Status of Google Wave

Status of Google Wave

How to Do SEO Cheap

How to Do SEO Cheap: "

Posted by Kate Morris

Most respected SEOs will tell you there is no such thing as cheap SEO. You get what you pay for in respect to hiring an SEO consultant. And that remains true. Whether you are hiring an agency, independent consultant, or hiring in-house, the best SEOs are going to know the value of their skills and its impact on your business. Going for the lowest cost option (bad SEOs, scam artists) is what gives good SEOs a bad name. Please, don't be one of those (read SEOmoz!), and don't hire one of those.

On the other side of the coin, I was also a small business owner at one time (independent consultant), and I know that you can't always afford the best in the beginning. There are a number of options available to small business owners on a budget. You don't have to forego quality to get good, cheaper SEO advice. Just remember that the less you pay with these suggestions, the more you might have to contribute your own time and learning. You are going to have to think about each of these in terms not just of cost, but also cost of your time. Doing cheaper SEO options means more time on your part learning. But ... with the right time and dedication, you can get the same results those bigger competitors are getting.

Remember the Marketing

From Distilled's Co-Founder Duncan Morris: If you are not an SEO, running your own business and looking to do this on your own, remember that the best SEO you can do is build your business right. You should network and find contacts, grow a mailing list, deliver awesome customer service, and maybe acquire another company. Do remarkable stuff, write interesting stuff on a blog, and tell people about it.

In the end, it's about getting people interested in your business. SEO is not the answer, it's yet another tool in your marketing arsenal.

Local Conferences

Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox on a Site Review Panel at PubCon

If you want to get the most bang for your buck and good suggestions for your site in real time, attend a local regional conference and submit to a site review panel. The key here is to find one in your area to reduce the costs as much as possible.

There are many you can choose from, a few from the past year include PubCon South, SearchExchange (no new one has been scheduled), SEMPDX SearchFest, and SXSW Interactive. There are many conferences in larger metropolitan areas, but they tend to be pricey. Look at the agenda ahead of time and make sure they have site reviews. On the day of the conference, get there before the session starts and give the moderator your card with the site address, and sit up front. I can't say that Matt Cutts will be the one reviewing your site, but regardless, these shows offer some of the best and brightest in the business.

Cost: Varies Wildly. About $200-750 for the conference (plus any travel costs)
Time: At least an hour for the session, but plan staying the whole conference, about 2-3 days

PodCamp, BarCamp, WordCamp

These are much like a local conference and meetup, but they are unconferences. They are usually free, day or two day long, with the key being that the content is user generated. Topics are about anything from new media (PodCamp) to WordPress (WordCamp), or really anything (BarCamp). There are many local experts you can meet here and ask about anything you need help on. These are the definition of community.

Cost: Free - usually
Time: A day or two for the Camp, and then applying what you learned of course.

Exchange Services

Exchanging services is one of the best ways to get services that you might not be able to afford right now. For instance, I got some awesome shirts "for free" in exchange for some PPC help for the company that printed the shirts. At the time there was no way I could afford the $500 for the shirts, but in exchange for my time? That was easy. If your company offers a service or product, talk to an SEO about an exchange of services.

It is also possible to offer good links for pro bono work. And on that thought, you could exchange your products and services as a link building tactic. Think about donating your time and services and getting links in return. This is a gray area (hat wise), but if you let them decide what to do ... it's cool. It's all about the intent and if the new link is useful to the users of the other site. Keep that in mind.

Cost: No money changes hands.
Time: It's going to cost in time however much you make the deal for your own time.

Visit Local Meetups

Check for local search marketing meetups via Meetups.com or contact your local chamber of commerce for any possible training that might be upcoming. The other option is to Google SEO group in your location - there might be some that aren't formal groups. Local professionals speak and attend sessions and are usually more than happy to answer questions and give advice to other attendees.

My pointer is to look for those meetups and groups that offer training for small business owners. For instance, in Austin, there is the Austin SEO/SEM Meetup through Meetups.com and that is a more training based group, however the AustinSEM.org group is for professionals only. Just be sure you are in the right group.

Second and biggest piece of advice: Don't go there for advice, hound the speaker, and then leave. They are people too. Be a friend, get to know before launching into your issues. Never expect free advice. Go there to learn and maybe you might get some good free advice as a bonus.

Cost: $0-$25 typically
Time: Substantial. An hour for the meetup generally, but there will be many of these over the year, you'll want to attend most of them you can find. And then you have to apply the knowledge.

