The Internet Marketing Driver

Mobile Visitor Trending and Its Impact on Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Wed, 29 Mar 2010 10:05:00 +0000

All you have to do is look around you right now to see the power (and promise) of mobile technology. Everyone is holding some form of mobile device, whether that’s a smartphone like an iphone or blackberry, or a feature phone (which is a marketing term for a standard cell phone with relatively basic functionality). And as mobile devices gain traction, more and more people are accessing the web via mobile browsers to research information, buy products, sign up for your services, contact local businesses, etc. It’s becoming hard to ignore that fact.Based on what I explained above, here are two important questions to ask yourself:1. Do you know how many mobile visitors are browsing your site?2. Are those mobile visitors able to accomplish what they need to do on your site (and what you want them to do)?

.htaccess for Windows Server: How To Use ISAPI Rewrite To Handle Canonicalization and Redirects For SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:05:00 +0000

If you’ve read previous blog posts of mine, then you know how important I think having a clean and crawlable website structure is for SEO. When performing SEO audits, it’s usually not long before the important topic of canonicalization comes up. Canonicalization is the process of ensuring that you don’t provide the same content at more than more URL. It’s also one of the hardest words in SEO to pronounce. :) If you don’t address canonicalization, you can end up with identical content at multiple URL’s, which can present duplicate content issues. And you don’t want duplicate content. For example, you don’t want your site to resolve at both non-www and www, at both http and https, using mixed case, having folders resolve with and without trailing slashes, etc.

In addition to handling canonicalization, you also want to have a system in place for handling 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect and will safely pass PageRank from one URL to another. This comes in handy in several situations. For example, if you go through a website redesign and your URL’s change, if you remove campaign landing pages, if you remove old pieces of content, etc. If you don’t 301 redirect these pages, you could end up paying dearly in organic search. Imagine hundreds, thousands, or millions of URL’s changing without 301 redirects in place. The impact could be catastrophic from an SEO standpoint.

Enter ISAPI Rewrite, .htaccess for Windows Server
So I’m sure you are wondering, what’s the best way to handle canonicalization and redirects for SEO? If you conduct some searches in Google, you’ll find many references to .htacess and mod_rewrite. Using mod_rewrite is a great solution, but it’s only for Apache Server, which is mainly run on linux servers. What about windows hosting? Is there a solution for .net-driven websites?

The good news is that there is a solid solution and it’s called ISAPI Rewrite. ISAPI Rewrite is an IIS filter that enables you handle URL rewriting and redirects via regular expressions. It’s an outstanding tool to have in your SEO arsenal and I have used it now for years. There are two versions of ISAPI Rewrite (verseions 2 and 3) and both enable you to handle most of what .htaccess can do. Actually, I think so much of ISAPI Rewrite, that it’s the topic of my latest post on Search Engine Journal.

So, to learn more about ISAPI Rewrite, the two versions available, and how to use it (including examples), please hop over to Search Engine Journal to read my post.

ISAPI Rewrite: Addressing Canonicalization and Redirects on Windows Server

GG

SES NY 2010 Series: Augmented Reality and Mobile Marketing, An Interview With Rachel Pasqua of iCrossing

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:59:00 +0000

This is the second post in my SES NY 2010 series. The conference is only one week away and I’ll be covering it again via blogging and Twitter. As part of my coverage, I’m writing a few posts about sessions that piqued my curiosity. As I was scanning through the list of topics being covered at this year’s conference, it was hard not to be interested in the session about Augmented Reality (AR). AR is the hot new technology that merges real world data with computer generated elements, and it provides a world of opportunity for mobile marketers.

Last week I was able to speak with Rachel Pasqua, the Director of Mobile Marketing at iCrossing, who will be co-presenting the session titled “Augmented Reality: A Brave New World”. The session will focus on how marketers can use Augmented Reality to create new and engaging ways to connect with consumers. The session is being held from 4:45PM-5:45PM on Tuesday, March 23rd. And if you’re not that familiar with Augmented Reality, you’re not alone. Although there has been quite a bit of buzz about AR over the past year or so, there are still many marketers scratching their heads about how to best use the technology.

Augmented Reality and The Blistering Speed of Online Marketing
Online marketing is now moving at a blistering pace. That’s up from a staggering pace last year, and an astounding pace the year before. :) It’s part of what I love about the industry. Augmented Reality is one of the most recent advancements, and I find there’s a lot of confusion about what it actually is, how you can use it, and what the future looks like for the technology. Currently, the iPhone is driving AR, based on how many devices are in the market and the ability to easily develop iPhone apps. Then of course, you have the app store, which then makes it easy to market and sell apps once developed.

What Is Augmented Reality?
As mentioned above, Augmented Reality combines computer generated elements with real world data. For example, an AR Twitter app for your iPhone might superimpose other Twitter user profiles that are in your vicinity, based on the GPS signal on your mobile device. Another example would be the ability to virtually try on clothes via an application that uses your webcam mixed with computer images from an online store. Although there are endless ideas for using Augmented Reality, the technology is still extremely new (which somewhat limits the real-world possibilities for marketers in the short-term). You can build the best app in the world, but it’s worthless if few people understand how to use it! Many of the AR apps available now still struggle with providing the value needed to gain traction, but that’s definitely starting to change. For example, Zugara recently launched a shopping app that enables you to virtually try on clothes via your webcam. It looks pretty cool, and definitely provides more value than many of the AR apps on the market. I expect more of these types of AR apps to hit the market in 2010.

My Interview About Augmented Reality With Rachel Pasqua
Based on my interest in Augmented Reality, I was able to track down Rachel Pasqua to ask her some questions about her session. Since Rachel is neck deep in mobile marketing, I was eager to hear her thoughts about Augmented Reality, the future of the technology, and how marketers can use AR to connect with consumers. I found that Rachel provided a very real-world view of the technology (no pun intended).

So without further ado, here is my interview with Rachel:

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

Rachel: Like most new technologies, AR is mostly being used right now for its own sake (because marketers are excited about using this new technology.) My presentation, entitled "What's the ROI of AR?" will focus on ways in which various verticals can use Augmented Reality to support real marketing goals, as well as simple tips for getting started.

Glenn: Can you provide some innovative ways that companies are starting to use AR in their marketing efforts?

Rachel: The only truly innovative usage I have seen so far is the United States Postal Service’s Virtual Box Simulator https://www.prioritymail.com/simulator.asp It's a great example of AR being used to provide a service and improve the overall customer experience.

Glenn: Is there a high cost of entry to developing AR applications? Also, what type of turnaround is there for developing an app?

Rachel: The cost of developing an app all depends on the complexity of the app itself, what you put into it, and who develops it. You could get a freelance app developer to build you one for ~$25K or you could hire a hot agency to concept, design and market one for $150K+. Like all digital marketing, it really all depends on what you're trying to achieve. There are several AR SDKs out there that can be used to implement the actual AR functionality so there's not much additional cost to developing an AR app versus any other kind.

Glenn: Are there many vendors or developers that are up to speed on the technology?

Rachel: Yes, many - AR is one of the most promising new areas of mobile marketing so this is something developers are pretty excited about.

Glenn: Are there services, software or tools on the market that can help companies develop and employ their own applications (without external development)?

Rachel: The LAYAR API is probably the best known right now. http://layar.com/

Glenn: Are there any case studies you are going to provide (along with statistics) about AR apps?

Rachel: None that I'm aware of just yet - this is all so new and most examples are gratuitous use of technology rather than well planned out marketing initiatives.

---------------------------------
If you are interested in learning more about mobile marketing and how Augmented Reality works, then you should definitely check out Rachel’s session at SES. Again, the session is titled “Augmented Reality: A Brave New World” and is being held from 4:45PM-5:45PM on Tuesday, March 23rd. I believe the session will give you a solid understanding of how AR is currently being used, as well as what the future looks like for the technology. Now, let me go virtually try on some new cargo shorts via Zugara. :)

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

GG

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:34:00 +0000

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.

--------------------
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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:46:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:26:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:13:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:26:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:18:00 +0000

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

Exploring AdWords Geotargeting - 4 Points About Location Targeting in Google That Are Often Misunderstood

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:05:00 +0000

I receive a lot of questions from local businesses about how to best geotarget their paid search ads in Google. AdWords actually provides some robust ways to target your ads by country, region, state, city, and there is also an option for choosing a custom location to target. For example, you could create a polygon on a map to choose a very specific area to target. But just because those options are available doesn’t mean that everyone using AdWords understands how location targeting actually works. I’m going to explain four points in this blog post that seem to confuse advertisers (plus one bonus topic). My goal is to arm you with the right information about geotargeting so you can understand the best ways to structure your campaigns and drive outstanding results.

Here are four points (plus a bonus topic at the end) about location targeting in AdWords that you might not realize are in effect while prospective customers are searching for your products or services.

Query Parsing
Some advertisers are confused when they geotarget a specific location and end up seeing visitors from outside that area. I hear questions about this often. Some advertisers believe that there must have been a glitch in AdWords that showed their ads to untargeted searchers. What’s actually happening is that Google uses query parsing to detect when a search is local in nature. So, if you are geotargeting New York City, but someone in Alabama searches for New York Hotels, Google might show them your ads targeted for New York. Again, that’s even if you are targeting people only in New York. You should keep this in mind if you plan to geotarget your campaigns, but also want to reach people outside that area for specific keywords.

Query Parsing in Action
(Click the image below to view a larger version:)

IP Address
If Google can determine your location via IP address, then you might see ads based on that location. So if your IP address shows you are from Princeton, New Jersey, and you search for bakeries, then you might see ads for bakeries in the Princeton area. Notice that the query bakeries did not have a local qualifier (such as a city or town). Google has continually refined the way that it handles queries that it deems local in nature. You might have noticed a big change in March of 2009, when the 10 pack of local listings (now 7 pack) was triggered via non-geo keywords. Prior to that, queries with geographic qualifiers would trigger local listings (such as bakeries in Princeton, NJ). Now they can be triggered via broad terms (if Google believes it’s a local search). Keep this in mind when building your keyword lists for geotargeted campaigns.

Local Ads Based on IP
(Click the image below to view a larger version:)

Google Country-Specific Search Engines
This point relates to the Google domain you are searching on (and Google has over 100 country-specific domains). When people are searching on Google, they will see ads based on the Google domain they are using, such as google.co.uk, google.ca, google.co.jp, etc. So, if you are located in Canada, but are using Google UK, ads will be UK-focused. If you are in Japan, but you are using Google.com (US), then your ads will be targeted for the US. This is important to understand if you will be targeting people in several countries. You would want to structure your campaigns so they are extremely targeted for the locations (and languages) you are focusing on.

Google Domain Driving Ads
(Click the image below to view a larger version:)

Location Targeting on the Content Network
If you are running campaigns on the content network, then geotargeting does work and come into play. This essentially means that your ads will show up on sites across the content network (or via specific placements) when visitors to those sites are within your targeted locations. So, if you are targeting Washington DC and your ads show up on about.com, then your ads should only show for visitors from the Washington DC area (or on pages that Google deems local in content). The latter point is similar to query parsing when keywords are involved. For example, if you are reading information about Princeton NJ, but you are outside of the Princeton area, you might still see geotargeted ads for Princeton. Since your ads are contextually targeted on the content network, queries are not part of the targeting process (because there is no query to target). For example, visitors aren’t searching to trigger your ads across the content network. Instead, Google is analyzing the page at hand and determining if your ad matches the content on that page. Note, there’s a difference between a query and a keyword. :)

Geotargeted Ads on the Content Network

Bonus: A Quick Note About Local Extensions (A Form of Ad Extensions)
Wouldn’t it be valuable to include your address in your text ad when it’s extremely relevant to the person searching? That’s a leading question, isn’t it? :) Location extensions enable you to do this and they are very easy to set up. If you are a business owner with a Google Local Business Center account, then you can attach your business address to your ads. Note, your listing must be validated in Google Local Business Center for your address to show up. When you use local extensions, your business address will show up below your traditional text ad as seen in the screenshot below. If you don’t have a local business center account, then you can manually enter up to nine addresses that can be used as local extensions. Check out the AdWords help center to learn more about local extensions.

