Google Will Change Web Marketing in 2012

4:48 PM Thursday December 22, 2011
by Brian Whalley | Comments (62)

To view the full article click here

7 Reasons to Rethink Your Blogging Strategy: New Research

By Phil Mershon
Published December 22, 2011

Do you blog?

This article examines new research that shows blogging is here to stay.

Like many social media tools, blogs have seen a steady increase in numbers and influence over the last several years.

Note the growth charted by Invesp. On Dec. 2, 2011, that number was 178,637,835 (according to BlogPulse).

Number of Blogs Grows

14 million blogs were added since July 2011 (as of 12/2/2011).

If people are adding nearly 3 million blogs per month, surely this is a tool worth understanding and maximizing…..to read the rest of this blog click here

SEO. SEO. Ahhhh..SEO. What the heck is it? Well, most people would say that it is the practice of doing something called ‘optimizing’ your website for the best results in search engines. There are many different ways to do this but some basic principles apply – make sure your website is in a search engine friendly format such as HTML, ensure you have the best keywords in the headings and most of all – provide great, relevant content.

Anyway, that is a whole other debate in itself but what I’m going to try and tackle here is, is SEO a real and an attractive opportunity that can help enhance your business or is it something that sounds really cool but isn’t actually true. Kind of like King Arthur and Camelot.  I mean, yeah, who wouldn’t want a lady to emerge from a lake and give you an awesome sword that brings you ultimate power?

Let’s start with that. Let us imagine that SEO is King Arthur and his awesome sword (and no, that’s not a euphemism). Much like how people would attest to the mythical man himself, there are thousands of people out there who will do the same for SEO and will happily take your money to use their service. You are promised riches beyond your wildest dreams and all of a sudden you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Don’t worry – King Arthur is here to fight for your business!

Then you ask – ok, so how long will this take and what kind of results should I expect? All of a sudden, King Arthur turns to you and, looking like he’s about to lead you into a stirring battle speech but then disappoints and says.. errmmm…well…not quite sure..could be 6 months..could be a year and nothing is guaranteed. Wow, thanks Arthur. You have just crushed my spirit.

But anyway, all loosely fitting analogies aside, why is that? Everyone says SEO works but try and pin down the exact science and timescale and it’s like nailing jelly to the wall.  Followed all the online advice and 3 months down the road, still not seeing more visitors come in from Google? And that SEO guy who you paid all that money to told you this was a sure thing! Swine.

Well, not necessarily. Yes, there are a whole bunch of people out there selling snake oil but here is a good way to determine who is the fibber and who isn’t: ask them how long it will take and if can they guarantee it. The fibbers will tell you: almost immediately and they can absolutely guarantee it, hand on heart.

That’s because SEO is a slow process and with large search engines such as Google constantly tweaking, updating and changing their algorithms, there is always a possibility it’ll change again and not to your benefit. But here is the thing – Google, Yahoo, Bing and all other search engines goal is to provide their users with the best and most relevant content for their search. So, if your website provides the best and most relevant content for someone’s search, it stands to reason that you’ll be listed higher, as opposed to lower in the page rankings. That isn’t to say, you’ll definitely appear top though. After all, isn’t there always SOMEONE in life just a bit luckier, with a bit more money and a few more doors of opportunity open to them than you? Well, it’s the same in the great wide world of SEO. If you have a million dollars to throw at it, chances are, sooner or later, there will be someone with a million and one dollars to throw at it to knock you off. Like life, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

Now, you may be thinking why bother then? Well, it’s still a worthwhile cause. Because, while it’s not always assured and it takes a while, you can bet that if you made a website using flash and didn’t put any content into it and named it something totally absurd, it wouldn’t get very far. In fact I would totally, 100% guarantee that for you, as would anyone else that knows anything about SEO. Maybe even the always-elusive-on-these-things Google would too. So, in a way, this is proof that it does work, even if not always to the desired level.

Listen, SEO is best used as part of a wider array of marketing services and when it does come off, it can be your best friend. But just don’t expect it to happen quickly. Realistically, it does take at least 6 months to a year, but as a long term strategy, it can have tremendous pay off, just not always. Use it alongside your social media marketing and PPC and all your other online marketing techniques. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.  A wise man once said (well, some guy I read on a blog post the other day) that the best SEO technique is just to create the best content. Don’t drive yourself mad trying to understand the machine.

Tell us what you think – vote in the poll below!

You can view the full post here

Six Social Media Trends for 2012

10:25 AM Monday December 12, 2011
by David Armano

Each year at this time, I look forward and predict trends in social media for the coming year. But first, I look back at my predictions from last year. How’d I do? Not bad.

Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint study from Booz Allen and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social media spending, while 38 percent of CEO’s label social as a high priority.

I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would “strike back” in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidable initiative that acts as Google’s “social layer” to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industry observers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves into something complimentary in a highly social Web.

Read the rest of this article here

In the latter’s case, the decision to ban internal email came after Atos did a study of its 80,000 employees and found that out of all the email they receive daily, only 15% of it they actually found useful and the rest a waste of time. The study went further and uncovered that on average, each employee received 100 internal emails a day and was spending about 15-20 hours a week dealing with the deluge.

