Search Engine Optimization: November 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

SEO Book.com

The Walmartization of the Web (Literally)

Posted: 28 Nov 2011 10:29 PM PST

Walmart is getting much more aggressive with their online strategy:

With some 1.4 million employees on its U.S. payroll, Walmart's world is about as large as the state of Maine. That's massive by any standard, but when you consider how social media amplifies that number, it's not simply a huge group but an influential one. No small wonder, then, that the earth's largest employer is taking greater measures to motivate and mobilize its people -- and opening up more opportunities for consumer brands to also reach them along the way.

These brands can not only leverage internal resources to further build off the boost Google offers them, but they can then take that attention and sell it back off to the highest bidder:

It's not clear how much ad revenue Walmart World has made or whether MyWalmart.com will become a profit center. But the former already takes in millions of dollars annually in ads from vendors seeking an audience with Walmart employees, according to people familiar with the matter.

If Google consolidates markets too aggressively then ultimately they create competition for themselves through vertical ad networks. In some cases (say travel) Google can buy out the market plumbing & then reassert control:

Wertheimer drew some criticism when he explained that "our airline partners were very clear" that they wouldn't participate in Google Flight Search if online travel agency booking links were included in the core flight-search results.

But Google doesn't have that same influence over retail & each time they put the big brands front and center the more they reinforce that 3rd party dominance.

In addition to leveraging their workforce, it is also quite easy for these brands to use customer incentives to dominate social media.

Amazon.com is also carrying far more ads these days & they sell ads on 3rd party sites.

The above is another reason why Google is pushing so hard to control the second click. If they can taste the traffic again they add efficiency to their own model while introducing another layer of friction to other retailers.

When users finally manage to leave the Google click circus, Google tries to pull them back into Google with the Google Related toolbar

In the above quoted AdAge article there is some skepticism around how much a company like Walmart can get out of underpaid wage slaves:

"It's really hard when you're a person making poverty-level wages, just had your health-care premiums raised 60%, and you can only get part-time hours, to be a good ambassador for the brand, no matter how much you love it," said Jennifer Stapleton, spokeswoman for Making Change at Walmart.

However I think that skepticism is misplaced, as the less a person has the more thankful they tend to be for the little bits they do have. Most people who have nothing do not realize how systems are engineered to screw them over.

It is only when you have free time to think & are not clouded by arbitrary short-term stress that you can ponder the bigger & more uncomfortable questions in life. As long as you don't consider those uncomfortable questions it is far easier to push anything, because you don't know any better.

"The entire web has become full of garbage. The web has become almost a digital Detroit." - Roger McNamee.

If Walmart's strategy works then this ultimately will be why Google's brand-only approach to search will fall flat on its face. If this is successful I would then expect Google to put out some public relations drivel about celebrating the diversity of the web & move away from brand in the next 2 or 3 years.

In the meantime, I expect Google to keep increasing search complexity such that it's prohibitively expensive to make & market a small independent commercial website. That will force many smaller companies to live inside the Google ecosystem, with Google ranking the Google-hosted pages/products/locations for those companies, so that they can serve ads against them and get a bigger slice of the revenues.

Google's ad network is far more profitable than even the lowest waged employee, as it doesn't need to be fed & is designed to be an agnostic & amoral yield optimization tool. And it is effective enough that the biggest retailers are now becoming ad networks.

Average products for average people - with ads everywhere.

Welcome to the WorldWideMart. ;)

Categories:

google

Monday, November 28, 2011

SEO Book.com

BOTW Cyber Monday Coupon

Posted: 28 Nov 2011 04:10 PM PST

Only a few hours left in the discount, but its a great deal. :)

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Categories:

marketing

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

AboutUs Weblog

Become an industry expert, and improve your SEO

Posted: 21 Nov 2011 01:09 PM PST

Image by Anais Ferreira

A recent webinar on Hubspot about improving SEO rankings for small business emphasized two things: create meaningful and useful content about your industry on your website, and make it easy for people to share your content in social media.

The goal: Become recognized as an expert in your field, and get better search rankings and more clients. It’s a double win.

The key: Instead of using your site just to promote your product and your business, create some material that teaches people something useful. Once you’ve educated people on a topic they care about, they’ll trust you and your product more.

You’re winning two audiences at the same time: People who are searching for the kind of product you sell, and people who are interested in the topic you’re writing about. Sometimes, these are the same people, but you’re catching them at different moments – when they’re actually in shopping mode, and when they’re in research mode.

Social media matters: Make sure visitors to your site can easily share what they read there. Place social media links on all of your posts and educational material. It cannot be emphasized enough that Facebook likes, Twitter posts and shares on other social sites tell Google that your site is valuable, and can help your site rank better in search results.