Local Extensions in Action

Be Prepared to Target
I hope this post clarified some of the nuances of geotargeting in AdWords. As a paid search advertiser, it’s important to understand how Google uses location targeting so you can build your campaigns to maximize your results. From query parsing to Google domains to IP detection, there are several factors that can trigger your ads beyond the locations that you think you’re targeting. Now aim for the bullseye and target away. :)

GG

The Black Hole of Blogging and Twitter, The Importance of Consistency and Persistence for Building Critical Mass in Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:42:00 +0000

It’s hard to have a conversation about online marketing without bringing up both blogging and Twitter. Both have become critical components of a well-balanced online marketing mix (and for good reason). Blogs can be the anchor in a social media marketing strategy, enabling a company to humanize itself, provide valuable content for targeted users, and also target the long tail of SEO (which is critically important for natural search). Then you have Twitter, which has become a powerful way to engage targeted users and to get the word out about your valuable content. If you’re new to social media marketing, then blogging and Twitter should probably be the first two items on your checklist when starting. They are too powerful and ubiquitous to ignore.

So based on what I just explained, it’s natural for companies to get excited about launching a blog and Twitter account. Setting them up is the easy part (as most people find out). The act of consistently and continually blogging and tweeting is the hard part (and where most people fail). Once the accounts are set up and ready to go, I typically hear a few important questions from new bloggers and Twitter users. For example, “what should I blog about?” or “why do my tweets seem to go nowhere?”, and “what’s the ROI of this?” I’ve heard these types of questions so many times, that I can almost answer them in my sleep. To help demonstrate the problem, I’ve displayed a bell curve below representing the stages in the process of starting a blog or Twitter account. The graph includes brainstorming, excitement and enthusiasm, the launch, publishing, the first encounter of the “black hole”, and then a quick fade to confusion, frustration, slowdown, and ultimately silence. The cause of the trend is what I like to call The Black Hole of Blogging and Twitter. It won’t be studied in astronomy classes across the country, but believe me, it’s there.

Defining The Black Hole of Blogging and Twitter
There's a slide in my presentation about social media marketing that consists of a single large black circle with the caption, “This is what you’ll be blogging to once you launch.” Then the following slide contains another black circle with the caption, “And this is what you’ll be tweeting to...” Both circles represent the black hole that new bloggers and Twitter users face during the beginning of their social media initiatives.

But what exactly is the black hole of blogging and Twitter? It’s actually simple when you break it down (and makes a lot of sense). When you start a blog or Twitter account, nobody knows about you (usually) and the hard truth is that nobody cares. Your priority as a new blogger or Twitter user should be to build credibility and trust, and just like in the offline world, that takes time. So, you start writing killer blog posts and tweeting valuable content. You build some subscribers and followers, but nobody gets in touch with you.

There are no retweets.
There are no votes.
There are no stumbles.
There are no high search engine rankings.
There are no comments.
And there are no calls.

Yes, you just realized that you’re blogging and tweeting to a black hole. Cue Twilight Zone music. :)

Overcoming The Black Hole
I’m sure you’re wondering how you break out of the black hole. Good question. In order to break out and gain some traction, you need to build critical mass. And no, this isn’t easy and you cannot game critical mass. Building 2000 Twitter followers in a week via some automated service won’t build you true followers. It will build zombie followers. And although they’ll be there, they won’t know who you are, they won’t care about you or your tweets, and you’ll get no value from having them. You need to earn true followers.

The Key To Breaking Out of the Black Hole
The key to breaking out of the black hole is to build a strategy for blogging and tweeting and simply keep going… You need to keep blogging, promoting your posts, and connecting with other bloggers. You need to respond to comments on your blog and on Twitter (although there won’t be many in the beginning). You need to be consistent, persistent, and tough it out. On Twitter, you need to keep pumping out valuable content. It should be content that interests targeted users. You should track your tweets to find out what your followers are interested in and refine the content that you tweet. You need to filter what’s important and make sure you tweet multiple times per day, every day. Yes, that’s every day, including weekends. You need to engage other Twitter users, respond to direct messages, and help out your followers. No, it’s not easy, but the benefit will greatly outweigh the work involved. But, that benefit will only come if you work your way out of the black hole.

If you do end up gaining critical mass, then the black hole will start to shrink. You’ll see breaks of light in the darkness and you might start connecting with people from all over the world. If you’re tracking your efforts, you’ll start to see more subscribers, retweets, inbound links to blog posts, social media activity around your posts (like Stumbles, Diggs, Bookmarks, etc.) You might just start becoming a believer in Twitter, blogging, and social media. And always try to remember the bell curve I provided above, and try as hard as possible to not become part of that trend. Unfortunately, I see it way too often from companies launching new blogs and Twitter accounts.

Did I Mention SEO?
As more people enjoy your posts, share them with others, tweet them to their followers, vote for them, and bookmark them, the more valuable links your blog will build. The more valuable links you build, the more SEO power you gain. The more SEO power you gain, the more keywords you’ll rank for. And as more targeted users search for topics you write about, they might very well end up at your blog. And since you’ll promote your Twitter account right on your blog, you’ll also gain them as Twitter followers. And the more subscribers, followers, fans, and new customers you build, the more you’ll want to blog and tweet. The cycle will all make sense to you at this point, but you need to get there first. I’ve written about the Twitter Effect on SEO previously on my blog. Read the post and you can see how both blogging and Twitter can have a profound effect on natural search. You shouldn’t ignore that fact. Natural Search is too powerful to ignore.

Don’t Give Up
If you’re new to blogging and Twitter and you are currently dealing with the infamous black hole, don’t get frustrated. Stay the course and keep going. You need to keep building and sharing quality content, connecting with others, tweeting great articles, etc. And if you’re able to work your way through the black hole, you might eventually see the power waiting on the other side. But if you let the black hole get to you (like many people do), you’ll end up off the grid, and you’ll lose out. And if that happens, you’ll leave a void that your competitors could fill. And they sure will. The opportunity is there. Make sure you’re in the game.

Now go write a blog post. :)

GG

Icing on the Cake, Announcing the Winner of the “Search a Small Business” Holiday Giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:21:00 +0000

Last week I announced the “Search a Small Business” Holiday Giveaway from G-Squared Interactive. Since small businesses often move at light speed to keep their operations running, they sometimes don’t have the resources to stay on top of online marketing. So in the spirit of the holidays, I wanted to give a small business in New Jersey a free online marketing audit and analysis performed by myself and Matt Leonard (@mjleonard).

The audit and analysis will provide a roadmap for the company’s online marketing efforts and could include recommendations for SEO, SEM, Social Media Marketing, Website Optimization, and Web Analytics. Although an “audit and analysis” doesn’t sound like a killer online marketing service, it’s probably one of the most powerful services I offer. The analysis will identify online marketing strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and will ultimately help develop a roadmap for moving forward. And if you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, you know I don’t believe in “charging the hill” without performing a thorough analysis.

And The Winner Is…
I’m happy to announce that the winner of the holiday giveaway is Kati Angelini who owns a small business in Moorestown, NJ called Kati’s Kupcakes. We’ll be reaching out to Kati today to set up an initial conference call where we will discuss next steps. And yes, I plan to ask for a few cupcakes along the way. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve got a serious sweet tooth. :)

So congratulations Kati! We’ll be in touch shortly.

Happy Holidays!

Glenn Gabe and Matt Leonard

Announcing The “Search a Small Business” Holiday Giveaway from G-Squared Interactive

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:03:00 +0000

The holidays are always a great time to reflect upon the past year in online marketing. Looking back at 2009, it’s interesting to analyze how various companies utilized new technologies and marketing channels to increase sales and engage prospective customers. I feel fortunate to be in a position where I get to speak with many marketers from a wide range of companies (both large and small) to learn which tactics they are using to grow their businesses. I think it's been an amazing year, with Search, Social Media, and Mobile attracting a lot of attention from a wide range of companies and organizations.

However, looking back on my conversations and projects over the past year, it’s hard to ignore the lack of resources available to ultra small businesses. These small businesses unfortunately don’t have the time or budgets to tackle online marketing the way larger companies can. They also happen to be a critical component of our economy, so it just doesn’t seem right.

Ultra-Small Businesses & Online Marketing
To me, ultra small businesses are companies run by one or two individuals, employ less than ten people, generate under $500K per year in revenue, and move at light speed to keep their businesses moving. Ultra small businesses are critically important for our economy, but tend to be overshadowed by news from larger brands and companies. As article after article is written about multi-billion dollar powerhouses, the small business owner remains somewhat anonymous. Yet, those very business owners in aggregate employ millions of people and are an important part of the framework of commerce in the United States.

This got me thinking. What could I do this holiday season to help a small business start 2010 the right way? Let’s face it, many small businesses don't have the time to learn about the latest in online marketing and how to leverage those tactics to increase sales. But, just because they don’t have huge budgets and big brand names doesn’t mean they have to be left out in the cold!

The “Search a Small Business” Holiday Giveaway
So in the spirit of the holidays, I decided to launch The “Search a Small Business” Holiday Giveaway here at G-Squared Interactive. Over the next week, small businesses that meet the requirements listed below can simply send us an email to enter the contest. The winning business will receive a free online marketing audit, which includes an analysis of how their current website is performing. And more importantly, the analysis will provide recommendations for improving the website and various online marketing efforts. Insights from the analysis could include recommendations for improving Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search (SEM), Social Media Marketing, Website Optimization, and Web Analytics. The goal is to help the winning company quickly understand changes that can impact its business. The analysis will be performed by myself and Matt Leonard, an incredibly smart online marketer and good friend of mine that has agreed to help. For those of you on Twitter, Matt is @mjleonard and you should follow him now if you aren’t already. Together, we plan to arm a small business with key information for improving its online marketing efforts.

Please review the following requirements before entering the contest to make sure your business is eligible.

In order to be eligible, you must:
* Have less than 10 employees.
* Already have a website. Since this is an online marketing analysis, we need something to analyze. :)
* Be located less than 60 miles from Princeton, NJ and be a NJ business. This is because Matt and I will present the results to you in person at your office. I recommend you check Google Maps to see if you are eligible.
* Be willing to let us write follow-up blog posts about the giveaway and project. We would like to provide updates about how the winner is using the information provided in our analysis.
* Be willing to make changes! The analysis can only go so far. You will need to act on the recommendations in order to see an impact.

To read the official rules and regulations, please click here.

So let us help your business start off 2010 with the right online marketing strategies in place! Enter now by emailing us at smallbizmarketing@gsqinteractive.com. Be sure to include all of your contact information so we know how to get in touch with you, including your full name, business name, business address, number of employees, phone number, and website URL. We will be accepting emails for the contest from Monday, December 7th, 2009 through Monday, December 14th, 2009. We will announce the winner on December 15th on this blog (and directly contact the winner via the information they provide when entering the contest).

Happy Holidays!

