Foursquare Splits App in Two, Separates Local Search From Check-ins

For the past year, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley has tried to explain that the app he launched in 2009 has changed. Many users still just view Foursquare as a check-in app, which Crowley believes is holding the company back. Users everywhere are asking themselves, is it really over?

Foursquare is Taking Some Time to Work on Itself

Before you grab your box of tissues to morn yet another tech breakup, there is hope. The Verge revealed that Foursquare will be redesigning its core app from the ground up. Foursquare plans to eliminate check-in functionality, and instead focus on further developing local discovery and exploration functionality.

Foursquare recently signed a deal that exports data from their app into Bing search in exchange for a $15 million investment.

What does this mean for end users? In addition to increased local search functionality, there is an increased opportunity for personalized coupons or instant notifications of sales or specials that pop up when you're in the vicinity of the storefront.

Foursquare's Blog shares their reasoning for the new approach:

"We believe local search should be personalized to your tastes and informed by the people you trust. The opinions of actual experts should matter, not just strangers An app should be able to answer questions like ‘give me a great date dinner spot'."

Swarm Helps You Cozy Up with Friends

Don't worry, check-ins aren't going away entirely. Foursquare will be transitioning their check-in functionality to their new application Swarm. The goal for building Swarm was to create a more social app that allows you to interact with friends just as you would by sending a text or an instant message.

Think of it as a heat map of your friend's activity. You will be able to access their approximate location to make plans on the fly, or broadcast to nearby friends what you're interested in doing in the near future.

If you'd like to be notified when Swarm becomes available visit: https://www.swarmapp.com/.

Which Side Should You Choose?

Like it or not, sometimes you have to choose sides during a break up. To put it simply, the new Foursquare will be for those people who are always looking for the best brunch spot, coffee shop, or local retailer and want to share it with others. The functionality will be similar to sites like Yelp or UrbanSpoon.

Swarm, on the other hand, will function more as a social media platform to connect users with their friends that are in the area.

Here's the good news, you don't have to pick sides. The two different apps serve as a great complement to each other. Utilize Swarm to find your friends in the area for an impromptu happy hour, and then find a place nearby using Foursquare.

What's the Buzz?

It's your turn to share. Do you agree with Foursquare's decision to split their application in two? Do you think the choice to split the app in two will help them appeal to a variety of different types of users, or lose users that have viewed Foursquare as their favorite check-in app of choice for years?

Image Credit: The Verge

Google Provides More Clarity Around Sneaky Redirects Against Their Guidelines

Google announced on their Webmaster blog that they have updated two of their guideline documents to improve the clarity around what sneaky redirects are against Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Google has expanded their guidelines to ensure webmasters are aware that using sneaky redirects through mobile site detection and redirection, is not allowed if the content is not the same. An excerpt from Google’s revised guidelines indicate a situation where “desktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain,” as not in accordance with Google’s guidelines.

Here are the two new examples Google placed in their sneaky redirects guideline page:

Search engines shown one type of content while users are redirected to something significantly differentDesktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain

Google also updated the hacked sites page with an content about redirects that reads:

“Hackers might inject malicious code to your website that redirects some users to harmful or spammy pages. The kind of redirect sometimes depends on referrer, user-agent, or device. For example, clicking a URL in Google search results could redirect you to a suspicious page, but there is no redirect when you visit the same URL directly from a browser.”

Google added a warning at the end of their blog post saying that “with any violation of our quality guidelines, we may take manual action, including removal from our index, in order to maintain the quality of the search results.”

Search Engine Strategies Coming to Atlanta in July, Registration Now Open

The original search marketing conference is back!

On July 9, Search Engine Strategies will relaunch in Atlanta.

The one-day conference will cover all the critical aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search advertising (PPC).

Want to enhance your marketing skillset and make your clients (or yourself) more money? At SES Atlanta, you'll learn valuable strategies and tactics from the top practitioners and brands that you can start implementing the very next day.

Registration is now open. You can get your all access pass for $695 if you register before June 6. After that, the price increases to $995. SES Atlanta will take place at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel Atlanta - Buckhead.

What You'll Learn at SES Atlanta

On the SEO track, SES Atlanta will cover topics such as:

How to diagnose and fix SEO issues that could cost you traffic and money.How to manage link building and content marketing without getting hit by Google Panda, Penguin, or penalties. Hummingbird and semantic search. Mobile SEO and app store optimization. How to determine SEO ROI in a "(not provided)" world.

On the PPC track, SES Atlanta will cover topics such as:

How to create, manage, and optimize PPC campaigns. Tools to enhance productivity and profitability. How to leverage paid social to augment paid search efforts. How to effectively use retargeting. Paid search analytics and attribution.

You can see the full agenda and session details here.

Networking Opportunities

Additionally, you will have the opportunity to get face time with SES speakers. A series of themed "Champagne Roundtables" will give you the opportunity to ask questions, network, and listen to conversations on topics including paid social, paid search, SEO tools and technology, web analytics, local search, video SEO, and more – and you can go to as many tables as you want during this hour.

The event will then wrap up with a cocktail reception, which is yet another great opportunity to get to know the speakers and fellow attendees. You may just make a connection at SES Atlanta that could change your life.

Search Engine Strategies: The Original Search Marketing Event

This is a rebirth of Search Engine Strategies, the original search marketing conference. The first Search Engine Strategies took place in November 1999.

In recent years, Search Engine Strategies expanded its agenda beyond search to cover more aspects of digital marketing and rebranded as the SES Conference & Expo. And the SES Conference & Expo series has since rebranded to ClickZ Live, with the first event taking place in New York in April.

To be clear: ClickZ Live isn't going away. ClickZ Live events will continue to be geared toward covering the entire scope of digital marketing, with upcoming events in Toronto in a couple of weeks, San Francisco in August, and Chicago in November.

