Social Media & SEO

Last August Adam Singer wrote this excellent post on how Social Media has become inextricably linked to SEO. Adam talks about the reinforcement that each gives the other, in a continuously, self-perpetuating cycle. In the last five months I've seen Adam's theory proven true time and time again, both on commercial endeavours and private websites and blogs. Very simply, the links between Social Media and SEO are undeniable.

The 10 key points that Adam laid out are:

• Search Engines become more sophisticated and powerful
• An active Social Media push of content builds ever stronger links
• Regular, original content creates more opportunity to be found through search
• Search Engines like very regularly updated sites
• Social Media use drives increased successes
• Social Media can be build on
• Beyond links it's also about Digital PR
• Social Media Communities help grow themselves
• Content discovered through Social Media is more likely to be shared
• Engaging, well thought out content is the best

Whether you have your own website or work on a website(s) as part of your job, I highly recommend going and reading Adam's full post.

Online Advert Spending Outstrips TV Advertising – a Paradigm Shift

The following guest post was written by Christopher Angus.

Online advertising has outstripped TV advertising for the first time ever, the “paradigm shift” is reportedly due to faster broadband speeds and the sheer amount of time people are spending online. I personally also believe that internet advertising provides a far higher return than traditional media. Google reports this at nearly 2.3 times above offline advertising. Online advertising revenues amounted to approximately £1.75 billion in the first half of this year, while TV advertising “only” managed £1.6 billion.

Internet marketing seems to be a truly “recession proof” industry – I think that this is down to business owners being able to target exactly which profile type of customer they need and being able to track the exact ROI down to the last penny. Another factor that should also be taken into account is the amount of money that businesses spend on Search Engine Optimisation. Almost any good SEO Company will also report an increase in revenue during the recession.

What’s genuinely different about Internet advertising is that almost any business can reach customers on a worldwide basis, whatever the budget whilst creating a decent return on investment. As more business managers and owners realise the amazing returns that can be created quickly and efficiently, profits will start to fall as Internet advertising prices and returns fall as competition grows.

Internet advertising is also changing the entire shape and form of the media. Traditional media such as TV and print advertising are almost in free-fall, with large well trusted news sources in dire financial trouble. Take for example ITV and the NYTimes, these traditional media outlets need to adapt or die as the whole market and consumer behaviour is morphing into a slick efficient machine. No longer will huge media companies be commanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single ad, rather it will be hundreds of thousands of tiny income streams that will make up the majority of the revenue.

Whether businesses are considering Pay-Per-Click or SEO, they need to act quickly and decisively as the wave has arrived and it needs to be ridden or businesses will be simply left behind.

Complaining Web2.0 Style

Back in 2008, the band Sons of Maxwell were on their way to Nebraska for the start of a one-week tour. They were flying via Chicago's O'Hare airport and while sitting on the runway waiting to depart O'Hare a number of people on the plane commented that the United Airlines baggage handlers were throwing around a guitar. Dave Carroll, lead singer of Sons of Maxwell realised that it was his own Taylor guitar. Dave would later discover that the handlers had caused $3500 worth of damage.

United Airlines didn't deny what had happened but for the next 9 months Dave got passed from employee to employee, each of whom just failed to take any responsibility for dealing with the damage. Dave was finally told that United Airlines would offered the singer a $1,200 flight voucher to cover the costs for his guitar repair, as he had not followed the correct complaints procedure.

Feeling that there was nothing that Dave could do, he told the last person who gave him this news that he planned on writing and producing 3 songs about the experience. He also promised to create videos for each song that would be posted online for everyone to see. Below is Sons of Maxwell's first of these songs, simply titled 'United: Song 1'. The second song, 'United: Song 2' has been written and the video production is currently under way.The third song will follow soon.

'United: Song 1' was posted on YouTube 5 days ago on the 6th of July. In that short space of time the video has already received over 2 million views.

In light of this, United Airlines was forced to apologise to Dave and the band. The airline issued a statement via Twitter, saying: "This has struck a chord [with] us and we've contacted him directly to make it right."