Glenn Gabe and Matt Leonard

Paid Search and Meeting Visitor Expectations, How The Right Ad, Right Offer, and Right Landing Page Can Lead to Increased Conversion in SEM

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:22:00 +0000

Leading up to the holidays, it’s only natural that paid search campaigns heat up. Companies start pumping more dollars into their campaigns knowing that people are more apt to buy. Being neck deep in paid search, I always keep and eye out for great examples of SEM. And by "great", I don’t mean ultra-elaborate (and I’ll explain more about that soon). In SEM, I think a lot of people end up paying an exorbitant amount of time on keywords and ads and not enough attention on landing pages and meeting visitor expectations. This always seems odd to me, since the goal of SEM is to not only drive targeted visitors to your site, but to convert them. Also, when companies actually do focus on landing pages, I think the tendency is to focus on the design and slickness of the page versus the functionality. Although I think that’s a natural tendency to have, it’s amazing what a well though out landing page can accomplish… And I’m not referring to slick design, beautiful imagery, or an award-winning UI. I’m simply talking about meeting visitor expectations based on what they searched for. I know, that’s a novel idea, right? :)

The Search Marketer Becomes The Consumer
This brings me to my latest SEM experience (as a consumer and not an online marketer). Since I’m the person that’s typically launching paid search campaigns, it’s always a bit strange when I become the prospective customer (AKA the searcher). This past Saturday, I found myself in buying mode. I needed a new rechargeable battery for one of my digital cameras and started searching the web for the right product, at the right price, and with the right offer. I launched Firefox and started entering searches in Google. It only took a minute or two to find a great example of how paid search should work. So I did what every Search Marketer does in this situation, I launched Photoshop and started taking screenshots! :)

Right Ad, Right Offer, Right Landing Page, and Right Price
Armed with the manufacturer and camera model, I began searching for a new battery. I saw an ad from East Coast Photo ranking third in paid search. The ad title was a perfect match for what I was searching for and the description included their offer for free shipping. That offer for free shipping was extremely important to me, since the price of the battery probably wouldn’t be more than $20. It always bothers me when shipping is almost as much as the product you are buying!

Paid Search Advertisement for the Battery I Was Looking For:

So I clicked through and was taken to a landing page that took me from visitor to customer in less than 30 seconds. It wasn’t beautifully designed, I wasn’t in awe of the functionality on the page, and it probably won’t win any awards (unless there’s a category for conversion at the next Webby Awards). The landing page simply made it easy for me to convert. When other sites drove me to pages that made me dig to find the right battery, East Coast Photo made it simple. I think everyone with an electronic gadget has been in a frustrating situation when trying to buy parts. There are so many models and you don’t want to choose the wrong one. If you’re off by even one character in the model name, you could end up with a battery that won’t work, and more importantly, you’ve wasted valuable time.

The East Cost Photo Landing Page
What made the landing page so good? East Coast Photo sent me to a pre-populated version of their battery finder (with the correct manufacturer and model already selected). Underneath the battery finder, there was a photo of my camera and a product listing for the battery I was looking for. It was so simple, yet so powerful. Since I was able to see the selection of my camera in the battery finder, I knew this was the right part for my needs. And even if it wasn’t, I could easily use the battery finder to locate the right part. Brilliant. The price was right and they were offering free shipping (like I was looking for). So, I immediately added two batteries to my cart and started the checkout process.

Was it sexy? No. Was it efficient? You bet. Did I find what I needed in less than 30 seconds? Yes. And are other people going through the same process right now as you read this blog post? Absolutely.

Paid Search Landing Page With Pre-Populated Battery Finder:

What About the Competition?
Upon clicking other paid search advertisements, I was sent to product pages without knowing if the products being displayed were the right ones for my camera. I was also dropped on holiday sales pages without any battery listings, and I was dropped on generic “camera battery” pages. Dropping me on product pages would be ok if I knew those pages contained the exact product I was looking for. Unfortunately, there was no sign that it was the right product… Dropping me on a holiday sales page is a waste of money for advertisers, given my specific search. And, the generic “camera battery” page was a complete waste of money for the advertiser and even looked a little suspicious… Remember, I entered a specific manufacturer and model along with the keyword battery. If someone enters that query, then they aren’t looking for a holiday sales page or a generic camera battery page… They want that product and fast.

Key SEM Learnings From This Example:

1. Keep it Simple and Meet Visitor Expectations
If someone is looking for a specific part or product, make sure you take them to a page holding that product or part (with confirmation that’s it the right product for their needs). I know that sounds overly simple, but it doesn’t happen often enough in paid search. Think about the difference in conversion by sending someone to a page that holds the product they are looking for (and with additional signals that it’s the right product). East Coast Photo provided a photo of my camera and a pre-populated version of their battery finder, based on my query. It took me less than 30 seconds to see that this was the right battery for me. I also ended up adding two batteries, which is something I probably wouldn’t have done unless I knew I was getting exactly what I needed.

2. Be Specific in Your Ad Text and Include Special Offers
You don’t need to be an award-winning copywriter to craft an advertisement that converts well. But you should be as specific as possible. If you take the time to set up paid search for specific products, then make sure you add the product names in your ad text. I searched for a particular manufacturer and camera model and the ad I clicked on had that manufacturer and model in the ad’s title. In addition, I was specifically looking for free shipping, and the ad provided that in the description. If you are providing special offers, then make sure it’s in the ad text. I’m not sure I would have clicked through so fast if East Coast Photo didn’t have their offer listed in the advertisement.

3. Take Prospective Customers As Far As You Can Into the Process of Finding What They Need
In my opinion, there are too many companies dropping paid search visitors off on their homepages, category pages, and deal pages when they are searching for specific products. If someone searches for a specific product, take them to that product, and make sure they know it’s the right one (as mentioned above). The web provides a unique opportunity for e-commerce merchants. They can leverage intelligence and functionality to provide a user experience that’s unrivaled in the offline world. Use that power to take prospective customers as far into the process of finding what they need as possible. For example, East Coast Photo leveraged their battery finder to pre-populate the tool with the manufacturer and model that I searched for on Google. I can tell you that their extra effort led to me converting quickly on their site. Think about the functionality you already have on your site and how it can be used in conjunction with your marketing campaigns. And don't just think about search engine marketing…think about email, display advertising, social media marketing, etc.

“Wrapping Up” this post – hey, it is the holiday season! :)
If you are running paid search for your business, then think about the entire process that prospective customers go through when clicking your ads and visiting your site. Are your search advertisements strong enough? Do they clearly explain the products and offers you have? And does your landing page meet their expectations? Creating tailored and effective landing pages doesn’t require award-winning designers and developers. You just simply need to think about what people are looking for and provide that information in an easy to use format. If you do that, then you have a much greater chance at converting browsers into buyers. You never know, it could be as easy as providing a battery finder.

GG

Invalid Clicks and Click Fraud in Local Search Marketing (SEM) - Giving a Whole New Meaning to the Term HyperLocal

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:50:00 +0000

I’m currently helping several businesses focused on local advertising with both SEO and SEM (Paid Search, PPC). Depending on the industry and market, Local PPC can be both extremely competitive and pricey. Of course, the upside is capturing those highly targeted clicks and turning them into paying customers, which could yield hundreds or thousands of dollars per conversion. When the difference between page one and page two could be significant amounts of revenue, the companies vying to gain those clicks can become hyper-competitive (and that’s an understatement). I’ve heard stories about some companies incorporating clicking through competitor ads as part of their morning routine… That’s not cool, but very real for the industry and market they are located in.

Based on what I just explained above about, the dark side of paid search ends up rearing its ugly head for some local businesses. In highly competitive industries, and in highly competitive markets, click fraud can run rampant. The thought process is simple (and unethical). Eat up your competitor’s budget so you have more of an opportunity to catch highly targeted clicks. As mentioned above, those highly targeted clicks could yield thousands of dollars per day from new customers (depending on the industry).

I think a lot of people have heard about click fraud, but few have actually explored the problem and how it’s affecting their campaigns. For many local businesses attempting to land the ultra-targeted, “ready to buy” customer, click fraud can be a real click, I mean thorn, in their side. That's not good for anyone involved (including Google and the other search engines).

How Big of a Problem is Click Fraud?
So how much of a problem is click fraud for local businesses? It depends on the industry and market, but I’ve seen click fraud rates as high as 35%. Click Forensics publishes the Click Fraud Index and found that the industry average for Q3 2009 was 14.1%. That’s definitely high, but the abnormally high click fraud rates for local search give a whole new meaning to the term hyperlocal. :) Click fraud rates that high can make a serious dent in your budget, put a strain on ROI for your paid search campaigns, and can end up intensifying the overall click fraud problem (increasing the amount of click fraud as some business owners retaliate). So yes, click fraud is a big problem (and can be especially fierce in local advertising).

Defining Click Fraud:
For those of you not that familiar with click fraud, I’ll provide a quick rundown. There are actually several types of click fraud (and reasons for committing it), but I’ll focus on the act of attempting to deplete a competitor’s paid search budget by clicking on their paid search advertisements. And of course there is no intention of taking action on the competitor’s website once clicking through. In a nutshell, it’s Business A clicking on Business B’s ads in order to deplete Business B’s daily budget. Also note that it doesn’t have to be in the form of repetitive clicks from one location. Business A might hire other people or companies to help click on competitor ads (which can be accomplished via click farms, bots, etc.) You can read more about click fraud in Google’s Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center.

Google and Invalid Clicks
Many local businesses running paid search have no idea that Google actually provides statistics on the “invalid clicks” they catch. And by the way, “invalid” is a nice way of saying “click fraud.” :) Google provides some great reporting functionality as part of AdWords and I think too many companies (especially small businesses that are moving at light speed) never tap into the reporting to track campaign performance.

To access the reporting interface in AdWords, you can click the Reporting Tab, and then Reports. Then you can Create a New Report and choose to run a Campaign Performance Report. As part of setting up this report, you can click Add or Remove Columns to customize the report. Then you can click the checkboxes for Invalid Clicks and Invalid Click Rate to view the statistics at an account or campaign level. Depending on your line of business and where you are located, you might be surprised at how many invalid clicks were recorded for your campaigns…

Accessing AdWords Reporting Functionality:

Running An Invalid Clicks Report:

What is an Invalid Click?
Google’s system is continually analyzing clicks and looking for patterns that may be fraudulent. For example, clicks from the same IP address, duplicate clicks, clicks from “known sources of invalid activity”, etc. You can read more about how Google calculates invalid clicks in AdWords help. The system is essentially looking for any type of suspicious activity.

Local Showing a Higher Rate of Click Fraud:
Based on running invalid click reports for a wide range of clients, I typically see a much higher percentage of invalid clicks for companies focused on local search. How much higher? Well, comparing invalid click rates across industries, I’ve seen local-centric clients receive 4X to 5X the percentage of invalid clicks. That’s a lot of clicks, and more importantly, a lot of potential money at risk. Now you might be asking, “Glenn, if Google catches the invalid clicks, then the companies shouldn’t get charged, right?” True, but that’s only for what Google catches… Their system isn’t flawless (especially because well-crafted click fraud is nearly impossible to identify). That’s just an unfortunate reality. So, if you see a 20% invalid click rate, it just might be 30-35%.

The Impact on Budget
Let’s add a monetary value to the click fraud problem I mentioned above. In some industries, local businesses are paying $20-$30 per click (yes, you read that correctly). For argument’s sake, let’s say you receive 100 clicks per day at $20 per click. If Google picks up a 20% invalid click rate, and we estimate that it’s really 30% (just for this example), then there is 10% still getting past Google’s filters. So, the 100 clicks coming through are “actual clicks” according to Google (since it won’t charge you for the invalid clicks, or the 20% it caught). Out of the 100 actual clicks that you are being charged for, the 10% of invalid clicks that slip through equate to 10 clicks at $20 per click (or $200 per day). Over a month, that’s over $6000 per month potentially wasted. For many small businesses, that may be too much to overcome. And that’s exactly what the people committing click fraud want to happen. They want to push competitors to the point of quitting AdWords (and paid search in general), which leaves the fraudsters in control of the paid listings. Needless to say, this isn’t good for the paid search industry, the local businesses getting hit by fraud, and of course Google (since Google makes a majority of its money from paid search).

What Can Local Businesses Do About It?
Although click fraud is a big problem, and one that’s hard to overcome, there are some things you can do to stay on top of the problem. I’ve provided a list of recommendations below to help you stay informed, track your clicks, and potentially fight click fraud. The more you understand what’s going on, the more you can develop a strategy for documenting and combating the problem.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Run invalid click reports on a regular basis. This will help you understand how many invalid clicks are occurring, if they spike during certain times, and which campaigns they are impacting. You can also speak with your Google rep (or any rep at AdWords) about the problem, based on the data you collect.