Twitter (Read: Social Media)

Put simply: Get onto Twitter and make friends. Join in the conversation, don't be creepy, and be genuinely interested and interesting. There are many intelligent SEOs on Twitter that are happy to help friends. But you can't just get on there and ask. Building the relationships is what takes the most time and why this is one of the free options. You have to spend the time conversing and learning from what is being tweeted in addition to building the relationship. This cannot be automated, but once you are friends with an SEO, they are more likely to take time out of their day to help you out.

Cost: Free
Time: This one is all about your time. Hours, months, years is what I am talking here.

Simplest: Read

Read SEOmoz, SEOBook, Google Webmaster Blog, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, BlueGlass, Distilled, and so many more. For the most part (at Distilled this is true but I can't talk for everyone), we don't hold much back. If there is something new and cool that can help others with their campaigns, we share it via blogs. You just have to take the time to read them and apply the knowledge to your situation. This isn't easy as examples are not usually just like your situation, but with the right time and dedication you can learn much just reading.

Cost: Free
Time: Less than building relationships, but still high in personal time involvement.

Join a Community

Become a member of a forum or other Q&A type community like Webmaster World, SEOmoz Q&A, SEOBook, SEODojo, StackOverflow (more technical), and ExpertsExchange.

Webmaster World is free to use and the community responds to the questions. Each section has a few moderators, but your question isn't guaranteed to be answered. So there are pluses and minuses to that setup. I learned a lot there when I started, and the community is fantastic. They even have Google and Bing employees drop by to answer sometimes.

SEOmoz Q&A on the other hand comes with your membership to SEOmoz at all paid levels. Your level determines how many questions you can ask per month. At the PRO level, you get two questions a month. These questions are answered by SEO/PPC/Local/Mobile specialists at SEOmoz, Distilled, and across the globe by associates hand picked by the SEOmoz team. All the people answering are true professional experts and your question is guaranteed to be answered by an associate.

While I don't know much about SEOBook and SEODojo, I can tell you that there are many friends of mine that love these communities. They provide an area where you can ask questions and get answers from some of the best minds in search. I hear that Aaron Wall responds to many of the questions himself on SEOBook.

Check out all your options before committing but a community is very helpful at every stage of business or your career.

Cost: From Free to $300 a month at the lowest levels
Time: Good amount. You get direct answers in communities like these to questions about your specific situation, but you still have to learn and apply the advice you are given.

Adopt an SEO

If you have family and friends that are SEOs the chance is that you can get SEO services for free or at a highly discounted rate. So why not adopt? I kid. I kid. This isn't a suggestion for everyone, but if you do have a friend or family member in the business, you can make it their Christmas present to you for life if they will help you out. Most will be more than willing to help, unless this is your 17th "great money making opportunity."

Cost: A Lifetime - no really, you can't buy this one, sorry.
Time: Nurturing for an estranged SEO takes a lifetime, this is a big dedication on your part.

Look to your Family/Friends

Stock Photo Courtesy of Shutterstock

So if you have family and friends that are willing to help out but they aren't search marketing professionals, fret not. Enlist family/friends for help in content generation and link building. Everyone has a talent, and your family and friends can research and write about a number of topics. They can help you contact local businesses for linking opportunities. If any of them are interested in search marketing, you might even get them to read and join the communities we spoke of earlier. It's a win-win for anyone looking for a new career (maybe hire a student!) and your business that needs help getting the word out.

Cost: Minor
Time: Minor. It's your family and friends that are learning, so they get a benefit as well as the satisfaction of helping you.

Do you like this post? Yes No

"

7 Tips for Succeeding as a Social Media Strategist

7 Tips for Succeeding as a Social Media Strategist: "

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The role of social media is expanding rapidly and many organizations of all types are trying to stay afloat amidst the changes. Meanwhile, a small group of innovators pulls the industry onward.

In the past few years, the social media marketing role has become increasingly present, leading the way to more strategic social media programs. Enter the social media strategist.

Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst at Altimeter Group, a digital strategy consulting firm, recently spoke at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit about the career path of the corporate social strategist, touching on current responsibilities and challenges, as well as the future of the role. His presentation was based on months of research funded by Altimeter, in which 140 enterprise-class social strategists across various industries were interviewed. Other online sources, such as LinkedIn and blogs, were consulted to gather job descriptions, profile work histories and catalog the ebb and flow of new hires in the social media space.

Owyang presented seven key tips for building a successful social media program and focused on how social media strategists can facilitate those successes. Read his tips below and add your thoughts in the comments.

