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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Applying "Who Moved my Cheese" to Search Engine Marketing
7 Reasons Why You Need to Deal With Search Engine Marketing Change
Around 5 years ago I read the book Who Moved my Cheese. It’s a very simple, short story about the different methods of dealing with change. I’ve recently re-read this, (it only takes about an hour so I’d definitely recommend reading if you haven’t already) – but I realised that there’s a lot which can be applied to day-to-day life in search marketing.
Image Credit: Flickr
They say an internet year is the equalivent to 7 normal years, I’m sure a search engine marketing year may be more! So basically if you don’t like change – you’re probably in the wrong job!
1) Don’t rest on your laurels
Paid links, keyword stuffing, meta keywords optimisation etc are normally all methods of tricking the search engines into thinking your webpage is more relevant/important to a set of keywords that it actually is!
Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s (I’m not calling it noughties!) this worked very well, so why wouldn’t you do it? You wouldn’t just let your competitors outrank you without competing on a level playing field. But at the same time the search engines (Google especially) are quickly evolving and tweaking their algorithms – one day the tactics which are working may change and turn a very profitable online business by wiping everything out overnight.
Also, just because your successful tactics from 2-3 years ago worked back then, it doesn’t mean you can just continue applying the same tactics in the future and get the same levels of success.
2) Be aware of competitors
Being on the internet means that you may wake up one morning to find a new, very powerful competitor.
Recently in the UK the online department store Very.co.uk (backed by Littlewoods) has began heavily advertising on TV and using pay-per-click advertising to promote themselves. I’m sure if Debenhams had a new competitor on the high-street, for example, they would be aware of this well in advance and be able to react in time to this. However, online these things can change very quickly and catching them out just before the Christmas shopping period is more likely when you can move much quicker.
Also, as above don’t rest on your laurels. Just because your at #1 in Google for your most important keyword today, this doesn’t mean that your competitors aren’t working on an SEO strategy which may knock you off the top in the future. Plus no website is ever performing at its full potential in the search engines and there is always room for improvement in the form of more traffic (whether competitive or long-tail) and overall conversions. Even Wikipedia aren’t number one for every term and even then it’s normally only a single listing out of the top ten!
3) Make and learn from your mistakes
It’s estimated that it takes 6-10 years to become amazingly great at something, so you’re not going to get everything right first time! Having now been involved in SEO for 7 years, there’s still a lot I’m continually learning and I’d be the first to admit that I made lots of mistakes in the past when optimising websites (luckily these were usually my own). But in my opinion this is the best way of actually learning what works, or in many cases what doesn’t.
I mentioned in my SEO copywriting post that there is a lot of trial and error work involved in optimising a website. This is true, but based on experience you get a feel of what does or doesn’t work well – and each time your judgement improves and the likelihood of making a right decision under a given circumstances is greater.
Just make sure you’ve got the majority of your mistakes out of the way or have some test projects available - so that when working on an important project you can make the right choices when it matters.
4) Try to prevent knee-jerk reactions
One thing I’ve found to be true in SEO is that you often need to have a clear strategy and stick to it. Sometimes you optimise a website and surprise yourself with incredibly quick results, other times you may done everything right but it takes a little time to pay off. You may even have to take one step back before going two forward, but one thing I have learnt is that stability, more often than not, far outweighs knee-jerk reactions and chopping and changing.
If you give your ideas time and attention to pay-off, it’s more likely to be a better option than trying to start from scratch again on something new. There’s a great quote from Glen Allsopp on Search Engine People which says the first hurdle is often the hardest to achieve, this is very true – so stick to it!
5) Review performance over a sensible period of time
Continuing from the above point about needing stability, you do also need to review your search marketing activity at regular intervals. But this should be reviewed over a sensible period of time. From a business perspective, it can sometimes be very easy to over-analyse short terms successes or failures – looking at a longer period of time often gives you a clearer focus over performance and makes the bigger picture appear more obvious.
For example, for a highly seasonal campaign it can be unfair/misleading to review the traffic volumes or online revenue on a month-to-month basis. But a comprehsive review on a quarterly or even annual basis – comparing with performance from previous similar periods – may be extremely valuable.
