Online Marketing News – Instagram is 120x Better Than Twitter, Foursquare Removes Check-ins, YouTube Gives You 3-Seconds

Vine Website Relaunches With New Features, Search, Better Discovery -�Vine, the short video mobile sharing app that was acquired by Twitter in 2012, has debuted a new look for their website, with new features and a greater emphasis on discovery. AllTwitter

1/2 Older Mobile Users Now Own Smartphones - Just over half (51%) of mobile phone owners over the age of 55 now have smartphones, up 10% from 1Q13, according to a recent report from Nielsen. MarketingProfs

AOL, Google, Facebook, Twitter Launch TrustInAds.org To Take On Ad Scams -�In an effort to address the plague of deceptive advertising which pocks the online ad industry, several of the biggest players are pooling their resources. Today, AOL, Facebook, Google and Twitter announced the launch of TrustInAds.org to expose and educate consumers about malicious advertising. Marketing Land

Foursquare Shuns Check-ins To Better Compete With Yelp, Google -�Foursquare is doing something surprising, even radical. It�s removing some of the legacy features (i.e., check-ins) from its app and moving them over to a new app called Swarm (available soon). Search Engine Land

Personalized Targeting Key to Winning Mobile Consumers [Study] -�Forrester Research’s recent report reveals that marketers must use a mobile-unique approach for integrated and individualized mobile ads. ClickZ

Instagram Posts Get 120x Twitter Engagement & 58x Facebook -�Recently, Forrester studied more than 3 million user interactions with more than 2,500 brand posts on seven social networks and confirmed what marketers have long suspected: People don�t engage with branded social content very often. Forrester

Twitter Releases Study Showing Exposure To Brand Tweets Drives Action Online And Offline -�Twitter released a study this week, in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation, FOX and DB5, called �Discovering the Value of Earned Audiences � How Twitter Expressions Activate Consumers.� Search Engine Journal

YouTube Now Lets Channel Owners Add 3-Second Intros To Their Videos -�YouTube has made it possible for channel owners to add a three-second intro to their videos, helping them build a stronger brand presence on Google�s video platform. Marketing Land

Facebook Launches New Video Metrics -�As more advertisers and page managers use video to get their brand�s message out, Facebook is launching new ways for admins to measure the effectiveness of their video campaigns. Inside Facebook

Yahoo Drops Support for Do Not Track -�Personalized content is good for you, apparently.�Yahoo will no longer honor Do Not Track requests from users.�The Do Not Track (DNT) standard was designed to be a way for Internet users to opt out of personalized website content and advertising in one place with a single Web browser control. ClickZ

LinkedIn Adds Language Targeting and Personalized Page Feeds -�LinkedIn has introduced language preference targeting and personalized page feeds, which it says will help global brands become more effective by providing more local content and conversations. ClickZ

From our Online Marketing Community:

On the article,Over 100 B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2014, Barbara Mckinney shared, “Content marketing is now a necessity for b2b marketers. It’s so difficult to survive and compete with others without creating content to your site. Thanks for sharing this stats Lee! Good luck to your presentation.”

What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Graphic:�Vine

How BuzzFeed Piggybacked on Mobile & Social to Quickly Build a Massive Audience

Want to succeed in mobile? Take a page out of BuzzFeed�s playbook. Facebook and other social channels offer the fastest way to build mobile audiences at scale.

One of the more compelling stories in digital media over the past year has been the continued success and momentum of BuzzFeed.

Many of us are already familiar with their addictively clickable headlines and penchant for serving up other catnip of the interwebs, but the brand is also expanding into more mainstream news coverage to provide users with their daily diet of content.

Their strategy thus far has, by all accounts, proven to be extremely successful.

In the past year, BuzzFeed has tripled its U.S. multi-platform (i.e., desktop and mobile) audience to 71.3 million visitors in March. The growth rate itself is incredibly impressive, but even more so considering that it had already achieved a level of scale with more than 20 million visitors a year ago.

A net addition of nearly 50 million visitors in one year is nearly unprecedented, and it easily ranks as the fastest-growing web property among the top 100 over the past year.

BuzzFeed's Mobile Usage Happens Primarily via Browser vs. App

One might wonder how BuzzFeed has been able to achieve such an impressive growth trajectory in such a short period of time. The short answer: it has very successfully leveraged social platforms – particularly Facebook – to help drive traffic.

Those clickable headlines and quizzes you see in your Facebook News Feed are driving a considerable amount of click-through activity to BuzzFeed, both online and through mobile.

Let's focus on mobile for a moment. While desktop traffic for BuzzFeed has roughly doubled in the past year, mobile traffic is up nearly five times!

This mobile momentum is rather dramatic, but also makes sense when factoring in Facebook's significance to the overall mobile landscape, now accounting for 20 percent of total time spent on smartphones and tablets combined.

But what's interesting about BuzzFeed's mobile consumption is that it is very different from how people typically access content on these platforms, in large part because of how people arrive at BuzzFeed.

Specifically, 58 percent of mobile time spent on BuzzFeed comes via mobile web vs. 42 percent on apps, in stark contrast to the 84 percent/16 percent app vs. mobile web split seen across the web overall.

Increasing App Usage Can Pave the Way to Even Greater Success

So BuzzFeed has largely bucked the norm in that it's built an enormous mobile audience in spite of relatively limited usage of its mobile app. But those BuzzFeed mobile app users, as it turns out, are significantly more engaged users of BuzzFeed, spending 24 times more time on average than the mobile web users.

Now, 8.3 minutes per visitor for mobile web users is significant – that's a pretty good average engagement for a content site. But the 202 minutes per visitor among mobile app users is almost otherworldly and suggests significant upside for BuzzFeed if they are able to convert a percentage of mobile web users to mobile app users.

Once users are within the walled garden of an app, they tend to view more content, more articles, and become loyal and engaged users of that media brand. That BuzzFeed has demonstrated such strength in mobile absent this sort of interaction on a large scale means there is potentially a lot more room to grow.

Other media companies looking to succeed in mobile might take a page out of BuzzFeed's playbook, and realize that Facebook and other social channels represent the fastest way to build mobile audiences at scale. Once that audience reach is achieved, additional strategies to convert this audience to loyal app users should be used to increase overall engagement and improve mobile content monetization.

4 Statistics About Pinterest Users You Need to Know [Study]

A new study reveals new Pinterest statistics on women vs. men pinning, most popular pin categories, brands getting the most repins, and top pinning times.

Since launching its Guided Search function, Pinterest is quickly evolving into a discovery platform.

In fact, it's possible that Pinterest could become a major e-commerce player and potentially challenge Google on product search, according to RJMetrics, which ran a study of 50,000 random pinners and their pins to see how people are using Pinterest.

So who exactly makes up the Pinterest audience?

1. Women Far Out-Pin Men

According to the study, women make up approximately 80 percent of pinners. Additionally, women post 92 percent of all pins on the site.

Even though Pinterest has always been largely dominated by women, activity has grown from 87 percent to 94 percent in less than three years.

2. What Do Women Find Pinteresting?

On average, female Pinterest users are posting an average of 158 pins. The top categories for pins include:

Food & DrinkDIY & CraftsHome DécorHolidays & EventsHair & BeautyWomen's FashionDesignKidsArtWeddingsTravelGardeningPhotographyFilm, Music, & BooksHealth & FitnessEducationHumorProductsAnimalsOutdoors3. Which Domains Are Dominating?

Brands utilizing Pinterest benefit from the fact that each pin can link to a specific URL. When RJMetrics weeded out the user-generated content sites like Tumblr and Blogspot, the top domains ranked by number of repins include:

Etsy.comUrbanoutfitters.comWilliams-sonoma.comWestelm.comReykjavikcornerstore.comPoketo.comBrides.comPlowhearth.comScreened.comAcademy.comAe.com

Etsy is the clear dominator of the number of repins by site. Surprisingly, only 8 percent of the total pins are coming directly from Etsy. A whopping 67 percent are pinned using the Pinterest bookmarklet.

4. Prime (Pinning) Time

There are clear seasonal trends in the types of pins that users are sharing. Holiday-themed pins begin taking an upward spike in August, gardening pins start in December, and health and fitness trends begin moving up in the early part of the year (New Year's resolutions, anyone?).

The chart below displays prime pinning times of day. Pins begin increasing throughout the day, with a final spike in the evening.

What Does the Future Hold for Pinterest?

With the addition of the Guided Search feature, Pinterest is staking its claim on the search market – though don't expect Pinterest to directly challenge Google.

BuzzFeed reported earlier this week that Jason Wilson led the charge on Pinterest's new search functionality and that it was largely built on the idea of shifting away from text-based search engines. This evolution leaves much more room for discovery than Pinterest's previous capabilities.

Based on Pinterest's $3.8 billion valuation, what do you think the future holds for the social platform?

 Learn MorePinterest Best Practice Tips for BrandsPinterest Analytics: The Ultimate Guide to Tracking Your Site’s Performance on PinterestNew Pinterest Research Shows Which Images Get the Most Engagement

How Can Good PPC Managers Become Great PPC Managers?

What are the differences between good PPC managers and great PPC managers? These are some characteristics that elevate a PPC manger from good to great.

I recently read a post by author Greg McKeown on LinkedIn about the difference between successful people and very successful people. And it got me thinking – what are the differences between good PPC managers and great PPC managers?

Good PPC managers get results, sure. They know their way around the necessary data tools and they can follow the foundations of PPC well. But great PPC managers don't stop there. They work to push their results to the next level, to provide insight, and to solve tough problems.

This post will explore some characteristics that elevate a good PPC manger to a great one.

Great PPC Managers Aren't Satisfied With "Good"

Good PPC managers will see triumphant results and stop there. Great PPC managers will always ask, "What's next?" Consider a newly adopted PPC account that was once mismanaged by another. Usually, a good PPC manager will make enough notable improvements in the first few months to show for all the hard work he or she has put in. But great PPC managers don't stop there.

Here's an example: My agency recently inherited a PPC account that was poorly managed. After placing some basic best practices, we were able to lift the client's leads by 40 percent year-over-year. When discussing the results with the client, our next question was immediately, "What can we do to take this to the next level?"

A great PPC manager begins thinking about how he or she can elevate those results, even if only by 1 percent.

