Advertising News
Levi's 'pioneers' a global interactive campaign | | SAN FRANCISCO: Levi's launched 'Go Forth,' a global branding campaign which focuses on a theme of the American pioneer, in an effort to reach its target of 18-33-year old men through social media-based PR and traditional advertising. | | 7/4/2009 1:47:00 PM |
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Advertising News
North Korea's first beer ad | | Help with videos Streaming media Websites in the Fairfax Digital Network offer streaming video and audio in the Flash format. Streaming media allows you to watch video on a website as a continuous feed, as opposed to waiting for an entire audio or video | | 7/4/2009 10:43:00 AM |
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Advertising News
Rotarian convention campaign handled by Seal | | Birmingham agency Seal created the branding and poster campaign to welcome Rotarians to the city for their 100th convention which was held last week. | | 7/4/2009 9:12:00 AM |
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Rank Higher
Red, White & Roundup | Posted by Sam Niccolls
(Note: A tip of the cap goes to Rebecca whose great roundups helped me sift through my feed reader on more than a few Saturday morning. Hopefully my breakdown of the last week in technology and online marketing provides a digestible and similarly entertaining accompaniment to a wonderful 4th of July weekend.)
1) Billy Mays & Product Demonstrability - Jeff Sexton at FutureNow wrote a very interesting article about Billy Mays. The gist of the article is that the late sales icon was more than just a pitchman. And he makes a compelling case. But there's an additional actionable takeaway to be had from Sexton's article: demonstrability. You probably don't sell OxiClean, and you probably don't have a bad infomercial (hopefully), but you could probably do a better job of demonstrating what your product does. So when you think of ways to improve your landing pages, ask yourself the same question Mays did before he agreed to pitch a product -- "How can I demonstrate this?"
2) YouTube Adds Off-site Links to Video Overlays - The video mogul now has "Call-To-Action Overlays" on videos. Publishers can now add direct links, rather than having to make viewers type URLs in manually, which has big impacts for both politicians, marketers, and others with viral video campaigns. Currently YouTube's "Call-To-Action Overlays" are free, publishers just have to enter their videos into YouTube's CPC promoted videos program.
3) Mac Voice Over - The idea that a blind person could pick up an iPhone, browse the web, read an RSS feed, and send an e-mail is a fascinating one. With their 3GS release, Apple made their Voice Over technology standard on all iPhones. But as amazing as this touchscreen gesture technology is, Voice Over is far from the most brilliant technology of the last 100 years. That honor still belongs to the Snuggie.
4) The Future of Free - Feel free to delve deeper into the cat fight between Malcolm Gladwell & Chris Anderson that stemmed from Gladwell's unfavorable review of Anderson's new book -- "Free: The Future of a Radical Price." But I could care less about the baby mama drama. What I do find interesting, however, is the topic Anderson addresses in his book: free pricing models. Consumers are accustomed to free, sure, but VCs are not. So amidst all the startups downsizing and going belly up, Anderson's book could provide an interesting perspective for startup entrepreneurs to consider as they create revenue models that go beyond free.
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5) Startup Experience - Picked up by the Wall Street Journal, Rand's candid blog post outlines his personal experiences and the lessons he has learned as an entrepreneur. In his detailed post he talks about things he has done well, mistakes he has made, and guiding principles he has abided by. If you are a current or aspiring CEO, there's likely a lesson or two to take away from Rand's startup experiences.
6) Real Time Twitter Search - In an attempt to better integrate real time data into their SERPs Bing made an initial attempt at Twitter search. What they rolled out is an interesting idea, but the implementation needs work. The Twitter results are limited to high profile Twitterers and the results are poor for non-exact match queries. Similarly, Friend Feed also made efforts toward improving their real time search.
7) Palm Pre Reaches 150,000 Sold - In spite of the much publicized leak that revealed massive sales for Apples latest iPhone, Apple is not the only company with a popular touch screen phone and a growing app catalog. Palm Pre just reached the 1 million apps downloaded mark and smartphone users are as hungry as ever for apps. For this reason, it will be interesting to see the impact apps (for both the iPhone and the Pre) has on mobile web consumption. Plus, you have to get a chuckle out of Sprint's latest ad creative.