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1. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

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Owyang pointed to a funny, but oh-so-true anecdote that happened while he was collecting research for this study. While interviewing a social media strategist, the phone conversation was stopped abruptly as the strategist confessed, “Jeremiah, I’ve gotta go. There are two people standing in front of my office demanding Facebook Pages.” If they didn’t get the Pages, they were going to build them on their own.

While it’s somewhat hilarious to imagine two professionals camping in front of their colleague’s office until they get their doggone Facebook Pages, it’s equally as sad to realize that these instances actually happen in the corporate world. If this is happening in your organization, take a step back, look at the chaos, take a deep breath and then do something about it.

“A proactive mindset is required,” Owyang said. “You cannot wait for the company to catch up to you. You have to go to the business units and tell them what is required [to participate in your company's social media program] before they ask you for a Facebook Page. Make a list of requirements: dialogue, ready for conversations 24/7, ongoing commitment, two-way communications. Make it clear what’s expected, before they ask you.”

Being proactive and having guidelines will help alleviate stressful moments like the one described above, where being reactive is usually status quo.

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2. Be a Program Manager, Not Evangelist

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As social media programs become more sophisticated, Owyang believes that employees currently in the social media evangelist roles will move on to “the next thing,” evangelizing new technologies. But with an ongoing need for social media programming, a new role for social media program managers will emerge.

“Quickly switch hats,” Owyang advises social media strategists who want to stay relevant to businesses that have evolving needs. “It’s time to take off the evangelism hat and put on the program manager hat. A new skill set is going to be required, and a program manager is responsible for resources, timelines, Gantt charts, ROI models, analytics, data modeling, resource management, project management. It’s a very different skill set than the evangelist role that we’ve seen before.”

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3. Educate Your Business Units

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“Educate your business units ahead of time, and give them the information that they need,” said Owyang.

He is an advocate of testing employees to measure digital and social media proficiencies, pointing to Intel’s Digital IQ test as a great example of aptitude measurement. “You can take this online test before you participate in social media and become certified in that particular program,” he said. “That’s one of the more advanced programs that we’ve seen.”

In its official Social Media Guidelines, Intel clearly defines Digital IQ training as a responsibility for all employees taking part in social media on behalf of the company.

It’s important to not only lay down guidelines, but to also provide training for employees who want to learn more and get involved in the social media program.

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4. Organize for Success

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Five ways companies organize their social media teams

During his presentation, Owyang presented five models in which companies organize their social media teams — decentralized, centralized, hub and spoke, dandelion and holistic, as pictured and described above. He highly recommends that social media programs be organized in hub and spoke or dandelion models in order to scale.

In the hub and spoke model, there’s typically a cross-functional team that’s serving multiple business units, with the strategists at the center of the formation — 41% of the organizations that Owyang interviewed fell under this category.

Within large companies with multiple brands or units, such as Microsoft or HP, the dandelion (or “multiple hub and spoke”) model is common, where multiple social media strategists lead individual business areas or brands across the company.

There are three steps necessary in order to reach a hub and spoke or dandelion organization, according to Owyang:

1. “Set up governance: policies, legal, some executive buy-in.”
2. “Roll out processes: who does what, where, when and how — a triage system. How does information flow through your company? Publish that diagram on the Internet.”
3. “Launch an ongoing education program.”

“If you do those three things in that order, it’s very likely your company will form in hub and spoke with you in the hub,” stated Owyang.

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5. Be an Enabler

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It is unrealistic to think that one strategist can stay at the center of every social media effort or that he or she could even hire enough community managers to stay on top of an entire enterprise’s social activity. In light of that reality, Owyang believes that it is crucial for social media strategists to slip into the mindset of an enabler. He explains:

“Remember, social media does not scale. You cannot manage every social media program, campaign or effort. You now have to become an enabler to teach the business units to do it on their own — that’s the only way you’re going to be able to scale anyway. You become an internal consultant, an internal resource to help the entire business.”

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6. Deploy Scalable Social Media Programs

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Communities, advocacy programs, social media management systems (like CoTweet and HootSuite), and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) — the practice of connecting social networks to your existing CRM system — are all worthwhile social media efforts, according to Owyang, because they are scalable.

“Dialogue does not scale,” Owyang reiterated multiple times. “One-to-one communications does not scale… You can’t possibly do it. What scales? Community programs — getting your customers to do the work for you. Advocacy programs — Microsoft MVP, Intel Insiders, SAP Mentors, Oracle Aces, Walmart Moms — those are advocacy programs, when you take your best customers and you give them a platform and let them do the work for you, and you don’t pay them. Those are scalable programs.”

