Surprise! SEO is changing!
All. Of. The. Time. Some trends won’t surprise you — social media, mobile. But there just may be one or two that will. That’s why we like to talk about Visibility Optimization, not just SEO. Search engines aren’t the only ones who see you — people do.
1. Social Media. Huge, huge huge. Did I mention huge? Everyone talks about the conversation, but so few are good at having one. You can’t just post a video and expect people to beat a path to your door. You have to find ways to get other people to get other people to you. Choosing the right options for doing that for your business is like putting puzzle pieces together. You may need some help.
2. Mobile. As thousands of people daily discover the convenience of accessing the web via mobile devices, optimization has to adapt. Keywords need to be shorter, mobile SEM can’t just be a clone of your online SEM, apps like QR readers must be taken into account — all are going to have an impact on how well your business does.
3. Branding. Didn’t expect that to show up, did you? Branding will be more important to getting your business found, not less. It works like this: Google has made personalized search the default option. So unless a HUGE portion of the population opts out, which they won’t, sites that are more well known and visited most often will enjoy better rankings. In fact, because search history is also taken into account, the same sites will keep popping up for people, search after search. Without a strong brand presence, you could get lost.
4. SEM. We all know that online marketing can help build your visibility. But the more relevant it is will influence just how much it helps. Is it showing up on the right content? Do the keywords match the content? What are the trends on sponsored vs. organic listing? While SEM helps optimization is just common sense, because trends change all the time, your marketing optimization strategy has to change, too.
5. The site itself. No-brainer! Just make sure you load it with keywords, write lots of blog posts and update your news section and you’re fine, right? Not entirely. You will also be judged by how quickly your site loads, whether it’s engaging once someone gets there, how long people spend. If your site is ugly, confusing, boring, slow or poorly constructed, no magical keywords or blog posts can save it. According to a study by Canadian researchers, people will form an opinion of your site in less than 1/20th of a second. If engines see that people click off in a second, you’re not so relevant.
All of this just means that unless you’re willing to spend a whole lot of time keeping up with the trends, you’re going to need someone to help out. If you want to talk, call us.
Posted in
advertising,
branding,
communication,
interactive,
new media Tags:
new media,
optimization,
SEO,
strategy,
visibility
Recently, one of our own came in quite excited about using her iPhone – to pay for her coffee at Starbucks. More and more banking and financial services are being used via cell phones every day, and those companies who don’t make mobile services easy for their customers will make it easy for their customers to decide to go elsewhere.
From making bill or loan payments to transferring funds from one place to another, consumers already see the value of the phone’s mobility and flexibility. But what’s in it for the financial sector? Read more »
Posted in
communication,
interactive,
marketing,
technology
Just about everyone here in the office is a gadget hound.
We love reading up on the latest time sucking gizmos that seem to pop up daily. So, when it was announced that Google TV would soon be available for purchase, our own Digital Media Director, Matt Zumstein, decided he would take the plunge and buy one.
Below is Matt’s experience with Google TV:
I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about a new product coming out as I was with Google TV. A TV/box that could stream the Internet and allow consumers to interact and download any application in the Android store, what’s not to get excited about?
The first day it was available to the public I reached out to a buddy of mine at Google who granted me a 20% discount, even more reason to get excited. I ordered the Sony blue ray Google TV that night and counted the days until it arrived. My wife and I had already created plans to cut cable and stream directly from Hulu and CBS interactive.
The day it arrived, all I could think of was coming home and playing with my new toy. Setting it up was not difficult and took probably twenty minutes. I quickly jumped on Hulu only to get the dreaded error message:
“We see you are trying to access Hulu through Google TV. Hulu is not currently allowing streaming through Google TV but we are working hard to bring you Hulu Plus”.
As multiple obscenities left my mouth I realized the kids were in the other room and I needed to tone it down.