2. Break up your campaigns logically. You can run invalid click reports on an account or campaign level (but not ad group). If you lump all of your ad groups into one campaign, you won’t get as clear of a picture of the click fraud problem impacting your business.

3. Analyze your log files to determine problematic IP’s. Unfortunately, Google isn’t going to provide details about the invalid clicks they find. They will just show you a total number and not reveal who is committing the click fraud. I think that’s unfortunate, but it’s just the way it is right now. But, you can get in touch with your hosting provider (or your IT department) to analyze your server logs. If you competitor is clicking from a specific IP (like their office down the block from you), you might be able to pick it up. Then work with Google and your lawyer on next steps.

4. There are third party solutions that can help you track and identify click fraud. If you believe that your business is the victim of severe click fraud, you might want to go down this path. For example, Click Forensics (which also publishes The Click Fraud Index mentioned earlier) provides services for ad networks, publishers, agencies, and advertisers. There are also several other solutions for tracking fraudulent clicks that are relatively easy to set up. Do some research and demo the various solutions. They could end up saving you a lot of money.

5. Get familiar with Google’s Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center. There’s some good information about click fraud in the center, including an overview of the problem, key definitions, a help center, ways to contact Google’s quality team, etc.

6. Don’t participate in click fraud. Although it should be obvious, contributing to the overall click fraud problem isn’t going to help anything. You should focus your time and attention on running ethical and ROI-driven paid search campaigns and then deal with click fraud legally. Work with Google, your IT staff, your hosting provider, third party solutions for tracking click fraud, and your lawyer in determining the best path to take.

Not All Clicks Are Created Equal
Is click fraud a problem for local businesses? You bet. But you don’t have to sit there in the dark as your competitors click your ads. You should educate yourself about click fraud, stay vigilant, remain white hat (ethical), and analyze the situation to the best of your ability.

As mentioned earlier, Click Forensics says the industry click fraud rate was 14.1% in Q3 of 2009. As a business owner focused on local advertising, you need to decide if you’re ok with that number... Is click fraud just part of doing business in Local PPC or should you fight to save your budget (and the potential customers that would come from that budget?) Like I said earlier, local click fraud gives a whole new meaning to the term Hyperlocal.

GG

FaceYahoogle – The Impact of Facebook, Yahoo, and Google on Website Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:27:00 +0000

It’s hard to get through a conversation about online marketing right now without bringing up Google, Facebook, and Yahoo (among other popular companies). However, if you’re not heavily involved in online marketing, and you’re not close to the actual referring traffic numbers from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, then their influence can easily become nebulous. It’s easy to say, “Google is a powerhouse” or “Facebook has 325 million members”, and “You need to be there”, but how powerful are they really?

From a traffic perspective, the three companies are so powerful that I’ve given them their own combined name, or FaceYahoogle. The power of FaceYahoogle ends up becoming very real for my clients after I complete a competitive analysis (which includes identifying major sources of traffic for their company, as well as their competitors). The numbers I present across websites typically show extremely high referral data from FaceYahoogle, and by viewing the actual traffic numbers, you start to get a feel for how much impact the three entities have traffic-wise and potentially revenue-wise.

Digging Deeper into FaceYahoogle
If you’ve read previous posts of mine, then you already know that I’m a big believer in using data versus opinion to make decisions. The power of analytics in online marketing enables you to see granular performance data across a number of key metrics. And the more websites I analyze, the more I see a significant trend across industry categories. I see FaceYahoogle sending large amounts of traffic to a wide range of sites. The abnormally high percentage of traffic coming from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook is not only amazing to see, it’s actually scary. With thousands and thousands of potential referring sites on the web, to see FaceYahoogle send that high of a percentage of traffic is alarming. I think you begin understand how Google built up a $22 billion war chest! :)

I think many people would suspect Google being high on the referring sites list, based on having ~70% market share in search and also having Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, etc. However, I’m not sure many know how much actual traffic is coming from Googleland. Also, we hear that Facebook has over 300 million members, which is powerful, but are those members visiting your site via the social network? I’ll answer that question below via screenshots. And then you have Yahoo, with turmoil somewhat cloaking the power of its sites. How much traffic actually comes from Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Finance, Answers, etc?

So that’s my quick introduction to FaceYahoogle. Now let’s take a look at some numbers! I have provided Compete data (September 09) for a number of popular websites across a range of categories so you can view their referring sources. Note, I know Compete isn’t perfect, but it does provide a wealth of information to analyze for each website (especially for sites that receive large amounts of traffic).

Referring Sites for NYTimes.com
31% from FaceYahoogle (and 17% from Google alone…)

Referring Sites for LinkedIn
36% from FaceYahoogle, and over 8% from Facebook.

Referring Sites for Weather.com
24% from FaceYahoogle

Referring Sites for JCrew
31% from FaceYahoogle

Referring Sites for The Huffington Post
33% from FaceYahoogle (and almost 8% from Facebook)

Referring Sites for Yelp
A whopping 55% from FaceYahoogle (and 43% of that from Google!)

Referring Sites for ESPN
25% from FaceYahoogle (and nearly 10% from Facebook)

Referring Sites for Amazon.com
25% from FaceYahoogle (cha-ching…)

Referring Sites for Apple.com
28% from FaceYahoogle

Let’s throw in a military site to see how the 3 headed monster works here:
Referring Sites for AirForce.com
Over 40% of referring traffic from FaceYahoogle

The screenshots above make it a little more tangible, right? FaceYahoogle is accounting for 40%+ of referring traffic for some websites. If you analyze website traffic often, then you know how insane those numbers are… But that’s not the whole story. The downstream data is important too. It ends up that a large percentage of traffic from these websites is going back to FaceYahoogle. Let’s take a look at just a few from above.

Downstream Data for Apple.com
26% of visitors leave Apple.com and go back to FaceYahoogle

Downstream Data for AirForce.com
31% of visitors leave Apple.com and go back to FaceYahoogle

I saw the same trend across the other sites.

So, FaceYahoogle is driving enormous amount of traffic, but it’s also the top recipient of traffic from many sites. In particular, Facebook provides some unique opportunities with regard to downstream traffic. Give your visitors something to take back and you can possibly end up with even more traffic (WOM-based or possibly viral-based). And with some Google and Yahoo traffic going to back to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Answers, etc., you also have opportunities for spreading the word about your products, company, brand, etc. Let’s quickly take a closer look at each part of FaceYahoogle below.

Google
As you can see, Google is an absolute powerhouse, even showing 43% of Yelp's overall referring traffic. That’s outrageous! And it’s not just any traffic, right? Many of the visitors from Google just searched for specific products or services that each site provides (AKA, high quality visitors). Imagine the revenue impact of Google traffic for those sites. In case you are wondering, Google traffic numbers include Search, Maps, Mail, Docs, Video, etc.

Seeing the high percentages from Google across sites, you can start to understand why SEO and SEM have been incredibly hot in online marketing… Some companies survive based on Google traffic alone (via paid and organic search traffic). A slip in rankings can be catastrophic for some websites, with the potential of impacting millions of dollars of revenue. Think about it. If you have 40% of your traffic coming from Google and slip to page two, three, or beyond, you will lose many targeted visitors, and the money they would have spent on your site. So is Google powerful? You bet it is. The numbers combined with my experience tell me so. :)

Facebook
Facebook has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years and is estimated to have 325 million members now. Clearly people are signing up in droves, using the platform at a staggering pace (104 billion pageviews based on Compete September 09), and oh yeah, they are visiting websites from Facebook. As you can see in the screenshots above, Facebook ranks in the top five referring sites for many of the properties I checked. Actually, it was typically in the top three. And in case you’re wondering, Twitter is moving up the charts too. Depending on the focus on the site in question, I see Twitter sending large amounts of traffic (and that doesn't count desktop clients which many Twitter members use). On that note, to read an example of how Twitter can impact exposure, traffic, and subsequent SEO power, check out my post about the Twitter effect on SEO. It’s a great example of how Search works with Social.

So, if your company is ignoring social media, then go back through the screenshots above and take note of the percentage of referring traffic from Facebook again. In meetings, I find myself saying more and more that if you ignore social media (and especially Facebook and Twitter), do so at your own risk. Again, the numbers are pretty convincing.

Yahoo
Although Yahoo has taken a back seat recently, the numbers are still strong from a referring source perspective. Between Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo News, Finance, etc. there are still millions of people visiting each property per month. And yes, those sites end up as top referring sources (impacting traffic, sales, sign-ups, twitter followers, Facebook fans, etc.) Yahoo consistently showed up in the top five referring sites, and often number one or two. Don’t count out Yahoo just yet. If you do, you’d be dismissing a huge traffic source (when you take all of their properties into account).

The Future of FaceYahoogle
I’m sure you are wondering which sites will be the major sources of traffic in 2010 and beyond? Will Twitter beat out Facebook, will Bing surpass Google, will Yahoo be non-existent? The beauty of the web (and technology) is that we never know. But the data does tell us something… don’t ignore Search and Social, and how they can work together.

People are searching and people are talking. And the people that are talking can impact how people that are searching find your website. And people searching can lead to sharing on social networks, based on what they find. Look at the numbers again. Don’t discount Facebook because you think people are tagging photos or playing games all day. You also shouldn’t disregard Google’s dominance. It is too powerful to ignore. And Yahoo isn’t dead yet. There are millions of people visiting Yahoo Sites on a regular basis.

Last, to emphasize that we never really know what will take off, I have provided Twitter’s trending below (Compete data over the past 24 months). I bet many people don’t even know that it was around in 2006 and 2007… and that it crept along until 2008 when it gained serious traction. So, is the next Twitter out there right now slowly growing and about to gain traction? Good question. :)

Click the image to view a larger version:

GG

SEO and AJAX: Taking a Closer Look at Google’s Proposal to Crawl AJAX

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Last week at SMX, Google announced a proposal to crawl AJAX. Although it was great to hear the official announcement, you had to know it was coming. Too many web applications are using AJAX for Google to ignore it! After the news was released, I received a lot of questions about what the proposal actually means, how it works, and what the impact could be. There seemed to be a lot of confusion, and even with people in the Search industry. And I can understand why. If you don’t have a technical background, then Google’s blog post detailing the proposal to crawl AJAX can be a bit confusing. The mention of URL fragments, stateful pages, and headless browsers can end up being confusing for a lot of people, to say the least. And if you’ve never heard of a headless browser, fear not! Since it’s close to Halloween and I grew up near Sleepy Hollow, I’ll spend some time in this post talking about what a headless browser is.

So based on my observations over the past week or so, I decided to write this post to take a closer look at what Google is proposing. My hope is to clear up some of the confusion so you can be prepared to have your AJAX crawled. And to reference AJAX’s original slogan, let’s find out if this proposal is truly Stronger Than Dirt. :)

Some Background Information About SEO and AJAX:
So why all the fuss about AJAX and SEO? AJAX stands for asynchronous JavaScript and xml, and when used properly, it can create extremely engaging web applications. In a nutshell, a webpage using AJAX can load additional data from the server on-demand without the page needing to refresh. For example, if you were viewing product information for a line of new computers, you could dynamically load the information for each computer when someone wants to learn more. That might sound unimpressive, but instead of triggering a new page and having to wait as the page loads all of the necessary images, files, etc., the page uses AJAX to dynamically (and quickly) supply the information. As a user, you could quickly see everything you need and without an additional page refresh. Ten or more pages of content can now be viewed on one… This is great for functionality, but not so great for SEO. More on that below.

