of the invention of the laser? Who recognizes such oddball numbers?

2004: Logos … In … Space!

in 2004, Google recognized a number of space-related events this year: the Spirit rover on Mars, the transit of Venus (its shadow) across the Sun and the flight of SpaceShipOne.

2005-2007: Same Old, Same Old

From 2005 through 2007, Google logos had little surprises. Sporting events like the World Cup and the Six Nations rugby tournament were recognized, as were national days, birthdays and even April Fool’s (the toilet logo, for Google’s TiSP joke). But there was nothing out of the ordinary, compared to what had been done before.

2008: Celebrate Everything

From 2008 onward, Google went logo crazy. The number of special logos that appeared worldwide on Google, or on special country-specific editions of Google, skyrocketed. Events like Spain’s Tomato Festival got logos, as well as Poland’s Day Of Trees.

2008: Independence Day For Everyone!

One way the logo count increased was that Google suddenly did national day logos for many countries in 2008, especially for Central and South American countries.

Cool Stuff

2008 also saw some pretty cool logos, including one made of Lego (for Lego’s 50th anniversary) and another to celebrate the Large Hadron Collider’s first test, which created the FlashForward we all experienced. And then forgot through a conspiracy that few are brave enough to discuss.

Heck, even Queen Elizabeth II got a special logo, to recognize her visit to Google London:

Hey, maybe someday the Queen will return the favor and make that logo into a stamp. Her image on a stamp is all that’s needed to make it legal, so the logo’s ready to go!

2009: Commemorative Stamps Or Google Logos

Speaking of stamps, a remarkable twist happened in 2009, when several logos almost resembled commemorative stamps. Or the Cartoon Network. Or both. Everything from Sesame Street to Dr. Seuss to The Very Hungry Caterpillar picture book and more were recognized.

Logos Are More Than Fun

Think it’s all fun and games with Google’s special logos? Think again. Each time a special logo runs, thousands of people click on them — which generates more searches. So far, Google’s never given any indication that this helps the bottom line. But maybe some day, I’ll be able to dig into whether the special logos have contributed noticeably to query growth over time.

To date, Google’s only promoted one of its own products with a logo — that for special iGoogle themes, in 2008. A series of mysterious logos last year in honor of H.G. Welles attracted plenty of press attention.

Trivia: Only Non-Latin Alphabet Doodles

So far, Google’s only had three special logos that have spelled out Google in non-Latin alphabets. Shown from top to bottom above, there was Braille in 2006, then a barcode logo and Morse Code one in 2009.

Trivia: Only Fictional Birthdays

Of the many birthdays Google has celebrated, only two have been for fictional characters. Actually, only one — for Astro Boy’s 5th birthday. Paddington Bear’s special 50th “birthday” logo was really for the anniversary of the first Paddington Bear story.

Looking For More?

For some background on how Google Doodles come about, CBS News had a nice article last month.

Anyone can review Google’s past logos in theGoogle Logo archives it maintains. Google also provides some history and stats about Google Doodles.

Here on Search Engine Land, our own Google: Logos category also archives the appearance of some prominent logos, over time.

I’ll be doing my own look in the future at the Google Doodle process. Eventually, I also hope to publish even more detailed stats and bring things up to date through, well, whatever the current date is. Stay tuned.

This Article — In Video!

Below is my Ignite SMX West talk on the subject:

There were a lot of other great search-related presentations at Ignite SMX West — I’ll be doing a future blog post next week to spotlight them all. But no need to wait. You can watch them all here.

Advertisers Increased PLA Budgets By 600% In Q4; Trend Likely To Continue

The Google Shopping gamble paid off � for both Google and e-commerce advertisers who ran product listing ad campaigns last quarter. A� reportfrom Adobe and a studyby RKG each highlighted consumer interest and advertiser opportunity in Google product listing ads.

Today, Marin Softwarereleased findings showing that, after the transition of Google Shopping to an entirely paid model in October, advertisers increased their share of search budgets directed toward product listing ads by nearly 600%. Those advertisers were rewarded with higher click through rates and lower cost per click than text ads.

Advertisers� allocated more of their budgets to PLAs as consumers increased their engagements with the image ads. In the last year, the share of search clicks from PLAs increased 210%, rising from 2.5% to 6.5%. In the 4th quarter alone, Marin found the impression share of PLAs jumped 60% as holiday shoppers searched for products and gift items.

Source: Marin Software

�During the fourth quarter of 2012, we saw some retailers allocate as much as 30% of their spend towards PLAs.� said Marin Matt Lawson, vice president of marketing and partnerships at Marin Software, which recently launched a new PLA solution as part of their platform.

Source: Marin Software

Marin says it expects to see marketers continue to increase their investment in product listing ads. In addition, more marketers will add PLAs to their paid search mix. Increased adoption and investment in the ad format will likely have an impact on the relatively low CPCs seen last quarter. It will be interesting to watch both click through rate and CPCs trends over the next several months as advertisers capitalize on the rising impression share of PLAs and continue to refine campaign targeting.