I quickly checked CBS.com, ABC.com & NBC.com only to receive the same error message. My wife and I looked at each other in disappointment but tried to stay optimistic. We went on TBS.com, TNT.com & HGTV.com and found videos we could stream; however the experience was not the same.
TNT videos minimize at every commercial break and you need to manually put back onto full screen.
We also checked out Youtube only to find the quality of the videos on an HDTV was poor at best. We even tried to stream from Fancast which a lot of bloggers were saying was the current work around.
Our first reaction was to return the product immediately since there was no value for us. But again we wanted to stay optimistic about a product I spent the last three weeks dreaming about. Realistically we knew that Google would not strike a deal with the major networks anytime in the near future. But we thought maybe we could justify our purchase with the app store.
Quickly we found out there was no app store, just 8-10 pre loaded applications (most of them paid apps).
While having Vevo as an app and being able to stream from Netflix was cool I couldn’t justify the $400 purchase to my wife or even to myself. It was time to return it.
I called Sony up and stated my case and let them know Google TV was blocked from all the major players. The first person I spoke with told me I could return it but I would have to eat the $10+ shipping cost. Maybe I was a little emotional from my recent disappointment but that was not the answer I was looking for.
Next I was told that I would need to speak with someone from Sony’s technical service department to confirm that the product was not as advertised. After being bounced around a couple departments I finally reached someone who could help me, but unfortunately my phone died and I had to start the process all over again. It was just one of those days.
Finally I spoke with someone at Sony but they swore they could stream Hulu, which I quickly correct by pointing them to several blog postings stating otherwise.
At last I convinced them it was false advertising when I asked them where I could stream the program “Community” which was advertised on all of the TV’s on their website.
Long story short, I spent about two and a half hours with at least five people in customer service and I think I am finally going to be able to save that $10 shipping cost I was so adamant on saving.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the technology is present to stream anything on the web and even download apps specifically from the Android store (Google TV says coming in early 2011 now). The future versions of this product will definitely be something to get excited about, once all the major players are on board.
Personally I am going to wait till version 2.0 or 3.0 comes out before I take a risk on this again.
But until then I’m rating this product 2 out of 5 stars.
Posted in
interactive,
technology Tags:
communication,
customer service,
google,
googletv,
interactive,
internet,
sony,
television,
video,
youtube
We are always listening and learning at re:group. Here is an update on where some of us will be this Fall and information on how you might participate.
September 28, 2010 Social Media Club of Detroit presents Scott Stratten’s #UnBook Tour
6 – 8PM at the Detroit Public Library. Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing.com. He is an expert in Viral, Social and Authentic marketing, which he refers to as un-marketing. Over 60,000 people follow him on Twitter. David Murray, our Director of Social Web founded this club. If you are interested please let us know, we would be glad to have you join us as our guest. For more details click here. Read more »
Posted in
branding,
events,
franchising,
general,
interactive,
new media,
search,
social media Tags:
blog,
conferences,
events,
franchise,
social media,
wordpress
I very seldom forward links or emails to people in my office. Something really has to make me sit up and take notice before I’ll inflict it on unwilling victims. But this morning, when I read Christopher Penn’s blog entry, “No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from”, I felt I had to share.
So many times when I’m reading online, the content and comments are so full of vitriol, it’s almost physically painful. Don’t you get tired of all the “nattering nabobs of negativism” yourself? If so, here’s my challenge: read Penn’s blog entry and take it to heart. Social and online media have so much power that they really can make a difference, in peoples’ lives and in the world. It’s a shame to give it over to the dark side.
Remember, all you Peter (and Peggy) Parkers out there: with great power comes great responsibility. Use yours wisely. (And forgive me for mixing my sci-fi references.)
Posted in
advertising,
branding,
general,
interactive,
media,
social media Tags:
online media,
social media
No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Unfortunately, I’m referring to something a little more prosaic. Specifically, website structure and usability.
