Digital Marketing and Technological Insight

Recently I had the chance to sit back and reflect on how far Online Marketing has come since my early days in the industry and where we are headed. Back when i got started in the late 1990’s, when I was more on the development side,  Online Marketing was nothing compared to what it is now. SEO wasn’t really SEO (it was more submitting your site to search engines) email marketing was the best way to communicate with your customers and affiliate marketing / paid search were just showing their true value. Over the years we have seen each component of online marketing grow in importance, change and evolve into real marketing strategies used by companies of all sizes. However, I feel that drastic charges to how we market online are coming.

As with any industry there comes a “tipping point” where the ship is just too crowded and something has to give. For the past couple of years we have seen the rise of people calling themselves “experts” in whatever online area they deem fit - regardless of their actual qualifications. This is creating a great deal of negativity and confusion throughout the online world. The most extreme example is of course SEO. How many SEO experts are out there right now? Just about anyone who even does a tiny bit of SEO work calls themselves an expert. Same thing goes for Affiliate Marketing and every other piece of Online Marketing.  Is the specialization of services really the future? No it isn’t. First, most of the “experts” are just people who are good at selling themselves and talk a good game - but lack in actual real world experience. I can’t count how many times I have talked with these “experts” about a strategy or method and have them back-track and stumble unable to provide any true thoughts on the subject matter outside the normal high-level, over-used, terminology and information. Don’t get me wrong there are a few people who I deem to be TRUE experts in the field but most of the people doing the innovative / meaningful / results driven work are not busy speaking at every single conference out there or spending more time promoting themselves then their clients / companies. The true experts are hard at work making their companies, whether their own or someone else’s, some serious cash.

So what is the future of Online Marketing and all of its pieces like SEO, PPC, Email, etc? The way I see it each piece will become less important individually and more important as part of a total strategy. For example SEO by itself will be a fraction of what it is now as Search Engines get smarter and rely on more semantic information rather then the traditional methods - like inbound links, keyword density, etc - we currently rely on today to rise to the top of the SERP’s. Will SEO ever go away completely? Of course not. As long as there are Search Engines there will be Search Engine Optimization - but what SEO actually entails will change.

The future of Online Marketing is about taking every piece of the online puzzle and putting them together to create a synergistic strategy based on a companies goals and objectives.  Every aspect of Online Marketing should complement each other, no longer will companies be able to rely on one or the other. I also see the future of Online Marketing being about brands and quality. The general web users have and will continue to get smarter - those affiliate based landing pages that offer nothing more than a “order now” button won’t work.  Customers will look and expect to have a wealth of information at their finger tips. Content will still be king but it will go beyond general copy -  the smarter consumer will want to see more social data,  meaning testimonials, feedback, reviews, product comparison and general unbiased information. Companies large and small will need to focus on their entire brand experience, off-site and on-site, in order to compete in a increasingly competitive landscape….notice I said competitive not crowded.

So who stands to really lose from the changes in online marketing? The people who aren’t willing to invest the required time and effort. No more crappy landing pages. No more mass low-quality / high-volume PPC buys.  No more nonsense domain names. Embrace the changes or find a  new line of work.

Ok that is enough ranting for one post…

A couple of days ago Google launched their much anticipated social media / wiki search initiative: SearchWiki. SearchWiki allows logged-in Google users to customize their search results by promoting, commenting, deleting or even adding specific SERP results. These new features are nothing ground breaking, social media services like Digg have been allowing interaction with SERP’s for years and Wikia Search has been doing the same thing for awhile now. However, when it comes to Google anything they do becomes a game changer based on the pure volume of people who use the service and the amount of companies that rely on the organic traffic it generates.

Here is a screen shot of SearchWiki at work with one of my affiliate websites. As you can see next to the title there is an up and down arrow. By “promoting” my site for the search term “college football jerseys” my site went from the 11th spot to #1 in my search results. At the bottom of the listing there is the comment option which allows you to make whatever comment about that specific search result you want - this comment is public, meaning anyone can see what I wrote about the search result.

Here is a screen shot of how to add a site to your SERP. The below option shows up in the footer and allows you to add a specific URL that will show up the next time you search for that specific keyword. If the URL you add is in the Google search index you will see it show up like a normal listing, however if the URL is not indexed you will see just the URL. This raises the question whether or not adding a URL that isn’t indexed would expedite the URL being crawled and added to the index quicker then with other methods.

Obviously everyone within the search business, especially those involved in SEO, are keeping a close eye on SearchWiki. Google is making it very clear that the changes users make to their SERP are seen only by them and does not affect the overall public ranking of a website. However, Google can do whatever they want and it is conceivable that they add how many people promote / remove a website to the overall ranking algorithm - they could even take into account the publicly available comments based on things like keywords. For SEO’s anything and everything has to be planned for.

The real and immediate impact SearchWiki will have is for reputation management, product reviews and customer feedback. SearchWiki will allow customers, fans, clients and anyone else who is logged-in to leave their opinion - good or bad - about a product, company, offering or person. Screw over some people? You better be prepared for anyone who searches for you seeing those negative comments. If anything this shows the increased importance of companies having a comprehensive online communication and customer interaction strategy in place.

