Christian Bale Listens to the Social Cry – The Power of Social Media

Social media can be very influential in both positive and negative fashions. Think about it, how else can you potentially reach and rally 800 million people with one post? Most recently we have seen the power of social media in the news with the unfortunate tragedy that occurred in Colorado. Following the shooting an online campaign was started urging the Batman movie superstar Christian Bale to go and visit those who were wounded in the hospital in attempt to raise their spirits and give hope to those who have lost faith.

 The Facebook post was started by a girl named Emily Sanchez who was simply reaching out to her friends stating “They need to know that heroes can be real too, not just the bad guys” and asking for their support to try and influence the actor to visit the victims proving heroes do exist. Since then her post went viral with a Change.org petition then leading to Twitter followers urging the actor to put on his costume and jump on the next plane. The Change.org petition has 186 signatures as of this evening, however the post reached hundreds of thousands.

 Here is the Facebook post that started it all:

 

Here are a few of the Twitter comments:

“What a great idea. Christian Bale, are you listening?”

“It would be awesome if Christian Bale visited the victims of the Aurora shooting. I hope he does it.”

“Be a hero, Christian! These victims are fighting for survival and [you are] the only one that can save them.”

Who knows if he or his PR people had already thought about doing this, but the cries of the public were obviously heard as the actor appeared at the hospital and memorial on Tuesday spending a few hours with the victims, families, medical staff and first responders. Reports say that Bale was there on behalf of himself and not Warner Brothers

After the visit, the news that he followed through went viral as well with pictures of he and his wife, as well as pictures of him with the victims all the while the community is shouting “we did it guys” and “we can make a difference, one post at a time.”

Whether or not you feel this post was in good taste or bad, the proof is in the pudding. Social media can make an impact.

Warning: Search Engine Optimization is Not for the Faint of Heart

Ok so maybe I am being a little dramatic, but the fact of the matter is that SEO is a strategy, it is a process and there is the ability to see true data and analyze your users interaction in order to market to them based on their own behavior. You should not expect to have front page results and increased conversion immediately with SEO, if that is what you are looking for we have other alternative digital marketing strategies in mind, just ask. SEO on the other hand is a long term marketing solution that requires dedication, patience and constant attention. The rewards are worth the struggles, not unlike building your brand, it takes heart.

There are basic things you need to have in order to have a fully optimized website. Some ask what a fully optimized website is exactly, and the best way for me to describe my thinking when I say a site is 100% SEO friendly is by thinking of a report card. Think of search engine ranking like scholastic measurements. If you get straight A’s you make the Deans list and eventually the Presidents list. Search engine bots give you a grade based on certain criteria. If you get an A in more subjects so to speak than your competitor, you end up with higher rankings. The trick is knowing what the Professor (Google, Yahoo, Bing) is looking for to get that A grade.

How do you achieve those A grades? We the first step is looking at the websites underlying coding. Google isn’t equipped with artificial intelligence (yet), so their bots are programmed to take certain actions based on the way the developer’s code talks to it and guides it through the site. If the code is not written in a way that it tells the Google .bot to continue to read it gets confused and leaves the site and moves on to the next one.

If this little “bot” does not crawl the entire page and take a snap shot of it for its virtual photo gallery filing cabinet, then your site does not get “cached” (not cash) and that particular page does not become “indexed” for search results. No index, no rankings, no rankings, no views, no views, no conversions, and you know the rest.

So there is my first lesson on how to make your website SEO friendly. Make sure your code is written in a language that tells the search engine “bots” to continue to read throughout the page and then move on to the next one. Keep the search “bots” on your site as long as possible and the more likely one of your website pages will come up in a search result.

The next thing you do is optimize each page with keywords without going directly against those with higher budgets, but still attracting a large percentage of the market share. But that is another story for another day.

Are you looking to put a little “heart” into your website marketing? Give us a call at 480-779-8001 or click here to contact us! Thanks for taking a few minutes to read what we have to say!

Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups – Which One is Right For You?

Do you understand the difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups?