To do this, further diagnose the weakest links. There are a million ways to improve PPC accounts, but one simple way is to drill down to the keyword level of the campaigns.

The keyword-level view in AdWords will give you hints on how to improve performance. You can see an example in the following screenshot:

Going back to the client example I mentioned, we conducted an analysis on each keyword's Quality Score. We then created an Excel spreadsheet that outlined all the potential factors hindering success.

If the AdWords note said, "Landing page experience: below average," we'd work with the client on improving how the landing page supported the keyword we were looking at. It's worth mentioning that the PPC manager's experience is a factor here. A great PPC manager has the background to know which bits of advice will have the most impact.

Over time, these small changes will improve the overall health of any PPC account.

Great PPC Managers Uncover Insight From Data

Good PPC managers know their way around tools like Google Analytics and Excel spreadsheets. Great PPC managers will deep dive into the data and uncover applicable action items from it.

AdWords is just one aspect of your PPC. Knowing how to use and understand analytics data can make you a top-notch PPC manager.

When it comes to insight, great PPC managers:

Can interpret the results. Yes, you're seeing a lift, but what does it mean? Get to the bottom of the results as you discover them. And, if you've got an account with thousands of keywords, you need to be able to export the data and look at it in a more manageable way. Excel spreadsheets are a great way to manipulate and dissect the data to get the answers you need. That means knowing how to maneuver things like pivot tables.Know what the best course of action is. This takes experience and an effort to not only understand the data, but also the business you're serving.Relate the information to the client in a manner they can understand. This one isn't easy. As PPC managers, we hail from a world laced with jargon – language most clients do not understand, nor do they want to try to. When communicating complicated concepts, apply the old "KISS" method – keep it simple stupid. It's our job to boil down the results in a language they "get" – and that usually means tying it back to the business.Great PPC Managers 'Figure Stuff Out'

A good PPC manager will identify a problem, and perhaps discuss it with the client and maybe any higher-ups. A great PPC manager will work to figure out the solution.

I recently had dinner with a good friend of mine, Barb Young of PPC-Strategies. We were chatting about the characteristics that great PPC professionals exude, and she said something that sums it up perfectly: "They know how to figure stuff out."

It's such a simple concept, but it's so true. Good PPC managers are like decent cooks; they can follow the directions of a recipe and provide a good meal. That was my first experience with cooking and with PPC – I knew how to follow directions. It's true that with the right training, most PPC professionals can become very good at their job.

But a great PPC manager is like a chef, mixing experience, education, and curiosity to create surprising, five-star results. Once the foundations are learned of any discipline, the rest is up to the creativity of that chef – and of the PPC manager.

This is especially true in the PPC universe with all the changes that advertising platforms like AdWords go through monthly. And as many of us know, Google isn't always straightforward about the changes and what they mean.

While the average person watching a Google video on shopping campaigns or remarketing may think it's easy as pie, we know there's a lot behind the scenes that we have to figure out.

So when a challenge is presented in your PPC account, test it. Read more about it online. Watch a webinar. Call AdWords, even. Take the initiative to find a solution, so your service can be of great value to the client and your team.

Conclusion

Taking ourselves from good to great, from successful to very successful, is a journey. As McKeown said in his post, very successful people focus on what they can do better. In terms of your PPC management, what does that look like for you?

PPC SWOT Analysis: Manage Campaigns Like a Business

Managing a business requires a great deal of self-reflection, analysis, and strategic planning. Through that process a great deal of focus is placed on internal factors - financials, human resources, performance of the business versus goals, and much more.

But it doesn’t end there.

You also have to look at the outside world to understand all of the influences that are beyond your immediate control. Think of the economy, industry changes, or the emergence or growth of competitors.

PPC professionals also require a great deal of self-reflection, analysis, and strategic planning when managing campaigns. Audits are a large part of the job, from the sales process through regularly scheduled sanity checks. In business the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a powerful tool for working through all of these details. Why not for PPC, too?

Viewing a PPC audit through the lens of a SWOT analysis looks a bit like this:

Strength (Internal)What are your top keywords, ads, and landing pages based on your KPIs?What accounts, campaigns, and ad groups have achieved or exceed goal CTR, CVR, CPA, ROI, ROAS, margin, profit, etc.?Keywords with Quality Score of 7 or greater?Ad extension usage at 100 percent? Call Extensions in place if applicable?Segmentation applied for geo-targeting (at campaign or location setting levels), search vs. display, keywords, remarketing audience targeting, etc.?Search and display feature usage at 100 percent (when applicable)?PLA/shopping campaigns and product feeds implemented correctly?Strong negative keyword and excluded placement lists?Mobile strategy in place with mobile preferred ads?Weakness (Internal)What are your lowest performing keywords, ads, and landing ages based on your KPIs?Is there a lack of testing protocol for ads, landing pages, and Ad Extensions?Are there only search campaigns? Search campaigns with display activated?Lack of Ad Extensions altogether?Weak or lack of negative keyword and excluded placement lists?Keywords with quality score 6 or lower?Obvious keywords or display targeting missing?Poor segmentation for geo-targeting, search vs. display, keywords, remarketing audience targeting, etc.?Lack of mobile strategy?PLA/shopping campaigns targeting all products? Product feed errors?Opportunity (External)New features (e.g. Shopping Campaigns).Applicable beta tests.New channels (e.g. native, social, vertical based channels, display networks, etc.).Growth of mobile usage.New websites entering Google Display Network (e.g. Forbes.com).Increase in search volume on Google, Bing, or Yahoo.Threat (External)New features (e.g. Enhanced Campaigns).New competitors.Ad editorial policy changes.New websites entering Google Display Network (e.g. Candy Crush mobile app).Decrease in search volume on Google, Bing, or Yahoo.Government or search engine changes in policies for privacy, cookie usage, etc.Changes in SERP design resulting in fewer ad positions for search.Increased CPC costs due to rising competition or changing search landscape.Summary

This analysis will cover more territory than just performance and low-hanging fruit opportunities. A SWOT analysis will help you to understand opportunities inside and outside of your advertising accounts.

Ultimately, you're forced to think critically about the entire PPC ecosystem and how your accounts fit into the bigger picture. The next step is to create task assignments and create if/then strategies based on your analysis.

Share with your client, your team, or for real brownie points – your boss. Rinse and repeat.

How do you approach PPC account audits? Do you feel a SWOT analysis would benefit your efforts?

7 Reasons You Need to Update Your Google Maps App

Google Maps recently released a major update to their app for Android and iOS. The latest Google Maps is meant to provide you with "even more ways to avoid life's everyday hiccups." Let's discuss the seven reasons you need to update your Google Maps app ASAP.

1. Lane Guidance

Google has amped up the capabilities of the turn-by-turn navigation, but the most important change is the addition of Lane Guidance. With this new feature you will receive "voice guidance and step-by-step directions to suggest which lanes are best for your route." For users in the United States this feature is available for highways and local roads in major metro areas.

2. Offline Mode

It seems like the times you need directions the most is when you have very poor or limited cell reception. With a little planning you will never be lost again. Simply map your course and then select "Save map to use offline" and name your trip.

3. Local Search Filters

You never know when a craving might strike. With Google Maps' new app update you can easily search for restaurants, bars, and hotels. Additionally, your results will display the open hours, rating, price, and much more to help you make your decision.

4. Public Transit Integration

If you're not someone that uses public transportation frequently, it can be confusing. Google Maps will now allow you to choose your destination and select a date for travel to provide you with the most accurate information. Or, if you're out late and need to know when the last train home is, you can easily find the information with the click of a button.

5. Uber Integration

Maybe you left the house five minutes too late or your train or bus is running late. Don't fret, you can still make it! Google Maps now has direct integration with Uber in case you need to change your transportation plans at the last minute.

6. Access Your Favorites

If you're visiting a new city or trying to find new places to explore locally, you can now save on the go. Once you've found a location that you want to visit, simply tap on the place card and use the star icon to save the destination in your results.

7. Plan Your Vacation

Do you ever feel that resort websites are a little too good to be true? Well, with Google Maps you can now access the Street View of almost any destination in the world. Google teases that you "might even get a peek inside some hotels, restaurants, and more."

Helpful or Distracting?

I'm excited about all of the new features that Google Maps has rolled out this week. My only question is whether all of these new features might serve as a distraction for drivers. What do you think?

7 Reasons You Need to Update Your Google Maps App

Google Maps recently released a major update to their app for Android and iOS. The latest Google Maps is meant to provide you with "even more ways to avoid life's everyday hiccups." Let's discuss the seven reasons you need to update your Google Maps app ASAP.

1. Lane Guidance

Google has amped up the capabilities of the turn-by-turn navigation, but the most important change is the addition of Lane Guidance. With this new feature you will receive "voice guidance and step-by-step directions to suggest which lanes are best for your route." For users in the United States this feature is available for highways and local roads in major metro areas.

2. Offline Mode

It seems like the times you need directions the most is when you have very poor or limited cell reception. With a little planning you will never be lost again. Simply map your course and then select "Save map to use offline" and name your trip.

3. Local Search Filters

You never know when a craving might strike. With Google Maps' new app update you can easily search for restaurants, bars, and hotels. Additionally, your results will display the open hours, rating, price, and much more to help you make your decision.

4. Public Transit Integration

If you're not someone that uses public transportation frequently, it can be confusing. Google Maps will now allow you to choose your destination and select a date for travel to provide you with the most accurate information. Or, if you're out late and need to know when the last train home is, you can easily find the information with the click of a button.

5. Uber Integration

Maybe you left the house five minutes too late or your train or bus is running late. Don't fret, you can still make it! Google Maps now has direct integration with Uber in case you need to change your transportation plans at the last minute.

6. Access Your Favorites

If you're visiting a new city or trying to find new places to explore locally, you can now save on the go. Once you've found a location that you want to visit, simply tap on the place card and use the star icon to save the destination in your results.

7. Plan Your Vacation

Do you ever feel that resort websites are a little too good to be true? Well, with Google Maps you can now access the Street View of almost any destination in the world. Google teases that you "might even get a peek inside some hotels, restaurants, and more."

Helpful or Distracting?

I'm excited about all of the new features that Google Maps has rolled out this week. My only question is whether all of these new features might serve as a distraction for drivers. What do you think?