Needless to say, this type of functionality has become very popular with developers wanting to streamline the user experience for visitors. Unfortunately, the search engines haven’t been so nice to AJAX-based sites. Until this proposal, most AJAX-based content was not crawlable. The original content that loaded on the page was crawlable, but you had to use a technique like HIJAX to make sure the bots could find all of your dynamically loaded content. Or, you had to create alternative pages that didn’t use AJAX (which added a lot of rework.) Either way, it took careful planning and extra work by your team. On that note, I’ve yet to be part of project where AJAX developers jump up and down with joy about having to do this extra work. Based on what I explained above, Google’s proposal is an important step forward. But there just had to be a better solution.

What is Google’s Proposal to Crawl AJAX?
When hearing about the proposal, I think experienced SEO’s and developers knew there would be challenges ahead. It probably wasn’t going to be a simple solution. And for the most part, we were right. The proposal is definitely a step forward, but webmasters need to cooperate (and share the burden of making sure their AJAX can be crawled). In a nutshell, Google wants webmasters to process AJAX content on the server and provide the search engines with a snapshot of what the page would look like with the AJAX content loaded. Then Google can crawl and index that snapshot and provide it in the search results as a stateful URL (a URL that visitors can access directly to see the page with the AJAX-loaded content).

If the last line threw you off, don’t worry. We are going to take a closer look at the process that’s being proposed below.

Getting Your AJAX Crawled: Taking a closer look at the steps involved:

1. Adding a token to your URL:
Let’s say you are using AJAX on your site to provide additional information about a new line of products. A URL might look like:

example.com?productid.aspx#productname

Google is proposing that you use a token (in this case an exclamation point !) to make sure Google knows that it’s an AJAX page that should be crawled. So, your new URL would look like:

example.com?productid.aspx#!productname

When Google comes across this URL using the token, it would recognize that it’s an AJAX page and take further action.

2. The Headless Browser (Scary name, but important functionality.)
Now that Google recognizes you are using AJAX, we need to make sure it can access the AJAX page (and the dynamically loaded content). That’s where the headless browser comes in. Now if you just said, “What the heck is a headless browser?”, you’re not alone. That’s probably the top question I’ve received after Google announced their proposal. A headless browser is a GUI-less browser (a browser with no graphical user interface) that will run on your server. The headless browser will process the request for the dynamic version of the webpage in question. In the blog post announcing this proposal, Google referenced a headless browser called HTMLUnit and you can read more about it on the website.

Why would Google require this? Well, Google knows that it would take enormous amounts of power and resources to execute and crawl all of the JavaScript being used today on the web. So, if webmasters help out and process the AJAX for Google, then it will cut down on the amount of resources needed and provide a quick way to make sure the page gets properly crawled.

To continue our example from above, let’s say you already provided a token in your URL so Google will recognize that it’s an AJAX page. Google would then request the AJAX page from the headless browser on your server by escaping the state. Basically, URL fragments (an anchor with additional information at the end of a URL), are not sent with requests to the server. Therefore, Google needs to change that URL to request the AJAX page from the headless browser (see below).

Google would end up requesting the page like this:
example.com/productid.aspx?_escaped_fragment=productname
Note: It would make this request only after it finds a URL using the token explained above (the exclamation point !)

This would tell the server to use the headless browser to process the page and return html code to Google (or any search engine that chooses to participate). That’s why the token is important. If you don’t use the token, the page will be processed normally (AJAX-style). If that’s the case, then the headless browser will not be triggered and Google will not request additional information from the server.

3. Stateful AJAX Pages Displayed in the Search Results
Now that you provided Google a way to crawl your AJAX content (using the process above), Google could now provide that URL in the search results. The page that Google displays in the SERPs will enable visitors to see the same content as if they were traversing your AJAX content on your site. i.e. They will access the AJAX version of the page versus the default content (which is what would normally be crawled). And since there is now a stateful URL that contains the AJAX content, Google can check to ensure that the indexable content matches what is returned to users.

Using our example from above, here is what the process would look like:
Your original URL:
example.com/productid.aspx#productname

You would change the URL to include a token:
example.com/productid.aspx#!productname

Google would recognize this as an AJAX page and request the following:
example.com/productid.aspx?_escaped_fragment=productname

The headless browser (on your server) would process this request and return a snapshot of the AJAX page. The engines would then provide the content at the stateful URL in the search results:
example.com/productid.aspx#!productname

Barriers to Acceptance
This all sounds great, right? It is, but there are some potential obstacles. I’m glad Google has offered this proposal, but I’m worried about how widespread of an acceptance it’s going to gain. Putting some of the workload on webmasters presents some serious challenges. When you ask webmasters to install something like a headless browser to their setup, you never know how many will actually agree to participate.

As an example, I’ve helped a lot of clients with Flash SEO, which typically involves using SWFObject 2.x to provide alternative and crawlable content for your flash movies. This is a relatively straightforward process and doesn’t require any server-based changes. It’s all client side. However, it does require some additional work from developers and designers. Even though it’s relatively painless to implement, I still see a lot of unoptimized flash content out there… And again, it doesn’t require setting up a headless browser on the server! There are some web architects I’ve worked with over the years that would have my head for requesting to add anything to their setup, no pun intended. :) To be honest, the fact that I even had to write this post is a bad sign… So again, I’m sure there are challenges ahead.

But, there is an upside for those webmasters that take the necessary steps to make sure their AJAX is crawlable. It’s called a competitive advantage! Take the time to provide Google what it wants, and you just might reap the benefits. That leads to my final point about what you should do now.

Wrapping Up: So What Should You Do?
Prepare. I would spend some time getting ready to test this out. Speak with your technical team, bring this up during meetings, and start thinking about ways to test it out without spending enormous amounts of time and energy. As an example, one of my clients agreed to wear a name tag that says, “Is Your AJAX Crawlable?” to gain attention as he walks the halls of his company. It sounds funny, but he said it has sparked a few conversations about the topic. My recommendation is to not blindside people at your company when you need this done. Lay the groundwork now, and it will be easier to implement when you need to.

Regarding actual implementation, I’m not sure when this will start happening. However, if you use AJAX on your website (or plan to), then this is an important advancement for you to consider. If nothing else, you now have a great idea for a Halloween costume, The Headless Browser. {And don’t blame me if nobody understands what you are supposed to be… Just make sure there are plenty of SEO’s at the Halloween party.} :)

GG

Related Posts:
The Critical Last Mile for SEO: Your Copywriters, Designers and Developers
Using SWFObject 2.0 to Embed Flash While Providing SEO Friendly Alternative Content
6 Questions You Should Ask During a Website Redesign That Can Save Your Search Engine Rankings
SEO, Forms, and Hidden Content - The Danger of Coding Yourself Into Search Obscurity

SEO Technical Audits - A Logical First Step for Improving SEO Results

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:58:00 +0000

When I begin assisting new SEO clients, I typically start each engagement by completing a thorough SEO technical audit. Actually, I believe technical audits are so important that it's rare for me not to complete one. The reason is simple. An extensive audit identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities that a client has in natural search. It’s essentially a full analysis of a website and it takes into account several key factors that impact organic search. Needless to say, it's an important part of my seo services.

When speaking with new clients about natural search, I often refer to the four pillars of seo, including structure (a clean and crawlable structure), content (ensuring you have the right content and that it’s optimized), links (inbound links are the lifeblood of seo), and analytics (ensuring you track and analyze your natural search efforts). Then I typically jump back to pillar one and explain that without a clean and crawlable structure, you’re dead in the water. You can essentially forget about the other three pillars if your content can’t be crawled and indexed... For example, I was helping a site that already had over 1.3 million inbound links, yet the site ranked for almost no target keywords. The site had a massive structural problem, which was wreaking havoc on a number of important factors for SEO. The site could have built another 1.3 million links and nothing would have changed. The structure and architecture needed to be addressed before any impact would be seen. That’s a good example of when a technical audit was desperately needed (and you better believe I started one quickly to identify all of the barriers present on the site.)

The Core Benefits of an SEO Technical Audit
SEO technical audits yield several key benefits for clients looking to improve their results in natural search. The first benefit is that the audit yields an actionable remediation plan, which is a deliverable that documents each of the findings from the audit (along with how to address each issue.) To me, it’s one of the most important deliverables in SEO (especially in the beginning phases of an SEO engagement.) The remediation plan enables clients to fully understand where their website (or network of websites) stands SEO-wise. They get a lay of the land, understand the core problems impacting their website, and identify key opportunities in natural search (some of which can be tackled immediately). For example, I once helped a website jump from 250K pages indexed to 1.1 million in less than a month based on relatively painless changes to the site’s structure. That opened up a massive amount of content that was essentially hidden from the search engines. Without the audit, they probably would have stayed at 250K pages indexed and missed a huge opportunity…

Another benefit is that the audit helps build an SEO roadmap, which is a critical plan for how a client is going to achieve its goals in natural search. You know where the site stands, what needs to be addressed, what the key opportunities are, and how long each step will take. Working directly with a client’s team (executives, marketers, programmers, designers, copywriters, etc.) you can map out the necessary steps to remediate the site and expand your efforts. Everyone should have a solid feel for what needs to completed, and every person on the team is involved. In case you haven’t read my previous posts, I typically refer to a company’s team of developers, designers, and copywriters as The Critical Last Mile for SEO. Without their input and cooperation, you’re going to have a heck of time getting things done and seeing success.

What Can You Learn From an SEO Technical Audit?
Extensive audits produce a wealth of knowledge about the website in question. Although there are some people that might want to charge the (SEO) hill without conducting a thorough audit, I think that's a dangerous proposition. Thorough research and analysis are critically important when trying to determine obstacles in natural search. Without fully understanding what you are facing, you risk wasting time, a massive amount of effort (from everyone involved), burning through budget, and all while producing little results. Don’t charge the hill without a solid plan in place.

So, what can you find when performing a technical audit? To answer that question, let’s take a look at a hypothetical situation. Imagine you’re a VP or Director of Marketing that has a serious SEO problem. How important would finding the following things be for you?

Your SEO website audit revealed:

* Your company was using seven domains, and splitting your content across all of them. All seven have built up their own amount of SEO power (and none of them are very powerful).
* A website redesign was just completed, but without a proper migration strategy in place. This left thousands of pages, and possibly hundreds of thousands of inbound links, in limbo.
* Your website just added a killer web application, but that same application is hiding 90% of your content.
* Your website houses 750 videos across 30 categories, but none of them are indexed and ranking.
* Your navigation is half as robust as it needs to be, and uses several 302 redirects to link to each page.
* Every campaign landing page you launch disappears after the campaign ends (wasting thousands of powerful links.)
* Your new product pages are beautiful, but they contain a heavy amount of flash content and almost no text. And to add insult to injury, your flash content isn’t even optimized.
* 600 pages on your website are optimized the same exact way.
* Your site contains 200 pages, but over 2000 are indexed. Huh? What does that even mean?
* Your 404 page looks great, but it issues 200 codes (telling the engines the pages in question loaded successfully).
* At any given time, thousands of URL’s can change, wasting all of the SEO power they have built up over time.

I can keep going here... and you can probably start to see why I think SEO technical audits are so important. :) You never know what you’ll find, and many times these little gremlins are severely impacting your natural search efforts. Without conducting an extensive audit, you might only identify a small percentage of the problems impacting the website. That could leave the most important, and deepest structural problems hidden and unaddressed. And those deeper structural problems might be causing 90% of your SEO issues. By tackling only 10% of your problems, you might not make a dent in your efforts and performance in natural search.

SEO Audit Details: Deliverables, Cost, and Length of Time
In case you are wondering what a technical audit looks like, the deliverable is typically a PowerPoint presentation. Using PowerPoint enables you to provide visuals, screenshots, callouts, etc. It also works well when you need to present to larger groups of people. There are times a Word document will suffice, but unless you're audience is extremely familiar with the technical aspects you will be referring to in the remediation plan, I recommend going with PowerPoint. The length of time for completing an audit (and subsequent cost) completely depends on the size and complexity of the website. For example, larger, more complex sites might yield a 70 or 80 slide deck where smaller websites might yield 25-30 slides. I’ve seen audits completed in less than a week and others that take 6-8 weeks to complete. It makes sense if you think about it. You might have one website that has fewer than 50 pages and another site that has millions of webpages… The two presentations might look very different.