Channel Your Internal Marketing Warrior: 4 Tips for Strengthening Your Marketing Plan

Release Your Internal Marketing Warrior

In March of this year I made a decision: I wanted to get healthier. �The problem I have always faced is that I didn�t see the point of exercise, just for the sake of exercise. �Treadmills and stationary bicycles never did much for me, but I was looking for a way to regain some focus and start down a healthier path.

About a month ago I spoke with my good friend Ali who had recently started a training program to become a yoga instructor. �She convinced me to attend a class with her and I even though I�ve done yoga before, this was an entirely new experience. �After 75 minutes in a sweltering room (enduring one of the toughest workouts I�ve had in a while) the strangest thing happened. I felt stronger, lighter, and more focused.

Many times as marketers we get caught up in daily tasks and lose focus of what is really important. �When we lose focus, we may become uninspired, lazy, and complacent. �It is undoubtedly just as difficult, yet as essential, to breath new life into our marketing plans as it is to jumpstart our bodies. �The question is: where do we begin on the road to creating a “healthier” internet marketing strategy?

4 Tips For Strengthening Your Internet Marketing Plan

# 1- Become An Agent of Change – Don�t be Afraid to Try New Things
Fear consumes many people both personally and professionally. �A fear of failing or disappointment can often lead to a stagnant and uninspired plan for dominance on the web. ��Instead of allowing fear to make an appearance, instead recognize that mistakes will be made, but they will be a learning experience. What are some changes you can begin implementing today?

Surveys of existing customersDevelop different ways of communicating with your audience (blog posts, social media outreach)Ask questions of industry thought leadersJoin new virtual groups on LinkedInBegin attending more events locally to gain industry insight

# 2- The Journey Is Just As Important As the Destination – Just Make Sure You Document
Along the way to creating your �perfect� internet marketing plan, there is a lot to learn. �Remembering that the journey leads to our destination will put us in the right frame of mind to learn from the experience. �As you�re making mistakes or experiencing success it is essential that you document the steps that you took to get there.

# 3 – Take Some Time to Breathe – Step Back and Survey the Situation
A true marketer knows that our industry is a very customer-centric business. Without our customers we wouldn�t have jobs. �It can become very easy to fall intotime sucking tacticsthat may only put us further behind. �Before jumping head first into the newest social media platform or marketing tactic take some time to ask a few questions:

Who will we target with this approach?What will be our core messaging or strategy?Why should we include this tactic?How will my team accomplish this tactic and how will this benefit my customers?How much will this cost in both time and money?

# 4 – Have An Open Mind – Brainstorm With Your Team Regularly
Collaboration with fellow team members can be of benefit to all parties involved. �Not only will collaboration open up new ideas, but it will also improve buy-in from other associates. �If you�re in an internet marketing rut, or just looking to breathe that new life into your plans to dominate the search and social web, be aware of the resources you may already have at your disposal.

All of the tactics mentioned above will lend themselves to creating a stronger, more cohesive marketing plan. �At one time or another, most of us have faced a situation where we knew our plan wasn�t working, but weren�t exactly sure how to fix it. �I hope that these tactics will become part of a stronger plan and give you the jumpstart you need to get on the road to internet marketing success.

I�m curious to know what experience you have had as a marketer attempting to breathe new life into and strengthen your internet marketing plans? �What were some of your biggest obstacles and what was the most important lesson you learned?

Namaste.

Marketing Automation & Search – 3 Strategies for Mutual Success

Over the past few years, marketing automation has continued to gain influence. For most organizations it's now a crucial piece of the marketing puzzle. This is especially true of the B2B sector.

I didn't realize the full capabilities of marketing automation platforms until relatively recently. Since then the revelations have been an ongoing source of excitement.

One of the key points that has caught my attention is the high level of synchronicity that exists between marketing automation platform strategies and my experience with "search" and "top of the funnel" marketing. By identifying and exploring these parallels I've been able to greatly improve my understanding and the results from both disciplines.

I want to share some of these revelations with you by discussing three of the key areas where these two disciplines overlap and complement each other.

1. Content

A point that's often over-looked when organizations begin building a business case for a marketing automation platform is content. One of the key selling points of any marketing automation platform is its ability to streamline and improve engagement.

The problem is, if there's nothing for your prospects to engage withyou will have no engagement. That's where content comes in.

The variety, volume, and velocity of the content you produce is the only way to fill the top of the funnel and to give leads a reason to continue the conversation. Simply put, marketing automation needscontent.

This need to feed your automated marketing platform with whitepapers, guides, articles, videos, podcasts and infographics is great for those of us living in the top of the funnel. The content that will be created can be utilized and repurposed for SEO, PPC and content marketing.

For example, if the marketing automation team is developing a monthly whitepaper, the SEO team can break apart a piece of the whitepaper and turn it into a blog post, web page or PR piece. This can be done on a separate budget that doesn't hit the search marketing team's (shh.. don't let the automation team catch on). Additionally, this whitepaper can be used behind gated lead forms via PPC campaigns. These shared resources are good for the entire company.

