SES NY 2010 Series: Getting Penalized and Banned in Search, An Interview With Michael Stebbins from Market Motive

It’s that time of year again. SES New York is only a few weeks away and I’ll be covering the conference again via blogging and Twitter. As part of my coverage, I’ll be writing a blog posts previewing some of the sessions that I’m excited about attending. My first post is about a session titled “Post Mortem: Banned Site Forensics” and it will be co-presented by Michael Stebbins, the CEO of Market Motive, and Rand Fishkin, the CEO of SEOmoz, on Tuesday, March 23rd at 12:45. During the session, Michael and Rand will share some of the most egregious tactics that can get you in trouble, and also how to deal with getting penalized or banned. I had a chance to interview Michael last week about the session and you will find the interview below.

Getting Penalized or Banned in Search
If you work in SEO long enough, you’ll eventually hear the nightmare stories about sites getting penalized or banned by the search engines. I actually monitored a site a few months ago (a major brand) that was pulled from Google’s index for a five to six week period before being reincluded by the search giant. I can’t imagine how much money the company lost during that timeframe. It took me only ten minutes of digging to understand what they were doing wrong (and the tactic was blatantly against Google’s webmaster guidelines). That was a bad move and I’m sure it cost them dearly.

But every company being penalized doesn’t set out to break the rules. I’ve seen many instances of companies implementing dark grey to black hat tactics simply based on a lack of experience. They might have read about how to quickly rank highly on some random blog and went ahead and implemented those tactics. They weren’t necessarily trying to game the system, but ended up making changes that could get them in trouble. Sure, they might jump up the rankings for a few weeks or months, but they also might eventually get caught. That’s typically when the companies getting penalized or banned seek professional assistance.

Needless to say, this is an important topic in SEO and why I chose to write about the session here on my blog. Michael has a wealth of experience in helping companies that have been penalized or banned, and was able to take a few minutes last week to answer some of my questions.

So without further ado, here is my interview with Michael Stebbins:

Glenn: What are the top three or four things people will learn at your session?

Michael: We'll cover which sins are forgivable and which ones can result in indefinite exclusion from the search results. We’ll also cover how to know if your site is banned in the first place. We get calls for help where site owners are certain they've been banned and it turns out the site is still indexed, but is penalized. Being penalized and being banned are very different outcomes. I'll show attendees a way to know for sure. We’ll then cover the five most common reasons sites are taken out of the index and I'll show the do's and don'ts in the reinclusion process.

Glenn: In your opinion, what are the leading causes/tactics for sites getting banned (over the past 12 to 18 months)?

Michael: Nearly all the “unforgivable” sins center around trying to fool the search engines into believing your site is more popular than it really is. The bots are getting smarter, but they are still blind and deaf. Since they cannot emulate a human behind a browser this leaves some opportunities for unscrupulous site owners to manipulate what the engines read versus what real people see and experience.

Glenn: As the engines have evolved, how have tactics for getting penalized evolved? i.e. How have older tactics like white on white text, keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc. evolved to more advanced forms of breaking the rules?

Michael: Google keeps this information close to the vest. But Bing recently posted what they are looking for to identify web spam. If you understand Google's motivation to show relevant sites, and combine this with some technical knowledge of how a bot finds and reads a web page, it's not too hard to figure out what the engines are looking for. Only certain false popularity techniques can be picked up with a bot at this time. The rest have to be reported and then checked via a manual review.

Glenn: Based on your experience, what are some of the top misconceptions about getting penalized by the engines?

Michael: It's funny, or actually it's not so funny, but nearly everyone who gets a site banned denies that they've done anything wrong. It's like a crime drama where the “victim” hides evidence out of embarrassment or denial. Eventually, we figure it out and are able to help. Another one that keeps coming up is denial of service after over-using Google resources. The denial of service relates to queries to Google's data -- not to inclusion in the index.

Glenn: Are there times where a smaller SEO violation can lead to a website completely getting pulled from the index?

Michael: Absolutely. We've found sites that trigger manual review for a forgivable sin, but once under review, an unforgivable sin is discovered and the site is beyond recovery at that point. Picture a driver getting pulled over for a tail light infraction only to get arrested for a bank robbery.

