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How Private Is Your Data? Pt. II
By now you’ve probably heard the news that, as of March 1st, Google will consolidate its 70+ privacy policies into one, marking a sea change in Google’s attitude toward privacy and tracking. Much of the buzz has been negative, and Google has been putting out fires for the past week, but the switch does not necessarily mean that the search giant is dropping the “Don’t” from their famous motto, “Don’t Be Evil”. First, the Google blog spin:
“Finally, what we’re not changing. We remain committed to data liberation, so if you want to take your information elsewhere you can. We don’t sell your personal information, nor do we share it externally without your permission except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order. We try hard to be transparent about the information we collect, and to give you meaningful choices about how it is used—for example our Ads Preferences Manager enables you to edit the interest categories we advertise against or turn off certain Google ads altogether. And we continue to design privacy controls, like Google+’s circles, into our products from the ground up.”
While this may be reassuring to some, the bolded section (our emphasis) leaves a much open to interpretation. Will they begin selling this to advertisers if they continue to be threatened by Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft? What happens when the next innovative search engine or social network gains traction and gets big? This remains to be seen.
From an advertising standpoint, though, this integration is aimed at providing users more targeted, relevant ads by combining the vast stores of user data from Gmail, search, YouTube, et al. This has obvious benefits for the user, but is also a boon to advertisers:
- Higher Quality Scores start with better relevancy, eventually leading to lower paid search costs. Google’s update could lead to hyper-targeted paid search and display ads.
- As Google learns more about each user, including demographic and behavioral data, the organic SERP could become hyper-personalized to that user. This complicates the SEO process and leads to our third point:
- Success in Google Search will be largely dependent upon the level of interaction you can generate across all Google properties. The future of SEO may become as connected to content marketing strategies as it is to current optimization best practices.
The recent IPO filing by Facebook, combined with these radical changes by Google indicate a new stage in the ongoing struggle for user data and advertising dollars between the two giants. Since the early aughts, Google has had virtually no competition in search and online advertising, but that has now changed, and they no longer have the luxury of eschewing common business practices that are seen in more competitive vertical markets. To maintain dominance, Google now has to make some tough decisions, this only being the latest.
SOPA vs SEM
Amid widespread and passionate outcry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nevada) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R, Texas), who was the chief sponsor for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), decided to drop the controversial bill from being considered by the House Judiciary Committee last Friday. While the decision has been met with a collective sigh of relief from all corners of the globe, it is likely more of a temporary reprieve than an outright victory for web users and sites.
Both SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate, PIPA (Protect IP Act) were proposed as wide-ranging, anti-piracy legislation that would seek to block any sites that are in any way connected to the sharing of pirated, copyright-protected material online. The problems with these bills are manifold and have been debated ad nauseum for the past few weeks and months. Aside from their rather blatant attempt to censor the free expression of ideas and speech, the bills would enact a quasi-police state on the web, making all websites responsible for every link and every sentence that appears in their content. The implications for SEM businesses would be potentially disastrous:
- When generating new content, it would become necessary to verify every single source that you link to is not also violating SOPA in some way. This extends to articles, videos, images and any type of online content. Not only would this will be a huge waste of resources and time each time you post content, it would also substantially decrease interlinking between sites and greatly affect SEO.
- Google indexing would become more difficult and time-consuming as they would also need to adjust to the new rules and regulations. Google would have to verify that every site they are indexing did not violate any copyright laws.
- New back-linking methods might emerge such as “no-follow” or “no-right”. The SEO industry would adapt to SOPA and PIPA by linking to sources with much more caution. While that sounds nice in theory, it would mean that interlinking will happen but with specific codes such as “no-right-follow” which would mean that the linked site’s information has not been verified.
In a reasoned rebuttal to Rep. Smith, the members of SEMPO (non-profit advocacy group for search and digital marketers) wrote the following, which has largely been echoed throughout the industry:
“Our members are intimately aware of the value of intellectual property. The mantra of most search marketers substantiates this: “Content is king.” Our members spend their days creating unique content for their clients so that consumers can better find and understand the clients’ products and services – and therefore be more likely to purchase them. We don’t like it when our content is duplicated or plagiarized either. It undermines our effectiveness. However, we find that we have all the laws and legal resources we need to fight IP theft right now. What SOPA seeks is not to target the perpetrators of IP theft or piracy, rather to impose upon innocent companies – companies that compose the Internet as a medium – a mandate to become policemen and lawyers, enforced with sanctions or jail time.”