The great thing about Facebook is that businesses and organizations can utilize this free tool for multiple purposes within the company and the benefits are vast. So what do you use for your social media marketing? Should you create a page or a group? Here is some quick information from the Social Media Consultants at Cook Wheelwright Group that may help you decide.

Facebook Profiles are personal profiles that we use in order to “get social” and reach out to the world. The Facebook Profile should not be used to brand a business as there are limitations that a Facebook Profile has which would not be beneficial for the purposes of brand marketing.

Facebook Pages are or at least should be used to brand a company, individual, event or idea online. With a Facebook page the user has to like your page in order to follow the conversations or posts that happen on your page. Typically conversations do not happen between the brand organization and the user other than a few comments. The purpose of a Facebook Brand Page is to deliver messages to the public. Now the public has the option to choose to add your posts to their feed so the messages have to be interesting enough for the users to follow what you have to say.

Often Facebook Pages are gone to for information about a company, person or event. Companies are offering their Facebook Page as the go to location on their advertising campaigns because it is the easiest and fastest way to keep up-to-date information fed to their fans.

Facebook Groups on the other hand are intended for a more interpersonal relationship with the user base. Groups are the place for small group communication and for people to share their common views, interests or to express their opinion. Groups can be made to share and support other local businesses like the Small Business Facebook Group which is intended to bring small businesses together under a group setting where they can communicate with each other and share in order to help each other develop and grow their small businesses.

Groups can also be for members of a church where the members require administrator approval in order to keep it congregation members only. The same can be done for an athletic team or a team of employees who may be scattered amongst different states or they may be used as a support method for groups of individuals struggling with the same ailments.

What ever the purpose, Facebook has made it easy to find a reason to get social. Just remember to think through the purpose of your social campaign before you create the page. Contact Cook Wheelwright Group, Inc. if you need suggestions on what to do or require assistance!

Is SEO Really Dying?

Recently Forbes published an article titled “The Death of SEO: The Rise of Social, PR, and Real Content” quoting Adam Torkildson, one of the top SEO consultants in Utah and one of the best in the country stating that Search Engine Optimization as we know it will be dead in two years.

This theory has been slowly coming to fruition after the Panda update first, and then the most recent Penguin update. Basically what happened is that Google was not providing results that the users wanted. The search engines were in fact being manipulated by “black hat” digital marketing techniques allowing those with the largest pocketbook, and most back links, to be pushed to the top of the search rankings, rather than those with the most valuable information.

Of course, every small business owner believes their product is the best and should be on page one, but there are over 800 billion websites out in the world wide web right now, therefore serving up what the USER is looking for has become more and more difficult. Thus, Google decided it was time to put the “smack down” so to speak on those who were manipulating the algorithms, violating the Google terms and conditions.

Lets start with a little background on the Google Penguin update…Penguin was officially announced on May 26, 3012 and Google described the Penguin update as an algorithm change that’s aimed at webspam and, more specifically, “sites that we believe are violating Google’s quality guidelines.” With this Google penalized any and all sites that they felt violated those terms, as well as others which proved to be “false positives” leaving many small businesses scared and unsure of what to do next.

The Search Engine Journal published an article back in June stating:

“Penguin places more of an emphasis on the reputation and quality of a site that’s linking to your specific domain rather than the sheer number of links that point in your direction. Basically, this means that SEO technicians won’t be rewarded anymore for taking shortcuts when it comes to link building. Those $10/mth for 2000 back link offers are now not only pointless, but they’re also quite dangerous.”

So with all these changes, is SEO in fact dead? Our opinion at Cook Wheelwright Group is that SEO is dead in its current form, however is being reborn through quality content and proper social media management. This is a theory we have believed in for over a year now, even before the Penguin update.

We still believe that both on page and off page SEO are important, it just needs to be done in a tasteful way that compliments the algorithm rather than attempting to manipulate it with paid backlinks. So, again, how does a small business compete with those who can afford to have a full-time staff writing quality content, consistently updating social media posts, commenting on other blog posts and keeping up with all the different review sites for reputation management? Again we refer back to our blog regarding Sabermetrics:

By using statistical data available to us, and focusing on the marketing version of moving runners around the bases (customer behavior patterns on the website) we can effectively determine the best methods for progressing the sale. Analytics tools allow us to not only track, but predict customer behavior online which helps us to revise and model websites based off the data. Bounce rates, keywords, and onsite navigation patterns all factor in to delivering the best marketing experience. All of this data can be leveraged to improve the ultimate measurement of your marketing, the ROI.

