Digital Marketing and Technological Insight

Microsoft is finally seeing the light when it comes to the power of the browser and works to continue its mantra of  “software plus services”. Yesterday the boys in Redmond announced that they will be offering a “lightweight” version of various Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) that can be accessed through the browser. The new service, called Office Web Applications, will be part of the next release of Office. Office Web Applications will be delivered through Office Live and will offer free ad-based or subscription based access.

“As part of the next release of Office, we’re announcing that Microsoft will deliver Office Web applications - lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote - through a browser. With these new applications, people can use a browser to create, edit, and collaborate on Office documents. What’s great is that this provides a consistent Office experience when and where our customers want it, regardless of whether they are accessing their Office documents through the PC, phone, or browser.”

Now this should come as a shock to no one considering it makes perfect sense and Google has had tremendous success with their web-based Office type products. So the question becomes, will they work outside of Internet Explorer? Based on previous Microsoft product launches I would say no – or at least not function correctly. Now I am a huge fan of Firefox and Google’s Chrome, but if I was Microsoft I would make Office Web Applications I.E. exclusive – want to use our products then use our browser. All is fair in love and the browser war.

Check out some Office Web Applications screen shots below:

As with any website, it is common knowledge to apply standard SEO best practices in order to increase your search engine rankings.  However, when dealing with international search engines there are extra steps that should be taken into consideration to optimize your site properly.  Here are some best practices to keep in mind when it comes to international SEO:

International SEO Guidelines and Best Practices

Foreign extension vs. Subdomain
1.    Foreign searchers tend to search in their native language on local search engines
a.    An Italian consumer will search in Italian on Google.it instead of on Google.com
2.    Local search engines want to deliver the most relevant content for their users; results are skewed to what the local searcher would most like to see
3.    Using a foreign domain extensions is the ideal scenario when targeting a specific audience in their country of origin
a.    Goal: Target Italian consumers in Italy
b.    Solution: Publish your site at www.website.it
4.    While the ideal scenario is to have a url with a foreign extension, it is an acceptable and common practice to use a subdomain
a.    A subdomain is not affected by Google’s sandbox penalty which can help your site gain exposure in the short term.  Learn all the pros and cons of each strategy before moving forward.

International Hosting
1.    Sites with foreign domain extensions should be hosted in originating country if possible
2.    Search engines identify your site based on IP address – your site may be removed from searches if the IP address is not in the country you are targeting
3.    Use Google Webmaster Central for geo-targeting content

Identify Language in Metadata
1.    The language being used on the site should be identified within the meta data
a.    Examples:
i.    If the site is in English, use “EN”
ii.    If the site is in Italian, use “IT”
2.    Meta description should contain information that identifies your location (city, state, etc)
3.    If you have a local address, display it on the homepage

Localized Language
1.    Conduct keyword research keeping your target audience in mind, search behavior varies across countries and languages.
2.    All content should be translated for the native language. A human translator should be used whenever possible instead of an automatic translation tool.
3.    Use local language and spellings
a.    Holiday vs. Vacation
b.    Colour vs. Color

Local Inbound Linking
1.    Develop a linking strategy with sites hosted in the country of origin (it is preferable to link to sites using a foreign domain extension).

Tactics to Avoid
1.    Keyword Stuffing
2.    Doorway Pages
3.    Javascript Redirects
4.    All of these tactics will negatively affect your rankings and your site will be penalized

Google has always kept their search homepage free of clutter, unneeded text and of course ads. Well today I just noticed they added a link promoting the new T-Mobile G1 - the first android-powered phone.

When you click on the link it takes you to a splash page that lives within the Google.com domain, however that page is basically a shell to get you to click over to T-Mobiles website. I guess Google felt sending a visitor directly to T-Mobile from their homepage was pushing it - but man imaging the link-juice from that link if they did?

I am not against a company promoting its goods and services, especially on a website they own, but the Google.com homepage has always been a sanctuary for simplicity. Hopefully this isn’t a sign of things to come.

Advertisers who utilize Yahoo’s Sponsored Search can now target ads to specific zip codes -  Yahoo Search Marketing Blog made the announcement today. Only Ask.com offers this specific of an option when it comes to geo-targeting, Google AdWords allows for zip code guidance but does not get this exact.

Any search marketer should utilize geo-targeting in some capacity. Geo-targeting does result in fewer clicks, but those clicks are more targeted and qualified - the quality over quantity theory comes into play.  “While geo-targeting is usually seen as limiting your area to fewer clicks, one new geo-targeting feature can actually bring you more traffic. If you were trying to reach United States customers before, your choices were either to select the entire market — both the U.S. and Canada — or individually select each of the 50 states. (Oh, and the District of Columbia. How could I forget you, D.C.?)”

