Social Media Case Study

This Sphinn thread is a case study in social media...with lots of brilliant analysis / advice in it from SugarRae, John Andrews, and Fantomaster.

Microsoft Search = Tragic Fail

Danny Sullivan wrote in depth about why Microsoft Search has failed to take off. Not good for them considering mounting competition on the browser and OS fronts.

Search Police Disclaimer

Google, which invests millions into public relations and quirky attention-grabbing marketing, does not like people manipulating social media with artificial votes. And yet Google spends millions a year on public relations. How can one invest heavily in manipulating the press and then say manipulating social media is bad?

The Ultimate Salesman

The Industry Standard put together about a decade worth of Steve Jobs video clips. I wish I was 1% of the salesman that Steve Jobs is!!!

Ad Rates to Fall?

In 2006 Jakob Nielson wrote "Over the last several years, Yahoo! has made between 0.2 and 0.4 cents per non-search pageview. However, I believe that Internet advertising is over-hyped and that advertisers are deluding themselves into overpaying. In the long term, non-search advertising's value will drop to 0.1 cents or less per page."

If prices drop too low this year could be a great time to buy exposure to build links and an audience. There is always opportunity in the market...you just have to position yourself to take advantage of it.

Society as a Ponzi Scheme?

Tim O'Reilly offers this great quote "just maybe, we are getting the first signs that our society as a whole (and not just our financial system) is a kind of gigantic Ponzi scheme that will one day run out of room for growth, with disastrous consequences."

The U.S. is in a world of hurt, and that is putting a squeeze on China - reversing the flow of farmers to the cities back to the farms. Our leading export is debt, and some countries may be willing to take a loss on it. A Japanese credit rating agency is suggesting that Japan should write off some of its US debt!

The dollar may lose as much as 40 percent of its value to 50 yen or 60 yen from the current spot rate of 90.40 today in Tokyo unless Japan takes “drastic measures” to help bail out the U.S. economy, Mikuni said. Treasury yields, which are near record lows, may fall further without debt relief, making it difficult for the U.S. to borrow elsewhere, Mikuni said.

“It’s difficult for the U.S. to borrow its way out of this problem,” Mikuni, 69, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television broadcast today. “Japan can help by extending debt cancellations.”

The US stock market went up 3% today, but I think anything based in US Dollars is a bit scary after reading the above quote. What exactly is backing the dollar if those holding federal debt consider writing it down? How many more companies and industries can the US government bail out?

Paul Kedrosky offers his scenarios for the economy in 2009. What do you think will happen? What are you investing in and planning for this year?

Quantcast was the first web traffic analytics company that allowed users to download their top 1,000,000 websites. Recently Alexa followed suit, giving away a daily updated index of their top 1,000,000 websites.

Such lists should be taken with a grain of salt, but at free one can't complain about the price. As time passes free and good enough is going to force those selling tools and information to offer something that has a sustainable advantage over free.

At the same time...

• the sea of information will become increasingly hard to navigate, increasing the value of filters (particularly those built around a shared perspective or bias)
• hyped up salesmen will be able to build many business models out of selling such recycled information to the uninitiated, forcing others who sell information to add even more differentiators between themselves and the competition

Thanks to Jamey for the Alexa tip. :)

Recently one of our AdSense sites had a lot of poor ads on it that we filtered out, but it is hard to keep up with all the new ones. Some of them are so bad that you know they are junk just by looking at the URL.

Danny recently highlighted how Ask.com is becoming a big arbitrage play, but I am seeing lots of arbitrage ads from smaller advertisers as well...ones that would have been filtered out of Google a year or two ago (unbranded sites, cheesy universal subdomains, subdomains of subdomains, .info thin content sites, sites which act as a portal that link to domain lander pages that use a 0 for the o in the domain name, Overture feed sites, adsense sites with robotic content, etc etc etc) are now showing up for many Google searches. Google has begun running their own arbitrage ads for things like credit cards and car insurance. Some people have even noticed graphical ads selling people and sites distributing spyware.

To appreciate how bad this is here are a couple examples...

• On one major keyword I saw all but one ad being from an unbranded thin arbitrage site.
• On one search I clicked from Google into an arbitrage site that lists links to niche domains with domain holder pages. On those domains there were Overture advertiser links. I clicked one of those and ended up on a site that was a thin crappy AdSense arbitrage site. That AdSense ad I clicked on landed me on another domain lander page powered by Overture. That domain lander page had ads on it for the domain name I just came from...and then I fully appreciated the absurdity of it all!

I could make a video showing examples, but did not want to out people. I just find it lame that Google polices organic results so aggressively and then let their ad network devolve this far this fast. They were pretty strong 6 months ago.