In blogs to come we will expand on the importance of social media and quality content to replace the previous form of SEO. We will teach you what we look for when doing a digital marketing audit as well as a few tips and tricks that you can do to help your online marketing campaigns.

Of course you can always reach out and ask questions or schedule a complimentary review with one of our strategic marketing specialists. Follow this link to our website or call us anytime at 480-779-8001!

Moneyball, Sabermetrics & Online Marketing

Can online marketers take a page from Billy Beane's Moneyball approach to baseball?

If you’re tasked with managing your companies marketing activity and haven’t read Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, I suggest you do. If you aren’t going to read the book, I suggest you watch the movie of the same title starring Brad Pitt. If you have no interest in doing either of these at least pay attention to the next few paragraphs, they might just change your outlook on marketing performance.

Moneyball is the true story of how Oakland Athletics manager Billy Beane turned baseball on its head by building his team using a method known as sabermetrics. Essentially sabermetrics abandoned traditional “gut” measurables regarding how baseball teams were fielded in favor of statistical and quantifiable analysis. For years baseball teams were put together looking at factors such as stolen bases, home runs, and batting percentages. The idea was that you needed players that met a given criteria in each position to compete. Being a small market team the Athletics knew they didn’t have the resources to compete head to head with big money teams like the Yankees and Red Sox. Beane and his staffed devised a method to buy runs rather than buy players. By focusing on a player’s on base percentage the Athletics were able to win 103 games in 2002 and achieve post season success. The proof was in the pudding – sabermetrics worked and the rest is history.

So how do the lessons learned from Moneyball apply to online marketing? The correlation is actually quite clear. For years the online marketing industry has fallen into traps regarding measuring campaign effectiveness. Online marketers have applied the “should” approach to just about every facet of the industry. SEO and PPC campaigns “should” attract more people to your website which “should” give you opportunity for a sale. The problem is that the effectiveness of a campaign has always been focused on buying traffic, not customers. Therefore, anything we can do to maximize traffic has traditionally been seen as a positive, even if it works directly against maximizing your opportunity to convert those leads.

By using statistical data available to us, and focusing on the marketing version of moving runners around the bases (customer behavior patterns on the website) we can effectively determine the best methods for progressing the sale. Analytics tools allow us to not only track, but predict customer behavior online which helps us to revise and model websites based off the data. Bounce rates, keywords, and onsite navigation patterns all factor in to delivering the best marketing experience. All of this data can be leveraged to improve the ultimate measurement of your marketing, the ROI.

Just like small market baseball teams can’t afford to compete with big money in their arena, small businesses can’t afford to compete with big business in the areas of brand awareness and traditional advertising. Enterprise companies simply have the financial edge and as such small businesses need a statistical advantage. By focusing on analytical reporting and building websites and social media campaigns that are consumer driven – small businesses can experience the same postseason success the Oakland Athletics achieved in 2002.

Carewords & Creating Killer Website Content

A few weeks ago I posted about Google’s recent revelation that another algorithm update is in the works – this time targeting overly optimized websites (read it here – Google to Penalize Overdone SEO). I also stated that the key to beating the algorithm change is to make sure your website is chalked full of quality and relevant content.

Creating Killer Content

This week I want to discuss how you can improve the quality and ranking of your website, attract more visitors, and convert more leads by placing killer web content on your site. I have to admit that the term “killer web content” isn’t mine. The phrase was coined by one of my favorite authors and web content expert Gerry McGovern. McGovern has written several books (all full of pertinent information for website owners and marketers) but my personal favorite Killer Web Content. It’s practically the bible around the CookWheelwright offices. I’ve given a copy to every member of our team, and recommended it to practically everyone I’ve worked with.  The bottom line is McGovern gets it and puts crafting user friendly and high quality websites into real world and practical techniques. If you’re reading this blog, I highly recommend you read the book (after you’re done with this post of course!).

