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Monthly Archives: September 2013
Study Shows No Clear Evidence That Google Plus Drives Ranking
At SMX Advanced, I presented results from a study we had done that convinced me that links in shares from Google Plus and Facebook behave like traditional web-based links. My statements at SMX Advanced were later disputed by Matt Cutts during his keynote interview by Danny Sullivan, leading to a…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Google’s Matt Cutts: Spammers Rarely Spam Using Multiple ccTLDs
In a recent video answer by Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, Google said that spammers rarely use multiple or mass number of ccTLDs in an effort to spam. This comment came from Matt Cutts when he answered a question on if it is duplicate content to have the same content on an IPv4…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 16, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Ads Releases New API, Version 9 Microsoft rolled out version 9 of the Bing Ads API for developers to start using immediately. The API will include the…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
“You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”
“You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”
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Bing Ads Releases New API, Version 9
Microsoft rolled out version 9 of the Bing Ads API for developers to start using immediately. The API will include the following additions to functionality: Bulk upload and download methods for campaign management which utilize comma separated values (CSV) and tab separated values (TSV) as the data…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
The Future of Local Discovery is About the Story, Not the Place
Did I say the future? I mean the now.
“Local” discovery in our books has historically been highly focused on optimizing for the right category, address, keywords, location, etc. What are people searching for in San Francisco? Make a page for it!
But which one of these descriptions of the same place below is more powerful?:
- The absolute best lazy Saturday people-watching in the city, with a drop-dead gorgeous view to boot.
- Crissy Field
It’s not the name of the place that captivates us (usually) but the story behind it; The history, the experience, the emotional connection.
Here’s a few examples of local-focused products getting it *very* right:
Sosh
Sosh is a local app (and website) that lists its local spots as a thing to do or an experience first, with the venue name underneath it. Their writers are fantastic at coming up with catchy experiences and headlines.
This isn’t just Hotel Biron and Elisa’s Hot Tubs and Massage, it’s Paris in San Francisco and a Secret Outdoor Hot Tub:
I will be doing both of these things this weekend.
Airbnb Neighborhood Guides
In print! This content isn’t made for search engines (best restaurants in san francisco, best hotels in san francisco, best sushi in san francisco). It’s made for creative San Franciscans. Best place you’d rather keep a secret? What? Yes!
Google Field Trip
As you walk your phone alerts you to interesting places and stories nearby. In my walk from the office to the train the other day I learned that there was a huge fire in 1950 in the building where a local staple Italian restaurant is. I could visualize flames billowing out of the windows because I was looking right at that picture on my phone as I walked by. It’s like looking straight into history.
On the next block I learned of a new bar around the corner and the stories of its “donut holes, on-fire cocktails, and a sort of Texas saloon-ish interior with reclaimed wood and giant mirrors on the ceiling.” By the time you’ve read this I’ll already be knee-deep in donuts and giddying up on fire. Believe it.
The cover image on this post is SOMA’s pretty little South Park. I just had lunch with a client in that dirt mound on the right and SEOgadget’s San Francisco office is two blocks to the left. An image like this with the story of how British immigrant George Gordon designed it in 1865 as one of San Francisco’s elite neighborhoods popped up in my Field Trip today, and isn’t that just perfect, SEOgadget SF being a British-born company and all. #Heartstrings.
There’s a second layer to Field Trip, in that the content is aggregated feeds from places like OpenBuildings and Thrillist and local-focused gems like For 91 Days. Want to optimize for it? Good luck. People control the backend. What does that mean? You have to have unique, valuable, high quality content. 
This is the way of local - I guarantee it.
The post The Future of Local Discovery is About the Story, Not the Place appeared first on SEOgadget.
Why Your Expensive, Time-Consuming Content Doesn’t Work.
Which question would you kick-off a content strategy with?
- What do we put on our landing pages and in our white papers and on our blog?
- What gets our audiences excited or helps them do their job better?