In the wake of the bill’s abrupt death last week, millions have lauded its defeat as a major victory for online protests – one which saw the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon etc. joining forces with grassroots campaigns from ordinary citizens. And perhaps most ironically, the defeat of SOPA and PIPA has showcased yet again – after a year of historic examples in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt – the growing power of the web to galvanize people and affect change.
How Private Is Your Data, Really?
The SEO industry has been crying foul since October over the controversial decision by Google to make Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) search the “default experience” for signed-in users. Why? Because SSL allows Google users to encrypt their search queries, and as a consequence, stops passing query data to analytics software – including Google Analytics. Once the switch was made, analytics users began to see “not provided” appearing in their data, indicating that the search had been encrypted and the keyword data was therefore not available.
Google’s reasoning, ostensibly, was to protect the privacy of its signed-in users. As they explain on their blog, “(Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that helps provide secure Internet communications for services like web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other data transfers.” Though this may be true, there are a few glaring holes in this move towards increased “privacy”:
- Google’s rapidly expanding suite of services and social media encourages users to stay logged-in, depriving webmasters the necessary data on their users to improve their content and engagement.
- Part of the reason they made the switch was to reduce the effectiveness of their competitor’s products. Google has accused Bing of using Google data to boost their own search algorithm on a few occasions, and they’re attempting to block as much of this data as possible from being seen by anyone but Google.
- Google is giving PPC advertisers exclusive access to query data while refusing to provide insights to site owners who want to grow and improve the traffic organically. So it seems that the privacy protection does not extend to you if you click on a paid ad.
- It appears to be another bold move toward boosting their expanding social network, Google+. They crave the “+1”s that users add while logged-in, so that they can recommend sites to the people in your circles. Since their main rival at the moment, Facebook, has had a few major headaches in the past over privacy issues, Google continues to position itself as the more private, secure network.
But what benefit, if any, does this provide the user? The general consensus is that it does not accomplish much of anything, other than making analytics users’ lives more difficult. That, in and of itself, is not necessarily a horrible thing; however, if the user’s privacy and online experience is in no way enhanced by these changes, then it seems like a questionable decision .
And bear in mind that HTTPS (what shows in the URL field) is not a catch-all solution for online security. While it is good for protecting login pages and forms that handle sensitive information, essentially forcing much of the web to use this protocol could be considerably expensive, while providing minimal benefits:
- HTTPS uses more bandwidth, requiring more power and more servers.
- Pages usually load more slowly – especially on mobile devices and congested networks.
- Offers no real security advantages for static HTML pages – you can still be spied-on while browsing.
- It can cost a few hundred dollars per annum, per domain to set up HTTPS. For a small business that may be a prohibitive expense.
Obviously, we have not been thrilled with the news here at RSO. Not allowing us to see where some of our clients’ organic traffic is coming from (and it remains to be seen what percentage of the data is being blocked) is not so much detrimental to us, but to our clients’ business. Tell us what you think.
Less Is More with Social Media Strategy…
Courtesy urbn.com
Is it really good business practice to get on the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it? Like a moth to a flame, you will end up losing more time and resources by blindly following the latest marketing trend. Resist the urge, and instead, devote yourself to articulating your product and brand strategy – what it is and what it is not.
1) Test and measure your needs Here, the old adage applies, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” As of now, what social media channels are you working with? Active channels only. Dead accounts with profiles but no activity don’t count. Say your company has a presence with a consistent blog and Twitter that is managed by your CEO. That’s not a bad start. First, can you measure which of these is either 1) creating online dialogue or 2) creating leads or partnerships (these metrics are more telling than the simple follower or fan count). For the latter, those will take time to quantify – a year or more! With these results, you might even find that you can eliminate one that isn’t producing or redirect to a new audience, find a professional writer, etc. If your audience likes re-tweeting quick and easy micro-blogs, no need to spend hours writing blog posts.
2) Assess your resources and prioritize The caveat to your toolkit is “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” No need to give in to peer pressure and create a blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube channel, Tumblr, etc, etc all at once if you can’t create and manage enough (useful) content for them all. How big is your marketing team? One full-time person? Three part-time contractors? An intern?
First rule – don’t make it harder than it is! You don’t want to over-manage too many outlets and duplicate content that you can streamline. For instance, Facebook is getting better with automatically integrating website blogs into their feed.