At the heart of creating killer content is focusing on the Six Cs.

1. Who Cares?

2. Is it Compelling?

3. Is it Clear?

4. Is it Complete?

5. Is it Concise?

6. Is it Correct?

By asking yourself these questions and honestly evaluating your web content in these terms – you too can deliver engaging and effective web content that dominates the search engines and converts more leads.

In my opinion, perhaps the most important of the six Cs is the first, Who Cares?

The web is full of useless junk, some of it we love (who hasn’t watched the Crazy Honey Badger over and over?), some of it we never want to see. I’m not going to attempt to evaluate the recreational interests or their value to the web. But when it comes to commercial content the internet is full of thin content that offers no real value to the user. Think about it, how many times have you gone to a website looking for an answer and instead got a heaping spoonful of hyperbole? It’s happened to me more than once. The backbone of the internet is built on delivering information on demand, and the goal of major search engines like Google is bring users their desired information faster and better. This search engine desire brings a built in advantage for websites that actually pay attention to the message on their page. Notice.

Nothing ruins a website like a spoonful of hyperbole.

Getting noticed can come in many forms, but the majority of the techniques search marketers employ experience short lived success. The reason SEO fails so often – no one cares. No one cares if your site is the most crawlable site on the net. No one cares if you’ve microtargeted keywords down to the most precise level. No one cares if you’ve bought a billion backlinks pointed to your homepage (a capital offense in Google’s eyes by the way). These activities might all contribute to getting your page listed at the top of the search results, but they won’t help to keep you there. Unless your website contains the information your visitors want and need, you’re constantly swimming upstream.

Instead of focusing on keywords, try focusing on what McGovern calls “carewords”, the words that really matter to your audience. These are the words that make us click, drive action, and produce results.

If your website isn’t optimized for your customers’ needs, it won’t matter how well it’s optimized for your search engine’s. If you’re looking to create killer web content start by focusing on your customers hot buttons and work backwards from there. As always, your website’s top priority should be to deliver high quality and relevant information to your real life customers first and foremost. Capture their carewords and you’ll create a website that naturally builds it way to the top of the search rankings.

While carewords might seem intrinsic, they can be captured and managed by savvy web marketers. The answer is in how we search online. Internet users are hunters. They constantly search and scan for the information they need to complete their task or meet their objective. Google searches rarely end up the same way they start out. Typically speaking – if we enter a search engine query and don’t get the results we wanted we’re going to click the back button and revise our search. By following the trail we can not only determine what’s important to our customers but we can adequately predict their next move. It’s in that ability to understand and respond to what our customers really care about that we can separate ourselves from our competition. By focusing on creating great web content, we can build great websites that command attention and deliver firm results.

 

Learning How To Deal With Difficult Personality Types

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – Sir Winston Churchill

With your permission I’d like to step outside my normal marketing topics today and share with you a recent experience in my life (that I believe a lot of my readers deal with as well) and a subsequent conversation I had with a good friend and mentor of mine, Michael Crain of Smart Business Evolution. I hope you can learn as much from this experience as I did.

As an online marketer I deal with a lot or personality types. My firm handles clients in a dozen different countries and twice as many time zones. We’ve worked on marketing campaigns targeting everything from C level executives with discretionary incomes exceeding the six figure mark, to local salon services for housewives and tattoo conventions. But one of the most difficult experiences I’ve faced in my professional career was dealing with a company whose marketing executive never wanted to relinquish control.

This particular client is a fairly sizable business offering professional services to an upscale demographic. They have a great product and reputation and through years of dedication and a number of traditional marketing activities have developed a strong brand presence in their industry. They understand exactly what their clientele wants when it comes to seminars, print mailers, and other direct marketing pieces. The one area they were struggling to break through was online marketing. They just didn’t understand why their success offline wouldn’t translate to success online.