This is something we’ve recently done with a client, around 12 months after originally optimising their site we now have enough traffic and performance stats to review the success of this and also look at the areas which haven’t worked so well, or where the market may have changed, revisiting these with new ideas. We’re not assuming that everything we did was perfect first time around and even if it was it still needs to be checked. But if we had done this after 3-6 months, it wouldn’t have told us too much and we may have changed something too quickly before it had a chance to fufil its potential.
6) Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
This is a very common mistake, if your PPC campaign is performing very well you obviously want to maximise this and it’s very easy to throw extra budget at this because you can quickly see if your return on investment is paying off.
But what happens when the latest PPC quality score update means your campaign isn’t as profitable as it once was and you have no additional revenue streams and advertising channels to fall back on?
Internet marketing isn’t about finding the best tactic and just focusing on that one thing. Most campaigns work best when they are integrated together – so yes advertise using paid search, but use that keyword and conversion data to implement into your SEO strategy. The main goal of most online marketing campaigns is to convert a sale or lead, but what about the potential customers who are at an early stage of the buying cycle and not quite ready to purchase. Think about other methods of getting these visitors back to your site, get them to signup for your newsletter (email marketing) and subscribe to your blog (social media marketing).
7) Look at what’s in store for the future
It can be easy to pay too much attention to what’s going on in the search world sometimes, there are frequently changes, news and ideas on a daily basis, but you really need to try and filter out the ones which affect you and how you do things.
These are the actionable ideas which you do need to be aware of in order to make sure you are doing your job as effectively as possible.
Here’s a quick list of a few things which you may have considered or need to be aware of in the future:
Around 5 years ago I read the book Who Moved my Cheese. It’s a very simple, short story about the different methods of dealing with change. I’ve recently re-read this, (it only takes about an hour so I’d definitely recommend reading if you haven’t already) – but I realised that there’s a lot which can be applied to day-to-day life in search marketing.
Image Credit: Flickr
They say an internet year is the equalivent to 7 normal years, I’m sure a search engine marketing year may be more! So basically if you don’t like change – you’re probably in the wrong job!
1) Don’t rest on your laurels
Paid links, keyword stuffing, meta keywords optimisation etc are normally all methods of tricking the search engines into thinking your webpage is more relevant/important to a set of keywords that it actually is!
Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s (I’m not calling it noughties!) this worked very well, so why wouldn’t you do it? You wouldn’t just let your competitors outrank you without competing on a level playing field. But at the same time the search engines (Google especially) are quickly evolving and tweaking their algorithms – one day the tactics which are working may change and turn a very profitable online business by wiping everything out overnight.
Also, just because your successful tactics from 2-3 years ago worked back then, it doesn’t mean you can just continue applying the same tactics in the future and get the same levels of success.
2) Be aware of competitors
Being on the internet means that you may wake up one morning to find a new, very powerful competitor.
Recently in the UK the online department store Very.co.uk (backed by Littlewoods) has began heavily advertising on TV and using pay-per-click advertising to promote themselves. I’m sure if Debenhams had a new competitor on the high-street, for example, they would be aware of this well in advance and be able to react in time to this. However, online these things can change very quickly and catching them out just before the Christmas shopping period is more likely when you can move much quicker.
Also, as above don’t rest on your laurels. Just because your at #1 in Google for your most important keyword today, this doesn’t mean that your competitors aren’t working on an SEO strategy which may knock you off the top in the future. Plus no website is ever performing at its full potential in the search engines and there is always room for improvement in the form of more traffic (whether competitive or long-tail) and overall conversions. Even Wikipedia aren’t number one for every term and even then it’s normally only a single listing out of the top ten!
3) Make and learn from your mistakes
It’s estimated that it takes 6-10 years to become amazingly great at something, so you’re not going to get everything right first time! Having now been involved in SEO for 7 years, there’s still a lot I’m continually learning and I’d be the first to admit that I made lots of mistakes in the past when optimising websites (luckily these were usually my own). But in my opinion this is the best way of actually learning what works, or in many cases what doesn’t.