How to Recover From a Google Smartphone Rankings Demotion [Case Study]

At the end of March I wrote a blog post covering an example of a smartphone rankings demotion caught in the wild. A rankings demotion can happen when a website incorrectly handles smartphone traffic, which results in a poor user experience.

Although Google warned webmasters of the upcoming changes in a post by Pierre Far in June of 2013, there wasn't much data or evidence demonstrating how websites were being impacted by the smartphone rankings demotion. I've always kept that in the back of my mind while browsing the Web via my smartphone, since I wanted to see first-hand how the demotion worked. Well, I came across a strong example in March, and it proved that the demotion is in fact real (and can be extremely problematic).

I experienced the problem when I was checking Techmeme for the latest headlines and followed a link to electronista.com. Upon hitting the website, I was quickly redirected to the mobile homepage of the site versus the specific mobile URL for the article. I jumped back to Techmeme and tried again, but was redirected to the mobile homepage a second time.

Unfortunately, this is one of the situations Far detailed. Faulty redirects produce a horrible user experience and could result in a rankings demotion.

Improperly Redirecting Smartphone Visits to a Mobile Homepage

So, I started digging into the problem and checking rankings for Electronista on desktop versus mobile to identify if the site was being impacted by the demotion. And they were.

For many of the queries yielding high rankings on desktop search, Electronista was much lower in the smartphone rankings. They were clearly being impacted by the faulty mobile redirects that were in place. Here's a quick example of the demotion in action.

Query: "Google Nexus 7 Versus ipad mini"

Electronista.com ranked 8th on desktop and 18th on smartphone in March 2014

Desktop Search Results:

Smartphone Search Results:

I reached out to a few people at Electronista after writing my post just to let them know about the situation, and to make sure they knew how to fix the problem. I explained how to rectify the situation in my blog post, so they at least had a blueprint for recovery. I never heard back from them, but I started noticing changes to the site and mobile redirection setup soon after my post went live.

I was happy to see the changes get implemented and was eager to see how long it would take for Google to lift the smartphone rankings demotion (which is algorithmic, by the way). Before I get into the results, let's first step back and take a closer look at the problem that caused the demotion.

The Core Problem and Pierre's Comments

As I mentioned above, electronista.com was redirecting all smartphone traffic to the mobile homepage. As you can guess, this is a frustrating user experience for people expecting to find the article they saw in the search results (or the article being linked to from a referring website).

I was extremely frustrated when clicking through a listing on Techmeme only to find the mobile homepage with no mention of the article. Needless to say, I bounced off the site. And I'm sure many others did the same.

Far's post explained several situations that could lead to a smartphone rankings demotion. Having faulty redirects was one of the problems, but another problem was triggering smartphone-only errors. For example, redirecting smartphone users to error pages, 404s, or causing infinite loops between feature phone sites and smartphone pages.

Basically, Google doesn't want to send its smartphone users to websites that provide a horrible user experience. If a website does provide a poor experience for smartphone users, then the site could be impacted by a smartphone rankings demotion.

Based on my testing, the rankings demotion ranged depending on the query. There were times I saw rankings drop five to 20 spots and then there were times the content didn't rank at all in the smartphone search results. For example, electronista.com ranked 3rd for "htc vivid radar" in the desktop search results but 20th in the smartphone search results. That's a pretty significant hit.

Far Chimes in About Smartphone Demotions

After writing my post, Far actually provided some comments and guidance via Google+. It was great to see him chime in, especially since he was the Googler that wrote the post about smartphone demotions in the first place!

I specifically asked Far how long it would take for a site to recover once the necessary changes were implemented. He provided a quick, but important response: "When a fix is implemented, we'd detect it as part of the usual crawling and processing of each URL."

That was good news for Electronista, and other sites dealing with a smartphone rankings demotion. It seemed that as Google recrawled the URLs and noticed the correct handling of mobile redirects, then the demotion could be lifted.

Needless to say, I was eager to see how long it would take for Electronista to bounce back in the smartphone search results. Again, it looked like they started to make some of the necessary changes in early April.

A Note About Electronista's Setup – They Are Close, But It's Not Perfect

While checking Electronista's changes, I realized they didn't perfectly implement the technical setup when using mobile redirects. For example, Google explains in its documentation for building smartphone-optimized websites that you should include rel="alternate" on the desktop page pointing to the mobile URL. Then you should add rel="canonical" pointing to the desktop page from the mobile URL.

Although Electronista has rel="canonical" set up properly on the mobile pages, they do not have rel="alternate" set up on the desktop pages. In addition, you can add rel="alternate" annotations in XML sitemaps. From what I can see, electronista.com hasn't set that up either.

But most importantly, Electronista is now handling mobile redirects accurately (sending traffic to the m. version of the article that is requested versus the mobile homepage). In addition, rel="canonical" is set up properly from the mobile pages. With that out of the way, let's check out the results.

Checking in One Month Later – Was the Demotion Lifted?

Similar to the research I conducted in March, I fired up SEMRush, the User Agent Switcher Plugin, and several smartphones in hand. I wanted to see how the site ranked on desktop search versus mobile search to see if Electronista's smartphone rankings demotion had been lifted.

I checked a number of queries that yielded high rankings for Electronista content, checked the mobile redirection setup, and then checked the smartphone rankings.

While checking the rankings, I was excited to see Electronista now ranking well in both the desktop and smartphone search results! It seems that Far was right. As Google recrawled the URLs and noticed the proper handling of smartphone traffic, the demotion was lifted. I've included some examples below.

Query: "is vevo free on xbox"

1st on desktop and 1st on smartphone

Desktop Search Results:

Smartphone Search Results:

Query: "high speed internet map"

2nd on desktop and 2nd on smartphone

Desktop Search Results:

Smartphone Search Results:

Query: "gps memory card"

5th on desktop and 5th on smartphone

Desktop Search Results:

Smartphone Search Results:

Query: "skullcandy pipe review"

This is a query that I checked during the demotion. It used to rank 5th on desktop and 10th on smartphones while the demotion was in place. Now the rankings match: 5th on desktop and 5th on smartphone.

Desktop Search Results:

Smartphone Search Results:

Know Your Smartphone Traffic - Don't Fall Victim to a Rankings Demotion

Similar to what I wrote in my original post about the problem, I highly recommend that you take a hard look at how your site is handling mobile traffic.

It's easy to overlook mobile problems while browsing your site via desktop. I've found issues like faulty mobile redirects can go unnoticed for a long time. And if that happens, you could face the algorithmic demotion in the smartphone search results just like Electronista did.

4 Things You Can Do Now to Make Sure You're Handling Smartphone Traffic Correctly:1. Manually Check Your Mobile Redirects

Visit your desktop pages both from a desktop browser and via your smartphone. Check how redirects are being handled (if you have them set up). Then check for the proper implementation of rel="alternate" and rel="canonical" like I mentioned earlier.

You should also search Google for content that ranks well in the desktop search results and click through to see how the site handles the visit from your smartphone.

2. Check Smartphone Crawl Errors Reporting in Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools has crawl errors reporting for both smartphones and feature phones. You can view the errors that Googlebot for Smartphones is running into while crawling your site. I find many webmasters have never checked this reporting. I highly recommend doing so.

3. Crawl Your Site as Googlebot for Smartphones

Several SEO tools enable you to set the user agent of your crawler, including Screaming Frog and DeepCrawl. To check mobile redirects, you can set the user agent to Googlebot for Smartphones by setting the appropriate user agent and user agent request.

While analyzing the crawl, if you notice a boatload of redirects to your mobile homepage from specific article or product URLs, you very well could have a problem. Also look for other crawl errors that smartphone traffic could be running into, like 404s, soft 404s, 500s, etc.

A note about user agents: Google announced a new user-agent for crawling smartphone content in January. I recommend reviewing that post to learn more about the changes.

The Googlebot-Mobile for Smartphones user-agent has been retired. Make sure you are using the correct user agent, user agent request, and terminology. For example, it's now called Googlebot for Smartphones and will use Googlebot as the user-agent.

(Note: The above screenshot is from an upcoming version of Screaming Frog that contains the Googlebot for Smartphones user-agent.)

4. Check XML Sitemaps for Rel="Alternate"

As I mentioned earlier, Google supports the rel="alternate" annotation in XML sitemaps. This is where you can tell Google that a desktop URL is connected with a mobile URL. Check to see if you have this set up, and if it's accurate. The last thing you want is a "dirty" sitemap that sends mixed signals to the engines about your mobile URLs.

Summary – Keep Your Smartphone Rankings Strong

So there you have it. A positive ending to a scary story (for Electronista).

By properly implementing mobile redirects, Electronista was able to have its smartphone rankings demotion lifted. And it didn't take very long for that to happen.

Based upon the changes, you can clearly see that Google is now ranking Electronista's content similarly in both the desktop and smartphone search results. And that's a big change from when the rankings demotion was active in March.

By following the recommendations and instructions in this post, hopefully you can avoid a smartphone rankings demotion. And with mobile traffic booming, a rankings demotion is the last thing a website needs.

Now fire up your phone and start checking your website. You might be surprised what you find.

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.

Battle-Hardened Journalist Reveals What Makes Press Releases Stand Out

If you're looking for a content promotion and white hat link building technique that can be done at scale, you need to consider public relations. But what's involved and can the skills be learned? Yes, says Geoff Hill, an award-winning journalist, travel writer, motorcycle adventurer and novelist, and a man who should know – he can reject hundreds of press releases every day.

What makes him pay attention?

Hill has either won or been shortlisted for a UK travel writer of the year award nine times, as well as winning European and World travel writer of the year awards. Check out his Amazon.com profile. (Author's disclosure: I have created training programs with Geoff Hill.)

I recently sat down with Hill over coffee to ask him some questions. 

Ken McGaffin: How has the world of media and journalism changed over the last 5 years and what does this mean for you as a journalist or editor?

Geoff Hill: It's changed in a couple of major ways. First, virtually all newspapers today, apart from those owned by trusts or families, are owned by shareholders. And those shareholders want profits. And the best way to create profits is to put accountants in charge – accountants whose prime motivations is not how well they can do something, but how cheaply. And the easiest way to do that is to get rid of journalists.

The situation has been made even worse by the fact that the recession has shrunk newspaper income in the U.S. by a third, so the pressure on newspapers to make a profit has increased proportionally.

