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Showing posts with label ipad. Show all posts

Friday, April 26, 2013

Social Search Engine Marketing Throws Search Experts A Lifeline


Social Search Engine Marketing Throws Search Experts A Lifeline

by , Yesterday, 1:57 PM
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Anchor-BAside from smartphones and tablets, social search engine optimization has emerged as the next focus for many marketers in enterprises during a time when more C-level execs continue to give attention to search engine optimization (SEO), video offers search and social opportunities, and small and national businesses capitalize on local search, according to a study released Thursday.
Social signals continue to make their way into search results --making social search engine optimization the next major trend in organic listing. Enterprise SEO requires a search across traditional techniques and social media channels. Some 49% of the survey participants said social sharing will have more importance when it comes to improving search rankings in 2013 compared with 2012, followed by 31%, much more importance; and 19%, about the same, according to results of a BrightEdge study, which cites Forrester Research numbers suggesting that search engine optimization will become a $2.2 billion industry by 2016.
To improve SEO ranking with help from social, marketers must understand the exact correlation between social sharing of pages and rank. Identifying this correlation and analyzing the content being shared helps marketers reinforce what’s working and what's not. When asked how important it will be to understand the correlation between social sharing and page rank, 47% of survey participants said more important compared with 33%, much more important; 19%, about the same; and 1%, less important.
Understanding topics will also become "more" important when it comes to social media users and sharing information. The key will be identifying user interests expressed in social media and catching consumers' attention by providing content that targets these interests. Some 45% said it will become more important this year to identify trends, compared with 24%, much more important; 30%, about the same; and 1%, less important.
When asked to name multiple social media channels that marketers will focus on this year, some 86% said Facebook; 68%, Google+; 43% LinkedIn; 41%, Twitter; 29%, Pinterest; and 25%, YouTube.



Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/198917/social-search-engine-marketing-throws-search-exper.html?edition=59262#ixzz2RZG4qtdw

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown


Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown

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You think you know social? How about who uses it? Well, you might not know it as well as you would have guessed.
A new study from the Pew Research Center and Docstoc shed some light on just who uses social and on what platforms. Some of the findings seem in line with what you would probably guess, but others were surprising.
If you think the smarter, more attractive sex is more socially prolific than us men, well ... you're right. Women use social media 9% more than men do. Despite having more distractions, people living in cities have the most social media activity, at 70% of the population. Perhaps it's the connectivity of large-city life.
In terms of racial and ethnic groups online, Hispanics lead the pack at 72% engagement, with African-Americans trailing at 68%, who are ahead of Caucasians at 65%. And in a strange twist, despite being somewhat economically disadvantaged, 72% of adults with annual household incomes below $30,000 use social networks, more than those with higher wages.
How about most popular social networks? That would be Facebook, with 67% of adults using the Zuckerberg-founded service. A distant second was LinkedIn with 20%, with Twitter coming in third at 16%, and Tumblr falling dead last at 6%.
Take a look at the details below:
Image via iStockphotohocus-focus

Friday, April 5, 2013

Can Quality Score Be Gamed?


Can Quality Score Be Gamed?