Word of caution: I'm not advocating duplicate content or content "spinning". There's a fine line between repurposing good content and making Google angry. Let's look at some good and bad examples:

Bad:

Rewriting an article three different ways and posting in three different locations (internal blog, external byline article, and web page)Writing articles and using the same content within boring press releases.

Good:

Repurposing a byline article as a PDF in automation outreach that doesn't get indexed or republished.Turning a video interview into a summarized blog post (published and indexed) along with a guide (not published or indexed and used for MA).Turning automation guides into click candy slideshows or images that are published online.2. Insights and Analytics

Most marketing automation technologies (e.g. Marketo, Act-On, Pardot, Eloqua etc.) will provide deep behavior insights and analytics. This data can be extremely useful, not just for increasing engagement and conversions at the bottom of the funnel, but also for top of the funnel activities. How?

Keywords: For example, marketing automation platforms will give deep insights into which keywords existing leads are using to search for your product or service. Why is this important? Well, if you know how often a typical SEO/PPC lead is going back to Google and using a particular search term to reconnect with your service or product, you can then attribute this lead back to a particular marketing activity which focuses on leads much further up the funnel. This can help with the ongoing issue of attribution when reporting and re-allocating resources.Return on Investment: If you're like most digital marketers, you probably have difficulty correlating ROI to marketing initiatives. The classic case is SEO. You probably know a conversion occurred, but don't know who converted. A good analogy from the sports world is the team score vs. the box score. You might be winning, but who is actually scoring the goals? Marketing automation platforms can track conversions to the person that actually converted and the value of the closed business (if any).
For example, ROI can be attributed to keyword data and used to identify phrases from leads that are closer, or farther away from the decision process. When we get our hands on this data, we were able to identify that business closed, the timelines and ratios of that closed business based on phrases. We can also recognize the value of the closed business within your CRM, like Salesforce. For example, a series of contacts that had an original lead source from a keyword like "software solutions" can drive a great deal of SEO and PPC leads, but have an 8 month sales cycle and close at 10 percent. Another search for "software solution integration timeline" would typically close within 60 days of that search at 50 percent. Our marketing automation platform showed us that "software solution integration timeline" was a phrase that should definitely have a large emphasis in our SEM and SEO efforts. It may have lower volume, but the higher close ratios and shorter timeframe made it an extremely valuable term.3. Conversion and Dynamic Pages

Marketing automation platforms have the ability to deliver dynamic content based on visitor data and demographics. This is extremely powerful for marketing initiative. For the purpose of this post let's explore how this can help with our search efforts:

PPC:Using a piece of Java code, dynamic pages can insert different messages based on user data from automation and CRM. Let's see how:No Marketing Automation Platform Data: If you're running a campaign on Adwords and a random visitor clicks on your ad from the keyword "software solution", you'll serve a page that is all about your "software solution".With Marketing Automation Platform Data: If you're running a campaign on Adwords and a known visitor clicks on your ad from the keyword "software solution", we recognize that is Bob Smith, who is the CEO of a manufacturing company. Our landing page will now serve information catered to Bob. This can be a piece of gated content that speaks to how our software solution works with manufacturing organizations. This will dramatically increase your conversion rates.SEO: Using the example noted above, we can dynamically insert information on internal pages catered to Bob's demographics, which include his vertical, manufacturing, and his title, CEO. Our internal pages can replace standard logos with the logos of our manufacturing clients and also display snippet testimonials from other CEOs who love our software. Doing this will increase the stickiness of the internal pages and dramatically increase the conversion rate.
The downside to creating these dynamic pages is the time associated with setting up the 1 on 1 communications. A better approach is to create buckets that recognize common demographics and serve dynamic content to each bucket. Using the example of Bob from the manufacturing company, we could recognize all visitors that work in the manufacturing vertical. This is much more scalable.Summary

Advanced marketing automation platforms can have a huge impact on your engagement, conversions, and new business. It can improve the way your organization handles prospects at the "bottom of the funnel". But the data and insights can also help improve "top of funnel" activities and performance from initiatives like SEO, SEM, social, and content marketing.

Google Penguin 2.0 Update is Live

Webmasters have been watching for Penguin 2.0 to hit the Google search results since Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts first announced that there would be the next generation of Penguin in March. Cutts officially announced that Penguin 2.0 is rolling out late Wednesday afternoon on "This Week in Google".

"It's gonna have a pretty big impact on web spam," Cutts said on the show. "It's a brand new generation of algorithms. The previous iteration of Penguin would essentinally only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper and has a really big impact in certain small areas."

In a new blog post, Cutts added more details on Penguin 2.0, saying that the rollout is now complete and affects 2.3 percent of English-U.S. queries, and that it affects non-English queries as well. Cutts wrote:

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.

Webmasters first got a hint that the next generation of Penguin was imminent when back on May 10 Cutts said on Twitter, “we do expect to roll out Penguin 2.0 (next generation of Penguin) sometime in the next few weeks though.”

Then in a Google Webmaster Help video, Cutts went into more detail on what Penguin 2.0 would bring, along with what new changes webmasters can expect over the coming months with regards to Google search results.