Glenn: Based on your experience helping sites that have been penalized or banned, how long does it take to bounce back from a penalty? (If a site owner goes through the process of fixing the issue and then filing a reinclusion request).

Michael: We've seen reinclusion in two weeks, but we've seen hundreds of sites that have little hope of ever being reincluded.

Glenn: Are there any case studies you are going to present during your session (along with statistics) about sites that were penalized?

Michael: I'll use some anonymized data to give examples of statistical data that can trigger a review. But for obvious reasons, we don't want to expose sites that were banned or are working on a reinclusion.

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Based on the importance of the subject matter, along with Michael and Rand’s experience, I believe this is a session that is hard to miss… I think the information being presented can help clients, agencies, consultants, and in-house SEO’s all better understand how to keep their sites in good standing. I’ll be attending the session on Tuesday and tweeting core points as they come up. Again, the session is scheduled for 12:45-1:45 on Tuesday, March 23rd.

So, be there or get banned by Google. Just kidding. :)

If you have any questions, post them below. Either Michael or myself will respond.

GG

Advanced Segmentation in Google Analytics: How to Set Up and Use Advanced Segments to Analyze Social Media Traffic

When I’m helping clients analyze website traffic and performance, I try and help them avoid the time-consuming process of “report browsing”. Instead, I emphasize entering the process with a very specific goal in mind. You need a purpose when diving into reporting or else you run the risk of spending hours scanning metrics with nothing to show at the end but a headache and a bottle of Visine. I also emphasize focusing on actionable data, or information you can analyze and then make decisions based on. This is why segmentation is so important. I’ll explain more about segments below, but for now think of a segment as a slice of your site traffic (based on traffic source, type of visitor, etc.) For the example I provide in this post, visitors from Social Media websites could be a segment of your site traffic.

Back to web analytics and actionable data. Aggregate data from a broad view of your site traffic doesn’t tell you very much. However, data related to specific traffic sources, locations, keywords, and campaigns can reveal incredible information (and you can act on that data). For example, an aggregate website bounce rate of 70% tells you almost nothing. You cannot take action from that metric alone, since you might have dozens of traffic sources all with varying bounce rates. Some may be low (15-20%), while others may be extremely high (90%+). If you just focus on the average bounce rate at the site level, you won’t be able to make an impact easily. On the flip side, if you had a 70% bounce rate for a specific ad group in paid search (which focuses on a specific theme based on your product line), then you know there’s a problem. That’s actionable data. You can then start to analyze the keywords you are bidding on, the ad text you are using, the landing pages you are driving visitors to, etc. And actionable data impacts conversion, revenue, registrations, and overall campaign performance.

The Social Media Segment
With all the buzz about social media marketing, many companies are trying to figure out how to effectively analyze traffic from social media sites. Sure, it’s easy to see visits from social media sites, but in order to understand the impact of that traffic, you need to dig deeper and have a clearer view. It’s sometimes hard to analyze the specific data you want when several sources of traffic are mixed in your reporting. It can get extremely frustrating to say the least. For example, what content on your site do social media visitors consume the most, how engaged is that traffic segment, how much revenue do they generate, do they return to your site, so on and so forth. So, wouldn’t it be great to isolate that traffic and then run Google Analytics reporting just for that custom segment? The good news is that you can set this up using one of the most powerful features of Google Analytics – Advanced Segmentation.

What is Advanced Segmentation?
Setting up advanced segments in Google Analytics enables you to analyze very specific slices of traffic. Instead of analyzing reporting based on major types of traffic, you can slice and dice the traffic to glean actionable insights. For example, you can set up segments for social media traffic, visitors from specific countries or cities, visitors that searched for specific keywords, campaign traffic, etc. You get the picture. It’s extremely flexible and the segments you choose to set up are based on your specific online marketing initiatives. Once you set up an advanced segment, you will only view data for that segment while you traverse your reporting in Google Analytics. Advanced Segmentation is incredibly handy, and again, you gain actionable intelligence from the reporting for the segment you are analyzing. You can view the Google Analytics help area for more information about advanced segmentation.

