Personally I don’t think Facebook’s social interaction model doesn’t benefit their users’ psyche. Anything positive sounds like overt bragging to some friends, and conversely, anything negative seems like attention seeking to others. Other users in a Facebook network also seem to want to share a very artificial and contrived version of their life. One that is filled with exotic holiday pics, all their skinny photos and even more oddly messages aimed at their kids who aren’t even on Facebook! The whole game stinks of social climbing and ego fueled one-upmanship to me. I don’t think that’s particularly healthy for anyone.

Where I think Google+ has a distinct advantage is that the “Circles” functionality is more representative of human interaction. You no longer have a single stream that pretends to be relevant to your entire social sphere, you have a multifaceted stream of messages from work colleagues, professional relationships or personal relationships. This allows you to express what you are actually feeling about a certain topic and exclude people that you would either not like to see or people who you think won’t be interested. It’s far closer to a real-life social circle. When I play tennis with my Kiwi builder mates I don’t talk about the latest search signal or client win. Probably because I will get abuse, and rightly so!

The circles functionality also allows you to use the same social platform when you’re at home or at work. I don’t tend to follow Twitter at night as I don’t normally care about other people’s opinion of The Apprentice and I don’t tend to use Facebook in the day because it’s a waste of time. Google+ circles allow me to keep track of SEO developments by day and more personal news at night.

The other thing about Google+ is that it isn’t ridiculously cluttered with muck and irrelevant ads from link buying agencies that seem to employ scantily clad women to buy links for them. Facebook needs to chase the revenue to justify their ridiculously bloated market valuation. That seems to be the most important factor to them apart from not giving a &*(*&^ about users’ privacy. I am sure Google+ advertising is not far off but they are typically far better at ad relevance.

Yes Google+ does not have the feature set that Facebook has but we need to remember this is a limited field trial. The functionality that Facebook has doesn’t present a huge challenge to skilled engineers and I fully expect the features to roll out quickly as this takes hold.

In my opinion Google+ is a leap ahead of any past foray into social and I owned any shares in Facebook I would be shedding them before their bubble bursts.

Related posts:

1. Facebook friends: how much is too much information?
2. Can Facebook applications increase traffic to your site?
3. Social networks and Google results: A bigger and better way to follow your friends.

Google+ is better for you than Facebook

A close friend, who I have helped over the years, phoned me on Monday mentioning that they have lost a lot of major rankings and is there any reason for it? They weren’t likely to be hit by any updates and have been ranking awesomely for 5 years so I thought it was probably a problem between the keyboard and the chair.

He then mentioned a few words that made me go cold, “The website changes went live a few weeks ago and we seem to have dropped off the planet.”
So I had a look at a couple of phrases and he was right, they were all gone. Page source looked ok so I had a look at the robots.txt and found the dreaded.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

This was followed by a huge amount of colourful language and a fair amount of threats of bodily harm that I am not permitted to write about on a company blog. Safe to say I was pretty mad. I’ve helped him build his site up from nowhere to the market leader in his sector and 5 minutes of insanity from the new web developer has completely killed his business.

So the next port of call was WMT and according to the stats there are currently 30k+ URLs that are “Restricted by Robots.txt”. FFS. Crawl rate clearly also took a major dive. Funny that when you tell Google to ^*&^ off that they actually do!

(Crawl stats from WMT, spike at the end is as a result of fixing the robots issue)

Analytics also showed the same picture which at the moment is devastating to his business and with a brand new beautiful little girl in his family he seriously didn’t need this in his life at the moment.

The developer obviously uploaded the robots.txt from the production environment to the live environment and I wish its the first time i have heard of that excuse.

So I thought I’d write this post and ask people to share the biggest development mistakes they have seen, feel free to comment and rant away!

Related posts:

1. Are search rankings really that important?
2. Are rankings dead? What is the future of search?
3. Search engine and social media market share statistics for 2009

How to destroy your search rankings in one easy step

One of the worst comments I saw reads: “Short answer: No. Long answer: No and go f*** yourself you hardfisted, smallwalleted, annoying, ignorant tightfisted f***tard.” Nice. Makes you want to run up and buy from them, doesn’t it?

A mere week later and the piece ranks on page one for the brand search “Currys” and page two for “PC World”. With a cumulative brand search volume of 5 million monthly searches, this is a major issue for their holding company. But, the cost isn’t limited to the damaged public perception of the brand.

If we roll this forward and assume that the piece will soon rank above the fold we can take a reasonable guess on what the impact on sales revenues could be.

If 5% of the 5 million decide not to purchase after Googling the brand, and we assume the conversion rate from brand traffic is about 5% and the average sale is around is £150, the resultant loss of revenue through the web channel would be £1.87 million for EVERY month that the piece continues to rank well.