While it’s important to set up channels for communication with customers, make sure your programs can expand as the company and community grow.

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7. Transcend Marketing

---

The report found that 71% of social media programs fall under the domain of marketing or corporate communications. In order to make an impact, though, Owyang says that social media programs must transcend marketing. Strategists should take note and act accordingly.

“Over time, think about how you can be more than ‘marketing,’” suggests Owyang. “Think about how you can apply [social media] to support and service and the physical, real-world customer experience — and improve products and experiences.”

Owyang’s seven insights into succeeding as a social media strategist should have social media programs shaping up in no time. What would you add to his advice? Let us know in the comments below.

View Jeremiah Owyang’s WOMMA Summit presentation below:

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Define a Social Media Strategy for Enterprise
- Social Media Success: 5 Lessons From In-House Corporate Teams
- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of a Coworking Space
- How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue
- Beyond Viral: How Successful Marketers Are Embracing the Social Web

Image copyright of Gary Michael and courtesy of WOMMA.

More About: business, corporate social media, Corporate Social Strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, social media, social media strategist, social media strategy

For more Business coverage:

• Follow Mashable Business on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Business channel
• Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

"

Yahoo Clues: New Fun Search Keyword Tool

Yahoo Clues: New Fun Search Keyword Tool: "Today, Yahoo announced a new tool named Yahoo Clues. Yahoo Clues basically gives you insight into the types of people searching for specific keyword phrases and shows related terms based on those searches and searchers. The tool allows you to plug in one or two keyword phrases and it then plots the...



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article."

What a feeling! Even better indexing of SWF content

What a feeling! Even better indexing of SWF content: "Webmaster Level: All

We often get questions from webmasters about how we index content designed for Flash Player, so we wanted to take a moment to update you on some of our latest progress.

About two years ago we announced that through a collaboration with Adobe we had significantly improved Google’s capability to index Flash technology based content. Last year we followed up with an announcement that we had added external resource loading to our SWF indexing capabilities. This work has allowed us to index all kinds of textual content in SWF files, from Flash buttons and menus to self-contained Flash technology based websites. Currently almost any text a user can see as they interact with a SWF file on your site can be indexed by Googlebot and used to generate a snippet or match query terms in Google searches. Additionally, Googlebot can also discover URLs in SWF files and follow those links, so if your SWF content contains links to pages inside your website, Google may be able to crawl and index those pages as well.

Last month we expanded our SWF indexing capabilities thanks to our continued collaboration with Adobe and a new library that is more robust and compatible with features supported by Flash Player 10.1. Additionally, thanks to improvements in the way we handle JavaScript, we are also now significantly better at recognizing and indexing sites that use JavaScript to embed SWF content. Finally, we have made improvements in our video indexing technology, resulting in better detection of when a page has a video and better extraction of metadata such as alternate thumbnails from Flash technology based videos. All in all, our SWF indexing technology now allows us to see content from SWF files on hundreds of millions of pages across the web.

While we’ve made great progress indexing SWF content over the past few years, we’re not done yet. We are continuing to work on our ability to index deep linking (content within a Flash technology based application that is linked to from the same application) as well as further improving indexing of SWF files executed through JavaScript. You can help us improve these capabilities by creating unique links for each page that is linked from within a single Flash object and by submitting a Sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools.

We’re excited about the progress we’ve made so far and we look forward to keeping you updated about further progress.

Written by Jifeng Situ and Sverre Sundsdal, Software Engineers

"

Rich snippets for shopping sites

Rich snippets for shopping sites: "Webmaster Level: All

In time for the holiday season, we now support rich snippets for shopping (e-commerce) sites! As many of you know, rich snippets are search results that have been enhanced using structured data from your web pages. Our new format shows price, availability, and product reviews on pages offering a product for sale. Here’s a result for [office lava lamp]:

As a webmaster, there are two ways that you can provide the information needed for product rich snippets to show up for your site, both described on the Product rich snippets help page:

Option 1: Provide a Merchant Center feed.

Many sites already provide Merchant Center feeds for use in Google Product Search, which means that most of the work needed for rich snippets is already done. For Google to make use of Merchant Center feeds for rich snippets, you should also use the rel=”canonical” link element on your product pages. By adding rel=”canonical” to your pages, Google can match the URLs in your feed to the pages found by our crawler.

Update on November 4, 2010: In order to have your product review information in your rich snippets, you can submit your product ratings directly in your feed, or you can work with one of our reviews partners to submit this information. If you work with a partner, your reviews information will appear in rich snippets, and shoppers on Google Product Search will be able to see your full-length reviews on relevant product pages, branded with your logo.

