SEO Fairy Tales Without Happy Endings
We share office space with Vertical Nerve, a web analytics, search marketing, and mobile marketing company. In other words, they’re Google Analytics geeks, who understand exactly how to measure, monitor and tweak marketing campaigns to get the results you want. I’m not, even though I’ve known about Google longer than most people on the planet. Months before Sergei Brinn and Larry Page announced their new search engine, I attended a hush-hush meeting (after signing “binding mutual non-disclosure agreements and information embargoes” explained with great seriousness by two teams of lawyers), and saw one of the very first demos of the product that Read More
What 6 Months Has Taught Us About Google+
In June, 2011, the search giant Google launched Google+. At the time, many people thought it was a challenge to Facebook’s domination of the social media space, and treated it as little more than one more social media channel among many. Just over six months later, Google+ marketing best practices are starting to emerge. It’s already clear that two things make Google+ quite different than other social media platforms. One of them is the “Hangouts” feature that allows companies to engage with fans, prospects, and customers through video conference calls. Of all the Google+ basics for corporate marketers, this feature Read More
Do You See What I See? On Google, Probably Not
If you and I use Google to search for the same keyword, do you see what I see? Probably not. I’m in Dallas, Texas, so the first thing that Google does is to look at my IP address, which tells it where I am. If you’re anywhere else – even in a Dallas suburb – Google will automatically adjust the search results according to location. Users get no say as to whether or not we want “local” results (and ads). Search history factors in, too. Google results are based on assumptions that are supposed to help make the results more relevant Read More
Search Marketing in Google’s New World
Early in 2011, marketers got a wake-up call in the form of something called The Panda Algorithm Update. What’s a Panda algorithm, and why was it a wake-up call for marketers? The Panda algorithm is one of Google’s top-secret formulas for determining page rank — that is, where a particular web page will show up in a Google search. The release of this algorithm was a wake-up call that showed marketers in no uncertain terms that to achieve higher online rankings meant playing by Google’s rules with white-hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics. It started in February when retail giant Read More
Basic Google+ Cheat Sheet
Less than a month after it launched in late June, Google+ had over 25 million registered users — a milestone that took Twitter 29 months, and Facebook 3 years to reach. Have you tried it yet? Or are you waiting to see whether it’s a useful tool for multi-channel marketing? If you haven’t made up your mind yet, here are the absolute basics that marketers need to know. What is Google+? It’s not exactly a social network — it’s a sharing network where people create contact circles. Here’s how Shimrit Ben-Yair, Google’s product manager for the product describes it. “Google+ Circles solve Read More
How Engaged Are Your Customers?
Jasmine is a mixed-breed dog adopted from the Las Vegas dog pound. She’s a great dog. That’s her in the photo — patiently enduring being posed with a catalog of high-end dog beds while wearing a pair of silly eye glasses. Most of the time, she did what she was asked, (which was to look directly at the camera) but every now and again she couldn’t resist looking over at her trainer to see if it was time to go home yet. Jasmine was giving her attention to the humans around her — but she wasn’t engaged with what was happening. She was Read More
Improving SEO Ranking: All Tools Are Not Equal
Everyone knows that optimizing your website, press releases, and blog posts for search engines make it easier for people to find your site and improve traffic. It’s less well known that search engines like Google and Bing change and update their algorithms regularly. If you’ve noticed a recent change in the visibility and ranking of your site or blog, it may be because of recent changes in Google’s algorithms. Google is the leading search engine, with around 90% of the global search volume. Yahoo and Bing take second place in popularity, with less than 5% of searches, with all the Read More
Managing Customer Service & Employee Privacy
After the LIMRA Social Media Conference in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago, one of the attendees who downloaded the presentation deck used for the Customer Service Meets Social Media panel posted this question: “One of the points made in this panel is that front-line employees are often recorded (audio and video) and the results can be posted on social media sites immediately. How do I stop people from doing that? I could be held liable if one of my employees is photographed or videotaped without their permission.” In following up with the person who drafted the question, we found that Read More
Friday News Round-Up: Links Have a Short Half-life, Crowdsourcing at the White House & More Useful News
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories that we think offer insights or lessons that can help multi-channel distributed marketing organizations. The “half-life” of links depends on where they are posted. Bit.ly, the link-shortening service, reported this week on the results of a study by Hilary Mason that shows how a link’s half-life is, depending on where it’s posted. Borrowing a concept from nuclear physics, Mason and her team looked at the patterns for 1,000 popular Bit.ly links across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube links. Half-life, in this case, is “the amount of time at which [a] link will receive half of the Read More
Friday News Round-up: Google Never Forgets, Email as Homework
Here’s this week’s round-up of “must read” news stories for marketers. What makes these stories stand out? They offer key information or lessons that multi-channel distributed marketing organizations should take to heart. Google Never Forgets: Lest anyone forget that once something is online and indexed by a search engine, a filing by search giant Google in its ongoing legal battle with Oracle over the way that Android uses Java should bring the point home with a nice touch of irony. Google wants a judge to throw out Oracle’s claims based on 17-year-old testimony from an unlikely source: Google chairman and former CEO Read More