This story resonated with me as it reminded me of a former employer whose lifelong crackberry, I mean blackberry, addiction affected everyone working for him. This particular employer demanded an instant reply whenever an email was sent, and boy, would he let you know about it if he didn’t get it. This alongside his insatiable appetite for speculative information and the tendency for erratic outbursts of frustration, led to a culture of constant nervousness amongst employees. Soon enough, you’d find yourself making sure you didn’t miss an email and covering your back by cc’ing colleagues, so that you’d have some evidence to exonerate yourself. Coupled alongside this, was also the landmines laid by others that you’d have to regularly defuse so that you couldn’t be thrown in front of the train when their time for reprimanding came. I probably spent about 25% of my time managing this side of the job rather than doing my actual job.

Then there was the other former employer whose grammar skills rivaled that of an 8 year old. She was lovely, but whenever anyone would receive an email from her, it was like trying to decipher binary from the page. Over time, this led to hours upon hours being wasted just on trying to understand what was being communicated and of course, she was never available by phone or in person to explain.

My personal stance is that email isn’t dead. It’s just been abused by people that don’t really understand how to use it properly. It’s easy to start saying it’s on its way out because of the rise of social media and because fewer people are using email, but the truth is those none-users account for those yet to enter the work force.

Video didn’t kill the radio star. It made a significant impact for about 10 or so years, then MTV decided to start showing Teen Mom instead. It’ll take more than just 2 currently popular social networks to make a difference to a medium that has been in use since Ray Tomlinson invented it in 1971. We just all have to try a little harder – ask yourself, do you REALLY need to send THAT email?

The investigation by UK competition regulator, The Advertising Standards Authority, has been passed onto the Office of Fair Trading and centers on allegations of exaggerated savings and unfair promotions by the Chicago based company.

One of the complaints upheld by the ASA came in May 2011 when Groupon advertised for a 70% discount on train tickets in the UK. When the link was followed, it was found that no such deal existed. There was also the controversy surrounding a ‘60% off’ dinner deal that also turned out to be unscrupulous.  The company claimed it was a “drafting error” made by “new employees” but since then there has been a further eleven upheld complaints which range from incorrect descriptions to exaggerating the true value of discounts on offer. 

None of this seemed to matter though when back on November 3^rd, Groupon raised $700 million selling 35 million shares at $20 each – the largest IPO by a U.S. Internet company since Google first went public in 2004.

This also came after the company had twice been reprimanded by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for producing misleading figures such as understating operating losses by $120 million and inflating revenue by some $400 million.

Groupon’s business model is to split revenues raised from selling the coupons 50/50 with the business taking part in the offer. Groupon also takes that commission from any vouchers which are sold but unclaimed, unless the buyer requests a refund. The idea is that Groupon will send hundreds of new customers to the business, where the business owner can recoup the losses of running such a loss leading offer by upselling the new customers to other services and/or from customers that return and pay full price after discovering the local business through Groupon.

This has led to questions being raised over whether the customers that these deals attract are loyal to the new business they have discovered or to Groupon. Many argue that it is the latter since once the customers have redeemed their discount, they often don’t return which can leave the local business with huge losses. This was the case for Rachael Brown who runs a cupcake business in the south of England who lost thousands through a Groupon promotion. 

Another drawback of the Groupon model is that when Groupon makes mistakes such as the ones it has just been remanded for by the ASA, the effects of that customer negativity is often directed towards the business. It’s hard to see how a business modal that seemingly has such high risk for the customer (the local business running the offer, not the coupon buyer) and is based around that customer losing money can really sustain itself.

Regardless, Groupon rose 8.3 percent yesterday to $18.95 in New York trading and continues to grow along with its competitors such as Living Social & KGB Deals (who we should also mention has had 16 informally resolved complaint cases between them). Google’s coupons offering also looks set to be around the corner in the form of Google Offers.

There is clearly a lot of buzz surrounding these types of sites but with none of them yet close to making a profit, it could be an easy option for investors to flip their shares and profit off them based on the buzz, rather than actual revenue being generated by these companies. Such a scenario would result in the bubble bursting, much like how it did with the dot coms.

What are your thoughts? Do you use Groupon or similar sites for your business or as a consumer? Do you think Groupon really presents a genuine opportunity for local businesses to grow their customer base?

Click here to read the full article

Anyway, Google has probably offended at least 7 people down at the Occupy Wall Street movements (I wonder if they have 4G internet access down there?), by launching their new bubble adds and to be fair, I think those concerned by this (which are also probably more than 7) do have a legitimate case. Basically, these are ads that appear in Google Maps when you are looking for a local business or service and when clicked on, underneath the location details, are now ads that are supposed to be relevant to your search. Problem is, because Google runs these things using an algorithm, and not real people, the algorithm has the tendency to get a bit confused and throw up questionable results that it thinks could relate to your search. Take the below example, that I found earlier while browsing for a memorial park to eat my kit kat in:

You know me so well, Google

Despite my facetious style of writing in this article, it is probably quite understandable as to why advertising for corporate housing could be deemed somewhat tacky by those that labor themselves with deeming these things. The other question is, of course, even if the advertising were more accurately targeted, isn’t advertising on the back of a memorial park just a little questionable to begin with? Not sure I’d advise that approach through my marketing agency.

Anyway, the other thing to consider is now that these bubble ads are here, it’s likely that businesses that take an active interest in their place on Google Maps will have to advertise through Google themselves to beat off unwanted placements for their Google bubble. A cynical man may say it’s an attempt by Google to run up revenue in it’s AdWords department (where it makes all the moneez).

It’s already caused quite a stir so it’ll be interesting to see how this develops and if it’ll make it to the Google front pages, (since maps is often where Google likes to test things before more visible roll outs) or if it’ll be another thing that Google ends up testing and dropping all together.