A Critical Component: The Analyst Completing Your Audit
It’s important that you find a consultant or agency that matches well with your business, industry, and the type of content you provide. You definitely don’t want to spend time and money on an audit that produces little results. So it's important that you choose a consultant or agency that can produce a remediation plan that's technically sound, thorough, and actionable. Find out how many audits the agency or analyst has completed. Find out which verticals they have focused on, and then ask for results based on their audits. For example, if you're a small business, find out if the SEO focuses on SMB's and local search. If you have expanded internationally, then ask if the SEO understands international SEO. If you focus on video, make sure the SEO has in depth experience with Video SEO. If you have 10 million webpages, then find out the largest website the consultant has worked on. You get the picture.

A quick example: All technical audits are not created equally:
I was asked to analyze a website last year and give the site a score for SEO (0-100, where 100 was be the best possible SEO situation). Before presenting my findings, I was told that the site was previously audited and was given a score of 75%. I was pretty shocked to hear that score. I had given the website a score of 35%. From my perspective, the site needed serious help… There's a big difference between the two scores, right? But, there’s also a reason the company had chosen to have a second audit performed. They weren’t seeing results after the first was completed. A score of 35% was accurate and we quickly were able to identify projects to tackle and develop a roadmap.

Unfortunately, technical audits that provide a shallow or incomplete view of your website can be dangerous. That type of audit could yield what I call “the snake oil effect”. That’s when internal employees become desensitized to SEO, don’t believe it can actually work, and focus their attention on less powerful initiatives. Think about it, if you’re an executive that allocated significant budget for several SEO efforts but never saw results, then your view of SEO will probably be skewed. Don’t let that happen! Natural search is too important.

The Most SEO Bang for Your Buck
If you are unhappy with your natural search results and you are determining where to begin, don’t overlook the power of an SEO technical audit. As I mentioned above, an audit can yield a detailed remediation plan in a relatively short amount of time. The remediation plan can yield a roadmap for your efforts, which can include projects that improve your overall SEO performance (including crawlability, indexation, content optimization, rankings, and targeted traffic.) That’s why I consider technical SEO audits a logical first step for most companies. It can provide serious SEO bang for your buck.

GG

Related Posts:
6 Questions You Should Ask During a Website Redesign That Can Save Your Search Engine Rankings
The Critical Last Mile for SEO, Your Designers, Developers, and Copywriters
SEO, Forms, and Hidden Content - The Danger of Coding Yourself Into Search Obscurity

SEO, Forms, and Hidden Content - The Danger of Coding Yourself Into Search Obscurity

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:51:00 +0000

When I perform a competitive analysis for a client, I often uncover important pieces of information about the range of websites they are competing with online. Sometimes that information is about traffic, campaigns, keywords, content, inbound links, etc. There are also times I uncover specific practices that are either beneficial or problematic for the competitor. For example, they might be doing something functionality-wise that could be inhibiting the overall performance of the site. If I do uncover something like that, I usually dig much deeper to learn more about that problem to ensure my clients don’t make the same mistakes. So, I was analyzing a website last week and I uncovered an interesting situation. On the surface, the functionality the site was providing was robust and was a definite advantage for the company, but that same functionality was a big problem SEO-wise. Needless to say, I decided to dig deeper to learn more.

Slick Web Application Yielding Hidden Content
As part of the competitive analysis I was completing, I came across a powerful web application for finding a variety of services based on a number of criteria. The application heavily used forms to receive information from users. The application included pretty elaborate pathing and prompted me to clarify answers in order to provide the best recommendations possible. After gathering enough information, I was provided with dozens of targeted service listings with links to more information (to more webpages on the site). So you might be thinking, “That sounds like a good thing Glenn, what’s the problem?” The problem is that the web application, including the robust form functionality, essentially hid all of the content from the search engines. In this case, we are talking about more than 2000 pages of high quality, high demand content. I say “high demand”, because I completed extensive keyword research for this category and know what people are searching for. Unfortunately for this company, the application yielded results that are simply not crawlable, which means the site has no chance to rank for competitive keywords related to the hidden pages. And by all means, the site should rank for those competitive keywords. For those of you asking, “but isn’t Google crawling forms?” I’ll explain more about that below. For this application, none of the resulting content was indexed.

Losing Visitors From Natural Search and Missing Opportunities For Gaining Inbound Links
Let’s take a closer look at the problem from an SEO standpoint. Forms often provide a robust way to receive user input and then provide tailored information based on the data collected. However, forms can also hide that content from the search engine bots. Although Google has made some strides in executing forms to find more links and content, it’s still not a perfect situation. Google isn’t guaranteeing that your forms will be crawled, it limits what it will crawl to GET forms (versus POST), and some the form input is generated by common keywords on the page (for text boxes). That’s not exactly a perfect formula.

Using forms, you might provide an incredible user experience, but you might also be limiting the exposure and subsequent traffic levels to your web application from natural search. I come across this often when conducting both SEO technical audits and competitive analyses for clients. In this case, over 2000 pages of content remain unindexed. And if the content is not indexed, then there is no way for the engines to rank it highly (or at all).

The Opportunity Cost
Based on the keyword research I performed, a traffic analysis of competing websites, and then comparing that data to the 2000 pages or so of hidden content, I estimate that the site in question is missing out on approximately 10-15K highly targeted visitors per day. That additional traffic could very easily yield 300-400 conversions per day, if not higher, based on the type of content the site provides.

In addition to losing targeted traffic, the site is missing a huge opportunity to gain powerful inbound links, which can boost its search power. The content provided (yet hidden) is so strong and in demand, that I can’t help but think the 2000 pages would gain many valuable inbound links. This would obviously strengthen both the domain’s SEO power, as well as the power of the specific pages (since the more powerful and relevant inbound links your site receives, the more powerful it is going to become SEO-wise.)

Some Usability Also Hindered
Let’s say you found this form and took the time to answer all the questions. After you completed the final steps of the form, you are provided with a list of quality results based on your input. You find the best result, click through to more information, and then you want to bookmark it so you can return later. But unfortunately you can’t… This is due to the web application, which doesn’t provide permanent URL’s for each result. Yes, the form is slick and its algorithm is great, but you don’t have a static page that you can bookmark, email to someone else, etc. How annoying is that? So if you want to return to the listing in question, you are forced to go back through the form again! It’s another example of how SEO and usability are sometimes closely related.

SEO and Forms, A Developer's Perspective
I started my career as a developer, so I fully understand why you would want to create a dynamic and powerful form-based application. This specific form was developed using asp.net, which utilizes postback (where the form actually posts back information to the same page). The URL doesn’t change, and the information submitted is posted back to the same page where the programmer can access all of the variables. Coding-wise, this is great. SEO-wise, this produces one URL that handles thousands of different pieces of content. Although you might have read that Google started crawling html forms in 2008, it’s a work in progress and you can’t guarantee that all of your forms will be crawled (to say the least…) On that note, you should really perform a thorough analysis of your own forms to see what Google is crawling and indexing. You might be surprised what you find (good or bad). So, the application I analyzed (including the forms) isn’t being crawled, the URL never changes, the page optimization never changes, and the content behind the form is never found. This is not good, to say the least.

If I were advising the company using this application, I would absolutely recommend providing another way to get the bots to all of this high quality content. They should definitely keep their robust web application, but they should also provide an alternative path for the bots. Then they should optimize all of those resulting webpages so they can rank for targeted queries. I would also disallow the application in robots.txt, blocking the bots from crawling any URL’s that would be generated via the form (just in case). With the right programmer, this wouldn’t take very long and could produce serious results from natural search…

The Most Basic SEO Requirement: Your Content Needs to be Found In Order to Rank
It sounds obvious, but I run into this problem often as I perform SEO technical audits. Your killer content will not rank just because it’s killer content. The content needs to be crawled and indexed in order to rank highly for target keywords. In this case, the site should definitely keep providing its outstanding functionality, but they should seriously think about the search implications (and provide an easy way for the bots to find optimized content.)

The bad news for my client's competitor is that I believe they aren’t aware of the severity of the problem and how badly it’s impacting their natural search traffic. However, the good news for my client is that they know about the problem now, and won’t make the same mistake as their competitor. That’s the power of a competitive analysis. :)

GG

Related Posts:
6 Questions You Should Ask During a Website Redesign To Save Your Search Engine Rankings
The Critical Last Mile for SEO, Your Copywriters, Designers, and Developers

The 4 Pillars of e-Commerce Excellence, Why Amazon.com Has Earned the “First In Mind” Advantage

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:19:00 +0000

When I work on e-Commerce optimization projects, I often take clients through several examples of what I consider to be e-Commerce excellence. While I go through this process, it usually doesn’t take long before I mention Amazon.com. Amazon consistently exceeds my expectations with selection, ease of use, access, security, and customer service. I've written previously about how strong Amazon is, including a post last year about mobile e-Commerce. I explained how Amazon blurred the line between making a purchase via your browser and your mobile device. It's just another example of how Amazon goes above and beyond to ensure customers can access, browse and purchase across devices. So, after placing yet another order with Amazon late last week, I started to think about the reasons I visit Amazon over other e-Commerce websites. I also started to think about how those reasons apply to other websites (and possibly yours).

Here’s a quick, yet important question you should ask yourself (and yes, I understand that every website can’t be like Amazon):

In your industry, are you the knee-jerk reaction for buying online?

It's such a basic question, but can mean the difference between thousands or millions of dollars in revenue… Do customers think of your business first when they need to buy something? For me, Amazon is often the first website that comes to mind, and there are several reasons for this. As I was writing down the core reasons that I buy at Amazon so much versus other websites, I noticed that I was inadvertently listing the pillars of e-Commerce excellence. More on this shortly.

An Impromptu Friday Afternoon e-Commerce Purchase
Last Friday I needed to buy something quickly. I was in between meetings and only had a few minutes. Literally the first business that came to mind was Amazon.com. I could have purchased the item at a number of websites, but Amazon was my knee-jerk reaction. I also could have stopped on my way home, but Friday evening and New Jersey traffic don’t mix well, to say the least. So I opened up a new tab in Firefox, accessed the website, searched for the product, visited the product detail page and added it to my cart. I then quickly checked out and completed the purchase in less than 90 seconds. From an e-Commerce perspective, that's simply outstanding. I closed the tab, received a confirmation email and was back on another conference call. Then, less than two hours later, I received a shipment notification.
{Update: I just received my order on Monday afternoon using standard shipping. Simply outstanding.}

OK, remember the pillars I mentioned above? Let’s take a look at each pillar of e-Commerce excellence and how Amazon has successfully achieved a first-in-mind advantage.

The Pillars of e-Commerce Excellence:

1. Accessibility and Simplicity
Amazon.com makes it easy to access their website across devices. Amazon also makes it simple to find products, read reviews, view product information, check technical specs, find out what other people have purchased, etc. On Amazon, I'm able to visit the site, search for what I need quickly, and view all of the necessary information in order to make a purchase decision. There are no hoops to jump through, and I don’t necessarily need to be in front of my computer to buy something.