3) Creator vs. Contributor Your marketing efforts should reflect a healthy balance between “creator” and “contributor” – meaning you should generate content for your own blog while writing guest post for blogs on partner sites (and linking the two!). Your platform for doing so will also be determined by length – from short tweets, to tumblr photo or FB status updates, to full-length blogs and articles. These tasks will become much more manageable if you outline these posts in a calendar. If your industry is particularly volatile or fast-paced – do this every two weeks or so – but if not, every month or quarter will do. That does not mean scripting out tweets 10 days in advance (but that’s okay too!), but having a theme in mind for a fixed period will give your feed focus and add credibility to your expertise. For those of you with promotions and peak sale seasons, opt for focused banner and ad space with external expert bloggers in your industry. io9.com, a blog for sci-fi geeks(and its sister sites and themes managed under gawker.com) displays ads for related television specials and movie trailers. Foodgawker.com, a crowd-sourced “feast for the eyes” has cleverly placed adds buried amongst their appetizing photos.
The overall message is not to succumb to the pressures of creating pages and pages of content – but rather implementing a well-rounded presence online on diverse platforms.
Facebook Pages: Social Plug Ins vs Applications.
Facebook’s influence on business continues to grow daily, and any business looking to start a foray into the world of social media usually starts by establishing a Facebook page and/or adding “Like” buttons to their website or products. While creating a page is a must for any business starting off in social media, starting the process can be daunting and the distinction between components such as plug ins and applications can become blurred. Understanding what they are and when they should be used is important for a business.
Social Plug-in’s, as Facebook calls them, were their first offering to help people socialize their websites and products. Plug-ins consist of the ubiquitous “like” button, share buttons, comments within a website, and log-in additions that allow users to log into the website through Facebook itself. Plug-ins were created to allow businesses to share and socialize their content simply and cheaply (read: free). Facebook also provides free analytical tools to allow a business to track how effective their plug-ins are at sharing content. Plug-ins are the ideal choice for a small business looking to grow its social following on a tight budget.
Facebook Apps is the next level up once a business has exhausted its use in plug-ins. Apps are often found as the page tabs that can be seen on the left side of the page. Some examples are welcome tabs, polls, and contact forms. Various companies such as Wildfire and Involver have sprung up to meet the needs of this new market and provide simple and effective ways for businesses to develop applications for a set cost or pricing package. Apps can also be created in house via the Facebook canvas (apps.facebook.com) but a basic to advanced knowledge of HTML is necessary. Apps exist to offer businesses the opportunity to provide their users with much more rich and engaging experience than a plug-in would allow alone.
Both plug-ins and apps offer businesses a range of tools to enhance their user engagement and hopefully increase conversions. Deciding which to use can be a tough decision though. Plug-ins are a great start for a business on a budget or for the business that is trying to build a fan base from the start. Apps are the next logical step for a business that already has these fans or needs to propel their content to a larger audience.
To decide on which method is best for your business, ask these three questions:
- Do you already have a large audience? If the answer is no, than plug ins are your best choice, but if it is yes apps are the way to go.
- Do you have a budget to promote? If your business does not have a set budget to promote, than go with the cheap and effective social plug ins. If you do have a budget than craft a slick, engaging app that will put your page in the spotlight.
- Are people already engaging with your business on an ongoing basis, and if so what drives them? This is a two part question and perhaps the most important. If customers are already engaging with your business without plug-ins and apps, then take the time to determine why and tailor your app design plan around that. Customers will often provide you with the right verbage and ideas to keep them coming in the door on their own.
Any business can use tools such as plug ins and apps to grow a large, engaged fan base and socialize their brand identity. Determining the best way to go about it is an important step, but without understanding the tools at your disposal a business will never be able to create and effective and meaningful campaign to increase customer engagement.
Social Media Behavior in National Crises – and Business Lessons
Courtesy Google Images
Has social media demonstrated yet another side to its under-estimated potential in the wake of national crises? People began reviewing the impact of Twitter and Facebook during the uprising in Egypt and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Similarly, the current flooding in Thailand has also leveraged social media as a tool in public health and public opinion – in a context where such information might not be as candidly expressed through traditional channels. This “democratization” of information-sharing isn’t news (especially for cultures where public criticism is not a norm) – but upon closer examination, how can businesses apply these social media behaviors learned in dire circumstances?
First, what does social media and national crises tell us about our online behavior?
- A crisis brings a sense of urgency that increases online activity. Human nature: we act under pressure or shock. Many Bangkok residents began posting pictures at the first sight of their neighborhoods waist-deep in water. But again, with parts of the city somewhat immobilized, folks do have idle time with to surf the net.
- Online information during a crises is limited to its consumer base, and it is at the mercy of the digital divide. Other provinces of Thailand have been submerged for months, but Bangkok updates are more visible because of its greater usage of smartphones and in-home computers.
- Television and print journalism outlets (including an increase in English language news with the Bangkok Post or Thai PBS International targeted at expats) are posting on their Facebook pages every few hours – with the latest water management and redirection measures at the street and district level. Most impressively, fans are asking questions about their streets and getting prompt responses!