The executive team asked my company to come in for a consult and after several meetings we laid out our ideas and expectations. They loved it. The entire room of highly educated, high profile partners and executives was ready to commit to a long term strategy with our company. But the second we were directed to the in house marketing team the deal fell apart. In short, the marketing director just didn’t buy into our product and didn’t want to relinquish what they saw as control to an outside firm. We were stonewalled and even though the partners at the firm saw value in our services, they had enough trust in their marketing director, who had little trust in us, to go against their hearts and heads and reject the offer.

Dejected, confused, and a bit angry, I asked Michael Crain of SBE his thoughts on the situation and how he felt we could have altered the outcome. I am a firm believer in top-down selling but I already recognized our biggest mistake was to eliminate trust with the marketing director by working directly with the executive team. My question was more about how to handle a difficult personality type. Michael listened intently and then told me about his Newman theory. Based off the Seinfeld antagonist Michael explained that while the character was fiction the reality is most, if not all of us, have our own Newman’s to deal with in daily life.

Hello Newman

The first suggestion Michael had was to focus on creating a win/win relationship. In my experience we had focused on creating a win/win relationship with the company – but we failed to foster a win/win scenario with the marketing department. If our online marketing campaign was an immediate success the company benefited, but the marketing team that had been trying for months to “figure it out” would have looked incompetent. Furthermore they would have lost control of their budget as the executives displaced dollars they had previously committed to other proven activities and transitioned those budgets to my company. The in house marketing team had as much at stake personally as professionally.

Working with the marketing team to strategize the plan and then present it to the executive board would have been a better solution. It would have allowed them to play an active role in the process and keep a sense of involvement and purpose. Looking back, while working with top executives seems like the right power – it isn’t always.

Crain then told me about how there are four main personality types and strategies for dealing with each of them. I’ll spare you the details here but you can find more information on the Smart Business Evolution website here. In short, I was working against a dominant personality type – one that needed to feel in control and was largely motivated by fear. Instead of providing that person with a sense of control and reassuring them that their input was important, my company fueled their fears by working “over” their head with an executive team that was more extroverted in their personalities.

So what does this have to do with marketing strategy and theory? Simply put, sales is an important part of the marketing game. Understanding our audience’s needs is about more than market analysis and psychographic segmentation. It’s also about developing powerful one-on-one relationships with even the most difficult personality types and turning them from detractors into brand ambassadors. If you can do this, I’m convinced you’ll have the strongest and most loyal fan base on the web.

Have you ever had to deal with a difficult personality during negotiations? How did you fare?

Red Water, Blue Water & Search Marketing

If you’ve been in the small business marketing game long enough, you’re bound to come by the term “red water – blue water.”

The Red Water

At the core of the expression is the idea that everyone wants to catch the most fish and as a result most companies end up all hunting in the same pool of water. After all, these pools are loaded with fish so it only makes sense it’s where you’d spend most your time. You might even land a few meals too. But too many companies fishing out of the same pool causes a feeding frenzy, which results in blood in the water, and that’s when the sharks (big business) come in. Now in order to get to the fish you have to cut your prices, double your ad budgets, and hire more salespeople to put more lines in the water. Even then the sharks seem to chase you off after a couple of quick nibbles. That is why they call it “red water.”

The Blue Water

Swimming with the sharks isn’t a great way to win in business. Small business owners have long understood that in order to succeed they need to distinguish themselves from their competition and offer a unique value their major counterparts can’t. They have to swim where the majority of their competition can’t. And in return these businesses don’t have to work as hard to earn their meal. This is your “blue water.”

What does this have to do with Search Marketing?

Simple – long tail keywords. Search marketers should look at long tail keywords as their map to blue water.

In case you need refreshing, long tail keywords are highly targeted keyword phrases used in search engine queries. An example of a long tail keyword is “Small Business Online Marketing” instead of the short tail (and highly competitive) alternate of “Online Marketing”.

Obviously there are a lot more searches each month for short tail keywords but the increase in searches is just about directly proportionate to the level of competition in regards to ranking for those terms. It’s the age old adage of is it better to have a very small piece of a big pie, or the biggest piece of a small pie? For most my customers, the answer is usually the latter.