Setting Up Your Social Media Segment
Let’s say you’ve been focusing heavily on social media marketing and want to gain a clearer picture of how that traffic is performing. For argument’s sake, let’s say you have a Facebook page and accounts at Twitter, Stumbleupon, Delicious, and Digg. You hired a social media marketer who is managing each account and that person has started gaining traction. Based on your social media efforts, you want to find out as much as possible about how that segment is performing. Sure, you could go into referring sources and view some top-level data for each traffic source, but you want more. You want to drill into several more reports to see what content they are viewing, how much revenue they are generating, which events they are triggering, where they are located geographically, etc. Let’s get started.

How to Set Up Your Social Media Segment in Google Analytics:

1. Log into Google Analytics and find the Advanced Segments dropdown in the upper right-hand corner of your reporting. It will be located above the date range and the default segment will say “All Visits”.

Finding the advanced segments dropdown:


2. Click the “All Visits” dropdown and find the link on the left-hand side that reads “Create a new advanced segment”.

Creating a new advanced segment:


3. Now you will see a slick drag and drop interface for creating your custom segment. I love that Google Analytics made this so intuitive. On the left hand side, you will find a list of dimensions and metrics that you can use to create your custom segment. On the right-hand side, you will find an area where you can drag those dimensions or metrics and then define them. Clicking the arrows next to each category on the left hand side will reveal all of the dimensions and metrics you can utilize.

Dragging metrics and dimensions to define a new segment:


4. For our purposes, we want to define several referring sources as our segment (various social media websites). Click the arrow icon next to “Traffic Sources” and then drag the “Source” tab to the area that says “Dimension or Metric”. The “Source” tab is located near the bottom of the list under “Traffic Sources”. When you drag the source tab over the box labeled “dimension or metric”, you will see the bounding box change from a light grey dotted line to a dark grey dotted line (indicating that you can drop it there). Once you drop the source tab in the box, Google Analytics will let you type the first few letters of the site in a text field to select the specific traffic source. Google Analytics will also auto-populate the field with your current traffic sources (as you type). So, if you start typing Twitter, you will be able to select Twitter.com. You will also notice a “condition” dropdown, which gives you the flexibility for setting matching options. For our purpose, we want to use “Matches Exactly” as we want the exact social media website.

Entering specific traffic sources to define the custom segment:


5. Once you set up Twitter.com, you can add more traffic sources by clicking the “Add or statement” link and then dragging another “Source” tab to the dimension or metric box. Start typing Digg and then select Digg.com. Note, Google Analytics will only auto-populate sites where visits exist for your website. So if you don’t have any visitors from Digg.com, then it won’t show up. You will need to manually enter Digg.com in the field if that’s the case.

Adding more traffic sources to your custom segment:


6. Add traffic sources for Stumbleupon, Facebook, and Delicious as explained above.

7. Name your custom segment by typing in the text field below the drag and drop section you have been using up to this point. You can enter something like “Social Media Traffic” for this example.

Naming your advanced segment:


8. At this point, you can click “Test Segment” to see the data that Google Analytics will pull for the segment. The “Test Segment” link is located on the right side of the screen next to your various social media traffic sources. It’s not required that you test the segment, but it’s always a good idea to ensure you set up your custom segment properly.

9. Finally, when you are ready, click “Create Segment”, which is located next to the Name Segment field mentioned earlier.

10. After creating your segment, you will be sent back to your Google Analytics reporting. Note, your new segment will not be active at this point. You will still be viewing “All Visits” until you manually select your segment. To do this, find the “Advanced Segments” area again in the upper right-hand corner of the reporting and click the “All Visits” dropdown. You should see your new segment titled “Social Media Traffic” in the list. You can click the checkbox next to “All Visits” to remove that segment from your reporting and instead check the box next to “Social Media Traffic” to include the segment in your reporting. When you click “Apply” at the bottom of the advanced segments form, you will be able to view only social media traffic in your Google Analytics reports (as defined by your segment). Voila, you’re done.

Now comes the fun part. Go ahead and browse your reporting to view data just for your social media segment. This includes the content the segment is consuming, locations they are visiting from, conversions, revenue, event tracking, return visitors, etc. Pretty cool, right? Note, you can also activate multiple segments at one time to compare them in your reporting. But, that’s for another blog post. :)

Go Ahead, Segment Away…
Although this was a quick tutorial, I hope you have a better understanding of what advanced segments are and how to use them to analyze specific slices of traffic. Based on how flexible and powerful advanced segmentation is, I plan to write more about the topic in future blog posts. So go ahead and log into Google Analytics and create some custom segments. Don’t worry about corrupting your reporting or messing up any of your data. Advanced Segments won’t hurt any of your current profiles or reporting. It simply filters data for you based on the dimensions and metrics you choose. It’s like a segmentation sandbox (less the shovel and pail of course). Have fun.