In true internet brilliance, the 'United: Song 1' video now ranks number 2 in Google for searches on "United Airlines" and number 4 for searches on "Taylor guitar".

You can follow Dave on Twitter and read the full story of what happened on Dave's website.

Mad Avenue Blues

An absolutely hilarious 'must watch' video for anyone involved in marketing, media or advertising. Brilliant work!

Google Wonder Wheel

I posted on Thursday about Google's new Options for Search. Google produced a nice video about the new features, and hopefully you all watched it, so I didn't go into a great deal of detail. However, having had a good play around with the new features, I thought that the new Wonder Wheel function deserved a bit of elaboration.

Wonder Wheel is one of the new tools allowing you to refine your search and find alternative keywords. Once you've performed a search, click on the new 'show options' link in the top left hand side of the results window. Towards the bottom of the list is Wonder Wheel. Clicking on the link will reveal a keyword cloud. In the below example I searched for 'Marketing'.

The main reason I thought that Wonder Wheel deserved a bit more attention is because I realised it's a great tool for developing SEO and PPC keyword alternatives, through Google's own suggestions. Obviously you can pop into your AdWords account and use the kyword tool but this is a fast and simple way to generate keyword lists in seconds. Definitely worth keeping in mind, especially when preparing initial proposals.

Changes in the World of Search

Following Google's recent Searchology event, where the search giant unveiled a number of new search features, both Yahoo! and Microsoft have revealed their plans to change the way we search the web.

Following much speculation and chatter on the web, Microsoft confirmed it is ready to launch its newest search engine, code named Kumo, this week. Microsoft is expected to launch Kumo during the Wall Street Journal 'D: All Things Digital Conference'. The name Kumo which literally translates to “cloud” or “spider” was among a host of names which have been mentioned in relations to a possible rebranding of Live Search. Yahoo! on the other hand has announced that they want to restructure its offering to actually change how we search. Sources at both Microsoft and JWT have confirmed that the launch will be driven by a major advertising campaign created by JWT.

Yahoo! described their new approach as "a distinct move away from the '10 blue links', or the standardised text-heavy search results page," instead they [Yahoo!] "envision the web as a series of 'objects' as opposed to 'pages', making for a more engaging user experience." Essentially they think that the results they deliver should be a collection of relevant information i.e. searching for a restaurant would deliver reviews, opening hours, menus, contact information etc.

Although Yahoo! never describes it as such, this is clearly a move towards a Semantic Web. This is great news. Instead of simply delivering a collection links that have been determined by a search algorithm working on text, users would receive information that is determined through its actual meaning. Yahoo! has referred to this as an arrangement of "about-ness".

Yahoo! gave the example that a search for Beyonce would display the singer's home page, but also a list of her albums and links to tracks hosted on its music site Rhapsody.

The overall project is not new however. Officially referred to as the 'Search Monkey project', it is now over a year old and still under rigorous testing. The major downside (imho) is that the system is based on companies sending Yahoo! the data they want included in their search results. This is a system based on control. Where does UGC content fit in? Where do the bad reviews end up? To me this seems very much like a 'big brother' defined index of 'good' information - you get to see what you are allowed to see.

Regardless of how each companies search 'improvements' turnout, it's not surprising that they are each trying to improve, innovate and extend their offerings. Recent ComScore data (April this year) showed that Google has gained half a point to 64.2% of US search market share, while Microsoft (8.2%) and Yahoo! (20.4%) have both fallen.

On the Google front, there is also the up-coming release of their newest offering Google Squared (due end of May). Although many details remain a mystery, Google have described the new service as providing search results in a spreadsheet format rather than a typical links page, emphasising pure information instead of just related content. This sounds very much like a Google knowledge engine, perhaps similar to Wolfram Alpha. As such, this is probably the most exciting search news here.

11 Essential Skills for Digital Marketing

I was sent a link to Ian Lurie's post, 11 Internet Marketing Skills That Must Be Second Nature, yesterday by a friend. Not only do I agree with everything Ian says, but he made me laugh. So I thought that I should share his insights with you.