You might say #2 because it sounds right, and you’ve probably thought about this before. But check yourself. Is this really what you’re doing? Or are you producing content because that’s what sites are made of?
Tell me if this sounds familiar: “We need to create landing pages to attract search traffic. We need to write white papers and webinars to make ourselves be seen as thought leaders. We need to have a blog because, well, everyone does.” This is the unfortunate typical thought process for creating online content. Guilty?
#ThinkBigger: Why are you creating content?
Before you embark on churning out content for the sake of churning out content / floundering to generate search traffic / meeting the boss’s quota, consider how these initial questions can help your content strategy:
- We do something awesome. Who is it for?
- What gets those people excited?
- How do we help them be cooler, smarter, richer, happier?
- Where are these people hanging out online or offline (so we know where to get in front of them)?
Answer those questions and that’s not only the core of a content strategy but also a marketing strategy and can ideally fuel your value proposition. What makes you YOU? Is your brand made up of your landing pages and white papers and blog? Or is your brand the perception that anything you produce, regardless of the medium, will be exciting, valuable or entertaining to them?
Let me put it another way: We all know that client/brand who is producing blogs, webinars, papers and infographics with no engagement, no readers, no love. That content is missing some strategy. It’s a cart-before-the-horse situation, I’d argue oftentimes even a cart-without-a-horse situation, and it’s rampant in online business.
Content strategy: Whose job is it?
For agencies like SEOgadget, it’s often us. We go in to work with a brand and look at their audiences, their needs, and what they’re producing to meet those needs. We work with their editors, product managers, web devs, PR teams , biz dev, accessibility, and marketing teams to understand what’s valuable to those audiences and get in front of them. Without agencies who do what we do, whose job is it to work across these channels internally to produce valuable, meaningful and impactful content where your audiences are hanging out online?
Barry Lowenthal hit the nail on the head in this AdWeek article titled Why Companies Need a Head of Content Strategy, Creation and Distribution. In it, he says:
“They need a head of Content Strategy, Creation and Distribution. This staffer should be at least vp level and report to the CMO. It makes sense that this person live in marketing, but he or she is going to have to build relationships and bridges to every part of the organization and teach companies to think about all published materials as content. Very importantly, they must evangelize the importance of content in driving business results and help the entire company think about whether or not a piece of content is worth sharing.
I bet many senior executives think this person already exists in the organizations, but I’m pretty sure they’re wrong. I think a number of people—creative directors at fashion companies, CMOs at just about every company and vps of advertising at companies lucky enough to have money to invest in media—think they manage content. And to some extent they do. But their telescope into content opportunities is very narrow. I’m also convinced that these executives are thinking about advertising content or content created specifically for promotional purposes. There’s a much bigger opportunity for companies when they start to think of any asset as a content opportunity, and very few people at even fewer organizations are tasked to think about content in the broadest sense.”
Lowenthal’s perspective is fresh, and I’m really excited to see that kind of content on AdWeek. It seemingly validates our industry’s move from simple “content is king” -type SEO into real content strategy and content marketing. Bravo.
Companies who understand their audiences – eat, live, breathe, contribute and engage with their audiences – they’ll be much more likely to inherently know what to produce, how to produce it, and where to produce it than companies flailing to create content for content’s sake. And companies who have someone at the helm of working laterally across teams to unify it all, IMHO, win.
- Cover photograph “Peacock Alley” by © Andrew L. Moore
The post Why Your Expensive, Time-Consuming Content Doesn’t Work. appeared first on SEOgadget.
Social Media Celebrities and Why They are the Best Digital Marketers
State of Search readers, I have a confession; I am a total Internet Celebrity Fan Girl.
I ADORE the self-made social networking protagonists that have shaped careers, followings and lives through their personalities online.
For me, and many like me, these individuals represent the advocacyof pure,raw likeable talent. The rise of social media has meant the rise of followings, the rise of followings has meant the rise of genuine online celebrities who have built their profiles from literally the ground up by appealing to one of the hardest audiences to please out there – the internet users.