"SES Conference & Expo" is the only brand that is gone. For months, we have been planning to revive Search Engine Strategies to be entirely search-focused, as detailed throughout this post. We recognized that as ClickZ Live embraced more of digital, there is still a need to cover search in-depth.

Going In-Depth on Search 

The idea behind the new Search Engine Strategies event in Atlanta (and coming to additional U.S. cities soon, including Denver on October 16) is really a return to its roots, with the emphasis on organic and paid search. It is brought to you and programmed by Search Engine Watch and our parent company Incisive Media, in association with SEMPO.

Search is a huge driver of business (search accounted for 43 percent of all Internet ad revenues in 2013, $18.4 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau) but is extremely complex, so attending a Search Engine Strategies event is a great way to stay up to date, stay competitive, and stay visible in the search engines.

The mission of SES remains the same as it did from the start: to help you master the basics of being found on search engines, and then expand to advanced tips and tools to take your results and career to the next level.

SES Atlanta will give you an in-depth education where you'll have the opportunity to learn from, and network with, the industry's top practitioners and innovators, as well as other attendees.

Register now to take advantage of the early bird rate.

Hope to see you there!

Google Search Lets You Filter Restaurants By What’s Open Now, Price & More

Google announced you can now filter your restaurant searches by price, ratings, cuisine, and if it�s open right now.

All you need to do is go to Google on your desktop or mobile device and search for [show me some restaurants in downtown Austin] or related searches, and Google will give you the ability to filter down the results by those characteristics.

Here is a screen shot:

If you are on your mobile device, and you found a place you want to eat at, all you need to do is say “OK Google, call…” and it will call the restaurant.

This feature currently only works in the United States but Google hopes to expand it to other countries.

Google Search Lets You Filter Restaurants By What’s Open Now, Price & More

Google announced you can now filter your restaurant searches by price, ratings, cuisine, and if it�s open right now.

All you need to do is go to Google on your desktop or mobile device and search for [show me some restaurants in downtown Austin] or related searches, and Google will give you the ability to filter down the results by those characteristics.

Here is a screen shot:

If you are on your mobile device, and you found a place you want to eat at, all you need to do is say “OK Google, call…” and it will call the restaurant.

This feature currently only works in the United States but Google hopes to expand it to other countries.

Google Warns Against Sneaky Redirects in Updated Guidelines

Google is warning webmasters about the perils of utilizing redirects that Google views as manipulative with the intent of deceiving searchers. This type of redirect is also well-known as cloaking, although the term "sneaky redirect" is a better description, especially for newer webmasters who might not know the cloaking terminology.

Along with the warning, Google has updated their webmaster quality guidelines to also include specifics on the types of redirects that they consider sneaky and manipulative.

However, some redirects deceive search engines or display content to human users that is different than that made available to crawlers. It's a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines to redirect a user to a different page with the intent to display content other than what was made available to the search engine crawler. When a redirect is implemented in this way, a search engine might index the original page rather than follow the redirect, while users are taken to the redirect target. Like cloaking, this practice is deceptive because it attempts to display different content to users and to Googlebot, and can take a visitor somewhere other than where they expected to go.

It's been a common trick for spammers, especially in years gone by, to serve up one version of the page for Googlebot and another version of the page to users, whether they are providing better content to Googlebot, or serving a page that is completely different – right down to a completely different topic – to users.

While Google has been able to catch bait-and-switch redirects for quite some time, it appears they are also cracking down on webmasters who are serving different pages based on things like one page to desktop users and another completely different one to mobile users.

Some examples of sneaky redirects include:Search engines shown one type of content while users are redirected to something significantly different.Desktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain.

Google is also warning about hacked sites that might redirect users to other pages or sites, specifically citing examples where the user coming from a Google search gets redirected while someone to goes to the site directly, such as through a bookmark or by typing the address into the address bar, goes to the proper site or page. Or hackers base it upon things like particular user agent, referral, or device.

Google pointed out that there are reasons use redirects that are completely legitimate. This includes things like redirecting from one URL to another in the case of a website moving to a different domain. They also have a using Javascript to redirect, such as redirecting the user when they log into a website, is perfectly fine – but again as long as it isn't manipulating the end user.

Recce’s Cool Animated 3D Maps Now Available Via SDK

I’m a big fan of independent mapping platform Recce. The company has created a unique, animated UI that’s very different from those offered by Apple, Google, Bing, Nokia/Here and Mapquest.

That UI and all the company’s data are available to third party developers through an SDK. The SDK is available for both iOS and Android and offers:

Streams data in on demandCaching of data on the deviceThe same immersive maps as in the Recce app

The company is calling its SDK and third party tools the “eeGeo Map Platform.” They were recently used to build maps in Japan by NTT DOCOMO. They were also previously used in Australia by local search provider Sensis.

The Japan and Australia implementations were special projects. The developer SDK right now supports full coverage in the US, Canada and UK. I’m sure other countries will be added in the near term.

Given the entrenchment of the big mapping providers, this platform strategy is where the future lies for the company — assuming it’s not acquired in the near term.

Game developers is another audience that might be very interested in the platform. The UI is very well suited to 3D map-based gaming and other, similar scenarios. The video below provides a good sense of the user experience.

Recce’s Cool Animated 3D Maps Now Available Via SDK

I’m a big fan of independent mapping platform Recce. The company has created a unique, animated UI that’s very different from those offered by Apple, Google, Bing, Nokia/Here and Mapquest.

That UI and all the company’s data are available to third party developers through an SDK. The SDK is available for both iOS and Android and offers:

Streams data in on demandCaching of data on the deviceThe same immersive maps as in the Recce app

The company is calling its SDK and third party tools the “eeGeo Map Platform.” They were recently used to build maps in Japan by NTT DOCOMO. They were also previously used in Australia by local search provider Sensis.