- YouTube videos are going viral to spread the word on public health tips as well as the country’s (lack of) flood management policies. A pro-bono group of researchers, scriptwriters and animators called “RooSu Flood” have banded together and created webisodes that increase awareness on water-borne illnesses and common dangers in a flood (electrical short-circuiting, protective footware, food rationing and consumption). An individual even posted the Thai King offering counter-measures to address Bangkok’s vulnerability to flooding – videotaped in after the last major capitol flood in 1996 – that eerily foretell this year’s flood devastation. And beyond these are a slew of home-made music videos depicting the current “plight of the people” floating down the street in a recently purchased rowboat.
- Social media has also allowed for speedy group organizing and networking. Thai diaspora communities outside of Thailand have joined forces to network across the globe to share their own local relief fundraisers.
Finally, what are the business applications to these trends?
- Step outside your day-to-day sales challenges as marketing manager to see the “big picture.” Smell the air and keep an ear out for these urgent and time-sensitive issues happening in your industry and field of expertise where you can get involved and be seen on social media as an advocate and advisor.
- Join the conversation and actively participate. Those RooSu Flood saw a unfulfilled need to increase public health awareness and got to work. To bring the lesson a little closer to home, if I were a distributor of tents, medical supplies or camping gear, I would see a very visible opportunity with Occupy protestors – which leads to the next bullet point…
- Getting involved with national causes and heated topics gets messy (even natural disaster relief has political implications) – and alienating potential customers and partners who don’t identify with your stance is inevitable – but it is also a true test of your brand and integrity as a business-owner. You might lose 5 fans but gain 3 “super-fans” who are worth their weight in gold (or marketing dollars).
Integrating a Product Launch with Online Marketing
Credit: goivest.com
iVest® is a case in which RSO’s work as marketers began during the product’s infancy – and it goes to show that any product, at any stage of development, can undergo an analysis and makeover of its online marketing tools.
- Gathering the Right Toolkit
- Branding and Product Positioning
- Maintaining the Campaign
iVest’s process from initial brainstorming to live launch spanned a period of five to six months that included branding, web design and setup, social media setup, video production, PPC setup – with RSO taking the lead in the online elements. Moving forward from a human resource perspective, in addition to the direction provided by the entrepreneurs and marketing campaign managers, companies also need a content creator for PR and blogging. Business owners should take a look at this snapshot and organize their marketing toolkit (and people) accordingly.
Real Time Analytics is Now Available
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used web analytics tools available, perhaps more than any other tool. The ability to track visitor behavior allows you to determine what is working for you, and what isn’t. That said, many people who use the tool have found themselves wanting more. Google has responded to these needs, and has now added new real-time capabilities.
In the past, Google Analytics was used entirely to measure the behavior of site visitors in the past. This is great for getting an idea of what worked in the past, but it doesn’t allow you to respond to problems and behavior as it is emerging. Real-time tools are nothing new, but in the past they were only available on paid services. Google’s software is available for free, so this will change the way many site owners approach the web.
Those who are already familiar with Google Analytics and like the interface will be happy to see that the real time interface fits right in. It maintains the same color theme and has a similar menu system. Real time is located in a drop-down on the left side of the home page of the analytics interface.
Options available include overview, locations, traffic sources, and content. Most people will be content to use the “overview” option, which includes a summary of all the most relevant information about what is happening on your site right now. This includes information about how many visitors are currently on the site, the top keywords, the top locations, and the most popular content.
Real-Time Offers a Number of "Real-Time" Metrics
One of the most helpful things about getting real time information is the fact that you can determine what time of day your site is busiest. This lets you make changes regarding when to submit new posts. It also allows you to determine what content is most popular during which times.
Real time is also very useful for visitors who are bringing traffic to their site through social media. By monitoring when a social media channel stops bringing in traffic, you will know when to post a new tweet or another announcement of Facebook, for example.
Perhaps the biggest complaint that most people have about the real time feature is the fact that it is “too” real time. In other words, it only tells you what is happening on the site right now. The standard analytics tool still offers information about daily traffic, but there is a gap between standard analytics and real time analytics. You can obtain information about the past several days, weeks, or months, and you can obtain information about what is happening right now, but you can’t obtain information about the past ten minutes or hours.
This means that in order to determine what times of day are most popular, you need to actually be in your analytics account watching what is happening. Taking full advantage of real time requires constant monitoring, which can be a little excessive.
All in all, the real time analytics update is a very helpful tool to take advantage of. It will be most useful for sites that need to change and adapt to the behavior of their visitors as it is happening. This means that blogs and news sites will benefit the most. Sites that want to make sure they are properly capitalizing on current events will be able to benefit from this tool more than anybody else.