Option 2: Add markup to your site.

If prices for your products tend to change only infrequently, then adding markup is an alternative method to provide product data for rich snippets. We’ve updated our product markup format to allow a variety of different types of shopping sites to participate. In addition to the Google format, we support two other standards: the hProduct microformat and GoodRelations. You can use the rich snippets testing tool to test your markup and make sure it’s being parsed correctly.

This feature is currently available to merchants located in the US, but we will be rolling it out in more markets soon. Additionally, there are a number of rich snippets formats that can be used world-wide in various languages—make your snippets compelling and useful! Should you have any questions about the use of rich snippets, check out our FAQs and feel free to post in our Webmaster Help Forum.

Q&A

Which should I provide -- a Merchant Center feed or markup?

For most merchants, providing a Merchant Center feed is the best bet. That way your product prices and availability are updated quickly, and the data can be shown in rich snippets as well as in other applications like Google Shopping and Product Ads. If prices and availability change only infrequently, and you don’t want to set up a feed, then adding markup is also a valid option.

If I add markup to my site, will Google show product rich snippets for my pages?

We can’t guarantee that providing a feed or adding markup will result in rich snippets being shown. Note also that it may take a few weeks after providing data for rich snippets to be shown. If you mark up your pages, we encourage you to make sure that the data is parsed correctly by Google by using the rich snippets testing tool. The testing tool updates are rolling out over the next few days, so in this interim period the testing tool may not show previews for some types of markup.

I’ve already done reviews markup for my product offer pages. Should I add product/offer markup as well?

Yes, absolutely. Rich snippets are shown if the information provided accurately represents the main focus of the page. Therefore, for product pages you should add markup using the relevant offer/product fields which can include nested reviews.

Written by Nitin Shetti and Mircea Ciurumelea, Search Quality team

"

The Social Assisted Search Conversion – Hard to Track, But Harder to Ignore

The Social Assisted Search Conversion – Hard to Track, But Harder to Ignore: "

First, I’m sure you are wondering where you can find this metric. Let’s start by drilling into Google Analytics to find the report. Access the Goals tab in Google Analytics and then click the Social Assisted Conversion Link. This will take you to the Social module within GA. OK… I just made that up. You can’t actually do this yet, although I wish you could.

Two weeks ago I presented “Understanding the True Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media Marketing” on behalf of the Princeton Chamber of Commerce. The core point of my presentation was that it’s extremely difficult to run a standard ROI calculation when it comes to Social Media. That’s because Social Media Marketing (SMM) impacts so many other channels and efforts that it would be hard to simply add numbers to a formula.

That said, if you have the right strategy in place, along with the right tracking (both on-site and off-site), you could still make a compelling argument for Social ROI. As part of my presentation, I have a slide dedicated to what I call The Social Assisted Search Conversion. It’s something I’ve seen more and more of recently, and it can be very powerful for businesses (although it’s hard to track). By the way, to see what a potential Social ROI case could look like (if you do the right things and have a strong analytics strategy), you should check out my latest post about Presenting Social ROI in the Boardroom.

Defining The Social Assisted Search Conversion

The trend I’m seeing across clients (and across my own efforts) includes several jumps and communications across channels that ultimately ends up in a conversion. Note, conversion can mean several things depending on your own business, such as a sale, a lead, a form submission, a download, etc.

It starts when a Social connection is made between a company and a prospective customer. That person might end up connecting with a company via Social efforts (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) At this point in the process, the company needs to build credibility, engage users, and provide valuable content. As this happens, the company could start forming a stronger connection with the person in question. But, that doesn’t mean the prospective customer will go running to that company when they need a solution. As many of you already know, the knee jerk reaction for many people looking for a solution is to hit a search engine like Google, Yahoo, and Bing (and mostly Google).

When the person starts searching for a solution, she will probably end up on several websites via both organic and paid search. She will compare products, prices, features, read reviews, etc. But, there’s another factor that I’ve seen occur during this stage. This is where the Social Assisted Search Conversion sparks. If this person hits a website and realizes that she is currently connected with the company via Social Media, she might end up reaching out the people managing those accounts before she decides to move forward and convert. She might seek more information, ask for recommendations, etc. Once this “reconnection” occurs via Social, the person might go back and convert (based on the assistance she received from the company’s Social Media Manager or team).