  |  April 5, 2013   |  1 Comment
Like most complex games with many intelligent participants (such as financial markets, chess, and high-stakes poker), your first hunches about how to "get ahead of the pack" in the Google AdWords auction are likely to be trivial, clichéd, or just plain wrong.
This year, as ever, you'll read plenty of articles focusing specifically on Quality Score and "what to do about it." Conference sessions will teach you Quality Score "tips and tricks."
Since this is about rank and CPCs, admittedly we'll always be driven to crack the code in some way.
This dates all the way back to when Overture ran a pure PPC auction. Under those circumstances, would it make sense to write extremely restrictive, "filtering"-style ads to maximize the value of a click to your business, while garnering a lot of free impressions? Of course it would. High CTRs, in that instance, wouldn't be desirable. Overture tried to address that problem with a laborious, cumbersome human editorial process. (Arggh.)
When AdWords finally introduced CTR into the ranking formula, it led to a great leap forward in relevance, and fewer opportunities to game the system. That being said, many of us enjoyed early-era tricks. Fun in a time machine set to 2002: come in guns blazing so you enjoy very high CTRs associated with high ad positions. Then, "lock in" that CTR history by doing this at a reasonable volume, then gradually walk your bids down, holding your position. That worked pretty well then. The system is much more sophisticated today.
People are still routinely coming up with "Why don't I move my queen way over there now and put my opponent in check?" moves for AdWords. Those moves are usually neutralized by a more sophisticated algorithm. Google's spokespeople - not always wanting to say much about the formula beyond the published overviews - have often felt compelled to dispel certain AdWords myths. The "don't get your hopes up" points made by AdWords product developers in recent years have included:
  • AdWords normalizes for match type. You're not going to be penalized for using broad match or rewarded for using exact match.
  • AdWords normalizes for ad position. Aim for the positions that make sense for your business. Lowering ad positions that by definition enjoy a worse CTR does not harm your keyword Quality Score or any account-wide factors.
  • You can't improve Quality Score with negative keywords. (Really?) Well, I've heard that said by a high-ranking Googler, and no, I don't really believe it.
  • While there is an account-wide Quality Score factor (enough bad history across the board can affect your whole account), one of Google's top AdWords architects has denied that there is a specific factor at the ad group level. One badly chosen keyword in an ad group won't "contaminate" others in an ad group.
Current industry consensus is that 50 percent to 75 percent of AdWords keyword Quality Score comes down to CTR, with personalization elements adding complexity. Since Quality Score is reputedly calculated on the fly for each query, the reporting you see in your account is not "the" number, but rather an average. (For Google's ever-changing summary of how Quality Score is calculated, go here.)
"Other relevancy factors" round out the CTR factor. These may involve semantics; display and destination URL (Google can tinker with how much users, and Google, trust your company's main identifying factor); and the vagaries of how many ads Google wishes to show on a page.
"Landing page experience" is another component of Quality Score. It's probably exaggerated by third-party pundits today. Note the word "experience." User experience is best measured by user behavior patterns, not solely based on some arbitrary formula about which keywords match which landing page elements, etc.
Further to the landing page question: recall that Google started out by banning a narrow range of user experience violations, such as pop-ups. Later, it extended the policy to a wide range of trust-eroding practices. It's important to scrutinize both the letter and intent of Google's Landing Page and Site Policies to understand if there is something you're doing wrong. Google is trying to protect users from scams and bad user experiences, and it does so through a combination of automated and editorial means. Hobby horses such as landing page load times enter the mix at various times, sending some advertisers scrambling to overreact to those stats for all the wrong reasons. (Speeding up your site is always a good idea, but you have no idea how much AdWords Quality Score is penalizing you for having a slow one, if at all.)
There are too many moving parts to user experiences for Google to be effective in policing them with human and bot oversight (though a quick read of the guidelines implies that human oversight and manual scoring shouldn't be ruled out as elements of Google's practices). Rather, proxies for bad experiences may be used as Google's models become better and better at confirming bad patterns statistically. (Do horrible bounce rates factor in? Well, they should, but then, why does Google let you keep spending so heavily on pages with horrible bounce rates? Assume nothing.) And it might be easiest for Google to do relatively little on this front unless real humans take a real dislike to your ads or business model. Now, as ever, Google does not like "thin" affiliate sites, click arbitrage, fake comparison sites, banned pharma products, and so on.
Make no mistake: "crappy" pages often have little difficulty being associated with keyword Quality Scores of 10. If the site is good enough to get the job done, and the whole campaign does a good job of matching up users with related commercial intent, then Google isn't going to throw up roadblocks needlessly.
It's not a good idea to obsess over Quality Score. Advertisers are doing a bad enough job settling on the correct metrics to manage campaigns to; testing ads methodically; understanding statistical significance; understanding campaign settings; unraveling attribution puzzles; and so on, that they're likely to fail in attempts to test cause and effect in Quality Score engineering.
That being said, the system isn't bulletproof. We can still prevail over competitors if we follow strong hunches about the vulnerabilities of Quality Score and the effects of the overall formula on rank and CPC. Consider the following tips:
  • In addition to keyword-level calculations, Google may apply an account-wide calculation that impacts your ad positions and CPCs. Many advertisers get paranoid, therefore, about low Quality Score keywords, and race to pause them. But they may be overreacting. Low Quality Score keywords are probably diffuse or wrong in intent, and need to be addressed. But if they're not high volume, they probably don't hurt that much. What is more interesting is the opportunity you might have to lock in a higher overall account Quality Score by continuing to hammer hard at your high volume "10" keywords. Maybe you're bidding a bit higher than you would like on some of these. But more impressions for 10-Quality Score keywords that are working OK for you economically can't hurt your account Quality Score. You're laying down all of this positive history. Maxing that as a proportion of your spend in the account may be a benefit from a Quality Score perspective.
  • Google has kept "Display URL" in the mix as a kind of wild card in Quality Score calculations. I believe it is largely a "rich get richer" shortcut for Google to emphasize trust and quality in the results. Think broadly about your business strategy. Everything about the way you build your brand and conduct your business should be aligned with improving that brand's reputation. "Throwaway domains," generic microsites, and quick shifts in strategy won't be aligned with Quality Score health, long term. This also means that Quality Score benefits recognizable brands and well-liked micro-brands. The Johnny-come-lately with a weak offering and a stop-and-start ad spend is not going to garner the same responses as a business with a consistent marketing strategy.
  • Units like Sitelinks, designations like Trusted Stores, captivating visuals like Seller Ratings Extensions: various ad innovations of these types tend to goose up CTRs, all else being equal.
  • In a Quality Score world, trying to finesse your spend by not buying your brand keywords is a counterproductive strategy. You need to own these and you need most variations of these to become 10s. Combine premium placement in the large ad unit with Sitelinks (for example), and your CTRs may go through the roof. As such, you're laying down statistical evidence that you're significantly more loved and trusted than Google's models would predict (i.e., what your competitors can muster).
  • If you're managing only to CPA and failing to push your ad tests harder to find potential mutant ads that deliver great ROI along with "less bad" CTR, you're not optimizing your account fully. Reconsider the advantages of more clicks on ads.
  • Geo-target if that helps you push up response rates to ads and user engagement on-site.
With these ways to legitimately "trick" Quality Score, you'll have enough on your plate. Meanwhile, many of your competitors will be frantically moving their chess pieces into clichéd or trivial positions, until they finally realize you've been thinking 10 moves ahead. Checkmate.