Internet Celebrities are Natural Marketers
Social Media Celebrities are natural marketers, and I don’t mean this as an insult. What I mean by this is that they have thought about something they think people will like, they have tested it, they have listened toopinion, improved their offering and tested it again. Many have built a small empire off the back of opinion; they have traversed the rocky mountains of ‘public advocacy’ and entered the leafy dales of ‘influencers’ – a coveted place to end up!
There are a number of categories these characters can fall into, and I wanted to share a selection of my favourite ones and how important they are to the commercial viability of anything online.
YouTubers
A collection of individuals who share no distinct common trait other than their impressive grasp of the YouTube interface and YouTube Partner status. The successful YouTuber is a diverse species, the YouTuber creates videos designed to entertain that develop from a small niche following mostly made up of friends and family members to a large contingent of fans who await the next video updates with almost manic ferocity and unwavering loyalty.
YouTuber fans are some of the best fans out there with their loyalty traversing the boundaries of other social networks. Communities are built around individuals; fan Twitter accounts are sometimes created.
A few fantastic YouTubers who have gained internet celebrity status and used it to create and market a successful brand are:
Simon’s Cat – If you haven’t come across this yet, then I urge you to spend some time ‘researching’ it at your next available opportunity. Your career in social media depends on it (disclaimer: it doesn’t). Created by Simon Tofield an Illustrator, and based on real-life adventures with his cats, Jess Maisy Teddy and Hugh Simon has used YouTube to showcase his ‘mad skillz’. Simon’s Cat grew and grew in its popularity and Simon has since worked with the RSPCA, created books and has a range of branded goods. Miow!
My Drunk Kitchen & Hello Harto - My Drunk Kitchen does exactly what is says on its slightly slurring tin while Hello Harto is an extension of the viral success MDK (I’m a fan, I shortened it, it’s what us ‘fan’s do) had for its creator Hannah Hart. Hannah has used her internet fame for some pretty impressive work within her local, national and international community campaigning for social change and tipsy cooking respectively.
Jenna Marbles – not for the under 18s (I’m British, I have to say that) Jenna is a prolific YouTuber who releases opinion-based vlogs; all in a hilarious way. Jenna has built a brand around her personality something that is extremely hard to do in such a fickle market. It takes balls, big lady balls, My hat is tipped to this lady.
DavidSoComedy – Another opinion-based comedy vlogger who also does skits with various YouTubers. The man has a voice of an angel, the wit of a very witty person and the cheeks of a 2 year old. His likeable, relatable and very well edited content turns heads, encourages shares and invites comment. If this guy was running a YouTube based social media campaign for you, he would do it so well you would cry and hug him and never let him go.
Tumblr Illustrators
Generally an introverted bunch – however not always – the Tumblr illustrators use their talent to create something then use Tumblr as a way to propel this to people who care about it. Their material is funny, meaningful, dark or random; they see things within society that others overlook and apply them to situational humor contained within a very well-constructed graphic.
Many try to become an effective Tumblr Illustrator, but not everyone gets it right as this species require a level of skill unobtainable by many. Additionally, the successful artists who begin their online dominance on Tumblr must also have the advantage of cracking interpersonal skills (whether online or offline) and respond quickly to trends displaying rare trait found within the best kinds of Marketers…and generally nice people.
A number of the Tumblr Illustrators I like who have grown a brand using this network are:
Doodle Time by Sarah Andersen – an autobiographical, weekly comic with insanely relatable drawings. This lady makes me feel better about my hair, my quirks and generally being a bit of a loony sometimes. She has built an impressive following that showcases her professional talent alongside massive dollops of personality, an approach to social media I advocate with every fibre of my being.