Long tail keyword targeting isn’t a new concept. SEOs (both good and bad) have been building campaigns around long tail keywords since the beginning SEO time. But the success rate of these campaigns hasn’t been consistent over the years, which leaves many small business owners perplexed. After numerous failed attempts at long tail keywords they’re ready to give up.

“Hey Jim, we haven’t seen a fish out here in days…
shouldn’t we go back to where all the other boats are?”

No. The problem isn’t with the concept… the problem is that your SEO has driven the boat all the way to what I’m going to call Black Water.

Red, Blue… and now Black?

As I mentioned before SEOs love long tail keywords. A big part of the reason SEOs love long tail keywords is that they are easy to rank for. In fact, the longer and more obscure the keyword phrase the easier it is to achieve page one rankings in a short amount of time. Traditionally this is how SEOs measure their success… “Mr. Client, we got you to page one, position three – our job here is done.”

Unfortunately, rankings do not equal customers. Many times they don’t even equal prospects because the SEO has gone so far outside the box, they’re no longer targeting keywords that your target audience is searching for. This is the black water. Sure, you’re the only boat anywhere to be seen, and yes there’s a lot of ocean beneath you. Only no one is really sure if there are any fish in the black water or if they’re inclined to bite. Fishing in black water is the best way to burn through your marketing budget with nothing to show for it. Letting your SEO run away with keywords that don’t relate to your business, or don’t see any search volume will only end in a long, painful swim back to shore.

So how do we find blue water?

Research is the most important element of any search marketing strategy. It’s also the point where customers should be the most involved. Ideally, your SEO should seek to understand your business, your market, and your competitive advantages before they start to craft a keyword strategy for your SEO campaign. Then they should discuss the strategy with you – in detail. Don’t be afraid to ask your SEO for firm numbers relating to the keywords they are targeting. How many people are searching this phrase per month on Google globally? How many locally? How tough is the competition? How long do you expect it will take us to rank on page 1, 2, 3 for this phrase? What are the alternatives?

Customers should never be afraid to put their SEO on the spot. After all, SEO is as much a part of your overall marketing strategy as are the billboards or radio spots you consider. And while I believe every SEO has a right to protect their trade secrets – never let your SEO hide behind “proprietary information” as an excuse for not having an answer. At the very least your SEO should be able to explain how they came to the figures they did, and why.

Just like you want your fishing guide to be knowledgeable and experienced, you want your search marketing company to have the right combination of real world credentials and proven results.

Have you found your blue water? I’d love to hear your experiences…

The Key to Beating Google’s Next Algorithm Change

If you’ve been reading my blog, or follow what’s new in the world of Google you’ve probably stumbled upon a recent revelation by Google’s Matt Cutts stating that Google is at this very moment in the process of updating their algorithm to potentially penalize over-optimized websites. The side note introduced at a Q&A session at SXSW has sent waves of panic through the SEO industry, some of which has spilled over to savvy website owners now wondering “just what the hell is going to happen to my website.”

I’ve fielded quite a few emails and phone calls from distressed webmasters wondering if I have any insight into the pending changes.

First, let me say that I have no idea what the changes are, nor do I know what the consequences are going to be to my site, your site, or any other site on the internet. No one does. In fact, if someone claims they have a “connection” in Google or are privy to insider information they’re selling you an ice cold bottle of snake oil. Trust me, it doesn’t go down smooth. Like any other Google update, the SEO and web marketing community is going to have to wait until the update takes effect before we can start adjusting our practices as a whole.

Which leads me to my second point; Stop worrying (especially if you’re a CookWheelwright customer). When Cutt’s made his announcement he was responding to a question by a seminar attendee regarding how small businesses can compete with enormous SEO budgets online. The question was really framed around the value of content and relevance. So too was Cutt’s response. I’m willing to bet that this next update will affect only ten percent of websites and applies specifically to websites that are pushing spammy SEO (SpamEO as we’ve coined it at CookWheelwright) over quality content. If you’ve been practicing black hat SEO tactics or have all but ignored the elements of user experience, content strategy, and relevance on your site while pumping up your SEO to unparalleled levels, than yes, you’re probably in for a rough few months. But webmasters and SEOs running those types of campaigns already know they’re going to struggle with every search engine update. When you choose to build your campaigns around fighting the search engines you’re going to have to anticipate the counterpunch.