2. Speed and Organization
Amazon.com loads fast, provides an easy to navigate organization of categories, which is almost unnecessary based on how good their on-site search is. Amazon’s search functionality enables you to easily search within their main categories. It’s fast and provides outstanding search results. Product detail pages on Amazon provide a thorough breakdown of valuable information. Note, I said thorough and not elegant and I’ll explain more about that soon. As I explained earlier in the post, I can make a purchase in less than 90 seconds. I can always quickly find what I need, add it to my cart and then check out in a flash. My order is always quick to arrive, but that’s included in another pillar below. A quick recap of pillar #2: Fast, fast, fast, and fast. :)

3. Trust and Security
Security is a big concern in e-Commerce, and it will only become a bigger concern as time goes on and technology progresses. For e-Commerce managers, a lack of security and trust can become a horrible barrier to conversion. However, if you can have prospective customers feel confident that their security is first and foremost, then you can reap great rewards revenue-wise. I always feel 100% confident when I’m buying at Amazon. If you put yourself in the mind of a consumer (and not a marketer), you can quickly understand how people browse through sites and what might be a problem conversion-wise. Some questions pop up like “who owns this site?”, “how long have they been around?”, “where are they located?”, “what happens if I need to return something?”, “how secure is this website?” …so on and so forth. The more you build trust, the easier it is for a person to click “Buy now” or “Proceed to Checkout”. Personally, I don’t even think about security when I’m on Amazon. That’s how much trust they have built up with me. I’ll cover my points system later in the post.

4. Communication and Customer Service
I’m not sure there is anything more frustrating than buying something and then having to jump through hoops to track the order, view order information, contact customer service, or return merchandise. It’s definitely a problem with buying online, and rightfully so based on some e-Commerce operations. Amazon makes it easy for customers to find any information they need, from invoices to tracking information to returns. Simply clicking on Your Account brings you to self service screen that enables you to handle a wide range of customer service tasks. Amazon knew this was important, and knew it could also save them money (a lot of money). Amazon empowers customers to handle various account related tasks by themselves. By far, it’s the fastest and most cost-effective way to handle this. Again, they make it easy for me to want to buy from them...

The Self Service Account Screen on Amazon.com:

The Glenn Gabe Virtual Points System
You may not think about it this way, but you probably have a points system too. Every time I deal with a company and have a good experience, they earn virtual points in my mind. During an average experience, no points are awarded. During a negative experience, several points are deducted, and it depends on how serious the problem was to know how many points should be deducted. Over the years, Amazon has earned a mountain of virtual points. In fact, it has earned so many G-Squared points, that it has earned rollover points. That’s right, it means Amazon could actually screw up a few times, and I would probably still go back. And unlike my friends at AT&T, my G-Squared rollover points don’t expire. ;-)

A Quick Tangent About Website Design and Conversion:
For those of you that obsess about ultra-slick web design, head over to Amazon.com now. Amazon is pretty well known for their continual e-Commerce optimization. From a design standpoint, their pages are relatively plain, they are text-heavy, and it seems like images are thrown around the page. But let me tell you, they convert! They provide all of the necessary information in order to convert browsers into buyers. The pages load fast and have valuable segments of information that push you closer and closer to buying. It proves you don't need crazy functionality or a beautiful design to be a leader in e-Commerce. My advice is to optimize for conversion, and not for awards. :)

Strive for e-Commerce Excellence
So yes, Amazon is the proverbial knee-jerk reaction when I need to buy something online. And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that Amazon is probably the knee-jerk reaction for thousands of other people too. But they deserve it and have quite a few G-Squared rollover points to play with.

Here are some quick takeaways:

1. In your industry, is your business the knee-jerk reaction for buying online? If not, which company is? What can you do to get closer?

2. How does your business fare when it comes to the four pillars of e-Commerce excellence I listed above? Can you improve any of the areas quickly while developing a plan to tackle the others?

3. Are your customers writing blog posts about your business like the one I just wrote about Amazon.com? How can you get them to become company evangelists?

Now that you know how I feel about Amazon, I’d like to hear about your favorite companies or e-Commerce websites? Why are they your knee-jerk reaction for buying online?

GG

Related Posts:
Mobile e-Commerce, How Amazon.com blurs the line between web and mobile purchase

Your Google Local Business Center Dashboard, Analyzing and Refining Your Google Maps Listing Based on Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:32:00 +0000

More and more small businesses are realizing the importance of advertising online, including how to maximize their presence in Search. As local businesses get more involved in online marketing, they begin to understand how prospective customers research products and services. Needless to say, many are searching for information online. And, if you offer a product or service they are looking for, it’s obviously important for you to show up for targeted searches. If you don’t rank highly for target keywords, other businesses are...and they are the ones receiving calls (or visits in person).

In addition, there are searches that Google and the other engines deem as “local” in nature. For example, bakery in Princeton, NJ and florist in Miami, FL. Google may provide a 10 pack of local results for searches like this, and it’s important to make sure you show up. Even further, Google recently changed the way it processes requests that it deems local. For example, you often don’t need to put a location to trigger the 10 pack. Google knows your location and provides tailored local results for you. How nice. :)

To learn more about local listings in Google, you can read a previous post of mine about how to set up a Google maps listing in Google Local Business Center. In the post I walk you through what it is and how to set one up. By the way, once you take a hard look at Google’s 10 pack of local listings, it should be no surprise that it attracts a lot of attention. The 10 pack, which sometimes shows less than 10 listings, contains a map with markers showing the location of each business. It’s pretty hard to ignore this on the results page… The 10 pack also pushes down the organic results, which can potentially move your organic listing down the page.

Why Continual Analysis Can Provide Serious Benefits
I've found that many local businesses either don't have a listing or they set one up and check it off their list, never to return to analyze and refine the listing. But hold on a second… businesses should really be asking themselves, “How is that local listing working for me?” I recently had a client make some relatively minor changes based on reporting. These changes ended up having a significant impact on their local rankings and subsequent visits and calls from prospective customers. That’s pretty powerful considering the reporting they analyzed cost them nothing. Yes, $0. I helped my client use data provided to them in their Google Local Business Center Dashboard. You might have heard about this recently, as Google launched it in June of this year. That said, I’m sure some of you reading this post have no idea what it is. That’s ok, since this post is here to provide a thorough overview of your local dashboard, while also giving you some ideas for how to best use the data to attract prospective customers.

The Google Local Business Center Dashboard, Free Analytics for Local Businesses
OK, let’s assume you read my post about setting up your Google maps listing and you are showing up for some targeted searches. That’s great, but do you really know how well that listing is working for your business? Until recently (June 2009), you really didn’t have a lot of insight into the performance of your local listing. Sure, you probably had Google Analytics or another analytics package set up, but that doesn’t specifically give you data about your local listing. Thankfully, Google understood this and did something about it. They rolled out a Local Business Center Dashboard that is basically a scaled down Google Analytics report for your local listing. It provides some important data about how your listing is being triggered, viewed, and accessed. Let’s explore the features below.

The Features of Your Local Dashboard
First, log into Google Local Business Center. You will see your business information, status, and a label for “Statistics”. Under the heading for statistics, you will see a quick view of impressions and actions. Impressions include the number of times your local listing was triggered and viewed as a result of a search on Google or Google Maps. Actions include when someone viewing your listing actually interacted with it. More on this shortly. Click the “View Report” link to access your dashboard.

Google Analytics-like Graphs for Impressions and Actions
The first thing you will see is a timeline at the top of the page showing activity for your listing. The chart breaks down impressions and actions visually by day, over the time period you selected. The default timeframe is the past 30 days, but you can easily change that by using date range selector in the upper right corner and then clicking apply. Right below the timeline, you will see the number of impressions, which again is the number of times your listing is viewed as a result of a search on Google or on Google Maps. Underneath impressions, you will see a breakdown of actions, which is the number of times a user took “action” with your listing. Possible actions include clicks for more information on Google Maps, clicks for driving directions, and clicks to your website. Actions are aggregated in the graph, but actually broken down underneath the graph. Providing this reporting enables you to get a quick snapshot of the performance of your local listing.

What to look for:
You might notice spikes in impressions and actions based on advertising campaigns you have launched. You can identify the most active days of the week or periods of time based on activity. For example, are many people searching for your services on weekends or during the week, right before holidays, or heavily during a specific season? You can also test the effectiveness of the details of your listing. Google provides the ability to edit the details of your local listing, so my recommendation is to test various ways to communicate your business and then view the impact on impressions and actions. For example you can refine your description, specialties, and categories served to determine the optimal combination of elements. Don’t just throw up a local listing without revisiting its performance on a regular basis.

Top Search Queries
Below the breakdown of actions, you will find top search queries that triggered your local listing, along with the number of impressions. Although this isn't a robust list of keywords like you would see in Google Analytics or another analytics package, it still provides important data for you to review. You probably have an idea about the types of keywords that trigger your listing, however, I’ll bet some of the keywords in the list surprise you. It’s just like when I talk about performing keyword research, you should find what people are actually searching for versus what you think they are searching for. Trust data, and not necessarily opinion.

Click the image below to view a larger version:

Are there keywords you never thought about targeting that people are actually searching for? Analyzing even this simple keyword report can help you target the right people locally, based on what they are really looking for. For example, let's say you are a florist focused on wedding arrangements and none of the keywords triggering your listing seem targeted for that niche. You find that most people are searching for gifts or flowers versus a specific type of arrangement. Or, you might find the opposite is true and that people are searching for very specific types of arrangements. Again, you never know until you look. Then you can determine the best path to take with regard to your local listing.

Based on what you find, you should start to think about why your listing is showing up for those searches. Is that because of the type of search being conducted or the information contained in your actual listing? It’s a good question and it is definitely worth analyzing... For example, did you let Google know that you provide organic food at your restaurant? Take the time to analyze the data and make changes to your listing. Don’t miss out on customers. In addition, the data can help you craft new marketing messages, and even possibly how you explain your business in person or via other forms of advertising. Using the example above, are you using the word organic in your advertising, whether that’s on TV, in mailers, at shows or festivals, and when you speak with people in your community. If they are searching for it, you might want to start including it. :)

Know Where Your Customers Are Coming From (Literally)
Underneath top search queries, you will find a list of zip codes, based on where driving direction requests are coming from. To clarify, this is when someone clicks “Directions” or “Get Directions” from your local listing. This data would mean more to a business with a physical location serving local customers and can provide some interesting data. For example, you can see the impact of offline marketing, you can see which areas provide high demand for your products or services, and can help you craft future advertising campaigns. For example, I know some local businesses like to attend town festivals, which enable you to set up a booth. Let’s say you planned to attend four festivals in the fall (at $750 per booth). Your knee jerk reaction might be to set up at festivals that are in close proximity to your business, maybe the four closest towns to your business. However, you might change that strategy based on data you view in your dashboard. Maybe more requests are coming from locations 10-15 minutes away versus 5 minutes away. You actually might pass on the festivals right around your town and target ones that are two or three towns over. Again, you don’t know until you review the data. If you don’t, you could miss opportunities to get in front of more targeted groups of people. This is why I always recommend continual analysis and refinement based on data. It has become a motto here at G-Squared Interactive.

Click the image below to view a larger version:

Go Check Your Local Dashboard Now
So there you have it, an overview of your Local Business Center Dashboard, or what I like to call a scaled down Google Analytics report for your local listing. I would love to see the ability to access more data, but this is still better than flying blind (which is what many businesses were doing beforehand).

Here are some key points to think about after reading this post:
* First, do you have a local listing and are you effectively managing that listing?
* Second, are you reviewing reporting for your listing and making changes based on the data?

Remember, you don’t want to miss an opportunity that’s right around the corner…literally. :)

GG

Related Posts:
How to Set Up Your Google Maps Listing
How to Perform Keyword Research for SEO
The Difference Between Sales and Marketing

Creative Headlines Versus Descriptive Titles - Why Optimized Titles Tags are Still Important for SEO, My Latest Post on Search Engine Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:46:00 +0000

Headlines can be powerful. Chances are you've come across a headline that was so enticing, you just had to learn more. It may have been funny, shocking, intriguing, etc. I think most marketers would agree that strong headlines can help drive a surge in short term traffic, while also being extremely memorable. However, I’m also sure that most SEO’s (including myself) would agree that those very headlines could risk poor search engine rankings, which means a potential loss of long term, quality traffic from organic search. And when Search can be a majority of a website’s traffic, it’s hard to ignore the power of high rankings.