GG

How to Upgrade Your HDTV Firmware [SAMSUNG] – And Get Rid of Annoying Audio and Video Problems

It’s no secret that HDTV’s have taken off. That’s for good reason, considering the incredible image quality that HD provides. So, as people buy HDTV’s and set up HD service with their cable providers, you might think everyone is extremely happy in TV-land. But running some searches in Google for HDTV audio, video, or image problems shows you that everything isn't perfect. Like many other gadgets and electronic devices, HDTV’s run software (AKA firmware). That software often needs to be upgraded as bugs and other problems are addressed by the manufacturer. Therefore, if you end up running into weird issues with your HDTV, don’t immediately think that your TV is shot. You just might need to upgrade your HDTV’s firmware. And that’s exactly what I’m going to walk you through in this post. If you’re not technical and are afraid of terms like “firmware” or “upgrade”, don’t worry. I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to upgrade. Also, I focused on Samsung in this post, but the process should apply to other manufacturers. Definitely check out the support site for your specific TV before making any changes.

Samsung HD Audio Problems
I bought a Samsung HD TV a few years ago, based on researching various manufacturers and models. Samsung received outstanding reviews overall, and was consistently called the innovator in the industry. I now have two Samsung HDTV’s and have been happy for the most part. However, over the past year, one HDTV started giving us audio problems. The audio would drop out and you wouldn’t be able to get it back unless you cycled through the various ports (HDMI2, HDMI3, AV1, etc.) Yes, that got extremely annoying, especially when it started happening multiple times per day.

Placing Blame in the Right Spot
So I did what most people would do. I mistakenly blamed the cable company. :) I switched cable boxes (multiple times), I switched out wires, tested various setups, etc. Nothing helped. For whatever reason, I didn’t think that the TV was the problem (based on having it for a few years and that Samsung had such an outstanding reputation.) But upon further research, I noticed many other people had the same problem. During my research, I also noticed several links to Samsung’s support site to download the latest firmware (which some people claimed would fix strange audio or video problems). After going through the process of upgrading my HDTV’s firmware, the audio problems that we were experiencing were 99% gone. It’s not perfect, but much better than it was. It’s now rare that the audio drops out.

After fixing the problem, I started explaining the situation to friends, family, etc. I noticed that most of the people I was speaking to had no idea you could upgrade your HDTV’s firmware (or how to do it). Based on upgrading my firmware, I had numerous requests to email the instructions for how to complete the upgrade. So instead of emailing dozens of people, I’ve decided to document the process here on my blog. Without further ado, let’s jump in.


How To Upgrade Your HDTV’s Firmware (Step by Step)

Note, you will need an empty USB flash drive to complete the process. The flash drive will be used to transfer the firmware upgrade to your HDTV. If you’re not familiar with USB flash drives, they are inexpensive, fast, and provide various storage capacities. They can be purchased at any electronics retailer and typically start at $10-$15 for 4-8GB of storage.) Here's a link to Google Product Search for USB flash drives.

Finding and Downloading the Right Firmware

1. Visit the support website for your specific manufacturer. I’ll walk you through the Samsung website, since I own Samsung HDTV’s. Visit the site and look for a link for "downloads" or "get support".



2. Enter your HDTV model number. Note, I would always use the exact model number to ensure you download the correct firmware.

3. Once you see the downloads available for your TV, click the link for “firmware” or “download firmware”. Save the file to a directory on your hard drive. The download will probably be either a zipfile or an executable file. You will ultimately need to unzip the file (if it’s a zipfile) and drag the folder or contents of the zipfile to your flash drive. If it’s an executable file, then you just need to drag it to your flash drive (covered in the next step.)