Here is the new feature live in the Yahoo Search Marketing interface:

Every month the Oxyweb Blog puts out a “world map of social networks around the world”. The map is a visual representation of the most popular social networking services on a country by country basis - rankings are based on Alexa data.

I love looking at this map for many reasons, the biggest being people in the United States tend to look at the social networking / media world from a MySpace vs Facebook standpoint. However, as you can see from the multitude of colors on the map that just isn’t true. It is a big and growing world out there and each country operates differently - this is the challenge and excitement of doing International Digital Marketing. Marketers in the U.S. do not even mention Google’s Orkut, however they dominate India and Brazil - two of the fastest growing economies in the world. Obviously Social Networking conversations should start with the big players, however sometimes you have to look outside your window and see who else is coming up the driveway.

Here are the map changes from September 2008:

Facebook gains Bahamas from Hi5
Facebook gains Belgium from Skyrock
Facebook gains Cuba from Hi5
Hi5 gains Cyprus from Facebook
Hi5 gains Luxembourg from Facebook

Here are the changes from august 2008:

Facebook gains Albania from Hi-5
Facebook gains Austria from MySpace
Facebook gains Bahamas from Hi-5
Facebook gains Italy from MySpace
Facebook gains Libya from MySpace*
Facebook gains Libya from MySpace*
Facebook gains Madagascar from Skyrock
Facebook gains New Zealand from Bebo
Facebook gains Qatar from Orkut
Facebook gains Uruguay from Orkut
Hi5 gains Syria from MySpace*

Check out the full-sized Social Networking Map Here…

When it comes to dealing with Mobile Search / SEO, it is important to remember that the mobile audience is much different than the PC audience. Not only do mobile searchers use a smaller screen with a longer load time to display their results; they are often on-the-go, looking for time-sensitive or location based information (flight times, restaurant phone numbers, etc.), and may not have access to a QWERTY keyboard making search a cumbersome process. The goal of Mobile SEO is to make your content easily found by a mobile searcher as well as making their time on your website a simple and streamlined experience so that they’re likely to find what they need quickly and become a return visitor.

Mobile SEO Best Practices
1. Site Content Should Be Easily Accessible

• Flash, AJAX, and frames create roadblocks for the mobile user. Make your site layout simple and avoid unnecessary design elements.
• Remember that the mobile audience has a smaller screen to view your content – keep titles, metadata, and urls short and succinct so that they can be rendered on a small screen.

2. Keyword Research Must Reflect Mobile Search Results

• Google and other mobile search engines provide “predictive” search – ie., after the searcher types a few letters, the search engine tries to predict what is being searched and provides popular keyword options. If you know what keywords appear in predictive search you can optimize your site around those terms.
• Follow all standard SEO best practices including the use of optimized H1 tags, keyword rich anchor links, optimized titles and metadata.

3. Optimize for a Variety of Mobile Phones, PDAs, Blackberry’s, etc

• Use 100% XHTML, cHTML, or WML code
• Follow all mobile web best practices and then have your site validated - http://www.w3.org/TR/mobileOK-basic10-tests/ & http://validator.w3.org/mobile/
• Make sure robots.txt is accessible to mobile crawlers

4. Implement meta.txt

• Meta.txt files indicate which URL the user-agent should follow to present the most suitable format to the mobile user’s platform.

5. Submit Mobile Site Maps to Search Engines

• Google, Yahoo and other search engines accept mobile sitemaps
• If your website is location based, also submit to local directories

6. Strategic Linking

• Develop an inbound linking strategy with other relevant, mobile websites to increase your site’s relevancy
• Ensure that you are also linking internally to relevant pages within your own website.
• It is necessary to use keyword rich anchor links for both linking strategies.

7. Mobile SEO Analytics

• Develop benchmarks and analyze your results on a consistent basis

Google has been very busy the past week or so updating their Webmaster Tools functionality, the most significant addition being their new crawl errors feature - which by itself is a godsend. This morning Google added yet another feature aimed at helping webmasters make their websites safer. Webmaster Tools now tests websites that are signed up (and verified) for security flaws through their CMS. For now Google is only testing the alerts, which are deliver through the Tools message center, with a few thousand webmasters but will eventually roll it out to a broader audience. This type of interaction with Google is obviously greatly appreciated, especially for people who use various blog platforms (like WordPress) that have been susceptible to security issues / hacks in the past.