I mentioned in my SEO copywriting post that there is a lot of trial and error work involved in optimising a website. This is true, but based on experience you get a feel of what does or doesn’t work well – and each time your judgement improves and the likelihood of making a right decision under a given circumstances is greater.
Just make sure you’ve got the majority of your mistakes out of the way or have some test projects available - so that when working on an important project you can make the right choices when it matters.
4) Try to prevent knee-jerk reactions
One thing I’ve found to be true in SEO is that you often need to have a clear strategy and stick to it. Sometimes you optimise a website and surprise yourself with incredibly quick results, other times you may done everything right but it takes a little time to pay off. You may even have to take one step back before going two forward, but one thing I have learnt is that stability, more often than not, far outweighs knee-jerk reactions and chopping and changing.
If you give your ideas time and attention to pay-off, it’s more likely to be a better option than trying to start from scratch again on something new. There’s a great quote from Glen Allsopp on Search Engine People which says the first hurdle is often the hardest to achieve, this is very true – so stick to it!
5) Review performance over a sensible period of time
Continuing from the above point about needing stability, you do also need to review your search marketing activity at regular intervals. But this should be reviewed over a sensible period of time. From a business perspective, it can sometimes be very easy to over-analyse short terms successes or failures – looking at a longer period of time often gives you a clearer focus over performance and makes the bigger picture appear more obvious.
For example, for a highly seasonal campaign it can be unfair/misleading to review the traffic volumes or online revenue on a month-to-month basis. But a comprehsive review on a quarterly or even annual basis – comparing with performance from previous similar periods – may be extremely valuable.
This is something we’ve recently done with a client, around 12 months after originally optimising their site we now have enough traffic and performance stats to review the success of this and also look at the areas which haven’t worked so well, or where the market may have changed, revisiting these with new ideas. We’re not assuming that everything we did was perfect first time around and even if it was it still needs to be checked. But if we had done this after 3-6 months, it wouldn’t have told us too much and we may have changed something too quickly before it had a chance to fufil its potential.
6) Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
This is a very common mistake, if your PPC campaign is performing very well you obviously want to maximise this and it’s very easy to throw extra budget at this because you can quickly see if your return on investment is paying off.
But what happens when the latest PPC quality score update means your campaign isn’t as profitable as it once was and you have no additional revenue streams and advertising channels to fall back on?
Internet marketing isn’t about finding the best tactic and just focusing on that one thing. Most campaigns work best when they are integrated together – so yes advertise using paid search, but use that keyword and conversion data to implement into your SEO strategy. The main goal of most online marketing campaigns is to convert a sale or lead, but what about the potential customers who are at an early stage of the buying cycle and not quite ready to purchase. Think about other methods of getting these visitors back to your site, get them to signup for your newsletter (email marketing) and subscribe to your blog (social media marketing).
7) Look at what’s in store for the future
It can be easy to pay too much attention to what’s going on in the search world sometimes, there are frequently changes, news and ideas on a daily basis, but you really need to try and filter out the ones which affect you and how you do things.
These are the actionable ideas which you do need to be aware of in order to make sure you are doing your job as effectively as possible.
Here’s a quick list of a few things which you may have considered or need to be aware of in the future:
- Bing UK – you may have focused solely on Google for SEO and PPC in the past – but there’s a good chance Bing may become a more serious competitor in the future. This means you may have to dedicate more of your SEO effort and PPC budget towards Bing and Microsoft adCenter.
- What are the most popular social media sites and where is this heading? For example, are you still working on your MySpace marketing strategy? Or are you using Twitter effectively and ready for what Google Wave has to offer?
- Google page speed – Google’s algorithm changes normally aim to improve the overall user experience for visitors. So improving your page speed and making sure your site is browser compatible is something you should be doing anyway, but now it’s even more important as an SEO activity.
- Google algorithm updates – if your website dropped in Google UK six months ago only to be replaced by a US or Australian site, it’s probably because of the #ukserps issue which has been a common talking point. Being aware of updates such as Vince and Caffeine helps you to make more insightful decisions based on all of information you have available.