The Japan and Australia implementations were special projects. The developer SDK right now supports full coverage in the US, Canada and UK. I’m sure other countries will be added in the near term.

Given the entrenchment of the big mapping providers, this platform strategy is where the future lies for the company — assuming it’s not acquired in the near term.

Game developers is another audience that might be very interested in the platform. The UI is very well suited to 3D map-based gaming and other, similar scenarios. The video below provides a good sense of the user experience.

Your SEO Competition Isn't Who You Think It Is

I had the pleasure of discussing the SEO competitive landscape as part of the 5 Spying Strategies You Can Use Today to Dominate Your Competition panel at ClickZ Live New York earlier this month.

The key takeaway: your online competition may not be who you think it is.

Here's why you should avoid making assumptions about who your competitors are, why you should view the competitive landscape in aggregate form, how you can compete with Google for clicks, and why you should discard old competitive thinking.

Avoid Stale Assumptions About Your Online Competition

Whether you work at a search agency, at an SEO platform, or as a consultant, you've probably asked new clients to provide a list of their keyword competitors. You might get back a list of competitors A, B, and C – but with some research you discover that your client's primary online competition is actually D, E, and F.

This phenomenon spans both B2C and B2B companies and occurs either because there are assumptions about competitors that carry over from a brick-and-mortar world to the digital world, or because it is the first time marketers are looking at the competitive landscape in aggregate form.

Evaluating on a keyword-by-keyword basis hides the fact that competitors are pulling away from the rest in the overall space.

Here's the problem with not knowing who your online competition really is: Any subsequent competitive analysis – competitive backlink opportunities, keyword discovery, and even content strategy – will be misguided because you will be looking at the wrong competitors. The solution is to be thorough about discovering who your online competition really is before diving into the tactics.

Online Competition Can Vary by Product or Business Line

Viewing the competitive landscape in aggregate form allows for the discovery of true online competition. Segmenting keywords by business or product line allows for even greater granularity and insight.

Take a large retailer that carries multiple product lines. By segmenting keywords into "furniture" and "apparel" segments, the retailer can clearly see that their competition differs significantly and can adjust strategy based on that knowledge.

It's You vs. Google in the Currency of Clicks

Competition in search is different from the competitive landscape we've previously encountered.

In the traditional brick-and-mortar world the customer either bought from my store or they bought from the competitors. In search, the currency is the click, and if they aren't clicking on our link they could be clicking on any other link on the page, whether or not we think about them as direct competitors.

We've got to be thinking about competitors as anything on the page that could capture customer clicks and attention. Increasingly that means we're competing with Google. Whether it's news, images, video or Knowledge Graph results, we shouldn't neglect opportunities to capture real estate on our SERPs.

That doesn't mean we can create sophisticated videos for every one of our keywords to ensure Google surfaces video snippets for every relevant search, but it means we want to be plugged in enough to our competitive landscape to know when there is opportunity to optimize a digital asset for some strategic keywords.

This is true even if we are in a top ranking position for the keyword – the more real estate on a SERP we can capture, the better – particularly when it comes to rich media.

Discard the Old Competitive Thinking

With more than 3 billion online searches occurring every day, there has never been greater opportunity for search marketers. But along with that opportunity comes competition; the competitive landscape has also never been more crowded, with many jostling for their share of the online pie.

We have to discard "old thinking" when it comes to the online competition. Old thinking that includes outdated assumptions about who our competitors are, how deeply we examine them, and the actions we take to capture our fair share of the search click.

Fact is, if you aren't thinking outside of the box when you're looking at your online competition, you're likely to find out that you're no part of the competition at all.

12 Critical Metrics to Help You Build a Data-Informed Content Strategy

There was a saying in print that "no one knows their audience better than the editor."

It's the premise behind the creation of the now legendary "Fleet Street" stereotypes, type A personalities that were fueled by drink and cigarettes and had almost unbreakable work ethics. They were also never wrong!

That belief permeates journalism even to this day and for good reason. Collecting the data to paint the true picture of the reader traditionally hasn't been easy. And changing the way seasoned writing professionals look at that isn't easy.

The good news? Change is coming.

We now share more data than we ever have in history. To put that into perspective, consider that in the past two years alone we have "created" 90 percent of all of the data in the world.

And for marketers that's gold dust.

The ability to accurately map the other interests, loves, and hates of your audience, how old they are, and what they are doing is rocket fuel for your content strategy (and wider marketing plans).

There are a myriad of ways that data can be utilized but for this post I want to concentrate specifically on how you can use the best bits to inform you content strategy.

Data-informed content.

So, how do you go about it? Below we walk through some of the best data slices around to make the job of sorting the "wheat from the chaff."

Social Data

Such is the growth, and value, of social data that it should now be first port of call when it comes to content insight.

The reason is its "richness." While search data is great for quantitative information, we all share our likes, hates, and loves on social platforms. It's precisely that information we want to tap into with the content we produce.

If you can push someone's buttons by covering the topics they care about you massively increase the propensity to share, engage with, and link to and therefore improve both organic search and social visibility.

So what metrics should you look at and how can they help?

1. Engagement

A critical metric that should always be included within any social strategy measurement piece, engagement gives us a real view on what works and what doesn't.

Below you can see an example of how it can be captured by monitoring every post you publish on any social platform and you simply then look for spikes and troughs. Do more of the things that create engagement spikes and less of those that dip below you average.

You can make the data even more powerful by then tracking your key competitors on the same chart, giving you extra relevant data to play with. After all, the best ideas are stolen!

2. Time of Publication

Working out the best times of day to publish key content is also critical as it ensures your content flow is as close to perfect as possible. To do this you need to keep track of how posts and tweets are interacted with at different times of the day.