So what happens if you get one of these alerts? UPGRADE your CMS or switch platforms!

For as long as their has been SEO in conversations there has always been one simple fact: Flash and SEO do not mix. However, a couple month ago Adobe looked to change this by announcing their planned improvements in the indexing of flash files by Google and Yahoo. Obviously any change in how flash files are indexed by search engines would have a serious impact not only on Flash SEO, but Video SEO and site design / development as well. Since that announcement was made I have not seen any significant changes, through my own testing and research, in how flash content is being indexed. In fact I have seen little evidence or talk about Flash SEO since that announcement was made. However, Brian Ussery put together an awesome “2009 Google Flash SEO” post that goes into in-depth analysis of flash indexing through his own testing and case studies. Brian’s blog post is a definite must read for anyone involved in SEO or site design / development.

Here are the case studies he put together:

• Google flash content association with parent URLs
• Google flash file pagerank
• Googlebot #anchor (fragment identifier) URL extraction
• Google flash text translation

Bottom line is that there is still a lot of uncertainty when it comes to Flash SEO, however things seem to be moving forward (slowly). My recommendation stays the same for now -  it is ok to build flash heavy sites but take into consideration the standard  SEO best practices - check out my SEO Checklist for guidance. But, keep an eye on this as things can change very quickly.

Last night MySpace officially launched their new advertising platform, myAds, which has been in the works for at least a year. MyAds is a self service, targeted ad platform, like the similar product offered by Facebook. Facebook’s ad platform allows only text ads, MyAds currently allows only display ads - advertisers are limited to 728×90 or 300×250.  MyAds offers display ad templates and a flash tool for those who need help creating their ads, of course advertisers can upload their own as well.

MyAds operates on a CPC model and ad placement are prioritized by max CPC rate set by the advertiser and how often ads are clicked on. A key differentiator between MyAds and Facebook however is the ability for MyAds advertisers to “hyper-target” their ads. MySpace’s hyper-targeting technology takes into account a users activity over time, where Facebook focuses on the specific user defined interests. All together there are 1,200 different ways an advertiser can categorize users within MyAds.

So, will this add the revenue stream Rupert Murdoch has been looking for from his social portal? Personally, I don’t think it will be what adWords was to Google but should of course add something to the bottom line. I see MyAds being very similar to Facebook in the sense the CPC will be pennies and result in a high-volume of impressions but low quality click counts. However, as with Facebook, MySpace should be part of any advertisers marketing plan.

From the MySpace Press Release.

MySpace today officially announced the domestic beta launch of MySpace MyAds, the new advertising platform designed to empower individuals and small businesses from local retailers to musicians and politicians to create relevant, targeted promotional business campaigns within the world’s premier social media environment.  MySpace MyAds is a new, do-it-yourself advertising platform that democratizes the landscape of online advertising, enabling anyone to create customized banner ads, target to specific audiences using MySpace’s HyperTargeting technology, and analyze campaign performance tracked throughout the MySpace ecosystem.

With MySpace MyAds, we’re blowing the lid off display advertising solutions for small and medium businesses, said Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing for MySpace. MySpace MyAds is a direct marketer’s dream providing entrepreneurs with the most accessible, personalized, and targeted advertising toolkit in the market. We’re giving businesses better ROI ASAP and in today’s economy, that’s a must-have.

MySpace MyAds empowers any advertiser to build a customized, targeted, and measurable campaign in a few easy steps:

STEP 1: Visit https://advertise.myspace.com or click the Advertise link located at the bottom of any MySpace page
STEP 2: Create a display ad using the MySpace MyAds Builder Tool
STEP 3: Select a variable ad spend anywhere from $25 to $10,000
STEP 4: HyperTarget to customers
STEP 5: Measure ad performance with MySpace MyAds analytics reporting

TechCrunch just posted leaked screenshots of  Brightcove’s latest web-based video distribution platform - called Brightcove 3. The new platform will give video publishers more options and a better, more intuitive user-experience.

About Brightcove: “Brightcove empowers content owners—from independent producers to major broadcast networks—to reach their audiences directly through the Internet. At the same time, we help web publishers enrich their sites with syndicated video programming, and we give marketers more ways to communicate and engage with their consumers.” “Most importantly, we give people the freedom to easily find, watch and participate in a broad range of video content—when and where they choose.”

Some of the new feature of Brightcove 3 include:

• New dashboards
• New video customization features
• Expanded advertiser options
• Ability to create multiple renditions of videos in different standards and bit rates

Check out the rest of the screenshots at TechCrunch.com