1. XHTML and CSS. You don't have to be a god(dess) of web programming. But so help me God the next 'internet marketer' who gives me a blank stare when I mention CSS gets an atomic wedgie. And by the way, web standards have nothing to do with the metric system.
2. Search engine optimization. Search engine results are the starting point for at least 70% of all online behavior. How on earth will you help someone market themselves online if you don't even know what moves a site up and down in the rankings? Quick hint: Saying "SEO? Oh, we optimize your meta tags" is the same as saying "I am a severely impaired nubwit".
3. Pay per click marketing. Nothing sucks money out of a marketing budget faster than undisciplined PPC marketing. Assuming you care about your clients, you need to know a lot about PPC. Knowing where PPC ads show up doesn't count, by the way. You need to know and understand concepts like negative keywords, quality scoring, dynamic keywords and content networks. Another hint: "Negative keyword" doesn't mean "Keywords that make you feel bad".
4. Analysis. Let me make this clear: A bar chart is not analytics. If I ask for analysis and you e-mail me a bar chart I will so kick your behind. Analysis/analytics is the practice of turning data (the bar chart) into action steps and conclusions like "Wow, our ROI on this keyword is great. We need to build a landing page."
5. Usability. Please, please read Don't Make Me Think. Just for starters. Then start keeping an eye on Jakob Nielsen's site and other resources. Usability is a non-stop learning process. So get going.
6. Complete sentences. Write every day. Every day. I don't care what you write about. But you need to be able to write a post like this in 30-40 minutes, and it needs to be readable.
   
7. RSS and feeds. I shouldn't even have to say this. But you do know how to use Google Reader, right? Right?!
8. Blogging and social media. Write at least one blog. See 'Complete Sentences', above. And know what people mean when they say 'social media'. They really mean media. Understand what makes it all tick, and how you can help someone interact with their audience in a meaningful way.
9. E-mail marketing. Learn to build a house e-mail list. Learn why most rental e-mail lists suck eggs. Know what makes an e-mail work or fail.
10. Statistics 101. If you don't know what a rolling average is, don't even talk to me.
11. Marketing. Oh, did I mention? You need to be good at, you know, making people understand why something is The Product For Them.

SEO Consultant Ireland

Check out this great article on everything Google, by Jonathan Darling.

SEO - Theme Density

I was talking to an American chap recently about SEO practices and he kept making reference to Theme Density. I tried to explain that I was completely unfamiliar with the term but he wasn’t very good at explaining what he meant. I did a bit of research and found several articles that made reference to Theme Density but I haven’t been able to figure out a) whether the practice actually works, b) whether it is a bon fide ‘legal’ strategy, and c) what the limitations are for content duplication in smaller sites.

Basic overview time for those not familiar with the term, I guess. Theme Density refers to building internal linking structures throughout a network of pages and posts that develop strong semantic links (related data content), occurrences of matching keyphrases and synonyms, and thematic modifiers. Now in laymen’s terms; you write several posts all of which are interlinked to each other through multiple keyphrases, while also all being around the same general topic. Basically.

The result of all this is that within those keyphrases you will start to gain multiple search results on both broad match and exact match keywords. By making the practice habitual throughout everything you post, you start to show more page results over certain keywords. Hence Theme Density.

Seems clear and easy (to be honest I’m not sure why that guy couldn’t explain it?).

The best example I have come across is Wikipedia. Consider all the words within a wikipage that are linked to other wikipages describing that term. Now think about how many times you performed a search and Wikipedia is the top result! In the case of Wikipedia this is further reinforced as each word that links to it’s own article, features itself as the H1 on the other end, possible as the H2 and H3 too.

This however is where the average person starts to think about the number of posts necessary to do this effectively, or rather the number of existing posts to do this effectively. It’s a lot. Plus there’s no point in retrospectively linking an old post to a newer one. So the process is slow, and requires that you post a lot, linking between related posts several times for each post you make.

Unfortunately while I now (think I) understand what the process is, why it’s beneficial and how to do it, I haven’t answered any of my original three questions.

Back to the research!