Help us Great Warrior by Madéleine Flores – The premise of this comic is simple: to entertain. The great warrior is this insanely cute character who gets into various scrapes and always rises victorious. Madéleine is a self-described internet illustrator who is now in the process of creating a graphic novel. She has built an entire brand around her drawings that no doubt gives her a tonne of freelance work enquiries, free online PR and a fan base of awesome people.
Cat Vs Human by Yasmine Surovec – this comic is pretty much always at the number one spot within Tumblr’s ‘Spotlight Comic’ category and one look through, you can see why. Based on the epic and unwavering love the internet has for cats (which a lead character who looks very much like our own cat-fiend Zoe-Lee Skelton), Yasmine has created and Cat vs Human brand that taps into this audience so well, she has become an influencer within in and for all those digital marketers who don’t believe this is an achievement, you need to have a good long sit-down with a good Social Media consultant and bring yourself up to speed, you silly heads. If you want an epic example of someone who has taken on this MOUNTAIN of a subject and has climbed to the top using this network, this is it.
Industry JoeBloggs
These are a collection of people who started their online dominance using a blog; they probably started on something free like Blogger or free WordPress as fans or professionals within an industry such as fashion, cosmetics, cars, sports or digital marketing and have built their blog up so well and kept it so fresh that when you search for the term ‘Make Up tutorial’ their blog is above brand blogs in the search result.
While there are MILLIONS of industry blogs to choose from, I will give you a few of mine who I think have done a really amazing job in building their brand from the ground up with zero marketing budget and a heck of a lot of natural talent for marketing themselves.
For an example of a fantastic digital industry blog, you need look no further than State of Search.
Another cracking example of a blog that has been built using social media is of course Mashable – yes, even this mammoth started somewhere. Scottish Founder Peter Cashmore started the blog in his bedroom in 2005 and has since grown it into the go-to resource for all things social media, business, lifestyle and tech. Mashable is massive, granted, but it retains that approachable feel that made it so great in the first place. Pete has made Mashable work for him and built the Mashable brand himself and from ‘nothing, and so deserves a mention. Very few achieve internet celebrity status through their professional knowledge but this dude and his team seem to be paving the way pretty well. It also helps that he is rather dashing.
For make-up, the go-to blogger of choice for me is Just Nice Things a beauty blog created by ‘Helen and Sheenie’ who started it because they simply loved all-things-beautiful, cosmetics and make up. Plus it’s UK-based so big-ups from the British girl over here. They built a blog that was so popular it was featured on Channel 4, Grazia and Mumsnet (possibly the hardest blogger network to get into, ever). They have allowed their own personalities to shine through while becoming Influencers within this highly competitive social space while their offerings still retain the friendly ‘I’m talking to you feel that works so well on the internet.
And finally for something a little bit more exciting, HankBoughtABus.com created by Hank Buititta a design student who had a story to tell. Hank turned to social media to build interest in his brand and took to the road in a converted school bus to have an adventure. This is a feel-good take on a travel and architecture blog and Hank and the Bus-team do a brilliant job of garnering interest in the project through the use of social media and their popular blog.
Gaining and Retaining Internet Celebrity Status
This is a covetous and allusive prize that I have alluded to in blogs for SoS before; and I mean it. Internet celebrities can be short lived, some can be controversial and many can be simply ‘viral’ because of something they didn’t really mean to do (think Tweets gone awry). The individuals who I have mentioned in this blog do not fall into these categories; the reason they have gained such a strong following is their ability to
- Listen
- Adapt
- Communicate
- Improve
- Have a tiny, weeny bit of market-luck too from the Marketing fairies.
It’s pretty obvious that people who forge their mini empires using social networks do so because they love what they do more than they love the kudos they get for doing it and I think us marketers can learn a hell of a lot from this approach.
I’d love to hear what you think about this as well as your favourite internet celebs; if there someone out there the world needs to see for the good of their sanity/health then please share their link so we can all have a look and do some highly important and relevant digital research *ahem*.
Post from Sarah Bradley on State of Search Social Media Celebrities and Why They are the Best Digital Marketers