As a result of that double whammy, the number of journalists in the U.S. today, for example, is the lowest since records began. It's the same pretty much worldwide apart from developing countries like India.

That means that today journalists rarely get the luxury of getting out of the office to spend time working on a big story, meeting people and developing contacts the way they used to.

Instead, they're stuck in the office working constantly under pressure and against deadline – and ironically, doing more work than ever because of the twin demands of print and online editions.

Which brings me to the second main change: the inexorable rise of the Internet, which newspapers still haven't figured out how to deal with.

One body of opinion is that you give away your website free in order to get huge traffic, which means you can charge a lot for ads. The other is to charge for the site, have far fewer readers on it, but make your money from subscriptions.

Another way to do it is to make your site content very different to your print content so that people use both. The Daily Mail did this when they noticed that any showbiz stories created a huge spike in traffic, so their website is now virtually all showbiz content.

The jury's still out, but either way, my feeling is that with news sites such as the BBC so good, for newspapers to succeed, they'll have to become more feature and lifestyle orientated, which is one reason why the circulation of weekend newspapers in the States is actually increasing.

KM: What is your favorite source of new stories, given that you are always under pressure?

GH: Trusted contacts who send me press releases from that are tightly written and to the point, with all the details I need to write the story.

And one-click links to high-resolution pictures or videos, a website link for more info if readers need it, and contact details for the contact so that I can clarify anything instantly if I need to.

KM: Many people say that the "press release" is now dead. Do you agree?

GH: Not at all. What is dead is the press release that is useless, irrelevant, and without good picture or video back-up, and either contains no news or news that is not complete – a journalist simply doesn't have time to rewrite the story or chase up potential photos. Good visual back-up should be included.

The implication is that a good PR should provide everything that will make a newsworthy, visual and complete news story – with the minimum amount of work on the part of a journalist.

KM: What for you are the essentials of a good press release? Of course a good press release being one that makes you want to write the story.

GH: That's easy. In terms of content, it's got to be news, unusual, weird, wacky or humorous. Anything that makes me go: "Wow! I didn't know that! Tell me more..."

It's got to be backed up by creative, dramatic photos.

And once it's grabbed my attention with those, it's got to have a killer intro, and all the facts in decreasing order of importance, written as tightly as possible.

If it needs editor's notes at the bottom to add more detail, that's fine, but I don't want them in the body of the story, where the key rule is less is more.

KM: Do you get stories from services like PRWeb.com, PRnewswire.com, BusinessWire.com, etc.?

GH: No. In my experience, journalists, certainly in the UK, use those very little.

KM: You're an award-winning travel writer and have created travel guides for print media, online editions and even within apps. This means you link to many resources – how do you take the decision to link?

GH: It depends. If I'm writing mainly for print, links will not be included in the body of the story, but in a factbox at the end. If it's mainly for online, I still prefer to include links at the end of each section of a story, or the story in general, rather than interrupt the flow of a good story.

I'll link to good, wacky, interesting resources that I know of, that have come recommended or that I find through Google.

KM: And if you happened to miss my wonderful restaurant in your guide to New Orleans, how could I let you that I exist?

GH: Make sure your restaurant really is wonderful. Then drop me an email with brief details, quotes from happy clients or guidebooks, links to high resolution photos, and contact details so I can get back to you if I need to.

KM: How much do you think journalists know or want to know about SEO? Do you ever get pressure to use certain keywords or link to certain sites?

GH: I suspect very little if they're working primarily for a print edition. But increasingly, if they're also working for online editions, they use SEO basics and social media to draw attention to what they've written.

I don't feel pressure to link, but I will when I think it's useful. For example, in my weekly motorbike column for the Daily Mirror, I might be short of space and it easy to give brief details and a link to a relevant website which has all the details I don't have space for.

KM: Do you think that relationships between journalists and PRs are still important? If so, in what way?

GH: It's more important than ever, because, as I said, journalists today simply don't have the time to go out chasing stories from scratch, so they rely heavily on good PR contacts to give them a feed of good stories. Not the word good there – twice.

KM: In SEO, there's a growing interest in media relations. Do you think a novice can learn the rules of pitching to a journalist or should they really use an experienced PR?

GH: It depends. The basics of creating a good press release are pretty simple, but the genius that gets mega coverage takes a little longer. My suggestion would be to become an avid reader of news stories in your niche. Take time to read each story and try to work out what caught the journalist's interest – then try to replicate that.

Cartoon image: The Blarney Zone, LinkingMatters.com

Google Now Combines Online Shopping With Location-Based Purchasing

Google Now's most recent updates are clearly focused on bringing your online habits to your offline life. In addition to adding Parking Location cards, searchable mall directories, and offline cards, the updated Google search app for Android features their latest shopping feature.

Android users will now receive alerts through Google search that will let them know if a product they've been searching for online is available at a store nearby. According to The Next Web, Google hasn't yet shared how long the application will remember specific items you've searched for.

Google Is Stalking Your Shopping Habits

My name is Ashley Zeckman and I have an online shopping addiction. Fortunately, the majority of the time I "window shop" and put things in my virtual cart that I never end up purchasing.

A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to splurge and buy myself a shiny, new Michael Kors watch. I wasn't sure exactly which one I wanted, so I started my online search.

I visited five or six sites trying to find the best deal. Unfortunately, I was crippled by choice and wasn't ready to pull the trigger. I decided to call off my search for the time being and think it over.

Over the next few days I noticed my Facebook ads, promotional emails in my Gmail, and a few other less-than-subtle hints on Google encouraging me to buy this awesome watch. Of course each of the ads made sure that I knew that my precious watch was on sale for a limited time so I had better act soon.

I can't even imagine how many more things I would buy if I was out on a walk and received an alert that the [insert the item you've been eyeing here] I'd been searching for could be purchased at a store only 3 feet away.

The official announcement posted on Google+ put it best: "Now all you have to do is pop into the store and check if they're in stock!"

How Does Google's Shopping Tracker Work?

Google caches the items that you've been searching for online and ties them to your account. If one of the things that you've been researching is sold at a retailer near you, you will receive an alert via Google Now cards of the nearest location and price of your item.

One of the drawbacks is that the app can't tell you if the item is in stock. This is likely to be a riot-inducing issue around Christmas time for parents who are desperately searching for the "must-have" toy of the season that is most likely sold out almost everywhere.

If you don't want your Google Now cards shared (perhaps you're planning on buying a gift for your significant other and you don't want them seeing the alert on your phone), you can easily turn of the tracking by accessing the settings for the app.

Google Now Update: Awesome or Annoying?

Most of us, like it or not, are tied to our phones during the majority of our working hours. If you work or live in a major metropolitan area, what do you think the chances are that you will receive too many pings from Google that the items you want are nearby?

I couldn't find any specifics about whether only certain retailers have forged partnerships with Google to be featured in these alerts. Do you think some retailers will receive favoritism and appear more often in alerts than others that haven't entered into a deal with Google?

10 Video SEO Tips That Can Truly Impact Your Rankings

Recently, Purna Virji wrote a refreshing piece on the right way to think about SEO. In short, forget the silver bullets and focus on quality.

Extending her approach, let's focus in on video SEO and talk about how you can truly make an impact on your ranking.

Many of the points articulated below have come from speaking with several marketers over the last few weeks who have been working at the intersection of video marketing and SEO for awhile. What impressed me most was that, like Virji, these folks were incredibly down-to-earth about video SEO, providing very clear best practices and ideas for taking a long-term, quality-driven approach to video SEO.

Let these 10 points be a checklist for you as you plan or review your video SEO strategy.

Always Be Providing Value

There's no point to being found if you don't provide a fabulous experience when your audience arrives. The first few points on the video SEO checklist are about proving your worth to your viewers, not the robots.

1. Use Video to Solve Problems & Provide New Information

To get your videos to rank well for your search terms, you need to provide great content that actually solves problems or provides new information. The good news is that great content usually isn't difficult or expensive to produce.

This can be as simple as filming a whiteboarding session or getting one of your subject matter experts to sit down for a short interview. Ask yourself: what problems or obstacles does my audience faces regularly? How can I show someone how to accomplish their goal faster/better/cheaper?

2. Make Videos Easy to Browse & Link to Individual Video Playback Pages

Group together your video assets and create a user-friendly video resource center where your viewers can easily search your content.

Set up your video portal or gallery with categories and tags so it's easy to find exactly what you're looking for and navigate between videos seamlessly.

Avoid the endless stream of video players on a single page. If you've ever come across a wall of embedded YouTube videos on someone's site, you'll understand just how difficult it is to find what you want.

Instead, make sure you have a separate landing page for each video so search engines can find and index each video asset individually. You've invested in your video content, so don't let a poor video experience take away from that.

3. Use Interactive Video Elements to Connect With Viewers

For every video someone watches, there is an opportunity to call that person to action or guide them to the next logical step.

Interactive video elements like in-video links, quizzes, surveys, and forms enable you to intercept your viewers at key moments and drive action.

For example, if you create a how-to video for your app, use in-video interactivity to link your viewer directly to the point in your app where they can accomplish what they just learned.

Nail the Nuts & Bolts

The funny thing about best practices is that they tend to last a long time! Stick to the basics and embrace common sense when it comes to the technical side of video SEO.

4. Be Smart & Relevant About Metadata

I moderated a video SEO webinar last month where Jennifer Lewis, the senior interactive marketing manager at SafeNet, talked about how she uses rich metadata and smart content organization to get the most from their video resource library. For SafeNet, video is a way to go after valuable long tail keywords that they would not otherwise be able to grab.

Also be sure to populate hidden tags in the HTML code of your video landing pages, specifically Facebook's OpenGraph tags, Schema.org's microdata tags, and even sometimes Twitter Card tags.

5. Use Transcriptions for Indexing, Usability & Content

Transcriptions can have a major impact on your search rankings. In the same webinar, Lewis presented the results of a quick test we did with some of SafeNet's videos. The goal was to see if a transcript could take a video that was not ranking and get it ranked. The answer was yes.

In just three weeks, the selected videos were ranking on the first page (Bing and Yahoo). We're continuing to watch how these video perform.

To unlock the content in your videos, add video transcriptions directly to the HTML of each of the pages where your videos are hosted. Transcriptions give your viewers the option to "read" a video if they can't listen at the time, while providing the keyword richness a search engine needs.