4. Insert your USB flash drive into an open USB port on your computer. It should show up as another drive (in My Computer or Windows Explorer). Drag the file you downloaded to your USB flash drive. If you downloaded an executable file, then just drag that file to your flash drive. If you downloaded a zipfile, you might want to unzip it prior to dragging the files to your flash drive.




5. Once you transfer the executable file to your flash drive, double click the file to extract the folders necessary for the installation. This will place the necessary files on your USB flash drive. You will probably see a new folder or two after executing the file. Note, it’s recommended that you use a blank USB flash drive. If you have files already on the drive, I would clear them out prior to going through this process.

Installing the Firmware Upgrade on Your HDTV

6. Connect your USB flash drive to the USB port on your TV. For my TV, this was located on the back panel of the TV and was labeled “Wiselink”.



7. This next step definitely depends on your manufacturer and model of TV. Use the TV’s remote (not your cable remote), and access the main menu. For my TV, I simply clicked the “Menu” button on the remote. Scroll down to the “Setup” tab and then find the option for “Software Upgrade” or “SW Upgrade”. When you select “SW Upgrade”, choose the option for “USB” (which was the only option I had). If you downloaded the correct firmware for your specific TV, then you will be prompted to install the upgrade. If you proceed, then you should see the firmware upgrade being installed.



Note, DO NOT DISCONNECT THE USB DRIVE while the installation is taking place. Doing so could cause serious problems with your HDTV (like corrupting your firmware or damaging your TV hardware).

The TV should automatically turn off and then back on after the install is complete. Once the TV turns back on, you should be good to go.

Congratulations, you just upgraded your firmware. :)

Are You Ready to Upgrade?
So there you have it. If you are experiencing technical issues with your HDTV, don’t start shopping for a new model just yet. Instead, it could be that you need to upgrade the TV’s firmware (which is pretty straight forward and shouldn’t take you very long to complete). Also, if you experience any problems or have questions about the upgrade, definitely contact your manufacturer’s technical support. They can make sure you have the right firmware version for your specific TV.

Happy viewing.

GG

{Disclaimer: I highly recommend contacting your TV manufacturer's technical support team prior to upgrading your firmware. I am not responsible for any technical problems or issues you experience during the upgrade.}

Domain Strategy and SEO – Build Strength in Natural Search While Minimizing Security Risks

Do you know how many domains your company or clients are using? Are they building SEO power to one domain or splitting that power across ten? Do they use an excessive amount of subdomains or are they siloing content on their core website? From a security standpont, is there sensitive content sitting on test servers freely available to competitors? These are all important questions to explore, and how you address these questions can end up having a strong impact on your SEO efforts.

Don’t Overlook Domain Strategy
I’ve written extensively about SEO technical audits here on my blog, and how I think they provide the most SEO bang for your buck. There are a lot of important issues you can identify when performing an audit, including problems with indexation, canonicalization, navigation and internal linking, sitemaps, content optimization, etc. But there’s another important aspect to technical audits that is sometimes overlooked – Domain Strategy. Developing a solid domain strategy helps build the foundation for your overall SEO efforts. For example, would you rather have twelve domains with a few thousand inbound links per domain or one domain with 25K inbound links? Should your blog be hosted on your core domain or be on its own domain? Are you using 35 subdomains to organize content? Do you even need to use subdomains?

Don’t skip domain strategy. It’s too important to ignore. :)

And that’s why it’s the focus of my latest post on Search Engine Journal. I cover what domain strategy is, why it’s important, and I provide real-word situations I’ve come across during audits where developing a domain strategy was desperately needed. So head over to Search Engine Journal and read my post now! If you have comments or questions, feel free to post them either on Search Engine Journal or back here on my blog.

Domain Strategy – A Critical Component to SEO Technical Audits

GG

Say Cheese Please - How The Right Marketing Campaign About Lactose Intolerance Could Add $1.8 Billion To The Cheese Industry Annually

Hi. My name is Glenn Gabe and I’m lactose intolerant. That’s right, me and about 40 million other Americans. Although it’s not the worst thing that can happen to you, it’s definitely a bit of a downer. I was 32 when I figured out that I was lactose intolerant, and that’s also when I learned how much of a nuisance it was to exclude certain foods from my diet. And those foods were some of my favorite things to eat, including milk, cheese, pizza, ice cream, to just name a few. Cheese, in particular, is in so many foods and meals that you eat on a regular basis, that it’s almost impossible to avoid. Now, that’s assuming that I really do have to avoid cheese. More on that shortly.