A 2010 Outlook on Web and Social Media Trends
Google Trends for Tumblr, Digg and StumbleUpon
Last year I made about 30 predictions on Web trends for 2009. Many of them came true, others, of course, did not. Still even in those cases the ideas from the Web trends list were useful. Even those trends that disappeared from the radar or haven’t got main stream yet should be watched closely as they might pop up again sooner or later.
So I decided to make a new Web trends list, this time for 2010.
I started from scratch and asked my followers on Twitter to contribute. Most of the Web trends to watch in 2010 can be seen already on the Web so I’m really no prophet I just compiled a list. OK, also I chose those trends that I consider worth watching in 2010 and left out others. I think the following aspects of the Internet will have a major impact next year and beyond.
I divided the upcoming trends into several sections:
- social media
- business
- mobile
- marketing
- search
- SEO
- web design & development
- software
- Twitter integration and apps were king in 2009 and are here to stay. Either you integrate or you perish
- Tumblr is successful and growing in the shadow of Twitter, when Twitter finally loses steam will Tumblr be the new darling?
- Market consolidation in social media leaving only a few major players on the scene: Twitter, Facebook and who else?
- Social news (Digg, Reddit) and bookmarking (Delicious) will become obsolete. Already the first wave of social media that is social news and bookmarking lose against Twitter.
- Social browsing (StumbleUpon etc.) is already dead. There were more than a dozen of social browsing services in 2008. Most of them are dead or on hiatus already. More to follow.
- We’ll witness a demise or hiatus of most startups without critical mass of users as the money runs out
- We can expect a proliferation of premium and freemium business models as venture capital stays scarce
- Companies and brands will have to develop a social media strategy in 2010 to stay afloat
- With business accounts and data access selling like hotcakes and additional revenue sources Twitter will become profitable in 2010 already
- We’ll see a smartphone systems death match as the market isn’t big enough for all the often incompatible systems we have right now.
- Apple will be losing market share. The iPhone still looks like years ago. They don’t even have a netbook yet. They can’t rely on cult tactics forever.
- Phones and calls for free thanks Google: Google prepares the real Google Phone combining Google Voice and Gizmo5 VoIP to offer free calls.
- We’ll see less bullshit and more substance in the online marketing field. As the Web matures more and more people become too savvy to get fooled.
- Advertising replaced on the Web by “ad content” that is non promotional content about the brand, company or products: Less banners more reports.
- Real time search will go prime time for everyone, not just the search geeks and early adopters
- Google and Bing will keep on copying each other in order to capitalize on the search advertising market
- Advanced personalization will lead to your own personal search results for most people rendering ranking checks useless
- SEO is becoming ubiquitous, everybody does it (BBC etc.) and in 2010 those who don’t will fail to compete
- More SEO experts will return underground again inspite of ubiquitous SEO due to wide spread prejudice of the ignorant against the trade
- Like it or not but we’ll see more jQuery pop ups due to their high conversion rate. Thanks to @rhyswynne for the suggestion
- Mobile apps will continue to boom and optimized web pages for mobile use will become common place finally
- HTML5 and CSS3 will allow web designers to offer extra features possible backed by graceful degradation in oder to support for older browsers
- YouTube censorship spawns an open source and DIY video embedding counter movement. We already witness it but in 2010 you’ll look like a noob using YouTube on your site
Blogging
- Blogs get even more authoritative and accepted, becoming the “old media” of the Web
- Quick and clean miniblogging (Tumblr, Posterous etc.) establish a lively sphere between Twitter-like microblogging and blogging. @richardbaxter of SEOGadget agrees about Posterous continuous growth
- Video content finally gets the importance we expected for years now with growing band width etc.
Software
- There will be more cloud computing and web based software or rather webware around and people will use it more often
- Most notably Google Docs will convince more users of the Microsoft Office desktop edition to switch
- At the same time Google Chrome OS will be competing successfully with Windows at least on netbooks
This great content was found at ... http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2009/11/30-web-trends-to-watch-in-2010.html
Simple and Effective Social Media Tips for Book Writers and Beyond
Written and Posted by Sara Huizenga, (brilliantly creative) Social Media and Marketing Consultant
1. Add your linkable signature to every profile you have online and every comment you post.
2. Have the first line of every blog post and/or article that you write be - by "your name" - make it linkable and prominent (bold text, larger size font)
3. Establish your target market, why would people need and want to purchase your book, who are these people, what sites might they network on and/or end up finding due to their type of google search text...wherever online that might be...join the forums, networks, blogs (leave comments on) etc. establish yourself as an expert and never leave any text without also including your link and signature prominently within it.