8) Public Status Updates - Facebook now has another Twitter inspired feature. They've rolled out the ability to make your status updates available to the world, including Google. The feature has currently been added for all users who had set their privacy settings to be visible to ‘Everyone,’ but it will soon be rolled out more broadly.
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9) Gmail Drag and Drop Labels - Rather than quietly adding the new feature to Gmail labs, Gmail rolled out an exceptionally mediocre drag and drop functionility. Gmail users now have the ability to drag and drop labels. This small product changes got good coverage on TechCrunch and throughout the blogosphere, but it is far from revolutionary.
10) Real Time Search - Highlighted on the front page of Techmeme, Danny's timeline of how the news of the King of Pop's death traveled across the the web is a thought provoking read that raises a number of questions about real-time search.
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In honor of the 4th of July, here are four great YOUmoz posts really worth reading. A special call out goes to Michael C, who wrote a particularly good (and technical) post on URL rerwrites.
1) How to write your own URL rewrites
2) Consolidation of subpages
3) How to beat Google and rank on viagra
4) Interesting indexing case study
Sam Niccolls
Traffic & Conversion Specialist, SEOmoz
Do you like this post? Yes No  | | 7/4/2009 8:46:30 AM |
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Google and SEO
Making a John Q Public account on Google | | One of the advantages of working at Google is that you get to see neat products and features before the rest of the world does. But that can also be a disadvantage. Sometimes I’d like to talk about a fun Gmail Lab or a new Calendar feature but I’m honestly not sure whether the outside [...] | | 7/3/2009 9:43:11 PM |
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Search Engine Watch
Is Twitter Killing Other Online Activities? | The world may be all a-Twitter, but it seems the inordinate amount of time now spent there is costing other places traffic. Given the social aspect of Twitter, it could be a forum killer long before it becomes a serious threat to Google. ... | | 7/3/2009 4:40:00 AM |
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Rank Higher
Whiteboard Friday - Crawling & Indexing | Posted by great scott! Crawling and Indexing. Without them you can't rank. If you can't rank, you can't get search traffic. If you can't get search traffic, your online marketing efforts are going to suffer; and in our industry that is a colossal FAIL.
This seems like simple stuff we all take for granted, but it's critically important to understand what you must do--and avoid--to make sure your site is regularly crawled and then maintained in the primary index of each of the major engines. Even if you think you know it all, take a few minutes to watch this week's Whiteboard Friday...you may just realize you've been ignoring some critical ranking factors.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Crawling & Indexing from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
Do you like this post? Yes No  | | 7/2/2009 11:14:25 PM |
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Search Engine Watch
PageRank Sculpting: Welcome Back to High School Hell | Google's new rules affecting PageRank sculpting bring us back to high school. Instead of letting us vouch for our cool friends and disavow the geeks who want to hang out with us, Google is now punishing us for being one of the cool kids. ... | | 7/2/2009 9:37:00 AM |
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Rank Higher
A Dozen Don'ts for SEOs | Posted by randfish I'm not always a fan of Guy Kawasaki's work, but really enjoyed his post on the OPEN Forum - A Dozen Don'ts for Entrepreneurs. I thought I'd take a stab at replicating it with some of my biggest warnings for those in our field.
For the list below, the word "clients" is interchangeable with "marketing manager" or "executive team" for in-house SEOs.
- Don't Create False Expectations
Clients are just like everyone else - when you exceed their expectations, they love you. When you disappoint, they're angry. Make it easy for yourself and don't oversell. If anything, undersell your abilities to do great things and let them be surprised. It's a hard thing to do, particularly in a competitive bidding environment, but humility and hard work often shine through in presentations and good clients will see that and honor it.
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- Don't Ignore Analytics
Website analytics, both visitor traffic and third party metrics, are important parts of SEO. When things are going well, even if best practices aren't being followed, it can be wise to match up data and trends to see what's made a real difference. Don't undertake an SEO project unless you have at least the essential data points (this also comes in handy once changes have been implemented and your work starts to have an impact).