I suspect that Google is trying to goose revenues for this quarter (or is trying to use the downturn to be aggressive with experimentation). I can't think of any other reasons why they would have done such a major retracement on their quality score algorithm and click arbitrage front. Essentially they are paying people to generate garbage AND eat up a lot of their revenue while providing zero value in the transactions.

Have you been seeing a sharp rise in garbitrage?

What is Visible?

One of the biggest problems with this site from a business model perspective is how much free content (including tools) that we give away...as the site was started out of passion with intent to help people, rather than to maximize short term revenues. That lead to me helping people for free way more than I should have, and not earning as much as I could have from paying customers (because I spent too much time helping people who had no intent of becoming customers). Shifting the business model to charging a recurring fee fixed part of that problem...using economics to add a layer to filter out real customers from freeloaders.

Another large problem is that I have asked forum members not to mention specific forum threads without getting permission from other members who contributed this to the thread. People love the forums and leave unsolicited testimonials virtually every day, but rarely do people write publicly about the forums due that restriction.

Khalid Saleh recently highlighted the forums publicly when he referenced me as a top online marketer:

Many top SEO professionals no longer spend time on forums. That is not the case with the SEO book community forum. The caliber and quantity of top seo experts who are ready to answer any question sets the forum apart. Let alone the personal effort Aaron invests ensuring that no question goes unanswered.

But such public mentions are rare due to the above restriction.

The combination of limited public discussion of the paid content with so much discussion of the freebies creates a website that is easy to mention to attract pageviews, but does not convert anywhere near as well as it should because the conversion process is nowhere near as refined as it could be.

This site gets a ton of traffic...but we have enough to where it makes sense to put more effort into sales.

Building the Perception of Value

It is hard for people to accurately value information they do not have access to...which is why many hyped up marketers have systems built around duping newbies with fake testimonials, affiliate schemes, and "launches" promoted through email list spamming. (Everyone is talking about it, so it MUST be good!)

I hate asking people for money, but if I simply do not then this site will only perform at a fraction of its full potential. My wife is a much more aggressive sales person than I am (she did high tech marketing in the past and was responsible for landing a huge deal that ended up getting her company acquired by their biggest competitor for big money). She is always pushing me to be more aggressive. I have been naively reluctant on some fronts, but am slowly coming around bit by bit. ;)

Value systems are built through marketing and publicity. This site makes way more than what it needs to for me to consider it successful, but there is a lot of money left on the table. I bet the upside potential from conversion improvements is at least 200%...maybe way more.

How Much Are Your Internal Search Results Worth?

If a site has conversion issues, the easiest way to fix them is to break down the conversion process into steps and processes. I thought I would take a step in that direction by advertising our community forums and training program on our internal search results.

Generally there is no better place to advertise than on your own site.

Each day hundreds of people use our public facing site search, and they have done over 100,000 searches in the past year or so. My average cost per click on Google's search results is over $1 per click, and yet I have never advertised on my own search results. Think about that number...over 100,000 times people have found the brand then done a specific search on this site with 0 of them seeing an advertisement. As a marketer that is an embarrassing failure.

Advertising on Your Internal Site Search Results

Here is what I did to fix the above issue...

1. Signed up for the Google custom search engine to allow us to include their technology into the site. Labeled and feature content from key portions of the site to promote them within those search results.
2. Created a custom CSS file for the search page, which allowed me to make the search results skinnier and the related advertising column wider (when compared to other pages on the site).
3. Included mini-logos, search boxes, and testimonials from the training section and user forums on the search page.
4. Used a PHP page such that I could pull the search variable from the URL string and add the query in the page content (in various places - including headings and search boxes).

Here is how to pull a variable from the URL string

<?php
$val = $_GET['q'];
echo "$val";
?>

Example Search Result

See how I added the advertisements on this search for page titles.

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Was the above worth the effort? I am not certain yet, but I have to imagine so. If it helps convert 1 person a day that is worth over $100,000 a year for the one hour of effort it took to implement. There are aesthetic improvements that can still be made, but at least now that page has potential to build revenue rather than just being a sunk cost.

Falko Luedtke has been a member of our online training program and community forums since the day we opened up nearly a year ago. He has done in house SEO for some fortune 500 clients and recently branched out to start his own consultancy. As a Search Engine Strategies media partner I figured it would be more beneficial to many readers of the blog to see what Falko thought of going to his first SEO related conference, rather than hearing my take on it. Without further ado, here is his review...

My First SEO Conference

My first SES, way to cold and bad coffee but the greatest working week I ever had.

6 days in Chicago, the first time for me being in the windy city, the first time that I went to a big SEO conference, the first time that I freeze my butt off anywhere I go.

I love to go to conversions and conferences, when I was younger I spend almost every second weekend on the road to attended eSport events. So even so it was my first time to go to a SES it was nothing new for me.