Transcriptions are also very useful in creating additional content from your videos. For example, you can use a transcript as the base for a blog post that links back to your video resource site.

6. Host Your Videos on Your Own Domain

If there is one single thing you do to get more SEO value from your videos it's to host them on your own domain. YouTube and Vimeo have their place (we'll get to that below), but you must host your videos on your own site.

You want to use an online video platform that will build out a video sitemap on a subdomain on your own site. If you're using YouTube or another video player to embed video on your site, you're simply giving away all the credit for your content.

7. Make Sure You Have a Video Sitemap

To really nail the nuts and bolts of video SEO, you need to have the basics covered with a properly configured video sitemap.

Every entry in your video sitemap must include a link to a landing page for a video, hence the value of the video resource site or video gallery.

Metadata is optional but recommended.

Look for an online video platform that automates the video sitemap for you so you don't have to worry about it on an ongoing basis.

Be a Smart Social Butterfly

Like content, UX, and infrastructure, social has its place in video SEO. These last two points are about getting the most out of social, while creating many paths back to your own site.

8. Use YouTube to Preview High-Value Content, Drive Traffic Back to Your Own Site

YouTube is a great place to get your content discovered by new people. It's an awareness channel that should be part of your marketing mix; however, you should approach YouTube like a mandatory layover. It's a quick stop on the route to your final destination – your own video gallery hosted on your own domain.

A great way to leverage YouTube for all its awareness value, while contributing to your own video SEO, is to create shorter video previews for your content and use YouTube's annotations to place in-video CTA that drive viewers back to your site's own video resource library, hosted on your own domain.

Consider your preview to be a different piece of content. Use a different title and summary and perhaps even swap out the thumbnail.

From a viewer's perspective, what do they need to see to be motivated to click through? This avoids the duplicate content problem, while creating a good user experience.

9. Allow Others to Embed Your Videos

As you create great videos, let others incorporate your content into their work. By making it easy for others to embed your videos on their site, you're increasing the potential for more inbound links to your own website – clearly an SEO win.

10. Measure How Keywords Impact the Bottom Line

Last but not least, always start with the end in mind. As you plan out your video SEO strategy, don't forget to implement a tracking system to capture the success of your new strategy.

Sometimes tracking is built into your video platform or analytics software, sometimes this is custom code that engineering or IT will build, but it should always report on the number of people that come through the top of the funnel through social or search, and track those contacts through your content strategy to closure.

That brings us to the end of my 10-point checklist for a real video SEO strategy. Would you add anything to list? What has worked for you in the past?

10 Video SEO Tips That Can Truly Impact Your Rankings

Recently, Purna Virji wrote a refreshing piece on the right way to think about SEO. In short, forget the silver bullets and focus on quality.

Extending her approach, let's focus in on video SEO and talk about how you can truly make an impact on your ranking.

Many of the points articulated below have come from speaking with several marketers over the last few weeks who have been working at the intersection of video marketing and SEO for awhile. What impressed me most was that, like Virji, these folks were incredibly down-to-earth about video SEO, providing very clear best practices and ideas for taking a long-term, quality-driven approach to video SEO.

Let these 10 points be a checklist for you as you plan or review your video SEO strategy.

Always Be Providing Value

There's no point to being found if you don't provide a fabulous experience when your audience arrives. The first few points on the video SEO checklist are about proving your worth to your viewers, not the robots.

1. Use Video to Solve Problems & Provide New Information

To get your videos to rank well for your search terms, you need to provide great content that actually solves problems or provides new information. The good news is that great content usually isn't difficult or expensive to produce.

This can be as simple as filming a whiteboarding session or getting one of your subject matter experts to sit down for a short interview. Ask yourself: what problems or obstacles does my audience faces regularly? How can I show someone how to accomplish their goal faster/better/cheaper?

2. Make Videos Easy to Browse & Link to Individual Video Playback Pages

Group together your video assets and create a user-friendly video resource center where your viewers can easily search your content.

Set up your video portal or gallery with categories and tags so it's easy to find exactly what you're looking for and navigate between videos seamlessly.

Avoid the endless stream of video players on a single page. If you've ever come across a wall of embedded YouTube videos on someone's site, you'll understand just how difficult it is to find what you want.

Instead, make sure you have a separate landing page for each video so search engines can find and index each video asset individually. You've invested in your video content, so don't let a poor video experience take away from that.

3. Use Interactive Video Elements to Connect With Viewers

For every video someone watches, there is an opportunity to call that person to action or guide them to the next logical step.

Interactive video elements like in-video links, quizzes, surveys, and forms enable you to intercept your viewers at key moments and drive action.

For example, if you create a how-to video for your app, use in-video interactivity to link your viewer directly to the point in your app where they can accomplish what they just learned.

Nail the Nuts & Bolts

The funny thing about best practices is that they tend to last a long time! Stick to the basics and embrace common sense when it comes to the technical side of video SEO.

4. Be Smart & Relevant About Metadata

I moderated a video SEO webinar last month where Jennifer Lewis, the senior interactive marketing manager at SafeNet, talked about how she uses rich metadata and smart content organization to get the most from their video resource library. For SafeNet, video is a way to go after valuable long tail keywords that they would not otherwise be able to grab.

Also be sure to populate hidden tags in the HTML code of your video landing pages, specifically Facebook's OpenGraph tags, Schema.org's microdata tags, and even sometimes Twitter Card tags.

5. Use Transcriptions for Indexing, Usability & Content

Transcriptions can have a major impact on your search rankings. In the same webinar, Lewis presented the results of a quick test we did with some of SafeNet's videos. The goal was to see if a transcript could take a video that was not ranking and get it ranked. The answer was yes.

In just three weeks, the selected videos were ranking on the first page (Bing and Yahoo). We're continuing to watch how these video perform.

To unlock the content in your videos, add video transcriptions directly to the HTML of each of the pages where your videos are hosted. Transcriptions give your viewers the option to "read" a video if they can't listen at the time, while providing the keyword richness a search engine needs.

Transcriptions are also very useful in creating additional content from your videos. For example, you can use a transcript as the base for a blog post that links back to your video resource site.

6. Host Your Videos on Your Own Domain

If there is one single thing you do to get more SEO value from your videos it's to host them on your own domain. YouTube and Vimeo have their place (we'll get to that below), but you must host your videos on your own site.

You want to use an online video platform that will build out a video sitemap on a subdomain on your own site. If you're using YouTube or another video player to embed video on your site, you're simply giving away all the credit for your content.

7. Make Sure You Have a Video Sitemap

To really nail the nuts and bolts of video SEO, you need to have the basics covered with a properly configured video sitemap.

Every entry in your video sitemap must include a link to a landing page for a video, hence the value of the video resource site or video gallery.

Metadata is optional but recommended.

Look for an online video platform that automates the video sitemap for you so you don't have to worry about it on an ongoing basis.

Be a Smart Social Butterfly

Like content, UX, and infrastructure, social has its place in video SEO. These last two points are about getting the most out of social, while creating many paths back to your own site.

8. Use YouTube to Preview High-Value Content, Drive Traffic Back to Your Own Site

YouTube is a great place to get your content discovered by new people. It's an awareness channel that should be part of your marketing mix; however, you should approach YouTube like a mandatory layover. It's a quick stop on the route to your final destination – your own video gallery hosted on your own domain.

A great way to leverage YouTube for all its awareness value, while contributing to your own video SEO, is to create shorter video previews for your content and use YouTube's annotations to place in-video CTA that drive viewers back to your site's own video resource library, hosted on your own domain.

Consider your preview to be a different piece of content. Use a different title and summary and perhaps even swap out the thumbnail.

From a viewer's perspective, what do they need to see to be motivated to click through? This avoids the duplicate content problem, while creating a good user experience.

9. Allow Others to Embed Your Videos

As you create great videos, let others incorporate your content into their work. By making it easy for others to embed your videos on their site, you're increasing the potential for more inbound links to your own website – clearly an SEO win.

10. Measure How Keywords Impact the Bottom Line

Last but not least, always start with the end in mind. As you plan out your video SEO strategy, don't forget to implement a tracking system to capture the success of your new strategy.

Sometimes tracking is built into your video platform or analytics software, sometimes this is custom code that engineering or IT will build, but it should always report on the number of people that come through the top of the funnel through social or search, and track those contacts through your content strategy to closure.

That brings us to the end of my 10-point checklist for a real video SEO strategy. Would you add anything to list? What has worked for you in the past?

Google’s Matt Cutts: Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a video that backlinks, over time, will become a little less important. Matt did say that backlinks in the Google ranking algorithm still have many years left in them.

Matt explained that Google is focusing a lot now on working on ways to determine if a web page is meets the expectations of an expert user. They do this currently by looking at the links to the page, the reputation of the site and pages and the quality of the content on that particular page.

When Google is better at understanding actual language, natural language, which you see with their conversational search efforts. Google will be better to understand expert user’s queries and match them better to a better answer.

If they can tell a story is written by an expert in a specific field, then it is easier. Google said they are working on an expert author boost for their rankings. But without that, that is where using natural languages comes in to help determine if the author is an expert on the subject query on a page by page basis.

Matt Cutts added that for the “next few years” links aren’t going anyway and will still be used for determining reputation. But overtime, Google will rely a little bit less on links for reputation purposes.

Here is the video:

Google’s Matt Cutts: Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a video that backlinks, over time, will become a little less important. Matt did say that backlinks in the Google ranking algorithm still have many years left in them.

Matt explained that Google is focusing a lot now on working on ways to determine if a web page is meets the expectations of an expert user. They do this currently by looking at the links to the page, the reputation of the site and pages and the quality of the content on that particular page.

When Google is better at understanding actual language, natural language, which you see with their conversational search efforts. Google will be better to understand expert user’s queries and match them better to a better answer.

If they can tell a story is written by an expert in a specific field, then it is easier. Google said they are working on an expert author boost for their rankings. But without that, that is where using natural languages comes in to help determine if the author is an expert on the subject query on a page by page basis.

Matt Cutts added that for the “next few years” links aren’t going anyway and will still be used for determining reputation. But overtime, Google will rely a little bit less on links for reputation purposes.

Here is the video:

Vine Search Offers New Opportunity for Brands

Vine has pushed a major update that not only affects mobile users, but desktop users as well.