Tools like SocialBro, Followerwonk, and Tweriod can really help by analyzing your followers and telling you when your audience is around during the day and when they are highly engaged on social media, both with your content and with others.

Below you can see an example output from Socialbro showing when your followers are reading your tweets:

Knowing this ensures that you only publish your best content, and share reminders, at the most effective times of the day.

You can then look at days of the week and as this is a little easier I find it best to track this manually within excel. Below is an example of the output and you can see how easy it is to spot the right time to share:

3. Engagement by Post Type

Understanding the 'types' of content that your audience like and engages with will also really help you to shape your content plan.

To do this you can again employ the help of existing social tools such as Social Bakers analytics. You can also track it yourself by simply using excel to track reach or engagement by post type and then visualizing the result. Here's one I made earlier for reference:

There is no arguing against this kind of data when it comes to pulling together your final strategy and deciding on the best content to create.

4. Competitor Activity

Although we have covered this to a degree by looking at engagement earlier it is also worth adding in an extra element.

One of the best ways of finding the most shareable, engaging content is to crawl competitor domains for the most tweeted, or Liked posts.

The easy way to do this is to use a tool such as Social Crawlytics or SharedCount. The two tools allow you to run reports on requested domains to pull out the most shared URLs. You can also combine this work with use of CognitiveSEO's social visibility report, which correlates social sharing with links earned as well to build an even more in depth picture.

5. Social Listening

The social graph is generally full of great content clues and you can find out a lot about what your community is talking about by monitoring the conversation.

Again, tools help here. Social mention is a favorite and SocialBro reports give you key information around most shared/tweeted terms and phrases, ensuring you don't miss a beat.

Facebook's new Trending column can also be really helpful here and has the potential to be an extremely potent weapon for those looking to react to trending content should they begin to roll out more data and search functionality within it:

Monitoring social can also mean keeping abreast of web mentions as this can help you understand conversations outside of your owned media sphere.

A tool such as Moz's Fresh Web Explorer or Ahrefs will allow you to track and record any non linking mentions within blogs and news articles and so on. This can then overlay across your engagement and sharing data to give you a full picture of just what content is sparking the most conversation.

Search Graph Data

While search data is not as rich that is not to say it isn't useful. Far from it. There are a number of data pots you can dip into to really help shape your strategy.

6. Links

The measurement of most linked to posts can be a really telling way of discovering much loved content.

Below I have captured the Top Pages report from Ahrefs and you can see how easy it is to spot the key content. By looking specifically at the /blog/ section of the site we get a really clean view of the most linked to posts. You can also download this data as a csv to analyze it in more depth if you have lots of pages.

7. Keywords & Visitor Flow

Although technically this should sit under Analytics, often extracting the data can be tedious and long winded. I have separated this out, as the two metrics are perhaps the most useful from a search perspective.

Understanding where people come from when interacting with your content and then where they go afterwards can really help you understand the mindset of your audience and where you fit into their journey.

A great tool to help make this easy is this on by Similar Web, which manages to present this data in a really user-friendly way. Below you can see how visitors interact with our own agency site and where they go afterward:

It also gives you keywords, social media referral breakdowns, and really interestingly, audience interest info based on sites visited and relevance.

Other Data

Your data analysis doesn't end there. Pots of data will sit in other areas of the business and should also be utilized in pulling the strategy together. Below we look at a few, less obvious, other sources of insight.

8. Post Velocity

Good content strategy is not just about the "what" but also the "when" and "where." Monitoring the effectiveness of frequency of publication can also really help you plan out timings and volumes for your editorial plan.

You can monitor this easily enough via social, or also from within Analytics. To do it you can use the Real Time dashboard when you post any specific piece to capture 'as-it-happens' data on every new piece of content published. The real value comes though when you run week-long tests with the following structure:

Week one: 1 postWeek two 2 postsWeek three: 3 postsWeek four: 4 postsWeek five: 5 posts

On week six you can then analyze the visit data to those posts for the week to see if the extra effort involved in creating extra content translate to more traffic or if it simply dilutes. Often you will discover that the law of marginal returns exists and there is a "sweet spot" that you should stick to.

It may also be interesting to record subject matters and content types within this as an argument can be built off this data to produce more on specific subjects and invest in "bigger," more resource intensive content to better service that need.

9. Author

You can also think about who should be creating what content. One way to do that is to create a custom report that enables you to understand the engagement each of your content creators has over time.

There are a few ways of doing this but one of the best is to utilize Google Tag Manager and a little custom code, which you can copy and paste from here.

This will give you a Custom Dimensions based report that will give you everything from how many visits every piece of content written by a certain author has had through to conversions and more.

Google has it's own example walk through on this page to help you as the implementation is not a "click-and-walk-away" situation.

10. Call Centers

If your business talks to customers on a regular basis those in call centers are at the cutting edge of that dialogue and a mine of information. You can easily collate great data on key conversation topics within a decent CRM or customer experience analytics system.

Running monthly focus groups with key call center staff can also help you collate this data.

11. Email Metrics

Email analytics will also tell you a huge amount about what content works. Testing email subject lines and then measuring open rates against topics as below will give you a real view on where your audience's interests lie in real time.

You can then dig deeper into click-through to individual content to get a more granular view on what is really "tickling their fancy."

12. Internal Search

Last, but certainly not least, is the data that your own site can give you. Examining keyword data from people using internal search can give you some great insight into the content you should create and also which content should be easier to discover.

Pulling it Together

There is a real danger with data that you can end up drowning in it. And so it is really important to stay focused and add structure to the process.

The first stage of this is to create a list of key insights to focus your thinking. That may look a little like this:

Content on social data is the most popular at present. We should create more of this.We should post on a Monday and share on Facebook at 10 a.m. and Twitter at both 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to capture more U.S. traffic.Josh should write more of our key posts.Make our Facebook updates more image led.