Google seems to be working out some of the bugs with program as SearchWiki sometimes goes away for me. I expect to see fluctuations in the service for some time as this is a massive undertaking on the both the technical and strategic side.

For additional information check out the offical Google SearchWiki video:

Google announced on their AdWords blog that they are testing an updated web interface for AdWords. The changes being made are not going to affect how ads run, bidding, ranking, quality score or any other AdWords elements. Seems as though Google is looking to make some superficial interface changes - I am guessing along the lines of the recent changes made to the Google Analytics UI.

From the AdWords blog:

“We’re testing changes to the ways that AdWords advertisers see and manage the data in their accounts. These changes should make it easier to tackle common tasks, like navigating between campaigns and editing keywords across several ad groups. We hope the updates will give advertisers clearer insights into their ad campaigns and simpler ways to act on those insights.”

No information was available on when any changes would be made available to every AdWords user.

The monetization of traffic goliath YouTube has been a hot topic ever since Google bought the online video destination a few years back. This week YouTube made two big announcements in regards to new revenue streams that not only make business sense but more importantly doesn’t impact the user-experience.

On Wednesday YouTube announced YouTube Sponsored Videos, basically the same sponsored links strategy tied to Google web search but specific to YouTube content. “Sponsored Videos is a self-serve advertising platform that will allow you to promote your video to the audience you are interested in reaching in an easy, effective, democratic, and affordable way. Then, when people use YouTube to search for videos, YouTube will display the most relevant, compelling videos alongside the search results. These videos are clearly labeled as “sponsored videos” and are priced on a cost-per-click basis.”

Here is the offical video explaining how Sponsored Videos works:



Yesterday YouTube also announced that they will be serving overlay ads in their embedded partner videos. This obviously wont have the same impact as YouTube Sponsored Videos but is a strategy that makes sense regardless of how much revenue it adds to the bottom line. Up until this announcement was made YouTube only ran overlay ads against partner videos running on YouTube, allowing the monetization of partner videos no matter where the video is being played is a win-win for both YouTube and the content producer.

I am a big fan of attending conferences and events that offer some value beyond networking - meaning the agenda, keynote and speakers offer something different, yet are highly informative. Nowadays there are too many conferences that just offer the same old people talking about the same old topics - nothing new or ground breaking is being discussed. However, Elite Retreat is a breath of fresh air when it comes to an event that can truly educate professionals of any digital marketing level and cause them to leave with a whole new level of knowledge they can use in the real world.

To see the value of attending the 2009 Elite Retreat you just have to check out the full Agenda or see who is speaking:

• Gary Vaynerchuk: Wine Library TV host and online / social media entrepreneur
• Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker: Digital marketing expert
• Neil Patel: Internet Marketing consultant and web entrepreneur
• Andy Liu: CEO of BuddyTV
• Stephan Spencer: President of Netconcepts
• Kris Jones: CEO of Pepperjam

That is a power-house lineup of digital marketing professionals you wont find anywhere else. For more information on the speakers check out their full Elite Retreat Speakers bios.

The 2009 Elite Retreat is taking place in San Francisco from February 18th to the 20th - click here to learn more about the Elite Retreat and how to attend.

Youtube’s traffic growth over the years can be attributed to three main factors: 1) the ease of creating and uploading user generated content, 2) the appeal of watching UGC and 3) allowing visitors to embed video into their website. The ability to easily snag code and post the video content on websites, blogs, and social portals exposed the Youtube brand to a far greater audience then those that would have come directly to Youtube.com - in fact almost 44% of YouTube users are watching embedded videos.

Youtube’s embeddable video has always been functional but other video websites, like Hulu.com, pushed the envelope in terms of functionality and user-experience. Yesterday, Youtube released 4 new features that look to increase usage and compete with other, better, embeddable players.

• High-quality start images (thumbnails) – Before you press play on embedded YouTube videos, the thumbnails for the video will be presented in high-quality. We’re pleased with the results – let us know if you agree.

• Search in embeddable player – At the close of an embedded video, along with the usual recommended videos and URLs, a search box will appear. Not only will you be able search from within the embedded player, you will be able to watch videos through the same window. That’s right, you can search all of YouTube from the comfort of your favorite blog, news, or humor page.

• Integrated video annotations – Annotations enable video producers to incorporate text information into their videos, create choose your own adventure-style stories or add links to any YouTube video. People watching videos through the embedded player can now join the fun.

• Integrated closed captions – Back in August we started allowing video creators to add captions to their videos. Closed Captions are now available in embedded videos like this one:

The key improvement is the search functionality within the embeddable player. Hulu got this right and every other video producer should take notice - allowing users to embed videos is not only good for Video SEO, but when done correctly should result in increased content discovery and direct visits.

The time and effort put into developing a embeddable player that focuses on the content and user-experience is well worth the effort.

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:

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:

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

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