The long-awaited Web version of Vine is now available at Vine.co for those looking to explore videos on their desktop or laptop.

Additionally, you no longer need an account to browse and search for videos. For marketers, the biggest opportunity with the new update is the added search functionality.

According to Vine's blog, they have "added a powerful, new search bar that will help you find what you're looking for. Try searching by person, tag, or even location to find your favorite content."

While these new updates create some additional ease of use for your average browser, there are also some additional opportunities for marketers looking to target Vine's more than 40 million users.

Missing the Mark

While some of our favorite brands have Vine channels, they aren't utilizing them to their fullest potential. One of the largest opportunities for brands is to incorporate trending hashtags (much like Twitter) into their posts.

For example, a couple of the search terms I explored were #SpringFashion and #SpringBreak. From the screenshots below you can see that our beloved brands (with the exception of Ben & Jerry's) aren't visible in the top search results.

While #SpringFashion will be applicable to many clothing brands, there is a relatively easy opportunity to take over the results. You'll notice that there are currently only 43 videos with the hashtag #SpringFashion as part of their post.

#SpringBreak could apply to many brands.

For example, a travel company or resort could use the opportunity to show pictures of spring breakers having a great time at their resort to encourage youth to choose their destination next year.

The hashtag would also work for many consumer food, liquor, and clothing brands. There is a way to market; you just have to be flexible in your approach.

Knowing Your Audience

One of my favorite brands that is maximizing their Vine value is Urban Outfitters. On their channel you'll find a great mix of new products, how to use some of their products, and topics they know their audience is into.

Within the first few videos alone you'll find:

T-shirts and vinyl records.A video tutorial of their fish-eye phone lens.Earth Day photos.Videos from Cochella (which utilizes the #Cochella hashtag).

Share Your Response (or Better Yet, Vine It)

What do you think is the biggest missed opportunity for brands on Vine? What brand Vines have you seen and loved, or hated? For a bonus, share your response on Vine and link to your post in the comment section below.

Over 100 B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2014

Thanks to Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, each year there’s a new report covering the latest trends in B2B content marketing.

From insourcing vs. outsourcing�to the most effective tactics, there�is�plenty of insight in this report to help guide B2B marketers in the right direction.

As a blogger, public speaker and strategist, I know how convenient it can be for statistics in a report like this to be broken out. I did this once before with 100+ B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2013 and it was well received. So here is the list updated according to the 2014 report.

93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing (2013 91%)

Content Marketing Effectiveness: 42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing (2013 36%)

9% 5 (very effective)33% 441% 314% 21% 1 (not at all effective)

What the Most and Least Effective Content Marketers Do

66% of the most effective marketers has a documented content strategy
11% of the least effective marketers has a documented content strategy

86% of the most effective marketers has someone who oversees content marketing strategy
46% of the least effective marketers has someone who oversees content marketing strategy

15 – Average number of content marketing tactics used by the most effective content marketers
10 – Average number of content marketing tactics used by the least effective content marketers

7 – Average number of social media platforms used by the most effective B2B marketers
4 – Average number of social media platforms used by the least effective B2B marketers

39% – The percentage of marketing budget spent on content marketing by the most effective B2B marketers
16% – The percentage of marketing budget spent on content marketing by the least effective B2B marketers

35% of the most effective content marketers are challenged with producing engaging content
61% of the least effective content marketers are challenged with producing engaging content

B2B Content Marketing Strategy

44% of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy48% of smaller B2B companies (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy41% of large B2B companies (1,000 employees) have a documented content strategy73% of B2B organizations have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy78% of small companies have someone who oversees content marketing strategy58% of large companies have someone who oversees content marketing strategy73% of B2B content marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago80% of B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are creating more content than a year ago66% of B2B marketers without a documented content strategy are creating more content than a year agoContent Marketing Tactics

B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics

87% Social Media (other than blogs)81% Articles on your website80% eNewsletters76% Blogs76% In-person events73% Case studies73% Videos68% Articles on other websites64% Whitepapers63% Online presentations62% Webinars51% Infographics44% Research reports40% Microsites38% Branded content tools38% Mobile content35% Print magazines34% eBooks30% Books28% Mobile apps27% Digital magazines26% Podcasts25% Syndicated content25% Virtual conferences24% Annual reports22% Print newsletters10% Games

Content Marketing Tactics Effectiveness

70% of B2B marketers rate in-person events as effective65% of B2B marketers rate case studies as effective63% of B2B marketers rate videos as effective63$ of B2B marketers rate webinars as effective62% of B2B marketers rate blogs as effective60% of B2B marketers rate eNewsletters as effective59% of B2B marketers rate research reports as effective59% of B2B marketers rate white papers as effective58% of B2B marketers rate articles on your website as effective57% of B2B marketers rate eBooks as effectiveB2B Content Marketing and Social Media Tactics

B2B content marketers use an average of 6 social media platforms

91% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content85% of B2B marketers use Twitter to distribute content81% of B2B marketers use Facebook to distribute content73% of B2B marketers use YouTube to distribute content55% of B2B marketers use Google+ to distribute content40% of B2B marketers use SlideShare to distribute content34% of B2B marketers use Pinterest to distribute content22% of B2B marketers use Instagram to distribute content22% of B2B marketers use Vimeo to distribute content16% of B2B marketers use Flickr to distribute content15% of B2B marketers use StumbleUpon to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Foursquare to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Tumblr to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Vine to distribute content

 

Goals and Measuring B2B Content Marketing Performance

Top Organizational Goals for B2B Content Marketing

82% Brand Awareness74% Lead Generation71% Customer Acquisition68% Thought Leadership64% Engagement57% Customer Retention57% Website Traffic47% Lead Management/Nurturing45% Sales

Metrics for B2B Content Marketing Success

63% Web traffic54% Sales lead quality50% Social media sharing48% Sales lead quantity44% SEO ranking40% Time spent on site39% Direct sales39% Qualitative feedback from customers34% Inbound links32% Subscriber growth29% Benchmark lift of company awareness24% Benchmark lift of product / service awareness21% Increased customer loyalty14% Cross-selling6% Cost savingsContent Marketing Budgets58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget32 will keep the same budget8% are unsure1% will decrease their budgetOn average, 30% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketingB2B Content Marketing Insourcing & Outsourcing56% of B2B companies create content in-house only1% of B2B companies only outsource content creation43% of B2B companies use both in-house and outsourced content creation resources

Which content marketing tactics are outsourced?

64% of B2B marketers outsource writing54% of B2B marketers outsource design30% of B2B marketers outsource content distribution22% of B2B marketers outsource editing13% of B2B marketers outsource measurement & analytics8% of B2B marketers outsource content planning & strategy5% of B2B marketers outsource buyer persona creationHow B2B Companies Customize Content65% Industry trends59% Profile of individual decision makers55% Company characteristics43% Stages in the buying cycle21% Personalized content preferences11% Competitor�s content4% NoneTop Challenges B2B Content Marketers Face69% Lack of time55% Producing enough content47% Producing the kind of content that engages39% Lack of budget38% Producing a variety of content33% Inability to measure content effectiveness26% Lack of integration across marketing25% Inability to collect information from SMEs25% Lack of knowledge and training23% Lack of buy-in / vision15% Lack of integration across HR10% Finding trained content marketing professionals

�Check out the full CMI and MarketingProfs report here:

What overall trends are you seeing in the B2B content marketing space? If you’ll be at the B2B Content2Conversion Conference this week, I hope to discuss with you in person! I am presenting Tuesday, May 6th at 2:45pm on working with B2B Influencers to create content that’s socialized and optimized.

Photo: Shuterstock

Over 100 B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2014

Thanks to Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, each year there’s a new report covering the latest trends in B2B content marketing.

From insourcing vs. outsourcing�to the most effective tactics, there�is�plenty of insight in this report to help guide B2B marketers in the right direction.

As a blogger, public speaker and strategist, I know how convenient it can be for statistics in a report like this to be broken out. I did this once before with 100+ B2B Content Marketing Statistics for 2013 and it was well received. So here is the list updated according to the 2014 report.

93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing (2013 91%)

Content Marketing Effectiveness: 42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing (2013 36%)

9% 5 (very effective)33% 441% 314% 21% 1 (not at all effective)

What the Most and Least Effective Content Marketers Do

66% of the most effective marketers has a documented content strategy
11% of the least effective marketers has a documented content strategy

86% of the most effective marketers has someone who oversees content marketing strategy
46% of the least effective marketers has someone who oversees content marketing strategy

15 – Average number of content marketing tactics used by the most effective content marketers
10 – Average number of content marketing tactics used by the least effective content marketers

7 – Average number of social media platforms used by the most effective B2B marketers
4 – Average number of social media platforms used by the least effective B2B marketers

39% – The percentage of marketing budget spent on content marketing by the most effective B2B marketers
16% – The percentage of marketing budget spent on content marketing by the least effective B2B marketers

35% of the most effective content marketers are challenged with producing engaging content
61% of the least effective content marketers are challenged with producing engaging content

B2B Content Marketing Strategy

44% of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy48% of smaller B2B companies (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy41% of large B2B companies (1,000 employees) have a documented content strategy73% of B2B organizations have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy78% of small companies have someone who oversees content marketing strategy58% of large companies have someone who oversees content marketing strategy73% of B2B content marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago80% of B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are creating more content than a year ago66% of B2B marketers without a documented content strategy are creating more content than a year agoContent Marketing Tactics

B2B marketers use an average of 13 content marketing tactics

87% Social Media (other than blogs)81% Articles on your website80% eNewsletters76% Blogs76% In-person events73% Case studies73% Videos68% Articles on other websites64% Whitepapers63% Online presentations62% Webinars51% Infographics44% Research reports40% Microsites38% Branded content tools38% Mobile content35% Print magazines34% eBooks30% Books28% Mobile apps27% Digital magazines26% Podcasts25% Syndicated content25% Virtual conferences24% Annual reports22% Print newsletters10% Games

Content Marketing Tactics Effectiveness

70% of B2B marketers rate in-person events as effective65% of B2B marketers rate case studies as effective63% of B2B marketers rate videos as effective63$ of B2B marketers rate webinars as effective62% of B2B marketers rate blogs as effective60% of B2B marketers rate eNewsletters as effective59% of B2B marketers rate research reports as effective59% of B2B marketers rate white papers as effective58% of B2B marketers rate articles on your website as effective57% of B2B marketers rate eBooks as effectiveB2B Content Marketing and Social Media Tactics