Will the next Google update deliver a knockout punch to spammy SEOs?

If you’re a small business or webmaster who wants to keep your site optimized and ranking well, but you’re not willing to go out on a limb to do it, you’re probably going to have only minor adjustments to your overall campaign with each update. No one, change will end your online presence. The reason is, “good SEO” doesn’t fight against Google’s goals. It compliments them. Google wants the most relevant web pages listed first in their results. But crawling millions of sites every time a search query is performed is a difficult task for anyone. Good SEO practices are like placing a giant neon sign above your website. It helps your site to maintain visibility and help improve the Googlebots task of crawling and evaluating your site. The key to Good SEO is combining it with clean design, strong content, and focusing on user experience first. Do this and no update will ever kill off your online presence.

The bottom line is Google is going to update, bad SEOs are going to pout, but the marketers who focus on really taking care of their campaigns are going to win out in the long run. Don’t waste time and money trying to cheat the search engines today… build a strong online platform and your site will always weather the SEO storm.

Google to Penalize Overdone SEO

Sometimes all it takes is one great question to change the world. For SEOs, that question came up during a recent Q&A panel with Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester, and moderated by Danny Sullivan of searchengineland.com at this month’s SXSW conference. About fifteen minutes into the session a webmaster approached the mic and simply asked, “What are you guys doing to help mom and pop type websites with quality content compete with inferior websites that are spending thousands (often tens of thousands) a month on SEO?” The reply sent shock waves throughout the industry.

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Search Spam department, immediately jumped in and announced that Google is not only aware of and concerned with the problem, but has been actively working on a solution to penalize what Cutt’s referred to as “overly optimized” sites. Cutts added that this is Google’s direct attempt to level the playing field. Here is the transcript:

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

As you might expect, the news set the industry afire and a large number of my colleagues have spent the past week cursing Google in panic. But if you listen to the rest of the audio transcript (available here) you’ll find out why quality search engine marketers and website owners who have been investing in SEO shouldn’t be afraid.

Spammy SEO Beware: Google is coming For you!

Here’s my take.

Over-optimization, which I’m going to refer to as Spammy SEO (or SpamEO for short) has never been viewed as a good thing. In theory SEO should be about helping your website to become more accessible, more searchable, and improve the user experience on your page. Good SEO has never been about manipulating your way to the top. Unfortunately, too many SEOs started seeing big paydays in quick shortcuts and the industry largely followed suit to the point that now the bad guys outnumber the good 2 to 1. For a large percentage of webmasters this means you either need to get in line or you’re going to get left behind. Google’s announced algorithm update could help reverse that trend and put the industry back in a position where focusing on your customers experience can, and will, be every internet marketers top priority.

While bad SEO might help drive traffic, it rarely helps increase revenue – largely because bad SEO encourages companies to ignore their human users and focus on manipulating search software instead. Think about it, when’s the last time your SEO agency told you to drop link building until you shore up the content on your page. When’s the last time an SEO ran an A/B split test to measure click thrus and site penetration? Have you ever read a keyword stuffed piece from an article farm and said “Gee that was a good use of my time.”?

If Google gets their update right, focusing on the customer won’t be an afterthought, it will be the endgame. SEOs will be forced to restructure their model focusing more heavily on marketing websites through quality and relevant content and driving the user experience in both the internet and social worlds. And online businesses will see tangible results.

If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to listen to the entire 45 minute transcript. Both Matt Cutts of Google and Duane Forrester of Bing answer several questions by suggesting webmasters focus on relevance, user experience, and what Forrester calls “social engagement” to help improve their traffic rankings and increase the number of visitors to their site. For small businesses that demand a return on every dollar they invest online, this is good news indeed.

If you would like more information on search marketing and user experience shoot me an email or visit my company at http://www.CookWheelwrightGroup.com.

Jayson Bailey is a 12 year marketing veteran and the co-founder and current CMO of CookWheelwright Marketing.