    Monday, December 31, 2012

    10 Reasons Why Public Relations is a ‘Must-do’ for SEO in 2013


    10 Reasons Why Public Relations is a ‘Must-do’ for SEO in 2013

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    Many people today recognize that search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations (PR) have much to offer each other.
    The latest Google changes have put a real emphasis on high quality, unique content that is linked to by quality sites. And this is where real public relations – as opposed to crappy news release distribution – can play such a crucial role.
    There are real opportunities for great business. What follows are 10 reasons why SEOs should really get to grips with PR in 2013, based on my conversations with the people who are making the two work together.

    1. The PR Industry is Definitely ‘Getting it’

    Most of us who have been in link building for a while have in the past experienced a certain degree of frostiness from the PR industry. But that is clearly changing and people are breaking out of silos.
    Mike Cherenson is a former Chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and is EVP of Success Communications Group. He sees the importance of SEO and link building.
    “Authentic and relevant link building, aimed at driving engagement, informing publics and building mutually beneficial relationships should be a part of every public relations and SEO effort," Cherenson said.
    But not only should link building be a part of every public relations effort, public relations also has much to offer SEO.
    “Public relations professionals are skilled storytellers and content generators and should be a part of every SEO effort," he said. "The future of SEO is not in the technology, it’s in the ability to tell stories that readers and Google will find interesting… and that’s public relations.”
    And Cherenson understands the value of linking.
    “Links need to provide value to the reader," he said. "Media will be more likely to link to content that is compelling and provides information that goes beyond the original reporting.”
    Another PR professional is Ken Deutsch, EVP of JPA, a healthcare communications firm and a seasoned specialist in public affairs.
    His company takes SEO and link building very seriously. But that’s still not the case throughout the industry.
    “Many PR people stop at getting media coverage and think their job is done. They get a placement in the New York Times but they don’t follow up to make sure a link is put in. So they’re not taking advantage of the SEO side of the story.”
    And while many media outlets provide links, there are some that don’t link out as a matter of policy.
    That influences the targets he goes after, “because they don’t put links in, it’s not worth putting as much energy into getting placement there.”