B2B content marketers use an average of 6 social media platforms

91% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content85% of B2B marketers use Twitter to distribute content81% of B2B marketers use Facebook to distribute content73% of B2B marketers use YouTube to distribute content55% of B2B marketers use Google+ to distribute content40% of B2B marketers use SlideShare to distribute content34% of B2B marketers use Pinterest to distribute content22% of B2B marketers use Instagram to distribute content22% of B2B marketers use Vimeo to distribute content16% of B2B marketers use Flickr to distribute content15% of B2B marketers use StumbleUpon to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Foursquare to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Tumblr to distribute content14% of B2B marketers use Vine to distribute content

 

Goals and Measuring B2B Content Marketing Performance

Top Organizational Goals for B2B Content Marketing

82% Brand Awareness74% Lead Generation71% Customer Acquisition68% Thought Leadership64% Engagement57% Customer Retention57% Website Traffic47% Lead Management/Nurturing45% Sales

Metrics for B2B Content Marketing Success

63% Web traffic54% Sales lead quality50% Social media sharing48% Sales lead quantity44% SEO ranking40% Time spent on site39% Direct sales39% Qualitative feedback from customers34% Inbound links32% Subscriber growth29% Benchmark lift of company awareness24% Benchmark lift of product / service awareness21% Increased customer loyalty14% Cross-selling6% Cost savingsContent Marketing Budgets58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget32 will keep the same budget8% are unsure1% will decrease their budgetOn average, 30% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketingB2B Content Marketing Insourcing & Outsourcing56% of B2B companies create content in-house only1% of B2B companies only outsource content creation43% of B2B companies use both in-house and outsourced content creation resources

Which content marketing tactics are outsourced?

64% of B2B marketers outsource writing54% of B2B marketers outsource design30% of B2B marketers outsource content distribution22% of B2B marketers outsource editing13% of B2B marketers outsource measurement & analytics8% of B2B marketers outsource content planning & strategy5% of B2B marketers outsource buyer persona creationHow B2B Companies Customize Content65% Industry trends59% Profile of individual decision makers55% Company characteristics43% Stages in the buying cycle21% Personalized content preferences11% Competitor�s content4% NoneTop Challenges B2B Content Marketers Face69% Lack of time55% Producing enough content47% Producing the kind of content that engages39% Lack of budget38% Producing a variety of content33% Inability to measure content effectiveness26% Lack of integration across marketing25% Inability to collect information from SMEs25% Lack of knowledge and training23% Lack of buy-in / vision15% Lack of integration across HR10% Finding trained content marketing professionals

�Check out the full CMI and MarketingProfs report here:

What overall trends are you seeing in the B2B content marketing space? If you’ll be at the B2B Content2Conversion Conference this week, I hope to discuss with you in person! I am presenting Tuesday, May 6th at 2:45pm on working with B2B Influencers to create content that’s socialized and optimized.

Photo: Shuterstock

Marketers Failing Badly on Mobile-Specific Landing Pages, PPC Ad Copy [Report]

Most online advertisers know that mobile-specific experiences are important, but less than half engage in mobile practices, and many aren't planning to this year. This is one of the mobile opportunity gaps that Yahoo and Kenshoo teamed up to identify in a recent survey on multi-device advertising strategy.

One of the first steps a brand can take to improve the mobile experience is a mobile-optimized landing page, however, "our studies show that approximately half of all marketers indicated that they did not have mobile-specific landing pages," the report said.

Perhaps the mobile experience lacking is the reason 88 percent of smartphone users and 82 percent of tablet users go back to their PC to continue the shopping process. "When asked to describe the computer shopping experience, consumers used words such as fast, trustworthy, and uncomplicated," the report said.

Because of this, the multi-device experience should be seamless, said the report. "Until retailers can instill more confidence in the mobile purchase process, consumers may be content with doing more retail searching than buying on the mobile web."

Even though there was an almost unanimous consensus on the cross-screen influence of paid search, the report stated that "many marketers still seem to disregard the unique qualities of each device type when it comes to campaign execution. For example, only 15 percent of the respondents indicated that they customize paid search ad copywriting by device."

In its report, Yahoo and Kenshoo listed several areas to examine to improve the mobile experience by asking the following questions:

Are your mobile campaign landing pages focused on providing information only?Is your mobile shopping experience as simple as it can be to capitalize on impulse purchase behavior?Are your paid search campaigns on mobile as robust as they are on the fixed web?Have you tailored your mobile search ad copy to be as mobile-friendly as possible, and are you taking advantage of all the unique features of paid search mobile platforms?

One of the areas for opportunity to influence consumers is in store. More than half of consumers (56 percent of smartphone owners and 49 percent tablet owners) said the mobile web was a way to validate impulsive purchases while in retail locations.

"This is where brands have a major opportunity to significantly influence consumers that are already very far down the funnel," the report said. "Providing the right information at the right time can be the tipping point for consumers who are on the fence with a purchase decision while standing in the store aisles, reinforcing the decision to go with your brand or potentially taking share away from a competitor."

That's why the need for retargeting across devices is more important than ever, the report said. "Take advantage of solutions that help you identify in-market consumers across devices so you can provide a continuous shopping experience and close the sale."

Escape Google With These 12 Search Engine Alternatives

As concerns over the de facto monopoly status of Google continue to grow, I'm reminded of the great philosopher Herman Cain and his infamous line "blame yourself". As long as "Google" is a generic phrase for Internet search, their dominant position is assured. That said, you can do something about it.

There are plenty of Google alternatives and many of these players offer a better search experience, depending on your needs. Here are 12 alternatives to escape your reliance on Google for all things search.

Step 1: Bing

If you're a digital marketer using advanced search operators, then use Bing for these queries.

LinkFromDomain: There are any number of tools that can give you inbound link data. There's only one place to go for outbound link information – Bing.

Feed: Finds RSS or Atom feeds pertaining to the term you specify.

Contains: Returns search results that have links to the file types that you specify.

Near: Useful for spotting patterns. For example, [food near:10 bar] specifies the distance between terms so that documents that contain instances of the specified terms within X words of each other (in the example 10) are returned first in search results.

Step 2: Blekko

If you hate spam and love slashtags, then use Blekko.

Blekko uses an initiative called slashtags – a text tag preceded by a "/" slash character, which may be used for custom and categorized searches. It also utilizes a unique user interface serving up results by category.

Step 3: Boardreader

If you're looking for a simple way to search forums and boards, then Boardreader is for you.

Boardreader serves up information contained in web forums and message boards. Multiple message boards can be searched simultaneously, allowing users to share information.

Step 4: BuzzSumo

If you need to analyze what content performs best for a topic or competitor, you need BuzzSumo.

Enter your keyword and go! This identifies the most shared links on social networks, as well as influencers for specific topics. It's one of my personal favorites.

Step 5: CC Search

If you're looking for media in the public domain, then you need CC Search.

CC Search is a search aggregator offering access to search results provided by a number of independent organizations. Don't assume the results displayed are under a creative commons license – always verify it, as sponsored results are served up, as well.

Step 6: CrunchBase

If you're looking for information about people and startups, then CrunchBase is the place to look.

CrunchBase offers an unparalleled dataset of startup activity. More than 500,000 profiles of people and companies are maintained there by thousands of contributors.

Step 7: DuckDuckGo

If you're concerned about search privacy, then use DuckDuckGo

If your search history isn't something that you would be proud to share with grandma or the NSA, then anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo is for you. Personalized results? Fugetaboutit!

Step 8: Quantcast

If you need demographic and traffic stats, then you need Quantcast.

Free and accurate audience insights for more than 100 million web properties. Find detailed demographic, geographic, and lifestyle information.

Step 9: SocialMention

If you need real-time social media search and analysis, then SocialMention is worth a look.

Step 10: Technorati

If you need real-time search for user-generated media, then look no further than Technorati.

Technorati uses tags that authors have included on their websites. These tags categorize search results, with the most recent results appearing at the top.

11. Topsy

If you need to search and analyze the social web, especially Twitter, then you should try Topsy.

Social media analytics: Search by time and place, set alerts, and analyze sentiment for every tweet ever made. Discover how often a term is tweeted. Find an influential person on a specific subject.

12. Wolfram|Alpha

If you need access to the world's facts and data, then WolframAlpha is the place to look.

A computational knowledge engine that answers factual queries by computing the answer from externally sourced "curated data."

Bottom Line

Google isn't the only game in town and isn't even the best alternative for many specific tasks and needs.

What is your favorite non-Google search tool?

Indoor Maps & Mall Directories Come To Google Now For Android

As we reported last week, similar to the offline Google Now cards, Google has made indoor maps within the Android Search App’s Google Now cards live.

Google Indoor Maps was introduced in 2011 for select malls and shopping centers.

Now, if you are using the latest Google Search App on Android, a Google Now card may appear and show you a searchable card that lets you find the stores in the mall. It may also help you walk directly to the store using Google’s indoor maps feature. Google said, “with one tap, you�ll be taken to the indoor map in Google Maps with a pin showing you exactly where the store is.”

Google posted the news on Google+ on Saturday saying:

Finding the directory in a five-story mall is hard enough, let alone the actual store you�re looking for. Now in some malls, Google Now will show you a searchable directory so you can quickly find a specific store or type of store, like clothing or sporting goods. With one tap, you�ll be taken to the indoor map in Google Maps with a pin showing you exactly where the store is. Try it out now in the U.S. and Japan by updating your #GoogleSearch app for Android: http://goo.gl/idgt3y�we�ll add more malls so stay tuned if you don�t see your favorite just yet. Unfortunately, we can�t help you decide what color sweater to buy for your mother. :)

Here is a picture:

Spider-Man Switches From Bing To Google

Spoiler alert: ComicBook.com reported this weekend everyone’s favorite spider-bitten superhero has switched from searching on Bing to being a full-fledged Google user.

According to the report, Spider-man alias Peter Parker used Bing in the 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man film, much to the disbelief of many hardcore comic book fans:

In a world where somebody bitten by a radioactive spider in an experimental laboratory with very little oversight gains super powers and dons spandex to save New York City from a rampaging lizard man, many fans felt that the most unrealistic element of�The Amazing Spider-Man when it debuted theatrically in 2012 was the fact that Peter Parker used Bing, Microsoft�s unpopular search engine, rather than Google in the film.