This is where a solid editorial calendar comes in – one that allows you to capture timings as well as dates. These are easily constructed in Excel but to make life easier you can download my ready-made version right here.

Once you have the blank document in front of you it is then a case of "playing" with content ideas until you feel as if you get the right "flow" and are confident that the variation services the need proven from your research.

If Google+ Is The Walking Dead, Should Your Brand Run?

A flurry of online media has�covered the recent news that Google+ head�Vic Gundotra is leaving Google and that about 1,000 of the team that worked on Google+ will now be assigned to different teams. Techcrunch ran the sensationalistic title�“Google+ is Walking Dead” which has received more than a little pushback from Google reps.

So, what does this shift in leadership and staff mean for the Google+ platform? What does it mean for people and companies attempting to use Google+ for marketing?

An article in the Huffington Post offers a punchline: “The Google+ profile you haven’t looked at in months isn’t going away anytime soon. The difference is that Google is going to start paying a lot less attention to it, too.”

It’s easy to be skeptical and take potshots at Google with it’s history of failed initiatives from Google Wave to Google Video to Google Buzz. But what I’ve always thought about Google+ was that it was a great way to collect�information that could be used for everything from advertising products to signals for search engine rankings. �Even if Google+ doesn’t succeed as a direct competitor to Facebook, it still wins with tracking and data.�On Google’s future, Slate says: “Google seems likely to keep up the social networking aspects of the service as a way of deflecting claims that it’s just about data-mining.”

In terms of the Google+ impact for marketers, I think it’s important to consider three things:

1. Google+ for SEO�- I don’t see Google+ as ever having been a magic bullet for SEO. Are there advantages? Since Google+ is a publishing platform with public content and links, of course there are potential SEO benefits. Authorship enhances the appearance of search results by placing the author’s avatar next to their content, which is a clear advantage over all text SERPs. �Also, public Google+ content�can achieve prominent�visibility in Google.com search results. While it carries a lot less impact, search visibility within Google+ is also a search benefit.

Even if Google+ content, links and engagement do not directly affect the search visibility of content on Google.com (of course it does) then there are still brand search visibility benefits from participating on the Google+ platform.

2. Google+ for Social Media Marketing��-�Google might seem like a ghost town for some, but for those who have carefully cultivated connections and organized circles according to specific customer segments, then Google+ can be a very useful social media marketing tool. Sending relevant content directly to topic specific circles via email can be very effective. Plus, there’s Google Hangouts for real-time video interaction and cross-posting to YouTube and Google Communities. Images and tagging is another way to create social interactions or touchpoints on Google+. �Although, my experience with Google images, especially on mobile, has been pretty disappointing.

3. Google+ for Content Marketing�- Google+ provides ample space to write long form posts, near blogging length, that can support an off-site content marketing approach.�Google+ is also a very useful source to surface new content ideas, curate content and cross-post content. From an integration standpoint, Google+ is an effective content amplification channel too. But if all you do is amplify, then no one will listen.

Here’s the thing: Of course it makes sense to pay attention to the longer term plans for a platform, because if it’s destined to be sunsetted, then why invest resources?�At the same time, evaluate use of any platform according to it’s current impact, future impact and your organization’s ability to deal with any substantial changes the platform will make. This is happening with the shift on Facebook, virtually killing organic brand page visibility. Companies are having to evaluate their approach to Facebook and shift to a different type of organic content and paid model than what they’ve been used to.

I would use the same criteria for evaluating Google+ right now as I would use for any social network. �Are customers and those that influence your customers active on the network? Can you create value for those audiences and engagement to support your business objectives? �If you don’t know, then experiment before you commit. If you are able to gain value from Google+ that you can see and measure, then stick with it. But be prepared to change.

If your only reason for being on Google+ as a brand is in the hopes that someday there will be some significant SEO value beyond what I’ve mentioned above, then you might just have wasted your time. Creating a�profile with�occasional re-posts from your other social networks and�formulaic plusses and comments�on keyword specific content is not a competitive SEO strategy on Google+. �Few companies will see�social media, content marketing or�SEO benefits from Google+ without an attempt to create content that attracts, engages and inspires a community to interact in turn.

Whether your brand should run from Google+��isn’t really the question to be asking as much as, “Should your brand be doing a better job of evaluating and optimizing social platform performance?” Do you agree? Or maybe not? What questions do you have about Google+?

 

Man running image: Shutterstock

4 Reasons Nofollowing All Links Is Absurd

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the SEO world right now surrounding links.

Recent actions from Google have (not surprisingly) caused a bit of panic and hysteria. Out of the frenzy has come this discussion about guest blogs and whether we should apply a nofollow tag to some or all outbound links contained within them.

This isn't the first time the nofollow tag has come up. Google has also suggested using the nofollow attribute for links in press releases and infographics in the not-too-distant past.

It seems Google is recommending we nofollow a lot of links lately, and I believe it's getting ridiculous. Can nofollow links really be the future?

This notion of defaulting to nofollow on every link we build or acquire is absurd. Here are some clear reasons why nofollow is not the future.

How We Got Here

Before we get into the issues regarding the use of the nofollow tag, let's look at how we got to where we are today.

Viable link-building tactics such as press releases, infographics, and guest blogging have been taken and scaled to point where they became spammy. Because of this, Google stepped in, handed out some manual penalties, and advised nofollowing links from these marketing tactics.

Although there is a right way to do these tactics, many people now believe that all links related to these practices should be nofollowed.

Most recently, links in guest blogs have come under the microscope. While talk of nofollowing links in guest blogs emerged before Matt Cutts' infamous post, the Cutts post really brought attention to guest blogging. This was the first real shot across the bow for links in guest posts.