To quickly recap, a person connects with a company via Social Media. The company builds credibility by engaging followers and providing high quality content. At some point in the future, the person ends up searching for a solution and ends up browsing several websites to find a product or service that meets her needs. While browsing each website, the person realizes that she has already connected with a company via Social, and she reaches out to that company via those connections for more information, recommendations, etc. Based on the assistance she received via Social, she ends up going back to the site and converting.

Here’s a Visual Representation of The Social Assisted Search Conversion:

The Full Picture – Tracking Qualitative and Quantitative Data

This behavior is extremely powerful and something that you should be tracking as much as possible. You won’t find this metric in your analytics reporting (yet), but you can track the qualitative data associated with this behavior as much as possible. For example, your Social Media Marketing Manager or team should be tracking correspondence with followers and fans, whether that’s email, tweets, direct messages, blog comments, etc. Then, when you need to walk into the boardroom to present the ROI of your Social efforts (like I explained in my post about presenting Social ROI), you’ll be armed with even more data to help make your case.

And during that presentation, you’ll probably realize very quickly that many executives are data-focused (understatement of the year). They won’t necessarily care about how many tweets or retweets you have. They will care about revenue, cost, and profit, and the Social Assisted Search Conversion impacts revenue, customer base, and the profitability of your efforts. Those are all good things when faced with a skeptical CEO. :)

Although you won’t know the exact number of Social Assisted Search Conversions or the exact amount of revenue, presenting the qualitative data for this “metric” can be extremely powerful. In a nutshell, it shows how your connections with customers and prospective customers manifested itself in a unique relationship between Social and Search, which ended up as a conversion (AKA money).

Sure, it’s not as powerful as direct revenue from Social sites, but as anyone tracking large-scale marketing efforts will tell you, that metric doesn’t necessarily add up or tell the full story. The hard ROI numbers from your Social efforts might only be a fraction of what it really is. And, if you present the ROI of Social in a silo (without taking other factors into account like the Social Assisted Search Conversion), then it could make your case look anemic.

A Note About Attribution

In case you are thinking that multi-touch attribution will solve your problem, it probably won’t. The core reason is that the communication between company and consumer during the latter stages of this process cannot be captured by an analytics package (yet). You might see the first touch as Search and the second as Direct or Referring Traffic, but you would be missing valuable, qualitative data. You know, the “Social” part of Social Media. :)

Quick Example

About six months ago, I was looking to buy wine glasses as a gift for my wife. I hit Google and ended up visiting a number of websites via both organic and paid search. As I was reviewing my options across several sites, I noticed that I already had been connected to one company via Twitter. And, I had really enjoyed their updates, the information they were providing, etc. I remembered them, based on their work in Social Media. So, I left the site and jumped on Twitter to message them (via Tweetdeck and not Twitter.com).

I explained that I was searching for wine glasses, that I had just visited their website, and that I needed a few pointers. After the exchange, I ended up going back to the site and converting (just a few minutes later.) Then, after buying the glasses, I messaged them again to let them know that I just placed the order. They thanked me (almost immediately) and proceeded to send along a discount code for my next purchase. That’s awesome and shows the power of combining Social with Search.

Here are some closing tips for what you can do in order have the Social Assisted Search Conversion impact your business:

• Develop a solid Social strategy and continually engage your followers and fans. Build credibility so they remember you.


• Provide value over the long term. Don’t just set up a presence on Social sites. Make sure your Social Media efforts are an important part of your overall online marketing strategy.


• Develop a strong analytics strategy and track both quantitative and qualitative data. Make sure your team is documenting correspondence with users across Social connections (so you can build a case for Social ROI).


• Incorporate The Social Assisted Search Conversion when building your case for Social ROI. Although Search is still one of the most important online marketing channels, that doesn’t mean Social isn’t helping business-wise.

Quick Summary

The key takeaway from this post is that Social may be impacting your business in several ways beyond just visits and revenue from Social websites. It’s not always easy to identify the hard ROI of Social Media by plugging numbers into a formula, which is why tracking both qualitative and quantitative data is critically important. The Social Assisted Search Conversion is one example of how Social Media can impact other channels and end up generating more business for you. You just need to identify the best way to track it for your own company. Remember, it’s hard to track, but harder to ignore. :)

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

The Social Assisted Search Conversion – Hard to Track, But Harder to Ignore

"

Facebook Ads vs. Googe PPC (Pay Per Click)

Facebook Ads vs. Googe PPC (Pay Per Click): "

This is a guest post by SmallBox Web Design

These two avenues of the marketing world are just beginning to be tapped. People who are graduating college now with marketing degrees most likely have not been trained in Google PPC or on the efficacy of Facebook Ads. That’s alright. They’ll learn soon enough. To an extent these ad-strategies are intuitive and easily available for use by almost anyone. However, there is an art to both of them.