He detailed that the new Penguin was specifically going to target black hat spam, but would be a significantly larger impact on spam than the original Penguin and subsequent Penguin updates have had.

Google's initial Penguin update originally rolled out in April 2012, and was followed by two data refreshes of the algorithm last year – in May and October.

Twitter is full of people commenting on the new Penguin 2.0, and there should be more information in the coming hours and days as webmasters compare SERPs that have been affected and what kinds of spam specifically got targeted by this new update.

Let us know if you've seen any significant changes, or if the update has helped or hurt your traffic/rankings in the comments.

Learn More: Google PenguinThe Myth of Content Marketing, the New SEO & Penguin 2.0Google Penguin 2013: How to Evolve Link Building into Real SEOPenguin 2.0 Forewarning: The Google Perspective on LinksGoogle Penguin, the Second (Major) Coming: How to PrepareGoogle Penguin Tightens the Noose on Manipulative Link Profiles [Report]

Social Strategy for Regulated Industries

Social media’s influence on search results continues to grow. This is perhaps most evident in the convergence of paid, owned, and earned media, which explains a great deal about how brands can generate activity and earn credibility through social and other earned media to significantly boost SERP visibility.

Even if marketers completely disregard the inherent benefits of effective social media programs in their own right, the growing ability of these efforts to generate credible social signals and influence search engine visibility can’t be denied.

Social Signals and Search

Activity happening on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other top social networks continues to influence search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Even if brands choose not to embrace this dynamic, the actions of consumers and competitors will directly impact the scope and nature of their visibility on the SERP. This is true at the national and local level.

Nationally, brands must understand that top search engines have carved out some high profile places to present search results from chosen or affiliated social networks.

Google+ content, for example, often occupies a portion of the highest profile Google SERP real estate.

Bing has gone to great lengths to incorporate social signals into its search results via the Bing social sidebar, recently adding five times more Facebook content. On the social search side, results from Facebook’s Graph Search are generated entirely from a searcher’s social network and other information available publicly on Facebook.

Brands with multiple brick-and-mortar locations or advisors, however, face an opportunity perhaps 40 times as great when marketing at the local level. According to a study by Mainstay Salire, local Facebook pages receive five times more marketing reach and eight times more engagement per fan than corporate pages.

Creating these unique social identities and extending organized, branded support for each location pays off for brands, and this strategy has been working for quite awhile. More than a year ago, for example, Google+ local marketing pilot programs were already moving the needle for brands. Today, each and every brand should harness the power of social signals if they hope to maximize search visibility going forward.

How Can Brands in Highly Regulated Industries Capitalize?

Most big brand marketers need very little coaxing to embrace this opportunity, but what about brands in highly regulated industries? Marketers working in financial services, health care and pharmaceuticals, or insurance, for example, must convince their organizations to balance the need to minimize liability with the opportunity to generate visibility.

Somewhat surprisingly, regulatory bodies overseeing some of our most closely watched industries acknowledge the business opportunity social media presents and encourage their industries to embrace it. Take financial services, for example. Historically, regulatory groups have focused on mitigating risk.

In a very different way, these groups continue their track record of risk mitigation today. Groups like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) and others don’t want to get in the way of their industry embracing the game-changing potential of social media.

These groups do, of course, regulate how social media ought to be leveraged to some extent, but they overwhelmingly focus guidance on the need for brands to archive, monitor, and manage social communications. They focus less on actual social communications and more on the infrastructure and procedures a brand puts in place, as well as the due diligence it performs.

In a nutshell, financial services firms’ social media policies must establish responsibilities specific to social media. To ensure FINRA compliance, these brands must archive and monitor any and all social media activity. When combined with an employee training program, these measures can insulate brands from liability, even if one of their own commits a violation.

Social CRM Technology Eases the Compliance and Regulatory Burden

Maintaining compliance becomes infinitely more complex when national brands empower local entities or advisors, like when a financial services company empowers each financial advisor within its national network to create its own local social media presence. When national brand managers take this step, they decentralize responsibility and spread the risk across hundreds or thousands of individuals.

Top social CRM platforms make it much easier for brand managers in any industry to maintain control of all social activity and ensure brand consistency, but many of these platforms fall short of ensuring compliance with industry regulations. Companies in highly regulated industries can simplify the selection process by insisting on a social CRM platform deemed compliant with their own industry’s regulations.

The best tools go even further, leveraging automation and scalability to empower national brands to maximize social, local search, and mobile results at the location level, but companies governed by regulatory bodies should have their requirements in hand as they decide which tool to employ. They should seek out a tool that minimally offers:

Enterprise-ready industry-specific compliance: Financial services providers, for example, should seek out FINRA compliant technologies.Automated audit and approval processes: The chosen technology should track every post and conversation across each location’s social accounts with audit and approval processes and trails.Corporate-controlled content libraries: These enable national brands to share preapproved content, messages, photos, videos, etc. with their many locations, who can then put the compliant resources into an engaging local context.Archiving: Keeping record of all communications is key to maintaining compliance in most regulated industries.Reporting: Brands should track and report progress against goals nationally and specific to each location.