In a recent post on SearchCowboys, I wrote about a typical route of a SERM crisis and the first step is usually inaction. In this case it’s the inaction of the corporate communications team / PR Agency to keep abreast of the digital PR trends and initiate a good online reputation management strategy.

The cost of such a strategy is far less than the cost of a crisis.

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Reputation Management – (SERM) – A presentation
2. HR SEO a new weapon in reducing cost per hire
3. Storm in a tea cup: an online reputation crisis

The potential cost of an SERM crisis

PPC seems to be the Linus Blanket for marketing managers. I’m not 100% sure why, apart from it being a certain thing. I suppose if you choose an SEO agency that doesn’t perform it seems like the safe bet. We have internal battles for the cost per visit from SEO and PPC and I’m proud to say the SEO wins the most, by a serious margin. (Navigational/Brand search taken out of course )

It was highlighted for me again yesterday while creating a PPC and SEO estimate for client budget approval. The PPC was 3 times the price of SEO and would generate around a 10th of the visits per month. Conservative SEO cost per visit estimate was a mere 18p compared to nearly £5 per click from PPC.

So, leaving the drum behind and focusing on the Hitwise report, are marketing managers tightening PPC budget or comparing the ROI from SEO and PPC and reallocating accordingly?

Obviously, I’m hoping for the latter, as I truly believe that the amount of money spent is massively skewed towards PPC. The last we heard, Google admitted that 80% of all clicks come from Organic search yet, according to the IAB, 80% of all search budgets are spent on PPC. Google isn’t going to keep giving us accurate figures on this and these are a little dated but I can’t see any evidence of this mindset changing on the ground. I keep hearing “My marketing director won’t be happy to move budget away from PPC”.

Perhaps SEO appears to be too good a deal? Maybe it has been sold badly for a long time? There are still “top flight” SEO agencies today that over-hype it to the point that they simply can’t deliver on their promises. We still see an awful lot of bad SEO and promises made by account managers that don’t have the experience or knowledge to give advice.

My only advice to marketing managers would be to stop treating Organic traffic as free. Strip out navigational search and compute a real cost per visit and track it. Compare it to your PPC cost in the light of conversion and bounce rate and measure which is more valuable. If it’s PPC, then so be it. If not then reallocate some budget and test again next quarter. Carry on doing this. If your SEO agency can’t outperform your PPC ditch them and get a new one, it’s not hard to do.

I can only hope that the message is already getting through. Until then I’ll pick up my drum and keep on beating it.

Related posts:

1. Google Marketing, what should your search strategy and plans include?
2. How does search fit into the marketing mix?
3. The Rise of Mobile Marketing in 2010

Are marketing managers finally getting the message about balancing PPC and SEO budgets?

I think the most concise response is that we help companies market their products or services in Google. I suppose Google Marketing is probably more accurate in the UK due to the search engines’ vast market share. We help client’s with their Google search marketing plans.

Most people get that fairly quickly with the odd few saying “oh the ads on the right?” Well no, we help our clients in both areas with some pretty amazing return on investment.

There are two main places to market your products and services within Google, The paid listings (top and right) are referred to as PPC because you Pay Per Click. The results on the left are natural listings often referred to organic listings.

This post covers a few basic pros and cons of each area of Google Marketing which may help you make up your mind which you should place more emphasis on.

SEO – the longer term big opportunity

Google admits that 80% of all clicks come from the organic listings, this is very relevant to the smart marketer because 80% of all search expenditure is on PPC! Any Google marketing strategy should have a key focus on the long term benefits of SEO.

Pros:

1. More click volume
2. More trust – Visitors trust the Google organic listings and that trust gets transferred to your site
3. Higher Conversion Rate than PPC – More trust = more sales
4. It gets stronger over time so the effect is cumulative and traffic generation an upward curve
5. Cost per visit is typically a tenth of the paid cost (cost per visit calculated as cost of overall SEO campaign/ number of non brand visits)
6. Highly measurable
7. Creates a barrier to entry for future competitors

Cons:

1. It’s not immediate – it’s a journey with a good agency
2. Opportunity cost of choosing the wrong agency is high as you lose time and never get that back
3. No Guarantees

Paid search – For immediate gains

Pros:

1. You have complete control and any strategy changes are instant
2. Highly measurable
3. Guaranteed

Cons:

1. More expensive per click
2. Lower conversion rates
3. Highly competitive
4. No Barrier to entry created

So which is better? Well the answer is both, Google marketing delivers fantastic return on investment whichever method you use. The combination of both methods unlocks fantastic ROI.