For example: I searched the Internet to find out the best time of year to clean out my gutters. I found a useful article on a gutter cleaning company’s site, and then hired the company. Finally, I shared the article on Twitter and Facebook. The company got me to their site with their content, sold me their services, and then reached prospective clients through social media.

Write engaging content, and often: It’s easier to generate new content if you think of what your clients want to know – or should know.

- Make a list of questions that you are often asked about your business.

- List the questions you wish people would ask.

- Think of yourself as a teacher to your customers and your future customers.

Keep an eye on your target audience: Once you’ve written compelling content, analyze it for keywords and other SEO elements. Use Google Analytics and other tools that show you which pages on your site get the most visitors, and which keywords are best for attracting people to your content. Look at the trends and then create more of the content that’s bringing you more visitors.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

AboutUs Weblog

Google Freshness Update: Good News for Small Business

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PST

Google Freshness Update Affects More Sites than Panda

The Google Freshness update affects far more websites than Panda.

Google’s Panda update caused a lot of panic early this year among webmasters who saw their site traffic plummet due to duplicate or minimally useful content.

The search giant’s new Freshness update hasn’t garnered nearly as much notice, but it affects a lot more searches – and websites. The best part is, the Freshness update can help small websites compete more effectively for searchers and traffic.

Interested in taking advantage of the Freshness update? Read Google’s Freshness Update Helps Small Business SEO, a new article by Matt Fielding,an SEO (search engine optimization) consultant at Preston, Lancashire digital marketing firm Custard Media. Matt tells you how the Freshness update rewards newer content on the Web with higher rankings, and offers useful tips for small business owners seeking more website traffic.

Matt’s article is the newest addition to our recent articles about how small business owners can take advantage of changes to search engine algorithms. You might be equally interested in our recent piece on using social media to boost your site’s SEO and position in search rankings.

At AboutUs, we know that small companies and small websites can use search marketing effectively to grow their business. We also know that SEO and Web marketing can seem confusing. That’s why we offer well over 100 free articles on different aspects of Internet marketing in the Learn section of AboutUs.org. Browse through and discover articles on email marketing, how to market a local business, SEO and more.

Is there a Web marketing topic you’d like to know more about? Do you have some expertise of your own to share? Let us know: Editor@AboutUs.org.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

SEO Book.com

Google Loves Brands

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 06:20 AM PST

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Categories:

google

AboutUs Weblog

12 Reasons Why I Love Social Media

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PST

Thanks to Kathleen Donovan on Flickr

I read Sam Fiorella’s provocative blog post, 12 Most Pressing Reasons Social Media Must Die, just a few days after publishing an article on AboutUs.org about why social media is the poor man’s SEO.

I love social media. No, really, I love social media. I believe it levels the playing field, giving every small business person the chance to compete effectively against companies with much bigger marketing budgets.

So while Sam is right about some of the ridiculous behavior and time-wasting we see on the social Web, I maintain that actually, small business people can do social media better than big business. After all, entrepreneurs are usually much closer to their customers and have more at stake than their big-company brethren. Company owners’ tweets, posts and shares can come from a more heartfelt place, and deliver a stronger message.

All that said, there are some pitfalls to watch out for. Heed these, be smart, and use social media’s advantages to help you grow.

(Oh, yeah, for those of you looking for the 12 points – it’s all sort of bundled into the three below. Read Sam’s blog post and you’ll get it.)

Keep the message clear. The social Web is a casual place, but that doesn’t mean a marketing message should be carelessly conveyed. Silly titles, meaningless buzzwords and phrases, and blurting the first thing that comes into your head won’t get you what you want: More customers and more business. Be clear in your thinking, understand your message, and use the language your audience will understand.

Keep relationships, reputation and demeanor professional. People seem to forget that when they go to the social Web to develop business, they’re establishing a professional reputation in a new venue. Don’t tweet or post something you wouldn’t share at a professional gathering. If you want to use social media to connect with close friends in a more playful way, create separate accounts for your business so you can keep your professional and private personas separate. (Just don’t assume no one will look at both.)

Be productive. It’s easy to open up Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and a few more applications in the morning, then look up and realize it’s lunchtime. You’ve glanced at a few shared blog posts, retweeted a couple of people with more Klout than you, caught up with your former colleague’s latest romance and maybe responded to a couple of direct messages. But have you produced anything of value for your business?

Yes, social media is fun. And yes, it’s difficult to link even business-focused social activity to real revenue. That means you must spend your social-media time on things that matter – your company’s blog posts, helpful hints for people in your field, industry news, answers to people’s questions.