Next came the widely publicized (at least within the SEO industry) MyBlogGuest debacle. Google handed down manual penalties to MyBlogGuest and its members, spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) throughout the SEO community.

Shortly after this, Google gave a site-wide penalty to well-known SEO Doc Sheldon's site, which involved a link in a guest blog. These actions from Google drew a lot of industry attention and quickly escalated the discussion about nofollowing guest blog links.

Out of fear, some sites have implemented a nofollow policy on all guest blog links. Others have tried asking Cutts directly if they should be worried about links in guest blogs:

.@mattcutts Moz has guest authors on http://t.co/gJTvvU1gi9. We editorially review carefully; do we/the writers need to worry re bio links?

— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) March 27, 2014

By now it's clear that Google is targeting links in spammy or low-quality guest blogs and if you have these types of links you should absolutely nofollow them (or better yet just don't have these links). But moving forward, should we expect to change all links in a marketing campaign to nofollow?

My simple answer: no.

Here are four reasons why.

1. Widespread Adoption Isn't Feasible

First off, nofollowing even guest blogging links can't be the future because widespread adoption isn't feasible.

We can be a bit jaded and tend to forget that we aren't the majority of the Internet population.

Many webmasters don't know the difference between a dofollow link and a nofollow link or that this distinction even exists. Needless to say, these people do not know how to properly apply a nofollow tag to their links. Even people who run big authoritative sites can struggle with technical on-site issues involved in nofollow implementation.

It's only the cutting edge SEO communities who are discussing nofollow or adding a nofollow tag to all their guest blog links.

You don't see The Huffington Post or other major publications doing this. Do we really think Google is going to give The Huffington Post a manual penalty for an editorially placed link in a guest blog? Of course not, The Huffington Post is an authoritative (and popular) site that Google wants to return in its results.

Looking just at guest blogging, we can begin to see how ridiculous it is to default to the nofollow tag on links, simply because they were built manually.

It's actually pretty ironic that it's the SEO community that is freaking out about nofollow the most.

2. Nofollow Is a Band-Aid Fix

Applying a nofollow tag to all manually built links is a Band-Aid fix – it doesn't solve the real problem.

The nofollow tag doesn't address people creating spam/low-quality stuff. Scaring a small portion of webmasters into nofollowing guest blog links won't even put a dent in the spam that's out there. Not even just the guest blogging spam.

If Google doesn't want to count certain links, they should figure that out internally. Bullying people with FUD isn't the answer. This is causing confusion amongst even those who are SEO savvy (i.e., Rand Fishkin's tweet).

In response to Cutts' declaration of guest blogging being "done," Danny Sullivan, founding editor of Search Engine Land, left a great comment that explains why Google's approach isn't a viable fix.

I fully endorse Google's war on spam and I certainly agree with Matt Cutts that there is some definite spamming going on within guest blogging. However, I don't think scaring people into nofollowing links they actually trust is an effective solution.

3. Nofollow Was Intended for Untrusted Sites and Content

The nofollow tag wasn't created to be used on every link within a guest blog.

Nofollow was born in 2005 and meant to be used when linking to a site/page that has content you don't trust. For example, if you were writing a story about an unsavory link network that Google had recently penalized and you wanted to provide a link to said network – you would nofollow that link.

This is why nofollow was created – to tell Google not to follow that link and not connect your site to theirs.

The way many within the SEO realm are using (or discussing using) the nofollow tag on guest blogging links is not how it was intended to be used. The sites considering doing this are sites that hold high editorial standards and are very judicious about where they link. Due to the scare tactics from Google, sites are nofollowing links that point to sites they trust, simply because those links are located in a guest blog.

This is literally the exact opposite of how Google's own Webmaster Tools page says to use the nofollow attribute.

Not only is this not how the nofollow tag was meant to be used, but it also goes against Google's own advice to treat users and crawlers the same. Unlike the 'link network' example I used earlier where we would be telling the users we don't trust that site within the content – by nofollowing editorially placed links in guest blogs we're telling users that we trust the site, but telling crawlers (Google) we don't.

4. These Links Are Real Signals of Trust and Authority

Finally, if all guest blogging links were nofollowed it would devalue some of the links that Google should want to count.

Google is always searching for signals of authority and high-level guest blogging can provide those signals.

For example, if an authoritative site is willing to publish a post from a guest author, they should include a citation link in that author's bio. This link is a vote of confidence for that author's site that indicates authority to Google. If that same link is nofollowed, Google does not receive the indication that the author is authoritative.

Also, the author needs that link to show who they are and why they are credible. This gives the reader the opportunity to visit the author's site and make their own assessment on the author's credibility.

If we begin to commonly tell Google we don't trust a site (nofollow) that in actuality we do trust (and this becomes the norm) how will Google sort this out? This could potentially cause some serious confusion for Google regarding a singular site.

For example, take a new site by an authority figure that predominantly uses guest blogging in their marketing. Even if this site did everything the right way and wasn't spamming, Google would not be able to attribute links in their guest blogs as votes of confidence because they would be nofollowed.

High-level guest blogging links can actually help Google determine authority online, but nofollowing those links prevents Google from retrieving this data.

Recap

There are four main reasons why I believe defaulting to the nofollow tag for all links acquired through marketing activities is not the future:

Widespread adoption isn't feasible: Many webmasters/site owners don't even know nofollow exists and are sketchy about proper implementation. Also, big name sites wouldn't want to change over to nofollow and it would take a penalty to strong-arm them, which would cause major outcry on the Web.Nofollow is a Band-Aid fix: Scaring people into using nofollow doesn't solve the real problem of spam in guest blogging, if Google doesn't want to count certain links they need to figure that out internally or at least increase education surrounding what they don't want to count.Not the intended use for nofollow: The nofollow attribute was created to link to sites/pages with content you don't trust (mainly for blog comment spam), not treat users and crawlers differently by telling users you trust the site but telling crawlers you don't.These links are real signals of trust and authority: Links from high-level guest blogging on authoritative sites are actually useful to Google's algorithm.