The key is to choose a great SEO agency, measure both monthly and shift budget appropriately every quarter, in that way you’ll get the best out of your Google marketing budget.

Related posts:

1. What could Google’s next algo update include?
2. Does the future of the internet include a Google-Digg deal?
3. Are marketing managers finally getting the message about balancing PPC and SEO budgets?

Google Marketing, what should your search strategy and plans include?

Anyway, lets get onto topic, while a lot of the sites we work with are experiencing great traffic growth a lot of them “dont have design budget right now” to aid in increasing conversions. Let me first clarify that we in no way want that design budget, far from it, but in my opinion it is one of the most overlooked areas of a website. Site owners are always obsessed with driving increased number of visitors to a website before adequately understanding what current visitors are doing once they get there. Conversion analysis is key!

We have a financial client that, in this climate, experienced a 36% growth in March from organic search. Fantastic result for the team with the phrases very relevant to the service and great volumes for them too. Now, ordinarily we would be screaming from the rooftops only there is a problem. 70% bounce rate and not a single extra conversion. Not one, nada, zip, zilch…you get the very sad picture.

The reason is pretty easy to see, they are competing with some seriously well branded companies that have spent the cash on a great brand and a website that inspires trust. These guys went the cheap route and ended up with what they paid for. If your brand doesn’t scream trust in the financial sector, you should just go home, really, have a little lie down and shed a tear, or you will go mad. No one is going to use a cheap looking brand in that sector.

From our point of view it’s really deflating and annoying, not because it happened, but because it’s the 6th month that our reporting has indicated the massive bounce and low conversion rates and they haven’t done anything about it. “No budget for that right now”, they need to “keep things tight”. The tragedy is that the opportunity cost is probably 10X higher than a design cost.

You can talk until you’re blue in the face but in plain financial terms if you double your conversion rate you more than double your resultant profit because most of the resultant costs are fixed (trust me, I did accounts at varsity, don’t hold it against me). Double your profits, right now that’s gold isn’t it? You would think so.

So, is it the only one? Not on your life, we have 3 or 4 clients that have similarly dire conversion issues from very relevant traffic yet they “don’t have budget”, I’m thinking they won’t have a business soon let alone any design budget.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. On a more positive note, we have a great little client that has completely embraced the conversion optimisation route and started an MVT project with us. The goal is to reduce the exit rate from the e-commerce conversion funnel by 50% (it’s currently at a massive 70% of overall ecom). The ROI estimates on that mean an extra 20k in their back pocket per month, which, for a small business, is an amazing return. I’ll report back on that one next month, as I have very high hopes for them . He’s buying us a glider if we hit target too, I like nice clients…..

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing + Conversion Analysis = ROI
2. More website conversion tips from Brian Eisenberg
3. Respect from your peers brings you Authority Site status

Why aren’t site owners obsessive about conversion metrics?

Twitter on the other hand exists in a social free-for-all and while I am an avid fan, I’m not sure how I would feel about my kids using it. Call me paranoid but knowing anyone can find out about their movements, likes and dislikes without being opt-in scares me.

I follow a number of people that I have never met, but following their tweets enables me to establish a sense of closeness, almost to the point of intruding into their lives.

Is there a real threat to children and teens? IMHO, yes, as parents are probably oblivious to their kids’ Tweets and the openness of the network. You can block access to your Tweets but how many parents will enforce that? As most kids will aim to get as many followers as possible, controlling who follows your children will be nigh on impossible.

Lets play the scenario forward to a potential child abduction. With Twitter information the “person” will:

1. have a picture
2. know the child’s movements
3. know their moods, interests and who their friends are and other info
4. know information about their parents and school
5. have historical information about them

And all of this on a free for all basis, doesn’t it scare you? It certainly scares me.

Personally, I hope we never read the headline “Twitter use leads to child abduction” but the cynic in me says its only a matter of time.

Related posts:

1. Kids and social networking: keeping an eye on interaction
2. Is a Twitter analytics package worthy of your time and money?
3. 5 Important Twitter Tips for you and your small business

Will Twitter have a dark side?

Ive shared it on slideshare under LouisVenter or you can get to it via MediaVison. Will get to the sharecast next week with any luck.

In this presentation:

1. What is SERM?
2. Why is it Important? – Hitwise report on navigational search
3. Who Typically Needs SERM
4. Some Horror Stories
5. Is it only about companies that dont get SEO? :- An SEO agency with an SERM issue
6. What tactics are involved?
7. Some success stories

So here goes:

If you have any specific questions please read our services page on SERM or alternatively grab me on Twitter or in our London office on 0845 006 0709.

All feedback welcomed of course!