    2. There is a Tremendous Synergy Between SEO and PR

    Putting it simply, SEO enhances a press release. Use popular keywords and the press release, never mind any stories it generates will continue to bring search engine traffic. And the editorial links the press release generates bring direct click-throughs and lead to higher rankings.
    Public relations enhances SEO by focusing on what’s newsworthy, crafting a great story, finding editorial opportunities, getting coverage and building relationships with reporters and editors. And of course, they got the negotiation skills to ask for a link without really asking for a link.
    “PR helps SEO directly by increasing branded traffic," said Lindsey Kirchoff, a Media and Speaker Relations specialist at HubSpot.com. "We always see a bump in branded traffic after a big campaign! Indirectly, PR helps SEO generate inbound links from quality sources that not only gets first-touch exposure to new audiences, but credibility in the eyes of search engines.
    “SEO grounds PR with hard, measurable data. PR has always been notoriously difficult to pin down, but SEO adds hard numbers to the equation. I also think that SEO allows PR to be less isolated from the rest of the team – sometimes PR can feel like an island. SEO helps PR connect their work to the rest of the company's business goals.
    “Finally, SEO establishes credibility for PR for keywords. You look much more credible to a news source if you come up high for the term they are reporting on!”

    3. Editorial Links Bring a Big SEO Boost

    Most PR links are extreme quality links, according to Jordan Brannon, the SEO guy at Coalition Technologies. Why? "Because getting them is not a free for all – you have to earn your media placements,” he said.
    But the rewards are worth the effort.
    “If you get 200 high quality editorial links, it’s worth more that 20,000 low quality links,” Brannon said.
    However, most reporters work to a deadline and you have to be swift in your response to get in.
    “Most editorial opportunities are time sensitive and you need to act quickly. That means you need to have the authority to reply on the client’s behalf," Brannon added. "And you have to have an email account on your client’s domain – it’s not good saying you’re a marketing agency.”
    Will Marlow was formerly a Press Secretary for two congressmen before founding a company that specializes in search engine marketing. He knows that to get those all-important editorial links, sticking to deadlines is crucial.
    “You need to understand that you’re dealing with someone who has a hard deadline. It’s like a train going by in the night and there’s one open boxcar that can take you wherever you want to go," Marlow said. "But jump too early and the reporter won’t write about you: jump too late and the reporter won’t write about you. You got to get it just right.”
    And it’s not unusual to miss opportunities.
    “If an SEO was learning from any PR guy, they would all have stories about how they missed opportunities because someone internally didn’t get back to them or didn’t give the reporter what they need," Marlow said. “If the reporter wants to talk to the CEO and the CEO is playing golf, then you’re not going to get the story. So you’ve got to collaborate with people within the company and make sure that the right people are available.”

    4. There’s a Big Cascade Effect

    Journalists will often quote, comment or enlarge upon other journalist’s work. Bloggers are also constantly citing other stories.
    So if you get your story covered in one prominent media outlet, you’ll quickly see a cascade of similar stories and links spring up.
    You’ll get links you never even asked for.
    Miranda Miller wrote about How Google Rakes In Over $100 Million in Search Advertising Daily, based on research from Larry Kim of WordStream.
    In writing that report, Kim was directly targeting the Wall Street Journal for a link – and succeeded. The story really benefited from the cascade effect and attracted coverage and links from literally hundreds of quality media outlets.

    5. You Win Bragging Rights For Your Client

    Clients just love to write “As featured in ..." on their website, whether its the Washington Post, Inc. Magazine, or whatever.
    That builds consumer trust in their brand and makes it more likely they’ll buy.
    And you also increase trust from other reporters. If you’ve already been quoted or covered by a respected publication, then other reporters will think you’re a safe bet to write about, too.