Whenever I sit down to start designing a site, one of my biggest rules is that the user must always understand where they are within the site. Not that they need to see the Site Map, just that they immediately understand which section they are in so they can more easily choose their next destination. For example, if you are reading something in the ubiquitous ‘About us’ section and click a contextual link that takes you to a press release, you immediately know you have changed sections. And if you want to continue reading case studies for awhile and then go back to a particular page in the About Us section, you can easily go back and pick up where you left off without having to click a back button. I happen to be a firm believer in the philosophy that if you have to click a back button, the site wasn’t designed very well.
Now this seems fairly obvious. But I’m not really just talking about a clear and concise navigation bar, because it’s much more than that. I’m talking everything from about how the content is organized, using breadcrumbs or visual indicators in the navigation bar, to design changes to the layout between sections. Even a great nav bar can’t save a crappy information architecture. I believe I must always give you, the user, ways to help orient yourself.
My assumption has always been that everybody is just like me and everyone needs some kind of mental model when they are interacting with a website. Cut and dry, black and white, if the user doesn’t know where they are, the site has failed.
Well, it recently occurred to me that maybe not everyone feels this way. If you are able to find what you were looking for, find something interesting, or complete your objective (ie. buy the product, contact the person, etc.), then what difference does it make if you don’t know where you are? You didn’t really miss anything, right?
My background is in the print world where you often times assume that the experience of a reader looking at a physical document is a fairly linear path. The reader starts at the front and reads (or skims) most everything on the way to the end. I tend to navigate websites in a similar way. Although not necessarily in a linear method, I usually read a little from the page that got me there, then a little from a different section, then a little from another, and so on. I rarely just stop at one page, and I like to feel like I’ve seen everything that might be important or useful. I know it’s not possible to read everything on a site, but I like to think I’ve read most everything. With this approach, understanding where I am is really important.
But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m just old. I didn’t think 38 made me out of touch, but it might be time to at least accept that the world is changing. Just about everyone under 30 has grown up with the internet. To them, jumping around from site to site getting snippets of info from various sources and ingesting a constant stream of input is par for the course. There is absolutely no illusion that it’s even possible to read everything out there, nor do you even want to. You just take what you need and move on.
So that brings me back to my original question. Do you need a mental model? Is having a clear understanding of where you are in the structure of a web site a key element of your user experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Posted in
interactive Tags:
Information architecture,
website design
Will Google Buzz be a winner? At this point, it’s too early to tell. The new application Google Buzz is a social media sharing service that is integrated right in Gmail. You can share photos, links, videos, status updates, etc.
One advantage of Google Buzz versus other social networks is that it populates followers for you based off of your Gmail contact list automatically. They are encouraging social networking by creating another way for you to share content easily without barriers. Some other cool features are the real time updates and the ability to easily embed photos and pictures in your update. You’re also not limited to 140 characters.
Unfortunately, Buzz has a few limitations. Buzz updates are sent automatically to your inbox, as well as your Google Buzz tab. The biggest limitation I see is that although you can broadcast your updates and share information easily among your Google followers, there isn’t a way to automatically share this same information with your Facebook or Twitter followers. For now, it is its own encapsulated network. That, and the fact that you can’t Buzz with someone who is not on Gmail, will slow the viral spread of this new network.
What do you think of Google Buzz? Post your comments. And, once you’ve started playing with it, see PC World’s article on 5 Tips for Power Users
Posted in
interactive,
new media Tags:
buzz,
friend sharing,
GMail,
google buzz,
social sharing
Google Labs is working on more personalized search. It allows the user to more easily find relevant blogs, reviews and other public content from their on-line social circle.
When you sign in to Google and do a search, relevant web content written by people in your social circle will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called “Results from people in your social circle.” So you can see the opinions and ideas of people you know about what you’re searching for.
What is your social circle? It’s a combination of your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you’re publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed). Check it out and let us know what you think. Learn more about social search.
Posted in
advertising,
interactive,
new media,
search Tags:
GMail,
google,
search,
Social Search,
Web