Related posts:

1. The basics of online reputation management
2. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
3. What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

Search Engine Reputation Management – (SERM) – A presentation

It’s not a secret that Google sees 80% of its clicks through natural search whereas paid search enjoys 80% of the budget assigned to search in the UK. What fails me is this message seems to be falling on deaf ears. If I were an FD (and by qualification I could be although my life expectancy would drop by 50 years ) I would be demanding a comparison of all marketing methods, stripping back on the non-accountable methods to ensure I get maximum ROI for my pound. Surely right now is the time to ask the difficult questions?

Organic search is not only typically a cheaper option per visits with trust benefits included but it’s the long term option paving the way for more revenue when the market turns. They say build in a recession and reap in a boom and SEO IMHO is the ideal activity.

Why do I say this? (When MediaVision offers both services )

Well, paid search click cost may dip through a recession but what about when the market turns? Well the click cost will soar and a lot of businesses will get back into the cycle of paying too much for their click.

Why would SEO be different?

Well SEO is a cumulative activity that will bear fruit during AND after a recession and if properly deployed will create a barrier to entry for competition when the market turns. It allows a business to thrive through the recession due to decreased lead acquisition costs and come out the other end far stronger than before.

Why is there not a mass panic shift to organic?

Well probably because of the mindset, the budgets that are moving into search are moving from TV, newspaper and so on where the culture is pay for coverage so paid search makes more sense. These are competitive areas too (when last did you see a publication with only 1 major player in a sector covered). The shift to an accountable pay per visit model seems like a jump so far into bliss that any options further seem too risky to be true. The industry is probably not helped by the immense amount of spammy bottom feeders but that is a story for another day.

When could it happen?

Well if we use the dot com bubble as an example then hype created only changed the consumer behaviour years later then predicted. That said this is a more educated market so possibly a lot quicker than 5 years. I’m guessing we will see the percentages equal in 2 to 3 years and that certainly will be a better situation for quality agencies. That’s my guess anyway, what’s yours?

Related posts:

1. Google Marketing, what should your search strategy and plans include?
2. Brits love Google
3. SEO – A Maturing Market?

Why isn’t SEO getting the attention of Financial Directors?

Search engine marketing is not short of acronyms that make perfect sense to us, but not necessarily to our prospective partner agencies and clients. From SEM, SEO and PPC to Online PR and ROI; it`s important not to forget that just because we understand what they all are, doesn`t mean our target audience does.

This brings me to the drop down menu. Are we asking visitors to make decisions before they even know what the options are?

I`ve chosen to review Media Temple`s website and to look for dedicated hosting. Media Temple is a website, which I thought was a good example of great design, but perhaps not the best way to go in terms of menu structure.

At first glance, the site looks great for a hosting company with credibility elements from ABC, Sony, and Diesel, etc… It also has a good flash panel that displays with the three service offerings. Great first impression, credible company;, now let`s find out what I need.

I`m looking for web hosting and there`s a tab for that, which is all great, but is it really? My old nemesis, the dropdown menu, drops in and now I`ve got to make a choice between the three services on the front page. They happen to be Grid Service, Dedicated Virtual and Nitro. Yup, very descriptive aren`t they?

Media Temple Drop down menu

I come from a web development background and have been building sites for around 12 years, now and I have no idea which one to choose. Yes, I could buy on price and that gives me a rough idea of what the service entails, however, the Nitro looks like a true dedicated service, although the Dedicated Virtual sounds more dedicated, but is nowhere near the cost. Which do I choose?
The drop down list forces me to make a decision I`m not ready to make., i It`s up to me to compare all three and work out what`s best for me. Like most IT professionals I get irritated and go. We`re not a patient bunch are we?

Nett effect = Bounce rate + 1

IMHO, what they needed to do was kill the drop down and introduce a summary page containing a comparison of each service, which would explain educating me what the differences between the options were and funnelling me to the right solution for my needs. It also means that they control the journey through the site.

If your site is service based – keep it simple, give as much overview to how you fit into their world and don`t assume they know what you do., At the end of the day, you need to be the expert that they are looking for. Ignore their need and you will lose the opportunity.

Bounce and Conversion rate are the key factors that need to be evaluated and improved constantly. Let`s not forget that the net effect of doubling the conversion rate is more than doubling the ROI. Reducing the bounce rate by half will achieve the same return. Something as small as a menu change could increase the your site`s effectiveness dramatically.

When last did you check whether you`re asking questions that your target market doesn`t have the answers to?

Related posts:

1. The customer always comes first – usability 101
2. Search Usability
3. Is your bounce rate leaving you out in the cold?

Do drop down menus enhance usability or reduce the chances of converting?