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- Don't Always Take Your Client at Their Word
If you talk to lots of clients, you'll find that none of them have ever spammed the engines, bought a link, accidentally cloaked for Googlebot or hidden text, yet the statististics tell another story. Never assume your clients are being dishonest, but always watch out for activities they might not be aware of (or might not have realized were problematic). This goes beyond just white and black hat - we had a client who thought they had a couple dozen active domains; turns out they had nearly a hundred - canonicalization alone has been a big project and a big return.
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- Don't Get Into Projects with People You Don't Like
If ever you get a "funny feeling" about a client, move on if you can possibly afford it. Some people just don't click together, and when interpersonal relationships aren't working, projects have a way of not working out, either. It's always better to get out before something's signed than after.
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- Don't Give an Unqualified Answer Unless You're Extremely Certain You're Right
If you've been reading SEOmoz lately or hearing me speak at conferences, you'll notice that my advice comes with a lot more caveats than it used to. It's been a tough lesson, but there's very rarely a "this is ALWAYS better than that" in the field of SEO. Exceptions abound, so cage your language accordingly.
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- Don't Confuse SEO & Sales
If your client comes to you wanting to drive sales with SEO, make sure they're keenly aware of the multiple responsiblities inherent in such a request. Yes - SEO can drive lots of high quality, targeted traffic at the perfect moment for capturing the sale. But NO - SEO cannot convert that visit into dollars. If the website sucks at turning visitors into leads, do the right thing and recommend CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) before they dive into SEO.
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- Don't Rest on Your Laurels
If you're not paying attention in the SEO world, even for just a few weeks, you can miss massive changes. Look at June! We've had a reversal of position on nofollow and Javascript links from Google, a new engine/algorithm/brand from Microsoft, adoption of rich text formatting in the SERPs, evidence that header tags may not be as valuable as we thought and data suggesting that alt attributes are highly correlated with good rankings. Stay ahead of the curve and devote some resources to industry news - you owe it to your clients and yourselves.
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- Don't Undervalue Your Work
SEO is hard work. For every consulting hour, there's days of research, testing, reading, surfing and experimenting. Don't undersell your services or accept that what you do doesn't provide tremendous value. If you're being undervalued now, consider how terrificly trackable SEO really is and show them the data. It's almost always on your side.
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- Don't Believe Everything You Read
Yes, even here at SEOmoz! We certainly try our best to provide high quality, accurate information, as do many other great sites on SEO, but no one is right 100% of the time, and, more importantly, not every piece of advice is applicable for every business or every situation.
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- Don't Underestimate Dev Contributions
I was recently asked "what's the biggest roadblock to SEO," and didn't need to think for 10 seconds before quoting Mr. Ballmer's infamous adage "Developers! Developers! Developers!" If you get bandwidth cycles for SEO projects, use them wisely. If the developers have made critical SEO errors, don't be quick to criticize - you'll make enemies, and, oftentimes, be guilty of hypocrisy. Stay humble, prioritize the big pieces and make sure you have the resources before you commit to improving traffic.
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- Don't Overstate Your Influence or Abilities
Just because you have the ear of some important minds at Google/Yahoo!/Facebook/etc. doesn't mean you can influence change within these large organizations. I've heard a lot of stories from companies that worked with SEOs of how they promised to get their penalty lifted or special treatment from an engine because they got a response to an email they sent to a search engineer. Perhaps an even better rule is - don't promise something you can't personally control and deliver.
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- Don't Get Overconfident and Dismiss Other Marketing Channels
OK, yes - SEO rocks. But don't forget how valuable other marketing activities like email, PPC, CRO, affiliate programs, even display advertising can be for the right scenario. Once you've found the SEO hammer, it's easy to see every problem as a nail - I've certainly been guilty of it. If you can resist, think holistically and provide the best answer from a strategic (rather than tactical) level, you'll become even better and more valuable to your clients.