When regulatory bodies encourage their industries to more aggressively adopt social media, brands should respond by convincing management teams to dive in, taking the required steps to ensure compliance while getting their social media programs off the ground as soon as possible. The search engines are listening, but brands must step up and start sending the right signals.

Australian Court Finds Google Responsible For Misleading Ads Placed By Its Advertisers

A Federal Appeals Court in Australia has found Google responsible for misleading ads that displayed when users searched for certain terms and received ads from competitors who had bid on those terms.

The ruling, though it only applies in Australia, is important because one of Google’s most central beliefs — which has come up in legal cases again and again — is that it is solely a publisher of content and advertisements, rather than the author of that content, and should therefore not be responsible for what appears on its pages.

The plaintiff in the case is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a consumer protection agency. Originally, Google had not been found responsible, but, on appeal, the Full Federal Court overturned the earlier ruling.

Is Google Just A Publisher, Or Does It Hold Responsibility For Content?

“The ACCC brought this appeal because it raises very important issues as to the role of search engine providers as publishers of paid content in the online age,” said ACCC chairman Rod Smith. The Court ordered Google to develop a program to comply with consumer law and to pay ACCC’s court costs.

At issue is who is responsible for the advertisements when Google displays them. is it Google, because its algorithm controls what displays when? Or is it the advertiser, who chooses the keywords associated with its ads?

The primary judge had originally found that, although the ads were misleading or deceptive, Google had not made the misleading or deceptive representations. Google merely communicated representations made by the advertiser.

What’s Critical Is The Triggering Of The Link

But now, the Full Federal Court is saying that’s not the case. It’s holding Google responsible as if it made the representations itself. In its ruling, the Court said, “the enquiry is made of Google and it is Google�s response which is misleading… Although the key words are selected by the advertiser, perhaps with input by Google, what is critical to the process is the triggering of the link by Google using its algorithms.”

In a statement, Google has said it’s reviewing its options:

“We are disappointed by the Federal Court�s decision that Google should be responsible for the content of four particular ads on its platform. Google AdWords is an ads hosting platform, and we believe that advertisers should be responsible for the ads they create on the AdWords platform. We�re committed to providing an advertising platform that benefits both advertisers and users. We investigate complaints about violations of our policies and terms and conditions, and if we are notified of an ad violating our terms and conditions we will remove it. We are currently reviewing our options in light of the court�s decision.”

Google’s Terms and Conditions for Australia say that the customer “is solely responsible for all: (a) ad targeting options and keywords (collectively “Targets”) and all ad content, ad information, and ad URLs (“Creative”), whether generated by or for Customer…”

Online Marketing News: Fortune 100 Social B2B Brands, Vine Embeds Coming to Twitter?

B2B Fortune 100 Companies Prove Effective in Social Media Marketing

Who ever said only B2C brands get to be popular on social networks? The two companies sitting atop the Social Effectiveness Index just happen to be B2B brands Honeywell International, an aerospace and defense contractor, and financial services company American International Group. MetLife, Aetna, Chevron and Walt Disney all made the top ten.

The presence and effectiveness of Fortune 100 brands were measured across five areas: share of voice, identification of influencers and advocates, engagement rate, touch rate and net sentiment. Goldman Sachs topped the list in the banking sector, while Kraft Foods takes the cake as the most effective Fortune 100 in the food & beverage social space. Researchers from Blue Ocean released their findings in the form of an infographic, as well as a report listing their methodology and the results for all 100 brands evaluated.

Content Marketing Overtakes Email as Top Channel Focus for Marketers: Survey

In 2012, email was the number one marketing channel priority for 25.8% of respondents to an industry survey. Social media came second, with 24.3%, while SEO and Content Marketing tied, each taking 18.9%.

2013 will be a year of radical change, if this study is to be believed. �Researchers found that 34.8% of respondents plan to focus on Content Marketing in 2013, which beats second place Social Media (24.7%) by 10.1%. Email marketing was knocked from its throne and will only to be a focus for 10.4% of marketers. The survey was conducted by�CopyPress, though their sample size of under 400 participants leaves much room for misinterpretation. While it’s not scientifically sound, the survey does reinforce the now almost universally accepted fact that content is here to stay.

Did Poland Spring Blow Its Big Close-Up?

With over 43 million views, the U.S. State of the Union address and the follow-up responses from political parties attracted a substantial audience. That exposure also included a cameo of Poland Spring inspiring the hashtag #watergate when Florida Senator Marco Rubio made an off camera reach for drink in the middle of his response to President Obama. The Twitterverse lit up in anticipation of what Poland Spring would do to capitalize on this opportunistic exposure. Not a single Tweet followed. This was a missed opportunity that companies like Oreo have recently taken full advantage of when it created clever ads after lights went out at the Super Bowl. TopRank CEO Lee Odden was quoted in articles on MediaPost and Econsultancy that social media monitoring to identify and respond to brand mentions is a cost of doing business and if companies do not listen to the social web, their competitors will.