4. Be consistent, use the same signature/hook/look/logo everywhere, make it easy for others to quickly recognize your personal brand.
5. "Give something away" in order to draw them out - what are they googling for - find out and then provide the perfect pitch answer to their question on your blog and/or site - seduce them with your best works, leave them wanting more...ie. purchase of book.
6. Make it as easy for others as possible to purchase your book/product/service (include all offline and online options) - hire you as a speaker - purchase consulting from you - make this info simple, easy, self-explanatory, dumdum proof and impossible to not see.
7. Start groups, blog posts, etc. titled in your book/product/service name.
8. Ask for it - if you have someone linked/make sure they reciprocate as well, ask them to leave comments, repost your information, think of all fans as your own personal promotion team, make them feel important to be a part of the team that is promoting you.
9. Market to book clubs, offer to personally call them during the meeting about your book in order to give them an opportunity to ask you (the expert) questions. Give this "book club promoting to group" a special name that includes either your name and/or the title of your book.
10. Stop by (all if possible) where your book is sold, no need to call ahead, the purpose in doing so is more so to personally signature each book they have - which as a result will increase sales, leave promotional material with them, a head shot, etc. which they are able to easily display to highlight the author's visit and personally signed books.
11. Work with local libraries, set up a time to present a workshop centered around your book as well as your own personal branding mission statement. Provide oodles of books their to purchase as well as "take-alongs" for them to share with other potential buyers of your book.
12. Think of "bulk sales" opportunities and venues, call them up, ask the organization, library, etc. (after you've told them about book) how many they would like - share with them the great features of your works regarding their company, policies, etc.
13. Become accredited and endorsed by government agencies.
1. Add your linkable signature to every profile you have online and every comment you post.
2. Have the first line of every blog post and/or article that you write be - by "your name" - make it linkable and prominent (bold text, larger size font)
3. Establish your target market, why would people need and want to purchase your book, who are these people, what sites might they network on and/or end up finding due to their type of google search text...wherever online that might be...join the forums, networks, blogs (leave comments on) etc. establish yourself as an expert and never leave any text without also including your link and signature prominently within it.4. Be consistent, use the same signature/hook/look/logo everywhere, make it easy for others to quickly recognize your personal brand.
5. "Give something away" in order to draw them out - what are they googling for - find out and then provide the perfect pitch answer to their question on your blog and/or site - seduce them with your best works, leave them wanting more...ie. purchase of book.
6. Make it as easy for others as possible to purchase your book/product/service (include all offline and online options) - hire you as a speaker - purchase consulting from you - make this info simple, easy, self-explanatory, dumdum proof and impossible to not see.
7. Start groups, blog posts, etc. titled in your book/product/service name.
8. Ask for it - if you have someone linked/make sure they reciprocate as well, ask them to leave comments, repost your information, think of all fans as your own personal promotion team, make them feel important to be a part of the team that is promoting you.
9. Market to book clubs, offer to personally call them during the meeting about your book in order to give them an opportunity to ask you (the expert) questions. Give this "book club promoting to group" a special name that includes either your name and/or the title of your book.
10. Stop by (all if possible) where your book is sold, no need to call ahead, the purpose in doing so is more so to personally signature each book they have - which as a result will increase sales, leave promotional material with them, a head shot, etc. which they are able to easily display to highlight the author's visit and personally signed books.
11. Work with local libraries, set up a time to present a workshop centered around your book as well as your own personal branding mission statement. Provide oodles of books their to purchase as well as "take-alongs" for them to share with other potential buyers of your book.
12. Think of "bulk sales" opportunities and venues, call them up, ask the organization, library, etc. (after you've told them about book) how many they would like - share with them the great features of your works regarding their company, policies, etc.
13. Become accredited and endorsed by government agencies.
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