Google is targeting spam related to guest blogging. Recent penalties handed down by Google in an orchestrated FUD campaign have folks in the SEO industry in a frenzy about nofollowing links in guest blogs and even manually placed links in general. However, for the reasons listed above, I don't believe we can continue on our current trend of making the nofollow link the future.

Pinterest Unveils Guided Search for Mobile Devices

Pinterest’s new guided search feature is a different way for people to discover the things they’re looking for on Pinterest, and perhaps, discover things they weren’t looking for, either.

Available on mobile for iPad, iPhone, and Android, guided search offers "descriptive guides" comprised of categories of places and things that are delivered as a person searches using a particular keyword phrase. Users can explore those guides as a way to refine their intent.

"Now when you search for something (road trips, running, summer BBQ), descriptive guides will help you sift through all the good ideas from other Pinners. Scroll through the guides and tap any that look interesting to steer your search in the right direction," Pinterest said in its announcement. 

Here’s how to use it (via Pinterest’s help files): 

Tap the search icon.Type in something you’re looking for in the search field.Tap any of the guides to help refine your search.Type in any extra search terms to get even more specific.

"Guided search is focused on discovery rather than finding," Naveen Gavini from Pinterest was quoted as saying in a TechCrunch report. "The serendipitous experience of finding things you didn’t know you were looking for is what makes it so special."

TechCrunch further explained the guided search process:

When users start a search, they can choose between pins, boards, and pinners. After they enter their initial search, Pinterest will show a slideable row of additional terms that can be tapped to refine a search. For example, a search of "Plants" will reveal suggestions like "for shade," "potted," and "keep mosquitos away." Even a relatively specific query like "hairstyles for medium length hair" will offer ways to go deeper still, such as "bangs."

Here’s a video of the search feature in action:

The comments on Pinterest’s blog announcement are mixed, but those with a marketer mindset are seeing the potential:

"We’re rolling this out on mobile in English to start," Pinterest said, "and then on Web and everywhere else around the world soon."

Pinterest also announced a couple of new milestones last week, as reported by TechCrunch: 30 billion user pins and 750 million boards created since launching.

4 Reasons Nofollowing All Links Is Absurd

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the SEO world right now surrounding links.

Recent actions from Google have (not surprisingly) caused a bit of panic and hysteria. Out of the frenzy has come this discussion about guest blogs and whether we should apply a nofollow tag to some or all outbound links contained within them.

This isn't the first time the nofollow tag has come up. Google has also suggested using the nofollow attribute for links in press releases and infographics in the not-too-distant past.

It seems Google is recommending we nofollow a lot of links lately, and I believe it's getting ridiculous. Can nofollow links really be the future?

This notion of defaulting to nofollow on every link we build or acquire is absurd. Here are some clear reasons why nofollow is not the future.

How We Got Here

Before we get into the issues regarding the use of the nofollow tag, let's look at how we got to where we are today.

Viable link-building tactics such as press releases, infographics, and guest blogging have been taken and scaled to point where they became spammy. Because of this, Google stepped in, handed out some manual penalties, and advised nofollowing links from these marketing tactics.

Although there is a right way to do these tactics, many people now believe that all links related to these practices should be nofollowed.

Most recently, links in guest blogs have come under the microscope. While talk of nofollowing links in guest blogs emerged before Matt Cutts' infamous post, the Cutts post really brought attention to guest blogging. This was the first real shot across the bow for links in guest posts.

Next came the widely publicized (at least within the SEO industry) MyBlogGuest debacle. Google handed down manual penalties to MyBlogGuest and its members, spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) throughout the SEO community.

Shortly after this, Google gave a site-wide penalty to well-known SEO Doc Sheldon's site, which involved a link in a guest blog. These actions from Google drew a lot of industry attention and quickly escalated the discussion about nofollowing guest blog links.

Out of fear, some sites have implemented a nofollow policy on all guest blog links. Others have tried asking Cutts directly if they should be worried about links in guest blogs:

.@mattcutts Moz has guest authors on http://t.co/gJTvvU1gi9. We editorially review carefully; do we/the writers need to worry re bio links?

— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) March 27, 2014

By now it's clear that Google is targeting links in spammy or low-quality guest blogs and if you have these types of links you should absolutely nofollow them (or better yet just don't have these links). But moving forward, should we expect to change all links in a marketing campaign to nofollow?

My simple answer: no.

Here are four reasons why.

1. Widespread Adoption Isn't Feasible

First off, nofollowing even guest blogging links can't be the future because widespread adoption isn't feasible.

We can be a bit jaded and tend to forget that we aren't the majority of the Internet population.

Many webmasters don't know the difference between a dofollow link and a nofollow link or that this distinction even exists. Needless to say, these people do not know how to properly apply a nofollow tag to their links. Even people who run big authoritative sites can struggle with technical on-site issues involved in nofollow implementation.

It's only the cutting edge SEO communities who are discussing nofollow or adding a nofollow tag to all their guest blog links.

You don't see The Huffington Post or other major publications doing this. Do we really think Google is going to give The Huffington Post a manual penalty for an editorially placed link in a guest blog? Of course not, The Huffington Post is an authoritative (and popular) site that Google wants to return in its results.

Looking just at guest blogging, we can begin to see how ridiculous it is to default to the nofollow tag on links, simply because they were built manually.

It's actually pretty ironic that it's the SEO community that is freaking out about nofollow the most.

2. Nofollow Is a Band-Aid Fix

Applying a nofollow tag to all manually built links is a Band-Aid fix – it doesn't solve the real problem.