    6. PR Skills Can be Learned – or at Least Understood – Easily

    Kirchoff has this advice for SEOs who know little about PR:
    “SEO experts should think of PR as a way to build strong referral links – something that should be on their radar already. If you have a PR expert in the office, start by taking them out to lunch and chatting. After all, PR is all about building relationships.”
    But of course, learning about public relations will help you understand the process – but it might teach you that there’s a lot you don’t know. If that’s the case you might do better to partner with a PR resource.

    7. It’s Easy to Partner With an Up and Coming PR Person

    Mona Moore is an SEO who has teamed up with a small PR company, Hepner Communications, to pitch their services together.
    “I think SEOs are always so focused on getting those links back to the client, we sometimes forget how important it is to nurture those long-term relationships necessary to continue working with specific media outlets,” Moore explained. “And PR reps are great at finding opportunities - but, they don't always take full advantage of those opportunities from an organic SEO standpoint. By working together, SEOs and PR people are able to maximize exposure to a higher level than either of those entities by itself.
    Joel Gross, who works with Brannon at Coalition Technologies, describes himself as the SEO tech guy.
    “I know how to build and code websites so that they are search engine friendly, and I understand that in order to achieve visibility and revenue for our clients we need to build high quality links and work in tandem with traditional and social media," Gross said. “I know what needs to be done, but Jordan is able to bring in the creative aspect and wow factor that is needed in order to gain the attention and keep it focused where it needs to be. He devises how we frame the content and package it for the consumer in the most digestible and memorable way.
    “The best advice I’d give to an SEO would be to get to know your client’s people, their background and story, what’s unique about the company," Gross said. “And remember, this is news and human interest so your stories don’t always have to be selling product. You can have perfectly good story and link from a story on say, ‘work places that are pet friendly’!”

    8. You’ll Build Media Contacts That You Can Use Time And Time Again

    Contacts are essential both to PR people and to reporters.
    “One mistake I made at the start was sending out too much poor stuff," Kim said. "Blasting out press releases is over-rated. What you need to do is get to know the reporters or bloggers you’re targeting.
    “Read their articles every day, get a sense of what they’re interested in and only approach them with what you know they’ll be interested in,” Kim continued. “Start small and work your way up. Once you’ve built a relationship, they’ll start contacting you.”
    He said he has found that PR is the fastest way to generate those backlinks on related industry websites, but you’ve got to go past distribution services and build your own contacts.
    “We are diligent in keeping a database of related editors here," Kim said. "So we're sending press releases directly to the editors and not through a service. However, we also post the press releases to PRweb or PRnewswire to get the added Internet news site exposure (i.e., Yahoo News)."
    Kim said those personal relationships increase the chances of coverage so much it’s "unreal."
    "We now get lots of calls from editors who ask – is there an engineer over at such and such a company that we could talk to?" Kim said. “Now, when they see our press releases, they always read them. And they’re more likely to publish them because we’ve been helpful.
    If you’re an SEO who new to PR, the best place to start is by reading the editorial guidelines of the publications you’re targeting, Kim advised. Then you know what they’re looking for and can pitch accordingly. Don’t pitch something they clearly don’t want.
    And don’t forget editorial calendars – you can see months in advance what the publications are going to be covering.

    9. It Strengthens and Extends Your Relationship With the Client

    If you learn how to do proper public relations effectively or bring in a competent professional that you work well with, then you increase the respect your client has for your work. That can only strengthen your relationship and help ensure that they’ll stay with you.

    10. It Opens up Additional Income Streams

    It probably goes without saying that with the increasing interest in this area, it should offer some profitable and additional income streams to your agency.
    There are tremendous publicity and quality links available through effective public relations. You’ll probably have failures to start with but if you keep at it, your skills will grow and you’ll get the benefits.
    How do you cope with failures?
    “I don’t believe in failures – it’s a matter of setting your expectations," Kim said. "You can’t start out and immediately get coverage on CNN. Far better to pick a local target and learn from it. Every time you do it, you have more experience. Say you approach 10 journalists and you get nothing but two reply and say I’m not interested because it’s not exactly what I do – you’ll get a better idea of what will work next time.”