What is Lactose Intolerance?
For those of you not that familiar with lactose intolerance, here’s a quick rundown. Lactose is the sugar found in milk. Lactase is the enzyme that your body produces to break down lactose. Lactose intolerant people don’t produce enough lactase to break down the lactose they ingest. And if it’s not broken down, it causes problems (to varying degrees). For most people the symptoms aren’t horrible, but can be more of an annoyance. Since milk is a core ingredient of cheese, you would think that cheese would cause serious problems for lactose intolerant people. Not so fast...

Cabot is Sharp (And I Mean Smart)
I was making lunch about a month ago when it happened. I’m typically stuck using some flimsy science cheese for my sandwiches or choosing from the anemic selection of lactose free cheeses available. That day my wife ended up taking out her favorite cheese, which is Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar. By the way, that’s like dangling a gourmet sandwich in front of a person that’s been stranded on an island for 5 years. :) After a quick glance at the cheese, I wiped the drool from my face and went back to my science project, I mean lunch. That was until my wife glanced at the side of the Cabot packaging. She noticed a small message on the side of the package that read “Lactose FREE”. Huh? I dropped my sandwich on the floor and ran over. Was this a mistake? Are they messing with me? I checked to make sure I wasn’t being punk’d and then I started doing some research.

Cabot's Packaging Promotes Lactose Free Cheese:


After doing some searches, I couldn’t believe what I was reading… It ends up that MOST aged cheeses are lactose free. From what I gather, the aging process yields cheese with either very low amounts of lactose or 0 grams of lactose. That includes cheddar, swiss, romano, provolone, etc. Needless to say, I was ridiculously excited. I’m not sure if all the cheeses listed have 0 grams of lactose, but most have such a low amount that they cause no problems for lactose intolerant people.

Where Were The Cheese Companies?
Then it hit me…why in the world aren’t cheese companies promoting this? Is there some reason they don’t want people to buy more of their cheese? Why didn’t I know about this? And why doesn’t the greater lactose intolerant community know more about this? I know quite a few people that are lactose intolerant, and I’m convinced that few of them actually know what they can and cannot eat! While doing my research, most of the search results were to forums and question and answer sites where people like me were asking questions about lactose free foods. Almost none of the major players in cheese ranked for the topic. Finlandia did have a page about how its cheeses were naturally lactose free, which is great, but I think more needs to be done…

The Revenue Implications of Smart Marketing
I couldn’t help but think of the massive revenue impact of effectively promoting this message to targeted people. How could cheese marketers get the word out via a number of channels?

A Target Market of 40 million lactose intolerant people…
I don’t know about you, but a target market of between 30 and 50 million lactose intolerant people provides a pretty darn good opportunity. And the fact that many of those people are dying to eat the foods they once loved (like cheese) makes it even a stronger opportunity. If cheese manufacturers or the cheese industry, decided to launch a thorough marketing and education campaign, I can only think they would strike gold. Simply getting the word out that most cheeses are low in lactose, and many are lactose free, could be a windfall for the cheese industry. There’s actually nothing to sell… your target market wants to eat cheese. They just can’t eat it (or so they think). A well-crafted campaign combining TV, Viral Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Search Marketing, Blogger Outreach, etc. could be huge for the cheese industry. It could be a cheese extravaganza!

Here’s an example of how simple it could be given the desperate eating state of most lactose intolerant people are. Jim and Laura work together:

Jim: Hey Laura, you can’t eat cheese, right?
Laura: Yes, unfortunately I’m lactose intolerant… Are you rubbing it in?
Jim: No, I just saw a video on YouTube explaining that most cheeses are low in lactose and many have no lactose at all… You should check it out.
Laura: WHAT?? Get out of my way! {She tackles Jim to get at his computer, clicks play on YouTube and shoots out the door to the store to buy 16 blocks of aged cheese.}

Revenue Lift: Now That’s A Lot of Cheddar
Let’s do the math. If you reached even 25% of lactose intolerant people in the United States, and they ended up spending an additional $15 per month on cheese, then you are looking at a lift of $1.8 billion per year. That’s a lot of cheddar, pun intended. :)

40 million lactose intolerant people in the US
25% = 10 million people
10 million x $15 per month = $150 million per month
$150 million per month x 12 months = $1.8 billion per year in additional revenue

Moving Forward
If I ran marketing for a cheese company and I was looking for ways to increase revenue, I would launch a killer campaign that engages the lactose intolerant market. Why try and get a .5% lift from the people who already buy and eat cheese when you can get a much greater lift from people that are dying to eat cheese, but just THINK that they can’t.