The nofollow tag doesn't address people creating spam/low-quality stuff. Scaring a small portion of webmasters into nofollowing guest blog links won't even put a dent in the spam that's out there. Not even just the guest blogging spam.

If Google doesn't want to count certain links, they should figure that out internally. Bullying people with FUD isn't the answer. This is causing confusion amongst even those who are SEO savvy (i.e., Rand Fishkin's tweet).

In response to Cutts' declaration of guest blogging being "done," Danny Sullivan, founding editor of Search Engine Land, left a great comment that explains why Google's approach isn't a viable fix.

I fully endorse Google's war on spam and I certainly agree with Matt Cutts that there is some definite spamming going on within guest blogging. However, I don't think scaring people into nofollowing links they actually trust is an effective solution.

3. Nofollow Was Intended for Untrusted Sites and Content

The nofollow tag wasn't created to be used on every link within a guest blog.

Nofollow was born in 2005 and meant to be used when linking to a site/page that has content you don't trust. For example, if you were writing a story about an unsavory link network that Google had recently penalized and you wanted to provide a link to said network – you would nofollow that link.

This is why nofollow was created – to tell Google not to follow that link and not connect your site to theirs.

The way many within the SEO realm are using (or discussing using) the nofollow tag on guest blogging links is not how it was intended to be used. The sites considering doing this are sites that hold high editorial standards and are very judicious about where they link. Due to the scare tactics from Google, sites are nofollowing links that point to sites they trust, simply because those links are located in a guest blog.

This is literally the exact opposite of how Google's own Webmaster Tools page says to use the nofollow attribute.

Not only is this not how the nofollow tag was meant to be used, but it also goes against Google's own advice to treat users and crawlers the same. Unlike the 'link network' example I used earlier where we would be telling the users we don't trust that site within the content – by nofollowing editorially placed links in guest blogs we're telling users that we trust the site, but telling crawlers (Google) we don't.

4. These Links Are Real Signals of Trust and Authority

Finally, if all guest blogging links were nofollowed it would devalue some of the links that Google should want to count.

Google is always searching for signals of authority and high-level guest blogging can provide those signals.

For example, if an authoritative site is willing to publish a post from a guest author, they should include a citation link in that author's bio. This link is a vote of confidence for that author's site that indicates authority to Google. If that same link is nofollowed, Google does not receive the indication that the author is authoritative.

Also, the author needs that link to show who they are and why they are credible. This gives the reader the opportunity to visit the author's site and make their own assessment on the author's credibility.

If we begin to commonly tell Google we don't trust a site (nofollow) that in actuality we do trust (and this becomes the norm) how will Google sort this out? This could potentially cause some serious confusion for Google regarding a singular site.

For example, take a new site by an authority figure that predominantly uses guest blogging in their marketing. Even if this site did everything the right way and wasn't spamming, Google would not be able to attribute links in their guest blogs as votes of confidence because they would be nofollowed.

High-level guest blogging links can actually help Google determine authority online, but nofollowing those links prevents Google from retrieving this data.

Recap

There are four main reasons why I believe defaulting to the nofollow tag for all links acquired through marketing activities is not the future:

Widespread adoption isn't feasible: Many webmasters/site owners don't even know nofollow exists and are sketchy about proper implementation. Also, big name sites wouldn't want to change over to nofollow and it would take a penalty to strong-arm them, which would cause major outcry on the Web.Nofollow is a Band-Aid fix: Scaring people into using nofollow doesn't solve the real problem of spam in guest blogging, if Google doesn't want to count certain links they need to figure that out internally or at least increase education surrounding what they don't want to count.Not the intended use for nofollow: The nofollow attribute was created to link to sites/pages with content you don't trust (mainly for blog comment spam), not treat users and crawlers differently by telling users you trust the site but telling crawlers you don't.These links are real signals of trust and authority: Links from high-level guest blogging on authoritative sites are actually useful to Google's algorithm.

Google is targeting spam related to guest blogging. Recent penalties handed down by Google in an orchestrated FUD campaign have folks in the SEO industry in a frenzy about nofollowing links in guest blogs and even manually placed links in general. However, for the reasons listed above, I don't believe we can continue on our current trend of making the nofollow link the future.

Baidu Beats Expectations, Posts 59 Pct Revenue Growth In Q1 2014

Chinese search engine leader and advertising provider, Baidu, released financials for the first quarter of the year reporting total revenues of $1.53 billion USD at $1.24 earnings per share. That’s a 59.1 percent increase in revenue from the previous year.and beats street expectations on both fronts. Analysts had expected the company to report $1.5 billion in revenue at $1.03 earnings per share.

Online marketing revenues were $1.51 billion, a year-over-year increase of 57.5 percent. Baidu claims to have had� roughly 446,000 active online marketing customers during the quarter, an 8.8 percent increase from the previous year, but a 1.1 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2013.

Revenue per online marketing customer was approximately $3,362, which is 44.1 percent higher than Q1 2013 and flat compared to Q4 2013.

Baidu says it is benefiting from being a “cross-platform service” able to meet the needs of mobile users and the rapid mobile adoption by advertisers.�Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu said in the statement, “Our focus remained on growing our market-leading offerings in search and app distribution, and we continued to broaden our platform in newer areas like location-based services.”

Li added, “As the Internet disrupts more and more traditional industries, and mobile’s importance continues to grow, Baidu is uniquely positioned with our competitive advantage as a leading cross-platform information gateway with world class technology. We’re confident our focused approach to investment will continue to drive sustainable growth in the quarters ahead.”

The company said it expects growth to continue. For the second quarter of 2014, Baidu expects revenues to range between $1.90 and $1.95 billion, which would represent a 56.3 percent to 60 percent increase over the previous year.