83% of Advertisers Run Social Ads Alongside Display Campaigns

Social ads are an increasingly important facet of a balanced online marketing campaign, though ROI remains a concern, according to survey data released by Neilsen company Vizu. Marketers use social ads for branding more than other objective, with 45% indicating that was their goal. Just 16% of respondents said their social ads were direct response in nature.

About 83% of marketers surveyed choose to run social ads in tandem with their online display campaigns, while 46% use them as part of their video marketing strategy. Social ads are reportedly used with mobile by 40% of marketers.�”With paid social media advertising on the rise, it’s no surprise that marketers are beginning to look for true measures of return on investment to justify their investment,” said senior VP of product leadership for advertising effectiveness at Nielsen, Jeff Smith. “And with paid social ads increasingly part of integrated, branding-related campaigns, there is real demand for metrics that are consistent with what they’ve used for other media, such as brand lift and sales lift.”

Tweeting Will Become: Say What You Mean in 140 Characters, 1 Instagram Pic, 3 Video Clips or Less

Smart marketers better start familiarizing themselves with the latest social video craze, Vine. A tweet from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo seems to suggest the app is coming as a new feature to Twitter. �Costolo tweeted “Steak tartare in six seconds” Wednesday, with an embedded vine demonstrating his tartare-making prowess. Vines are six-second videos consisting of up to three pieced-together video clips, which are then shared to Vine and can be shared to social channels. The app seemed so promising that Twitter scooped up the company before it had even launched.

Reviewers pan Vine’s porn problem at iTunes

The already wildly popular iPhone app is getting some flack, however… it seems the social video collection is already chock full of porn. Just this week, Vine became an age-restricted app; users must be 17 years of age or older to create these gifs on steroids. Still, brands from Gap to MSNBC and Cinnamon Toast Crunch have all jumped on the Vine bandwagon and were featured last week for their micro-video creativity at BusinessInsider.

Online Marketing News Briefs from the TopRank Team

Mike Yanke: Media & Marketing Software Companies Make Up Nearly Half of America�s Ten Most Promising Companies

America�s Most Promising Companies, released by Forbes this month, finds itself heavily populated with software companies designed to help better manage / reduce the pain of online marketing tactics. �From malware blocking software AnchorFree, to programmatic buying platform Rocket Fuel, several of the companies on this list will no doubt shape how customers and prospects alike consume online marketing material over the next several years. �Special congratulations to 3Cinteractive, enterprise mobile solution provider, for topping this list. �See the full list of America�s 100 Most Promising Companies by visiting Forbes.

Evan Prokop:�Google Announces Update that May Help Webmasters Diagnose Dangerous Links�

Following Google�s Penguin update, many webmasters were sent the dreaded �unnatural link warning�. For many, the next logical question was which links specifically were to blame for the warning?�In a recent video in the popular Google�Webmaster Help Series, Matt Cutts spoke about a new feature that will be rolling out soon, wherein link warning messages will be accompanied by 1-3 examples of negative links from the offending sites link profile.

Alexis Hall: Facebook Graph Search Review – How it Works

Facebook’s Graph Search is still in limited beta; users without access can sign up to the waiting list for notification when it becomes more publicly available. Facebook search has always shown search results contextualized to the user, but early adopters say the improved functionality with the graph may result in more meaningful searches for social media marketers. The emphasis will remain on building social community for business and individuals, according to Social Media Examiner, in order to increase the �likelihood of showing up in relevant Facebook search results.

Online Marketing News: Fortune 100 Social B2B Brands, Vine Embeds Coming to Twitter?

B2B Fortune 100 Companies Prove Effective in Social Media Marketing

Content Marketing Overtakes Email as Top Channel Focus for Marketers: Survey

Did Poland Spring Blow Its Big Close-Up?

83% of Advertisers Run Social Ads Alongside Display Campaigns

Tweeting Will Become: Say What You Mean in 140 Characters, 1 Instagram Pic, 3 Video Clips or Less

Reviewers pan Vine’s porn problem at iTunes

Online Marketing News Briefs from the TopRank Team

Mike Yanke: Media & Marketing Software Companies Make Up Nearly Half of America�s Ten Most Promising Companies

Evan Prokop:�Google Announces Update that May Help Webmasters Diagnose Dangerous Links�

Alexis Hall: Facebook Graph Search Review – How it Works

16 Secret Google Analytics Advanced Segments Worth Their Weight in Gold

Analyzing your website data with Google Analytics is much like mining for gold. Advanced prospectors profit because they know where to look to find the nuggets, while inexperienced practitioners come up with only dirt after making the mistake of trying to prospect the entire mountain.

If web analytics is like gold mining, then a Google Analytics advanced segment is the pickaxe you need to chisel through your data to expose the glimmering insights inside.

We've tapped into some of the web's finest web analytics professionals to share their tips for mining analytics gold. Here are 16 secret – until now – Google Analytics advanced segments that could make you insights rich, too.