Your turn - any "don'ts" you'd recommend to fellow SEOs?
p.s. If you haven't read the whole Malcolm Gladwell vs. Chris Anderson with Seth Godin weighing in thing, it's pretty worthwhile :-)
Do you like this post? Yes No  | | 7/1/2009 4:48:20 PM |
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Google and SEO
30 day challenge begins: biking to work | | The overwhelming winner in my 30 day poll was “Bike to work” so that’s what I’m doing during the month of July. In the third week of July I’ll be out in Boston to speak at SIGIR, but any time I’m heading into the Googleplex during July, I’m planning to bike there.
Is there something good [...] | | 7/1/2009 11:28:59 AM |
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Search Engine Watch
Balancing Efficiency and Volume in Paid Search | On a daily basis, paid search managers must balance efficiency and volume in an effort to meet the goals of the campaign. There is no right or wrong decision; there is only what is right for your business at that time. ... | | 7/1/2009 9:06:00 AM |
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Google and SEO
Funny spam email, June 2009 | | I enjoy posting some of the funny emails that I get. This one made me laugh:
You don’t need to %SI3_rnd10 rod’s %SI3_rnd11 and %SI3_rnd12 %SI3_rnd13’ jokes!
This is a %SI3_rnd14 for %SI3_rnd15 your %SI3_rnd16! It will %SI3_rnd17 in seconds after she %SI3_rnd18 and %SI3_rnd19 as good as if it was a %SI3_rnd20 rod!
No more jokes – [...] | | 6/30/2009 10:57:07 PM |
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Rank Higher
Using Small Websites to Create a Bigger Impact | Posted by RobOusbey We all like links from big sites right?
Whether it's in an editorial article, a guest post, etc, it's great for sending some strength and trust to your site. However, the drawback of links from big sites, is that you might find it's on a small page. The newly published page will take some time to get indexed, much of it's strength (certainly initially) is likely to come from internal links, and it's unlikely to have a great crawl rate.
The front pages of sites, on the other hand, tend to have a much greater diversity of domains pointing to them and a good crawl rate. Furthermore, Google is likely to look with suspicion at an old article that suddenly gains a new link, compared to site front pages which have new links added to them more often, and legitimately.
So, this suggests that a link from the front page of a small site may be better than a link from an inner page on a large site.
If this diagram makes sense, you probably don't need to read the rest of the post.
As an example, I dived into the Lifehacker archives, and found their coverage of a handy looking tool, Programmer's Notepad 2. Let's imagine that the site owner had done the work to contact Lifehacker, foster a relationship and ultimately get them to post coverage of the app. You can now see their link on this page:
(* N.B.: this page is fairly old, and has been rated by Linkscape - the mozRank is just very very low and rounds off to zero.)
Of course, they've also been mentioned by smaller sites. I imagine that these sites either found out about them through the grapevine, but I like to think that the app's owners also fired off a few mass emails to programming / web dev websites to say "Check this out, we built it and I think you might like it."
So check out some of the small sites that have linked to them from the front page:
(Ordering the Linkscape report for the Programmer's Notepad 2 site, by "mozRank Passed to URL" suggests that Lifehacker.com first appears at around the 400th page in the list.)
The downside of a link on the strong-front-page-of-a-less-strong-site is that it isn't going to be around forever, and may be removed at somepoint. However, the strength passed in the mean time, combined with the quick indexation of the links will be beneficial.
This works particularly well when you can contact smallish sites in a very relevant niche. To find those sites, I currently recommend having a drill down in these directories:
and also that you look for directories of sites in that niche. For instance, whilst trying to find some UK craft websites this week, I found that Craftyblogs.co.uk was very helpful. There are bound to be similar niche lists for almost anything you need to look for.
In summary: when planning your linkbuilding strategy, don't forget that whilst links from strong domains can be useful, weaker domains can often pass more strength if you are linked to from the front (or other strong high level) page.
Do you like this post? Yes No  | | 6/30/2009 10:35:16 PM |
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Rank Higher
A Checklist to Choose Which Internet Marketing Channel is Right for Your Business | Posted by randfish My good friend, Aaron Kahlow, posed an interesting question during the Online Marketing Summit yesterday afternoon in Portland, OR. Aaron asked:
If a client came to you with $1 million to invest in a single Internet marketing channel, which one would you choose?