Now that would be sharp. :)

GG

An Email, A Tweet, Some Retweets and A Sale - How Twitter Can Impact Your B2B Sales

I think many heavy Twitter users hear the same jokes and comments from people not using the service. “I don’t see any value in tweeting my ideas”, “Why would I want tell people what I had for breakfast”, “140 character updates, I don’t get it…”, “Why do I want to communicate with total strangers?”, so on and so forth. After hearing comments like this, it usually only takes me a few minutes to give real world examples of how Twitter is NOT what they were thinking and how they could use the service to help grow their own businesses. Those real world case studies go a long way when you are explaining a service that can be foreign to other people (even for people in marketing who aren’t that involved with social media.) So, I’m always on the lookout for more great examples of how Twitter (and social media) can impact companies, marketers, customers, etc. As you might guess, I’ve a got a good one that I’ve decided to share. :)

The Social Media Chain Reaction Needs a Spark
A few weeks ago, a blog post was published detailing some of the top software applications for a niche in an industry. The post included a startup that had recently just launched their new application. The founder of the startup was proud (as he should be) and blasted out an email newsletter announcing that they were included in the list of top apps. I’m not sure how many people were on the email list, but I can only imagine it wasn’t a large list (as the company recently just launched).

It wasn’t long before a link to the blog post hit the Twittersphere. The company in question has a very small Twitter following, so blasting out an email could only help get the word out. A quick review of their Twitter stream shows they are doing the right things, but they haven’t reached critical mass to make a significant impact. Some of the tweets linking to the blog post were from people who definitely have a strong Twitter following. Retweets soon followed and the word started to get out about the list of top apps. By no means was this a retweet extravaganza that I’ve seen with other posts, but it did get passed around quite a bit.

The Results: Email, Tweet, Retweet, Sale
It's sometimes funny how tweets end up finding the right people. It's similar to WOM, where several generations of communication can occur (stemming from the initial tweet). In a nutshell, the startup ended up landing its first international client in less than 12 hours from one of the initial tweets. The new customer saw the tweet (either by directly following a Twitter user or by tracking keywords in Twitter), clicked through to the blog post, and then chose to learn more about the startup's app. They obviously took the next step and inquired about the service and then pulled the trigger (all in less than 12 hours.) Oh by the way, this all cost nothing for the startup, nada, $0). And when B2B sales can generate thousands of dollars per customer (or tens of thousands of dollars depending on what you sell), you cannot downplay how powerful this Twitter example is.

A Quick Tangent About Email Marketing:
I wanted to point out that an email actually started the communication process. There’s quite a bit of buzz about social networking (and for good reason), but I still believe a strong and scrubbed in-house email list is worth its weight in gold.

Seeing the “Twitter” Light
For the startup, they now see the power of Twitter (and social media in general). But in my opinion, the company was somewhat lucky with what happened. Don’t get me wrong, their software solution looks impressive (especially for the industry they focus on). But, having cool software doesn’t necessarily translate to business success, especially with all the noise in today’s marketplace. It’s great that the blog post made its way to the right people, but the startup could have better facilitated the communication on social networks. No, you cannot control where the message ends up and how it gets passed along, but you can help get the word out to the right people during the launch via followers, fans, influencers, etc. That’s where having a strong presence on social networks like Twitter and Facebook can be extremely powerful.

In order to maximize their efforts and continually engage targeted users, the startup needs to tackle social media marketing on several fronts. Although they saw some success due to Twitter that day, they had to rely on someone else getting the word out. Imagine if they already had a strong following on Twitter and Facebook. What if they already had a global readership on their blog, and had connections with dozens of powerful bloggers in their industry? It’s not a stretch to think that the startup could have landed five or ten new customers versus one. The problem is that it takes time to build up a following, which I have written about several times before. Currently, the startup is in the initial stages of launching their social media marketing efforts. They are fighting the black hole of blogging and Twitter, but they are doing the right things. If they don’t get frustrated and keep driving forward, social media could end up being very powerful for them. They could end up driving the communication versus hoping someone else drives it for them.