To some extent, Google PPC and Facebook Ads are yin and yang to one another. Google PPC gives you access to audiences with high commercial intent, and allows you to gauge their moods and attitudes by trial and error. You bid for keyword searches that you think will capture consumers surfing around who might be interested in your product, and their interface gives you the option to bid for different combinations of search terms as frequently as you like.

Say that your selling used cars in Indianapolis. Ideally, you would be able to bid for the search terms: used cars Indianapolis, and win the top slot. A combination of keywords like that is likely to have a high asking price. The price of search terms are dictated by the bidding process. Whoever is willing to pay the most, will win the top slot, and appear at the top of the search in the ‘sponsored links section.’

We refer to users entering search terms like ‘used cars Indianapolis,’ as being pretty, ‘far down the cone.’ That is – from the number of possible people in your audience at the top of the cone, where the cone is widest, to the bottom of the cone where it narrows to where people are actually buying your product–people who are entering search terms to search for your product are probably already thinking about buying it. On the other hand, you are only reaching people who are entering the search terms that you’ve bid for.

Facebook Ads, on the other hand, are the reverse of this. You can choose your demographic with incredible precision–based on their ‘likes’–but you’re not necessarily reaching people who are already in the mood for shopping. That hardly matters, though. The small percentage of people who click on your ad are the only people who matter, and the conversions that you get from that small-percentage can be elaborately fine-tuned as your ad campaign continues.

What is exciting about these marketing tools is the feedback loop of information that advertisers have access to. Instead of researching how you should target and launch your ad-campaign through focus-groups or just raw intuition, and then waiting for results with your fingers crossed, with PPC or Facebook Ads, you know exactly how your market is responding IMMEDIATELY and you have the ability to constantly tweak, recalibrate, respond. Advertising along these lines is an art, for sure–but it’s also a science. If you watch the numbers diligently, you can hardly fail to make an impact. And by ‘impact,’ I mean, ‘sales.’

"

Google Instant: The Impact On Paid Search

Google Instant: The Impact On Paid Search: "Google Instant rolled out September 8th to much fanfare and ballyhoo. The search marketing industry has been abuzz ever since with speculation about the impacts on both paid and natural search.
Our firm has taken a pretty close look at the initial impact on paid search performance and we want to share our findings with [...]



*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

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Paid Search Strategies For Boosting Holiday Season Profits

Paid Search Strategies For Boosting Holiday Season Profits: "Will this year be the year when online holiday sales return to double digit growth? Or will the holidays once again deliver lackluster growth in the low single digits for online advertisers? While predicting how much consumers will buy may be difficult, predicting how they will likely behave is not. We recently [...]

Introduções ao conceito de otimização de sites, SEO, marketing digital e etc.!

Como faço para otimizar um site? O que é SEO? Como se faz marketing digital?

Bem, existem ínfimas opções e caminhos de se otimizar um site, contudo, podemos dividir em duas classes o black hat e white hat. O SEO(search engine optimization), são formas de se otimizar o site na procura orgânica, leia mais no penúltimo post.

Inicialmente podemos resumir que o posicionamento do site dentro dos buscadores se dá, através dos crawlers, que são robozinhos(programas) dos bucadores como o google que aplicam um algoritmo(uma código de instrução), onde este, seguindo uma regra cataloga sites novos e revisa antigos, deste resultado saem as posições dos sites para cada keyword(palavra-chave). O google é muito rápido com isso porque ele "cadastra" essas procuras dos usuários e repete quando se é feita novamente, dividindo o processo os crawlers cadastram e revisam armazenado os resultados de páginas de pesquisa(SERP, search engine result pages) já feitas, infinitamente. Olha que doidera malandro... rs

Vamos então, à classificação das formas de otimização de sites ou SEO(já falei o que que é isso poh... rs).

As estratégias Black Hat SEO, são as que manipulam os processos de indexação dos buscadores(google, yahoo, bing e etc.), fazendo assim, um site ser ranqueado mais rápido, como exemplo o cloaking, linking farm, Keyword Stuffing, texto invisível, over submitting e outros, obviamente que estes são passíveis de punição por parte dos próprios buscadores e caso os crawlers, identificarem uma ação Black Hat, o site será punido na "achabilidade" das SERPs.

atualmente, está se criando o conceito de Gray Hat SEO que seria a mistura entre o white e black hats, mas é uma aposta, o crawler quando identificar pode ou não te punir citando como exemplo submitting e spaming, fato é que existem varias ações de black hat que se usadas com sabedoria passam a ser Gray Hat(tipo, você é sacaninha, mas me respeita... google falando!).