Obviously, the question is a bit ridiculous (given that there's no additional detail provided), but it's designed to elicit an "off-the-cuff" response to a challenging scenario. The answer, of course, is "it depends" - and therein lies the rub. On what does it depend? Well... That's what I hope to answer with this blog post. My goal is not to solve the issue for an individual campaign, but from a very strategic level - asking questions like "where is the company today and where does it want to get to?" then applying those answers to the selection of marketing opportunities. Let's start by defining the macro-level channels themselves, then examine how we'd reach the right conclusions.
Internet Marketing Channels
- Display Advertising
- The process of placing ads on third-party websites with the goal of creating branding awareness and/or generating traffic
- Examples: Banner ads, video ads, interactive ads, overlays, interstitials, etc.
- Email Marketing
- The process of collecting email addresses from potential leads and marketing to them via email messages
- Examples: Email newsletters, brand building emails, conversion-focused emails, etc.
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
- The process of bidding for placement at search engines (major or niche) to earn visibility and traffic when relevant queries are performed
- Examples: Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Business.com Advertising, etc.
- Online Public Relations
- The process of generating media from primarily online outlets in order to earn branding and traffic
- Examples: PRNewswire, PRWeb, Internet media focused PR agency work, etc.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- The process of earning rankings in the "organic" results of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing)
- Examples: Keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, etc.
- Affiliate Marketing
- The process of incentivizing other sites to push your product in exchange for a share of the revenue they drive
- Examples: Commission Junction, in-house affiliate programs, etc.
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- The process of leveraging social media platforms (small and large) to earn visibility and traffic
- Examples: Facebook Group pages, Twitter marketing, pushing content on Digg, etc.
- Viral Content Campaigns
- The process of generating creative content that will help spread your branding/marketing message and earn traffic
- Examples: Linkbait production, viral videos, guerrilla marketing, etc.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
- The process of improving the path from landing to conversion to get more leads/signups/customers
- Examples: Split & multivariate testing, click-through-rate improvements, purchase-process simplification, etc.
Some of these may overlap - for example, viral content campaigns may simply be a means to an end of better search engine optimization - but as they can all be separate entities, engaged in for their own purposes, I've made them distinct.
Primary Variables to Use in the Selection Process
Although other factors should certainly play into the decision making, these three elements are excellent for narrowing down the options:
- Company Goals - What are the top priorities for the business to achieve?
- Brand Awareness - the current marketplace doesn't have enough familiarity/comfort with your brand to visit, engage or purchase from you.
- Education - the market for your product/service needs to be created; potential customers don't yet realize the problem they need you to solve.
- Raw Traffic - your business is monetized with advertising and needs more traffic/page views.
- Sales - your business has clear market demand on the web that needs to be drawn to your site and converted into leads/sales
- Budget - How much do you have to spend on your marketing effort(s)?
- Very High: in excess of $1 million
- High: $100K - $1 million
- Moderate: $25K - $100K
- Low: $5K - $25K
- Tiny: <$5K
- Available Talent - What personnel with free bandwidth or trustworthy, outsourced vendors do you have available?
- Strong Dev Resources - you have technology staff ready and able to make changes to your site to support marketing goals
- Strong Creative Resources - you have writers/artists/brainstormers poised for action
- Strong Search Resources - you have search marketing talent prepared for battle in the results
- Strong Social Resources - you have strong online networkers set to engage the Twit-Face-Digg-o-Sphere
General Tiers of ROI, Effort & Cost by Channel
These are based on my personal opinions (though, based on conversations, they appear to reflect the experiences of many web marketers and internal marketing departments).
I suspect there will be lots of contention about these, particularly from marketers who specialize in non-tier 1 activities. I do think that over time, activities like social media marketing and viral may move to tier 1, but as yet, I believe that companies haven't seen the same consistency or trackability in ROI from these as Tier 1 channels. The eMarketer research I showed this weekend certainly suggests that these newer investments may have a chance to prove themselves fairly quickly.