In Order to Reap the Rewards of Social Media, Make Sure You’re in the Game
In order to make sure you can benefit from a situation like what I explained above, there are some initial steps you can take. First, develop a strategy for utilizing social media to engage targeted users. This includes understanding the people you want to reach, which types of content they want to see, which social networks you should be active on, how to gain real followers and not just zombie followers, etc. Second, join Twitter. You need to take the leap and join in order to get things moving. Once you join, you’ll need to work through the black hole of blogging and Twitter (like I mentioned above). You won’t build a strong following overnight, but if you do the right things consistently over time, you can end up building a targeted following. And those followers could have a profound impact on your business.

Track everything you can. Track your tweets, follower counts, blog posts, website activity from social networks, and conversion. Note, conversion doesn’t always mean a sale or an email registration (macro-conversions). It can be micro-conversions like downloads, videos viewed, content viewed, email links, etc. You need to understand how your social media marketing efforts are performing in order to make adjustments and grow your following.

Form relationships and not just followers. Yes, that’s the “social” part of social media. I’m not saying you have to be best friends with every follower and fan, but there will be a subset of your followers that you will definitely connect with. Once you form those relationships, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to rely on some of your followers to help your business. And by the way, you’ll probably be just as willing to help them too. Trust me, if you participate in Twitter the right way, you can’t help but meet really cool people with similar interests. Then it’s just a matter of how you engage your newfound friends and contacts.

Twitter Questions to Ponder
So, if you are one of those people asking “Why would I want to tell people what I had for breakfast on Twitter”, please read this post again. Then ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many new customers am I missing out on by not being on Twitter?
2. Are my competitors already there and doing the right things to engage targeted users?
3. How much time can I carve out during each day (yes, that’s every day) to participate on Twitter and other social networks?
4. Am I ready to engage other people and provide valuable content? Read this bullet again. Valuable tweets are NOT about promoting your own service ten times per day. It’s about providing information that your followers would find valuable.

A Final Note
There you have it. A pretty cool example of how email marketing led to a tweet, which led to retweets, and then ultimately a B2B sale (all in less than 12 hours). After reading this case study, you have to ask yourself the following question:

Are you going to be one of the people sitting on the sidelines and making fun of Twitter, or will you be landing new customers and growing your business?

Good question.

GG

A CM-Mess for SEM - How Content Management Systems (CMS) Can Be a Thorn in Your SEM Side

It’s widely known in the search community that CMS packages can cause serious SEO problems. These problems can sometimes be caused by the actual CMS being used or by the implementation of that CMS. There’s definitely a distinction. And to be clear, not all CMS packages or implementations cause these problems. You just need to be careful when choosing and implementing one. When you start to look at the impact from content management systems, the list of potential SEO issues can get quite long. For example, you might run into canonical issues, duplicate content, lack of content optimization, issues with flash seo, unfriendly redirects, etc. The irony is that CMS packages are supposed to make your life easier (and some definitely do), but there are times they can cause serious headaches.

But I Mentioned SEM, and Not Just SEO
Even though most of the focus has been on content management systems impacting SEO, paid search can also be affected. I’ve run into several CMS-related problems that can end up inhibiting the success of your paid search campaigns. From developing custom landing pages to accurately tracking conversion to implementing multivariate testing, content management systems can sometimes present their own obstacles (or little gremlins depending on the issue at hand). That brings me to the point of this post!

My latest blog post on Search Engine Journal (which went live today) addresses this topic and covers four categories of potential problems that content management systems can cause while running paid search. The post provides a description of each problem, recommendations for making changes, and a list of key takeaways. If you’re a search marketer that’s working with a CMS (or attempting to work with a CMS), then I recommend reading my post. :) And if you think I left out any problems, definitely feel free to post a comment below or on Search Engine Journal.

To learn more, check out my post now:
A CM-Mess for SEM – Does Your Content Management System Cause These Paid Search Problems?

GG