Para explica o que é White Hat SEO, poderiamos definir como, "a forma mais honesta" de posicionamento de site dentro dos buscadores e por isso também, considerada a mais duradoura, ela normalmente se faz através do trabalho dentro do próprio site, como a construção de um bom conteúdo original (Não plageie malandrinho! Seja também informativo e interessante, sei que é chato... rs), destaque nas palavras-chaves (como uso de itálico, negrito e etc.), links internos(sendo referencial usando a tag "nofollow") e externos valiosos(com trust rank, link juice), o uso de tags para identificar o conteúdo do site, uma boa construção de snippet(a forma como você aparece no buscador), social media optimization(tipo twitter, flickr, facebook e etc.), estratégia de benchmark, headtails, longtails e etc. (cara, podia ficar um dia todo falando disso...)

Como se trata de um mercado muito dinâmico, o de SEO, as afirmações imperativas são sempre difíceis de se fazer, o que de mais valioso você pode aprender e que nunca irá se desatualizará, é experimentar. Fazer testes, isolar e aprimorar com os resultados, mas prepare-se, você verá constantemente uma técnica dando certo para um caso e dando errado ou menos efeito para outros casos, na verdade as variáveis são inconstantes, entretanto se você trabalhar de forma coerente sempre alcançará bons resultados.(esse raio de SEO pronuncia-se (ézs í ou), e é uma ciência que tem gente boa pacas nesse meio, gente maneira e que compartilha! ...Seja mais um)

Agora, amigos, se falei alguma besteira e querem me xingar, comenta ae(com educação!). E é claro, corrijam os erros de português ae. :p

Ato contra a Corrupção!

Caros amigos,

Chegou a hora: dia 7 de abril será a votação do Projeto de Lei Ficha Limpa. Nossos deputados têm uma escolha -- votar a favor da lei e remover criminosos da política, ou ficar do lado dos corruptos ao custo de toda a nação.

Não será uma vitória fácil, forças corruptas estão resistindo – somente uma mobilização massiva poderá vencê-los. Esta é a reta final para pressionar nossos deputados a votarem a favor da política limpa no Brasil -- assine a petição no link abaixo, ela será entregue diretamente ao Congresso:

http://www.avaaz.org/po/brasil_ficha_limpa

Se a Ficha Limpa passar, candidatos que cometeram crimes sérios como lavagem de dinheiro, tráfico de drogas e assassinato, serão removidos das eleições de outubro. Este pode ser um enorme passo para livrar o Brasil de uma classe política corrupta.

Através de muita pressão popular do Movimento de Combate à Corrupção Eleitoral e da Avaaz, nós ajudamos a introduzir esta lei e aprová-la para votação. Porém se ela passar, vários partidos políticos irão ver seus candidatos desqualificados das eleições de outubro, portanto muitos vão tentar barrá-la no Congresso. Nós não podemos perder esta oportunidade histórica – vamos mobilizar milhares de brasileiros nesta reta final -- assine a petição abaixo:

http://www.avaaz.org/po/brasil_ficha_limpa

Em um movimento histórico, mais de 1.6 milhões de brasileiros já levantaram as suas vozes contra a corrupção na política. Nós não podemos perder agora -- cada nome conta – encaminhe este alerta para todos que você conhece!

Com esperança,

Toda a Equipe Avaaz e Cai o Rêgo!

Qual a diferença entre SEO e SEM?

Então, como todos sabemos o mercado online é novo, apenas alguns anos, e é bem comum novos termos surgirem e com significados diferentes.

Para tentar alcançar o significado mais acertado(se é que existe! rs), de SEM e SEO , vou começar pontuando o SEM que pelo menso nas siglas todos concordam, SEM significa Search Engine Marketing, alguns entendem que representa as formas promocionais de marketing(que tenham investimento), como os links patrocinados, banners pagos, comercialização de Link juice, submissão paga e etc., e outros relacionam o SEM apenas ao PPC (pay-per-click) que seriam links patrocinados em qualquer lugar dos buscadores, sites, navegadores, mídias sociais, softwares e etc.

Particularmente, eu entendo SEM, como ações que posicionam fora da pesquisa orgânica(envolvendo investimento), e o SEO como ações internas e externas pagas ou não que promovem o posicionamento na procura orgânica.

Espero ter ajudado!