Formulas for Choosing the Right Channel
Once again, I'm using my own opinions and experiences, but you can use this same format to help with your own decisions, even if the ordering is somewhat different:
And of course, last, but not least, there's the strengths of your organization to consider. If you have amazing talent in these fields, that might sway you to lean more towards particular activities as shown below:
- Strong Dev Resources - lean towards:
- CRO
- SEO
- Viral Content (particularly dev intensive stuff like tools, widgets, etc.)
- Strong Creative Resources - lean towards:
- Viral Content (particularly written/graphic content that can be produced in a standard CMS)
- Email (great copywriters write great emails)
- Display (great designers make great ads)
- Strong Search Marketing Resources - lean towards:
- Strong Social Resources - lean towards:
- Social Media Marketing
- Viral Content
- Online PR
That wraps up my brief, high level summation of this tough question, and hopefully it can help some marketers and marketing departments to find the right paths for their organizations/clients.
I'd, of course, love to hear your feedback and ideas as well.
p.s. OMS Seattle is tomorrow, and I'll be speaking there in the afternoon - hope to see some of you there!
Do you like this post? Yes No  | | 6/30/2009 5:58:09 PM |
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Search Engine Watch
Share Your Way to Better SEO | SEO campaigns often become bottled up in silos and never reach their full potential. SEO covers many different areas of your business, so sharing information and strategies across all possible lines is not only preferable, but should be a required part of any engagement. ... | | 6/30/2009 9:46:00 AM |
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Search Engine Watch
Selling SEO Projects Against PPC Campaigns | Search advertising is familiar and attractive to budget managers, like a trusted old friend. So how are you going to get some of that PPC budget for your SEO proposal? ... | | 6/30/2009 9:45:00 AM |
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Content Management Systems Framework
Follow my documenting of DNN 5.1 on Twitter | I am currently documenting DNN 5.1 - both Professional and Community editions. If you would like to follow my progress and discoveries - you can follow me on Twitter. My username is DNNANGEL.
For anyone would is wondering where I have been hiding... I have been enjoying some maternity leave following the birth of my beautiful daughter Allegra Rose in October last year. More... | | 6/30/2009 1:17:00 AM |
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Google Analytics
Latest Urchin Version 6.6 Ready and Available for Download! | Urchin has done it again! Version 6.6 is available for purchase, as an update to your already purchased license and for trial.
Version 6.6 introduces some really great improvements to the software including:
- A deeper integration with Google AdWords, including Budget Alerts, a Keyword Generation Tool, direct links to AdWords (so you don't have to switch between programs), an Urchin Tag Manager, AdWords Optimizer, and a Copy Campaign Tool!
New Reporting:
- Time On Site Report under Content Optimization, Content Performance, Engagement Metrics
- An entirely new reporting section called Advertiser View and Section (If you're upgrading from an older version of Urchin, you'll need to reprocess your data to populate these reports.)
- Click here for a complete list of Urchin 6 Reports
Also new:
- External Authentication (LDAP)
- New Urchin "Home" Page (modified to provide metrics for all the profiles that are visible to the logged-in user)
- Automated CPC Data Import from Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)
- Data Export API
For more information on the benefits and features of Urchin 6.6, check out this table.
If you currently own Urchin 6, simply download the software to have the latest updates.
If you don't yet own Urchin 6 Software you can purchase it online for a one-time licensing fee of $2,995. | | 6/29/2009 2:15:29 PM |
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Search Engine Watch
3 Common Social Media Mistakes | Judging by the amount of media coverage of sites like Twitter and Facebook, a company might think they need to invest heavily in those areas ASAP. They might be wrong. ... | | 6/29/2009 9:45:00 AM |
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Search Engine Watch
Blogs and Blogging 101, Part 1 | Search engines will reward a site that has quality content with good rankings. For many sites, one of the easiest ways to add that quality content on a consistent basis is by starting a blog. ... | | 6/29/2009 7:08:00 AM |
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