SEO and Shoe-Throwing Incidents
There are times that I work with a client’s editorial staff to explain SEO, including keyword research, content optimization, the power of inbound links, etc. I find that many writers are interested in SEO, since they obviously want their articles and posts found via search engines. However, it's not uncommon to have a shoe fly by my head when I explain that clever and creative headlines are not optimal for SEO! As I explained in my guest post on Search Engine Journal, if I’m lucky, the shoe is thrown by someone with poor accuracy or small feet. :) Once the bombardment stops, I often start to conduct searches to show the impact of optimized headlines and titles (based on a client’s industry and focus). If you’ve read my previous blog posts, then you know I’m a big fan of backing your recommendations based on data and not opinion. I find that data is hard to ignore.

My SEO Headline Test
Based on my work with copywriters and editors, I decided to run even more tests and write a post detailing my findings. So, I conducted searches on a number of topics and checked Google, Yahoo, and Bing to determine how many of the top listings included titles that would be considered creative or clever. Then I reversed it, and checked posts and articles that I knew used clever or creative headlines to see where they ranked in natural search.

To view the results of my test, you’ll have to read my post on Search Engine Journal titled Great Headline, Poor Rankings – Why Clever Headlines Don’t Beat Optimized Title Tags for SEO

Feel free to post a comment on Search Engine Journal or here on my blog if you have any questions or thoughts about the topic.

GG

New Features in Keyword Discovery - Also Searched, Successful Search, Core Search Engine Information, and Competitors Search

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:17:00 +0000

If you’ve read some of my previous posts about SEO, then you know how important I think keyword research is. When you break it down, it’s risky to base decisions on what you think people are searching for versus analyzing the actual data. Once you perform keyword research, it can be used to optimize your current content, or more importantly, to help generate ideas for new content.

Needless to say, I’m neck deep in keyword research on a regular basis. Although I’ve used several tools to perform keyword research for my clients, I believe Keyword Discovery by Trellian is the industry leader. As new features are added to the product, I plan to cover them here on my blog in detail. In case you are interested, I’ve written several posts in the past about the importance of keyword research and some overlooked features in Keyword Discovery. After reading this post, you might want to also check them out.

New Features, Better Analysis
I’m going to cover four new features in this post that have been greatly helpful as I work on SEO projects. I’m a firm believer that you need to conduct a thorough analysis of your keywords versus just checking query volume. Trellian obviously understands this too, as they keep adding valuable features that make it a powerful analysis tool for search marketers. These new features help provide important pieces of information so you can make educated decisions about which keywords to target.

The four new features I will cover are:
* Also Searched Queries
* Successful Searches
* Analyze Information from Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, and Ask
* Competitors Search

Without further ado, let’s jump in.

1. Also Searched Queries
I love this feature. Have you ever wanted to know which other keywords people are searching for based on an initial keyword? This feature displays “also searched queries” as you search for keywords in the application (along with search volume.) So, if you enter “mens shoes” as the keyword, Keyword Discovery will show you other keywords that were searched for by the same users that searched for mens shoes. You actually know that the same users were searching for these additional keywords… In addition, the order of the results is based on user frequency (and not by pure number of searches in the database). This lets you see which keywords were most often searched by the same users versus just seeing volume numbers.

Click the image below to see a larger version:

So, you can see that people searching for mens shoes are also searching for footwear, mens jeans, mens shirts, etc. You can also see specific retailers they are searching for. All of this data can help you make informed decisions about which keywords to target, as well as which additional keywords you might want to optimize for.

2. Successful Search Score
This is an important metric when analyzing keywords. Successful Search Score essentially tells you the percentage of people that clicked through a search result after searching for a keyword. It gives you a good feel for the keywords that actually generate a click through.

Below you will see a list of 13 keywords based on a search for mens shoes. You can clearly see how certain keywords generate a much higher click through. This metric should be part of your own decision making process for which keywords to target. It’s obviously not the only metric to consider, but when combined with other metrics that KD offers, it can help you determine which keywords to focus on.

3. Now You Can Analyze Data From Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, and Ask
After adding keywords to one of your projects, Keyword Discovery enables you to analyze those keywords to view a number of key metrics. For example, you can see the number of searches in the database, successful searches (mentioned above), the number of results in each engine for that keyword, and the KEI (or Keyword Effectiveness Index). Keyword Discovery recently broke down this information by core search engine, including Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, and Ask. Having all of this information at your fingertips enables you to analyze keywords across the core engines, in order to make smart decisions about which keywords to target. This data helps you understand how competitive each keyword is so you can target the right keywords for the task at hand.

Click the image below to see a larger version:

4. Competitors Feature
Checking this box when conducting a search in Keyword Discovery will display the top websites receiving search engine traffic for that keyword. There are some great competitive analysis tools on the market, and I use several of them on a regular basis, but it’s great to have some base level data at your fingertips while performing keyword research. For example, I entered mens shoes in KD and it displayed the top 100 sites receiving search engine traffic for that keyword (based on Trellian’s Competitive Analysis User Path Data). Your list might start with some obvious players, but as you scan down the results you might find some interesting competitors. And, you can use the results to start performing a deeper competitive analysis.

Click the image below to see a larger version:

This won’t be my last post about keyword research or Keyword Discovery…
So there you have it. Four new features in Keyword Discovery that can help you select the right keywords for the project at hand. I plan to write more about KD in the future as Trellian adds more features. Actually, there are some features that warrant an entire blog post, so look for more posts in the near future!

I’ll end this post with a Glenn Gabe public service announcement:

Please don’t base your SEO efforts on opinion. Perform extensive keyword research and have that research fuel your projects. A keyword is a terrible thing to waste. :)

GG

Social Networking Trends: Are People 55 and Older on Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:47:00 +0000

Social networking is booming and Facebook is getting a lot of the press. Everyone seems to be friending, tagging, poking, and grabbing their vanity URL’s, including your grandparents. Wait, did I say grandparents? Some recent Facebook research revealed that the fastest growing demographic on the social networking site is women that are 55 and older (with men 55 and older not far behind.) Initially that sounded great, and I was excited to see the data, but then more information was revealed. The new data showed that although people 55 and older were signing up for Facebook, they weren’t returning to the site. Unfortunately, this made more sense to me and intrigued me...

So I decided to find out for myself. I crafted a quick Facebook survey and sent it out to my network of friends and family. I wanted to see if people 55 and older were on Facebook, if they liked it, how they used it, and if they planned to join additional social networks. To see the responses to my survey, along with my analysis, you’ll have to read my post on Search Engine Journal (listed below).

After reading my post, feel free to post a comment on SEJ or back here on my blog. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Facebook or Just Face-Look? Are People 55 And Older Really Using Social Networking Websites?

GG

How To Create A Google News Sitemap and Submit It Via Google Webmaster Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Glenn Gabe) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:09:00 +0000

As Twitter and Facebook boom, the need for real-time search grows more important. When people want information about breaking news, they Google it. It’s their initial reaction... And if you're not there, you might as well not exist (even if you have the greatest article on the web about the subject at hand.) So, when I’m analyzing websites that contain articles and posts that could be considered news, I'm obviously interested in seeing the amount of traffic coming from sites like Google News. After checking referring traffic levels, top content, and trending, I check to see if a Google News sitemap exists. I’ve always been a believer that if Google provides a way to send it structured data with additional information about your posts and articles, you should use it (period!) Unfortunately, many site owners don’t take the time to set up a Google News sitemap. I think it sounds harder to do than it really is, so they just brush it off. As you probably can guess, I think that’s a bad idea. :)

Google News Being More Than Google News…
When searching for a hot topic, some people head straight to Google News, however, many simply search on Google’s homepage or via their Google Toolbar. The way your listing shows up will vary depending on where the user searches. For example, thanks to Universal Search, news content is being mixed into the organic listings for targeted queries. For example, you might see a thumbnail and headline in a Google News one box at the top of the search results. See the screenshots below for a few examples.

I’ve found that news content ranking in the organic listings can be a powerful driver of highly targeted search traffic (for obvious reasons). By the way, having your listing show up in the SERPs (with associated thumbnail) substantially increases your chances of click-through. Check the latest Google heatmap study to see the effect of Universal Search on user behavior if you don’t believe me. :) It also provides a great opportunity to gain valuable readers and subscribers, since you might be viewed as an authority site by visitors (since you rank highly in Google News.) Don't underestimate how powerful top rankings can be credibility-wise.

So, how do you make sure Google has the necessary information about your latest articles, posts, and content so you can have a chance of ranking in Google News (and as part of Universal Search)? One way is to provide a Google News sitemap. Let’s dig deeper.

What is a Google News Sitemap?
In a nutshell, a Google News sitemap is an xml feed that enables you to tell Google about your latest content, including information like publication date and news tags or keywords. In addition, as part of the keywords you provide, you can include Google News categories. You might already be familiar with xml sitemaps, or the xml feeds you provide Google and the other search engines that contain all the URL's on your site. Google News sitemaps are similar, just tailored for news-related content. Note, Google requires that the information contained in the sitemap is less than three days old, so you wouldn't want to provide a running list of URL's in the feed. Instead, you would want to make sure your latest posts and stories are included. For example, if you provide the latest in electronics or search engine marketing or celebrity news, then a Google News sitemap containing your latest articles would be a smart feed to employ.

What Information Should You Provide In A Google News Sitemap?
You should create a Google News sitemap using the sitemap protocol (which is what you are probably using to create your standard xml sitemap). The core elements of a news sitemap include the namespace/URLset tag, your list of URL’s, publication date of each URL in W3C format, and optional news tags (which can include Google News categories). There's no limit to the number of keywords you can provide, but Google recommends you keep them fewer than 12. Click here to see a full listing of all categories used by Google News.

A Quick Example of a Google News Sitemap:
Let’s say I ran a website covering the latest in baseball. To keep this example simple, here is what my Google News sitemap would look like if it contained two new articles: (Can you tell I'm optimistic about the Yankees this year?)

Click the image below to view a larger version:

Submitting Your Google News Sitemap
Once you create your Google News sitemap, you should submit it via Google Webmaster Tools. Note, webmaster tools was just updated (June 10, 2009), and now you can find the sitemaps tab by clicking the plus sign next to Site Configuration (the first listing in the left navigation). First, upload your sitemap to your website (in the root directory of your website). Then submit your sitemap via webmaster tools by entering its location in the text box once you click the sitemaps tab.

Including a Reference to Your Sitemap or Sitemap Index File in Robots.Txt
You would also want to include a reference to your sitemap in your robots.txt file. If you have more than one sitemap, then use a sitemap index file, which can contain references to up to 1000 sitemaps (although you will probably never come close to that number). In addition, each news sitemap should not contain more than 1000 URL's. If your sitemap contains URL's older than 3 days, they will be rejected. If you have more than 1000 URL’s for your news sitemap, break them into separate sitemap files.

Here is what you would enter in your robots.txt file on a new line. Note, you would either enter the location to the sitemap file itself or the sitemap index file, which would reference several sitemap files.

Sitemap: {sitemap_location}

Google Webmaster Tools and Error Messages
Be sure to monitor your news sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools to view any errors being encountered by Google. Google will notify you and provide the exact error message, which can be extremely helpful. There are a number of errors that can occur, such as date not found, date too old, empty article, etc. You can find a full list of Google News sitemap errors here.

Moving Forward With Your Google News Sitemap
Based on what I’ve explained above, my hope is that you are ready to create your own Google News sitemap. It’s relatively straight forward to create and submit and can help you notify Google of all the news-related content hitting your website(s). In addition, if you automate the creation of your Google News sitemap, then it can work for you without having to dedicate any additional resources to it… It’s one of the projects I often recommend knocking out before other, more time-consuming SEO projects. Good luck and stop back and let me know how it worked out for you. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

GG