1. Converters by Count of Visit

This first series of segments is one of my favorites given that I work mainly in lead generation for higher education. The Converters by Count of Visit segment series gives you three segments to show behaviors of people who convert after 1 visit, 2-5 visits or after 6+ visits so you can get a feel for what content is consumed and acted upon at various points in the sales funnel.

Link to Segment Series: http://bit.ly/GASS-CbCoV

How to Use this Segment: Start by applying all three segments to any of your favorite content reports to see relative differences in content consumption by count of visit. Then apply them one at a time to take a deeper dive into user behavior across the customer journey.

2. Whales

Whales is the e-commerce cousin to my lead gen segment, and it captures visitors who spend a lot with you. For example, if average site revenue is $100, then your Whales segment might be set to capture orders with revenue of over $300. Understanding the behavior of your top customers presents all sorts of opportunities ranging from helping you find more of them to motivating other customers to become top customers.

Link to this Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Whales

How to Use this Segment: This segment is especially useful when applied to standard or custom reports that show dimensions such as campaigns, keywords, geography, and items purchased.

Segment Contributed by: Avinash Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and author of the Occam's Razor blog. Check out his post on segments when you're done reading this one.

3. Organic Image Traffic

Many people with image-rich sites were puzzled when their traffic dropped in late-January due to a change in the way Google Images works. This segment allows you to see search traffic coming from the Google Images search engine separately from regular organic search so you can investigate image-specific search trends.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-OrgImg

How to Use this Segment: Apply this segment to your SEO reports to look at keywords, landing pages, and other dimensions typically explored with organic search.

Segment Contributed by: John Doherty is the Office Lead at Distilled NYC. Check out John's work on segments to learn more about segmenting search and social.

4. Screens Under 600 Pixels Wide

Google Analytics user agent detection can be thrown off by the countless new mobile devices on the market. This handy segment filters for a variety of mobile devices by applying a regular expression to the screen size dimension.

It controls for devices that aren't fully detected by Google Analytics by excluding screens with a 0x0 pixel dimension, which is the case for devices prone to detection issues. This segment captures devices with screen resolutions ranging from 100-599 pixels by 100-599 pixels.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Screen599

How to Use this Segment: Apply this segment to any report where you want to see mobile visitors but don't want to see any devices with screens over 600 pixels wide.

Segment Contributed by: Angie Schottmuller is an accomplished industry speaker and blogger, and the Director of Interactive Strategy and Optimization at Three Deep Marketing.

5. Keyword Length Segment Series

Keyword length segments have appeared in several articles dedicated to advanced segments because looking at traffic by keyword length can reveal significant insights. Segment reports by keywords that consist of 3, 4, 5 and 6+ words with this set of 4 Google Analytics segments to understand the proportion of website visits sent by head terms relative to long-tail terms within your search space.

Link to Segment Series: http://bit.ly/GASS-KWlength

How to Use this Segment: Apply all four segments to any report where keywords are important, such as a keywords performance reports and landing page reports, then apply one at a time for detailed insights.

Segment Contributed by: Justin Cutroni is a web analytics blogger, speaker, and the Analytics Advocate at Google. See more of Justin's advanced segments in the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery.

6. Common ISPs

The service provider report is a good place to start your investigation when trying to isolate odd activity on your website within your Google Analytics profile. Filter out the vast majority of common ISPs with this advanced segment and reveal culprit ISPs sending large amounts of unnatural traffic.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-ISPs

How to Use this Segment: Apply this segment to the Network report under the Audience section of Google Analytics. This segment filters out greater than 80 percent of the traffic to your site and allows you to review long tail service providers with ease.

Segment Contributed by: Jeff Sauer is the founder of Jeffalytics.com, VP at Three Deep Marketing and the author of helpful resources including the Periodic Table of Google Analytics.

7. DMA Quartiles

This segment series helps control for population when looking at geographic reports. It uses Neilsen's DMA measurements to group major metros into four quartiles (e.g., Q4 contains cities with a DMA ranked 1-8, including New York, L.A. and Chicago.). Export data using these segments and compare to Neilsen's demographic stats to look beyond raw numbers and into market share for each of the four quartiles.

Link to Segment Series: http://bit.ly/GASS-DMAs

How to Use this Segment: Apply these segments to any report with unique visitors as a dimension to determine share of voice by U.S. city for your brand. Export report to Excel. Then add Neilsen's DMA data to the spreadsheet and divide your unique visitors by Neilsen's number of U.S. households to determine your share of voice across markets.

Segment Contributed by: Sayf Sharif is a Web Analyst at LunaMetrics.

8. Blog Bounce Remover

The natural tendency for the majority of all blog traffic is to bounce. After all, the lion's share of visitors just came to your site to read your article and then be on their merry way. This segment doesn't remove blog traffic, but it does remove folks who landed on your blog (defined as "/blog/" here – modify as required for your blog) and only looked at one page.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-BlgBnc

How to Use this Segment: Apply this segment to any reports that compare landing pages on your site against your website's goal metrics to identify the top landing pages in the form of both blog posts and other pages on your website.