More serious sites will need history of traffic throughout the day, rather than just what is happening right now. While they will not be able to rely on Google Analytics exclusively, they will be able to use it as a comparison in order to make sure that their other tracking software is working properly.
Marrying Your Keyword Analysis with Website Content
courtesy Google
Is SEO copywriting stunting your creativity? Copywriters passionate about communicating the story behind their products must do so within the limits of the keyword analysis for their sites. They find themselves playing an alternative version of mad-libs – crafting sentences around two provided keywords that will increase traffic to their site based on search engine queries and top rankings.
The following are some challenges and recommendations on copywriting with keywords:
Use Keywords as an Opener to Your Product Description
If you’re working on the general website copy to describe your product or service, you will find that keywords often describe a general product category such as “sleeping bags for backpacking.” How would you spin this keyword if you were hoping to promote the launch of your first sleeping bag for backpacking? It’s a minor grammatical detail, and the lack of flexibility can be frustrating – you can’t pluralize a singular word (or vice versa in this case) to fit your sentence structure.
Here, your keyword should open your sentence or paragraph. Use it as an opportunity to educate your consumer base about the product category in general and to give them shopping tips before introducing your own product. For instance, “Sleeping bags for backpacking ought to be…” If you can spare the “real estate” for copy on your site, incorporating this general information then juxtaposing it with your product offerings and differentiators will make your brand stand out as an industry expert and resource – one that values customer service as much as sales.
Working Around Character and Word Limits
If you are working with limited characters and words (as is the case with GoogleAds), you need to weigh whether including the keyword is worth the space. If the ad is centered around a promotion or sale, the copy should prioritize that action item first – such as “Enter Promotion Code…” or “Free Shipping with…” For each campaign, work with your marketing team to develop a hierarchy of priorities of most important to least.
1. Promotion
2. Keyword
3. Product Offerings
3. Product Function
4. Brand
This list will vary from company to company – for instance, if your brand is well known then brand name within the ad should be prioritized higher on the list. Creating this guideline as a team will allow you become more focused in your limited copy length – and provide you with a template to test various permutations and measure results in your ad campaigns.
The Big Picture: Keyword Analysis as an Indicator of Overall Product Strategy
Now, don’t completely change your product line because the keywords do not fit 100% with what you have to offer. However, if you begin noticing a pattern in the keywords that deviate from your current strategy – it’s probably worth investigating. For instance, if you currently offer a line of battery-powered flashlights and you notice that search queries are leaning towards an eco-friendly rechargeable light, the trend might present a new opportunity in your product development.
Rather than viewing keyword analysis as a limitation for writers, marketers should use it as a tool. Copywriters will have to become masters of succinct messaging and manipulators of sentence structure to weave keywords into organic and compelling copy. More importantly, begin with a solid sense of your company’s product strategy, communicate this to your copywriters so that the keywords alone do not take command of your message.
Google Now Weighing Landing Pages More Heavily In AdWords
After a test trial that started in August in Brazil, Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, Google has decided to roll out a new algorithm that weighs landing page quality more heavily when calculating an AdWords quality score. As a result, ads that Google determines have a higher-quality landing page associated with them will rank higher for lower cost per click bids.
The impact of this on PPC campaigns is noteable, as businesses need to take landing page quality into consideration much more so than they previously did. Landing page quality was considered by Google in the past, but more as a factor to reject ads or give them a lower quality score. An ad that directed users to a misleading or low quality landing page could be rejected or lowered in quality score, but a good, relevant landing page wouldn’t raise the quality score. With the new algorithm, Google is attempting to ensure that ads within their network link their keywords closely to the content found on the landing pages. Google plans to enforce this by crawling every landing page associated with an ad and using its algorithm to determine a positive quality score.
Google’s new algorithm also means that a business that invests more time in creating a quality landing page pertinent to the ad campaign will be able to reach a larger audience for a lower cost, something any business can appreciate. Google decided to implement this new algorithm as a response to ads they were seeing in their network that were of the same quality as top ranking ads, but had much higher quality landing pages. These ads were being “lost in the shuffle” as ads with lower quality landing pages and often not ranking as high as they should.
Google sees this as the next step in ensuring that advertisers are adhering to best practices when it comes to creating ads and to reward those that have been following best practices already. The changes are expected to begin rolling out in the next few weeks with Google warning that variations in ad position and quality score are likely, but that variations should return to normal within a few weeks.
To ensure that you are following Google’s guidelines for landing page best practices, make sure to read their AdWords support pages and follow their blog for updates.