Remember that one of the most valuable aspects of social media isn’t the sharing – it’s the responding. Demonstrate that you’re willing to hear all kinds of comments from your public – including critical or angry ones – and that you’ll respond quickly and appropriately. Your attentiveness can help you win a reputation for fair dealing, and that in turn can win yoiu more business.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

SEO Book.com

Cloaking: Survey Says?

Posted: 09 Nov 2011 02:28 PM PST

In the below video Matt Cutts states that "there is no such thing as white hat cloaking" ...

... yet Google is testing a new ad unit where users have to fill out a survey before they can view the content.

How long until the surveys include something like:

did you vote in 2008
what presidential candidate did you vote for
how do you feel about issue x
how strongly do you feel about your opinion on x

Then after the survey: "Thanks for your feedback. Candidate y supports your views on issue x."

Advertisers then get a report like: "in Ohio, 84% of the 289,319 swing voters with an average household income between $32,400 and $67,250 think issue x is vitally important and have a 6:1 bias toward option A. They respond to it more strongly if you phrase it as "a c b" and are twice as likely to share your view if you phrase it that way. The bias is even stronger amongst women & voters under 50, where they prefer option A by a factor of 9:1."

Couple that ability to flagrantly violate their own editorial guidelines with...

knowing user interests (and many other pieces of vital information)
search personalization
ad retargeting
quality-based ad pricing / selective price gouging
arbitrary editorial discrimination
active investments in various content channels
let us scrape your reviews or you die bundling
offering online safety tips & labeling anything Google can't get away with doing as something like malware in the search results (or spam in the editorial guidelines)
political donations
the ability to define or redefine any word or phrase as convenient & selective enforcement of defusing Google Bombing
the "I know what you searched for last night" factor
enhanced search yield from pushing desirable illegal ads & using that increased income to help buy marketshare to further reinforce network effects
relevancy algorithms that can overweight content sources that Google profits from (eg: YouTube + ebooks) to create additional economic yield from search

... & Google is in an amazing position politically.

It is thus not surprising to see how politicians have a hard time being anything but pro-Google, as they are the new Western Union.

This isn't the first time Google experimented with cloaking either. Threadwatch had a post on Google cloaking their help files years ago & YouTube offers users a screw you screen if they are in a country where the content isn't licensed - yet they still show those cloaked pages ranking in the search results.

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments." ― Friedrich Nietzsche

It is common knowledge that you shouldn't mix business and politics, however if one looks at history, many of those who gave us those sage words did precisely the opposite - and often illegally so - selling us down the river.

What is so obnoxious about Google's survey trial is that a big site that was hit by Panda was hit because they used scroll cloaking & didn't let the users get to the content right away. Googlers suggested users didn't like it & voted against it, and then roll out the same sort of "wait 1 moment please" stuff themselves as a custom beta ad unit.

And today Google just announced that they might create an algorithm which looks at ad placements on a website as a spam signal outside of Panda:

"If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it," asking publishers to consider, "Do they see content or something else that's distracting or annoying?"

On the one hand they tell you to optimize your ad placements & on the other they tell you that those were not optimal & are so aggressive that they are spam.

For a while there was a period of time where you could use something like "would Google do this" as a rule of thumb for gray area behavior.

In the current market that won't work.

"No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit." ― Ansel Adams

As ad units get more interactive & Google keeps eating more verticals the line between spam vs not will keep blurring.

Perception is everything.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." ― Oscar Wilde

Categories:

internet

AboutUs Weblog

Yes, Social Does Matter for SEO

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PST

Thanks to Miss604 on Flickr

In case you haven’t heard yet, the rules of search engine optimization (SEO) have changed. Yes, you still need to have awesome, unique title tags on important pages, you still need a search engine friendly architecture and you should still try to get inbound links from reputable sites.

But the playing field is more level than it used to be for small business, because social media mentions have become so important for SEO. Search engines take note of how much your company, product and website are mentioned on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and also who mentions you. Frankly, it can be a lot easier for small business owners – and marketers in small businesses – to create a good social presence than to fix the structure and code of their websites.

Get some tips for using social media to get a higher position in search results in our new article, Boost SEO with Social Media. There’s an introduction explaining how social media has changed SEO, and you can skip straight to the lists of tips for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs at the bottom of the article.

This new article is just the latest in our large, free library of articles for business owners on SEO and Internet marketing. We’ve got articles on email marketing, local marketing, how to be an effective marketer on mobile phones, and more. Take a browse through, and let us know if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover.

Got some SEO or Internet marketing expertise of your own to share? We love our guest authors – contact us at Editor@AboutUs.org.