With the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 last Friday, movie goers learned the lead character Peter Parker, played by Andrew Garfield both searched on Google during the film, and was shown using a Gmail account. (Side note: Garfield’s breakout role happened in 2010 when he played Facebook’s lesser-known founder Eduardo Saverin in Oscar-winning film The Social Network.)

Not only did the film’s lead use Google, ComicBook.com said the The Amazing Spider-Man 2 cast and director hosted a Google+ hang-out to take questions from fans prior to the film’s release.

Whether or not it was a paid product placement on Google’s part is unknown, but ComicBook.com speculates there’s a chance money probably did exchange hands somewhere along the way.

Link Building for Restaurants: The Ultimate Guide

There are loads of different ways to build links for a restaurant. Everyone loves food, right?

The great thing is that as a provider of food and drink, restaurants are already in the position of having something that people want and need. Food and drink aren't going out of style, either, and the potential for what to promote are endless.

The following basic ideas are ripe for being updated to fit your level of creativity – and the great thing about them is that they're all low-cost or free.

Restaurants can do amazing things with social media, so a lot of what we discuss involves that. But first we'll start off with some other methods.

Capitalize on Your Existing Clientele

Retaining customers should always be at the forefront of everything you do. Happy customers can be your best source of word-of-mouth marketing, at no crazy extra cost to you, so don't ever ignore them when you're marketing.

Email newsletters can keep customers informed about new menus, happy hour plans, upcoming restaurant events, discounted prices, etc. They can also be a way of asking for feedback, so include a link to a quick survey (such as "What new menu items would you most like to see?") at various times throughout the year.Customer loyalty cards are being used a lot in medium and lower-priced restaurants. I've never seen them being used in a pricier one, but that doesn't mean you can't start. You'd be surprised at how many people really want to get that free bagel after buying 50 cups of coffee.If you know who your regulars are and you can afford to do it, send them a free appetizer or dessert every few months. Even something as simple as going out and speaking to them when they come in can pay off.

Now, since this is the first section, you might be wondering how this type of activity can help you build links, so here's the thing: maybe it won't. Maybe you will never see an actual text link that was directly generated from anything like this.

However, you're keeping your customers happy and that keeps them coming back. That means that the next time someone asks about a great place to eat, you're going to get recommended, and maybe the person asking for the recommendation will be the one to give you a link, or tweet about how fantastic your pumpkin ravioli was, or Instagram a shot of your broccoli and cheese pizza that ends up bringing in more people.

More people being exposed to your brand/product, no matter what that is, means more chances for increased business and, incidentally (and hopefully) more links. The best links are the ones that are generated by people who link to you because they want to, not because they have something to gain, remember.

Local SEO

This is the foundation upon which any restaurant's online marketing should be built. I've previously covered link building for local SEO, so let's dive into five restaurant-specific ideas:

1. Partnerships With Local Bloggers

They don't have to write about food for a living to be valuable assets.

If someone is writing about the town where you have a restaurant, contact him or her and see if a review is possible, or just reach out and invite them to try your place for lunch for half-price one day.

Sponsor the blog with a nice nofollowed text or image link.

Let the bloggers know when you have something new, whether it's an imported new beer on tap, a new seasonal menu, or a redesigned space. As a person who runs a local blog, I can tell you that it's not easy keeping up with what's going on so if a local restaurant reached out to me like that, I'd be incredibly appreciative.

2. News Outlets

Does your local newspaper have a section that lists the local food specials, such as this:

If you have a special, a new menu item, new pricing, etc., then reach out to your local news outlets and let them know about it. As with the example I list, there's no actual link but remember the paragraph above about how more exposure can increase the odds of getting a link.

3. Local Charities

Offer to donate (or give a cut-rate price on) the food for a local charity event. If you do breakfast, take a few quiches and coffee over to the local animal shelter one morning and feed the volunteers.

If you have the space for it, offer to host the board meetings of a Vocational Rehabilitation group once a quarter. Donate beverages and fruit to help feed runners at a charity race. Heck, even sitting on the board of some charities might get you a link.

4. Local Business Directories and Review Sites

You want to be listed in Google's Places for Business, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local at a minimum. Hopefully you're being reviewed on Yelp.

Depending upon what's available in your area, if the directory looks like a quality one (meaning it has an editorial process for accepting a listing, is currently indexed in Google, and hasn't lost its Toolbar PageRank), then submit to it. Just don't go crazy and spend a week submitting to every directory you can find, as many of them are worthless and can end up hurting you.

5. Educational System

Colleges and universities are great places to find employees for the restaurant industry, so reach out to the human resources departments and let them know if you're hiring. A lot of restaurants have decent turnover so maybe a permanent job posting would work.

Also, as with the charities, you can offer to donate or discount for catering or let a group (maybe the local university chess club) have small meetings in your restaurant. In conjunction with the whole student angle, why not write a piece on your blog about what working at your restaurant entails for the various employee positions, or write some tips on how to get hired as a hostess or sous chef?

Social Media

Social can be a huge asset to your restaurant, especially as a lot of people use it to figure out where to eat on the spur of the moment. Food also translates very well into a visual medium and social is prime for that.

Twitter

Twitter is fantastic for figuring out where your favorite food truck will be as you can see in the example below:

If you have a blog, you can obviously tweet out new content, but you can also tweet out everything from tonight's specials to advertising that someone's had to cancel a reservation so you have one table for four open for 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve.

On holidays, if you're open, you can use this to let everyone know, as that saves you a lot of time because otherwise you'd be fielding phone calls asking that same question.

Please make sure that if you do use Twitter, you keep up with what's being tweeted both about you and to you.

If someone's tweeting to ask if you have any vegetarian offerings because they're having dinner there tonight, then answer. Quickly.

If someone tweets that he had an amazing steak at your place last night, then thank him, and follow him. Hopefully he'll follow back. Tell him to come say hi the next time he's in the restaurant and actually make an offline connection. You can win a lot of relevant local followers this way.

Instagram

Food is visual, and Instagram is chock-full of people's food photos to the extent that it's become a cliché. However, it's still a very viable way to market your restaurant.

There are even apps like Feedie that work with participating restaurants so that when you Instagram a photo of your dinner from one of those restaurants, a donation is made to The Lunchbox Fund, a charity that aims to feed schoolchildren in South Africa.

Obviously as a restaurant you can Instagram your own photos (and you should) but you should pay attention when others do it, so you can follow them, get followed back, and just make some sort of connection that might benefit you both later on. Post a photo of your new menu, your new chocolate cake, your latest special or coupon code, etc. Just make sure you're using hashtags!

The Olive Garden has a nice Instagram account as you can see below:

Pinterest

Much like Instagram, Pinterest is great for something that translates well into the visual. Pinned recipes are very big right now, so use Pinterest to post a photo of your spaghetti carbonara and link it back to the recipe that you have on your blog. Pin photos of your restaurant all lit up for a special occasion or showcase a photo of the latest beer taps you have.

Panera has a great Pinterest feed. They pin about not only their food, but destressing, the importance of knowing where your food comes from, and what they're doing in the community.

Foursquare

I love Foursquare for restaurants. You can tell who else is checked in (in case you're connected to a group of friends and you're all in town for a conference, for example) and even get discounts or unlock specials. It's great for marketing specials like happy hour and late night, too.

Facebook

There's a great restaurant near my office and I think they do a really nice job with their Facebook page. They let you know what specials they have, ask for feedback on potential new dishes, and just generally keep their patrons informed about what's going on.

Guest Blogging

Despite all the recent high-profile penalties, people are still guest blogging, so it's worth a mention. I wouldn't advise anyone to do nothing but guest blog of course, but a couple of great opportunities could make for some fantastic exposure. Just don't overdo it or seek it out simply to get a link, as that will end up backfiring on you.

I did spend some time trying to find a few good examples of well-done restaurant guest blogging but sadly, I couldn't easily find anything, so whether that adds to the case to not do it or not can be left up to you. I do think there are better ways to build your online presence for a niche like restaurants, though.

5 Dos and Don'ts1. Do: Make Basic Information Easy to Find on Your Site

Your hours of operation shouldn't require 15 minutes of digging to find (and if you're ever open, you should have your hours listed!) and your menu should be current, not one that's still reading Valentine's Day 2012.

Think about what you'd use a restaurant's site for, and make sure you have those items ticked off.

Do you accept reservations? Say that you do or don't, and if you do, then provide a way to make them.

Provide contact information in every way you can receive it. If you have a social presence, then make that obvious on the homepage.

Here's a great example of a local restaurant that has done a wonderful job with giving you basic information the second you hit their home page:

Here's an example of one that's not doing such a great job of immediately giving you basic info and sadly it's the place that does everything else so well, which goes to show you how many people forget the basics. If you aren't considering making a reservation, would you think to look under that tab for the hours of operation? I wouldn't.

2. Don't: Ignore Basic SEO Practices

If your site takes forever to load, or won't load in Chrome, or the links aren't clickable on a mobile device, you have a problem. You're irritating users but you're also irritating crawlers, if I can go all anthropomorphic for a minute.

Mobile is especially critical for a restaurant so don't forget to make sure that everything's working properly on mobile devices. (Note: local and mobile really, really need to start working better together as you can see here and here.)

3. Do: Some Quick Competitive Analysis

See what other restaurants are doing in terms of their site, their social presences, and their backlinks.

If you run a backlink report on a restaurant down the block from you and find that there are some great local links in the profile, maybe those are worth trying to get for your own site. Maybe there's a new local food blogger who hasn't yet discovered you but you find her site through analyzing your competitor's link profile, so send her an email and ask her to come try your place.

4. Don't: Forget Webmaster Tools

Set up your site in both Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools and run some form of analytics software on it.

5. Do: Make Sure You're Monitoring Your Mentions!

Talkwalker Alerts is free and I highly recommend it. You definitely want to keep up with who's talking about you on social as well, so you can respond, whether it's positive or negative.

Summary

The restaurant industry is absolutely perfectly primed for creative marketing ideas. Hopefully you can extrapolate some of these ideas and use them no matter what niche you're working in.