Segment Contributed by: Thom Craver is a technical SEO and web analytics consultant, speaker and blogger.

9. The Brand Interest Segment

Some pages on your website are created to convey your brand's key messages, such as an "about" page, a "testimonials" page or section about your team. This secret segment series contains three segments that measure different levels of engagement with your brand:

People who did not view your brand page (e.g., an "about" page in this example)People who viewed a brand page, but didn't visit your blogPeople who viewed both your brand page and your blog

Link to Segment Series: http://bit.ly/GASS-Brand

How to Use this Segment: Compare users who visited branded pages to those who didn't. You can apply all three segments at once or individually, depending on how you wish to analyze the results. Begin by applying all three to your favorite content reports, then one at a time for a deeper look.

Segment Contributed by: Anna Lewis is the Digital Marketing Executive at Koozai. Explore 15 additional useful segments identified by Anna.

10. Q&A Keyword Monitoring

Some keyword modifiers are dead giveaways for consumer intent. Words such as "how," "what," and "versus" are filtered into this advanced segment with a nifty regular expression.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-QandA

How to Use this Segment: Mine your own keyword traffic for ideas to add to a Q&A section of your site. If your site doesn't include a Q&A section, consider using this Google Analytics advanced segment to see if people are asking questions you might not be answering.

Segment Contributed by: Kane Jamison submitted this segment after reading Joshua Unseth's article on the same topic.

11. Cart Abandoners by Traffic Source

If you have an ecommerce site, then you probably wonder why people abandon your cart without checking out. The truth is that the answer probably varies greatly, often by source. One way to explore differences in cart abandonment is to segment it by traffic source.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Carts

How to Use this Segment: This segment teases out cart abandonment for Facebook visitors. Make as many copies of it as you have primary traffic sources. Then apply the segments to your goal funnel reports to inspect whether traffic abandons differently by segment or if there are universal snags in your ecommerce flow.

Segment Contributed by: This advanced segment was contributed by Dan Antonson, Lead Analyst at SMC Pros.

12. Geographic Brand Ripples

Google Analytics reports typically are set up to compare apples to apples, such as comparing your brand's presence in two different cities. This series of segments demonstrates a brand's ripple effect throughout a region by comparing traffic from two main cities (i.e., Minneapolis and St. Paul), the target metro area (i.e., the Twin Cities in Minnesota) and the target state (i.e., Minnesota) for a given brand.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-BrandRipple

How to Use this Segment: Change up these segments to reflect your key target cities, your metro area and your state. Then combine all three in a geographic report to assess micro vs. local vs. regional trends.

Segment Contributed by: James Svoboda is the Vice President of MnSearch.org and CEO at WebRanking.

13. Cohort Analysis

This segment requires using both custom variables and advanced segments and demonstrates how to segment users along different stages of your sales funnel. Set the following as a custom variable when someone completes a key step, such as the "checkout" process for a free trial:

_gaq.push(['setCustomVar', 1,'Free Trial Started', 'YYYYMMDD', 1]);

The advanced segment that works with this code identifies the visitor-level variable associated with the user on subsequent visits for as long as their cookie persists. This allows you to see how they behave differently from visitors who haven't started the trial.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Cohort

How to Use this Segment: Apply to any conversion-oriented report to look at differences in conversion rates, conversion paths and different content consumed along the way for people on the free trial versus people who haven't yet tried your product or service.

Segment Contributed By: Mike Pantoliano is an SEO Consultant at Distilled and an advanced web analytics speaker and blogger.

14. Conversion Rates: Business Hours vs. Off Hours

Does the conversion rate on your website change when you close the doors to your brick-and-mortar building? This segment – which is similar to day-parting reports from AdWords – compares traffic received during and after business hours.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Hours

How to Use this Segment: Adjust this segment series to align with your business hours. It defaults from 8 a.m. – 9 p.m. (ET) but you can adjust it to align with your own hours of operation and then apply conversion data reports to investigate differences in website performance both before and after hours.

Segment Contributed by: Michael Freeman is the Senior Manager of Search at ShoreTel.

15. Detecting Content Piracy

Is someone stealing content on your website? The content piracy segment allows you to see what traffic has been generated against your Google Analytics profile by any other hostnames that aren't yours.

Link to Segment: http://bit.ly/GASS-Piracy

How to Use this Segment: Apply this segment to reports in the Audience section of Google Analytics to inspect the areas and technical characteristics of fake sites created to copy your brand's assets without your permission or benefit.

Segment Contributed by: Pamela Nelson is the Senior Director of Analytics & Reporting for Prime Visibility.

16. Add Your Segment HereBecome an Analytics Expert at SES Toronto 2013:Intro to AnalyticsAnalytics Attack: Tracking Campaign PerformancesSee the full agenda.

The last Google Analytics secret segment is where you come in. If you've made it this far, then you're very likely to have a Google Analytics advanced segment of your own that you've been keeping to yourself. Consider adding a link to your secret segment – along with instructions on how to use it – in the comments to help others find those nuggets of gold buried deep within their own mountain of web analytics data.