Overall I need to say that I enjoyed the week in Chicago a lot and I can’t wait to go to the next conference. Everybody interested in SEO should at least attend to one in his life. It is the second best way to meet other SEO experts and exchange knowledge with them, best way is signing up for the SEO Book Community. I don’t know who came up with the idea to put the December SES to Chicago but I guess it is the same person who decided to put it into the Chicago Hilton Hotel. I talked to so many people on this conference and everybody was saying the same 5 things:

• I’m freezing my B’s off.
• Godverdomme my phone is not working.
• Does anybody have a steady internet connection? I don’t.
• Where is the coffee? No I’m not talking about that weird black water over there.
• The music is so loud I can’t hear what you say. What did you say?

When I arrived on Sunday evening from Vancouver I already had meet one other SEO and as soon we said down in the shuttle bus we realized we are not alone. 7 out 10 people in the shuttle where on their way to the conference. I thought, good start as more people around as more possibilities to talk. After settling down in my room and get myself organized I went to Kitty O'Sheas in the Hilton. I didn’t stay in the Hilton by the way, I said right next door in the Essex Inn, paid a third of the price and had less to complain about my room than anybody else I meet on the conference. Kitty is an Irish bar not a bad one but they really need to learn to turn down the music. I meet more people in the first night then I could have expected. And at 5 am I went happily to bed thinking about what to attend to on Monday.

Monday Summary

Monday morning the black water that the Hilton called Coffee didn’t really help, the breakfast was average low and way to overpriced so I could really enjoy me being hang over on this morning :) That didn’t stop me to go to the panels. I could spend a 100 blog posts talking about the panels and all the great things that I learned but I don’t want to make this post to long. I think there are some panels I would like to urge you to try to get your hands on the presentations, if you can.

Orion Panel: The State of Integration – Yes we are SEO’s, yes we are great but yes there are others. Use traditional marketing to funnel your branding efforts into high converting search. Instead of fighting your traditional marketing colleges work with them.

Search & Packaged Goods Moderated by Mark Jackson – One of the best panels I attended on the conference. You could have really learnt something about were large consumer-packaged-goods companies work and think. More and more Shopper Moms are going online to research their products online or looking for coupons. Also how a crisis in a industry can a good way to created brand trust. I just say large number of searches, big marketing budgets but old companies with no sense for new technology. Huge opportunities for every marketer who stops and thinks for a moment about it.

Why Does Search get all the Credit? – Pretty simple, search converts better and is much easier to click then to walk somewhere. But how do you get people to search for your brand terms? There is a life beyond the internet and we all living in it.

Take away from the first day was clearly, look outside the search box, with the prices for traditional marketing down there are huge opportunities to drive more searches. Don’t forget to optimize your site for conversions first :) A very good book to read about this topic is “Landing Page Optimization” from Tim Ash.

Tuesday Summary

Tuesday morning the breakfast was not much better in the Hilton and coffee in the press area was the same as the day before. I spend quite a bit of time at the Expo and talk to a lot of Marketers and Product Managers. Some of the products are just amazing. Everybody who works with content should take a look at the new version of WordVision, very cool.

The panel for Tuesday that I thought was most interesting, since most people don’t get it right, was Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues moderated by Eric Enge. Even so I didn’t agree with all the presentation the insides that Sharad Verma from Y! Search provided were gold worth. Hint different language can’t be duplicated content. Use Aarons Duplicated Content Checker to make sure you don’t have any problems with it on your site.

The evening was even better then the day before. A little tip for you, just stick around till the Gurus are drunk and then ask all your questions you will get the best answers.

Wednesday Summary

This time I left the Breakfast out in Hilton, just not worth it. For this day I would like you to look at Social Media Optimization as a panel. Even so Web 2.0 was yesterday and we are not quite at Web 3.0 yet Social Media is a constant in the internet that you can’t forget about anymore if you want to run a successful online business. A lot of old school companies are still hesitant to invest in such a market but they could find solutions for their biggest problems here. Interacting with a community can created not only brand awareness but it can also help you to created new content for your company. If you have a great product and created value for your clients it will help your online efforts even more. Pauline Ores at IBM mention that if they get a bad feedback in the community it takes sometimes too long for them to react on it but the community on its own does it instantly. And often more human then IBM could.

At this point I need to thank Mike Grehan and all the great people for the great dinner this evening. And after talking to Mike about his new book I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I hope after reading the book people stop riding the “Rank matters most” trip.

Thursday Summary

Since I went to bed at 6.30 am on Thursday morning it took me a bit longer to come back on track. At least I can say I enjoyed the most awesome Jazz club in Chicago and I now know what company I would invest money in if I would have any :) You want to know? Send me a mail.

There are two panels I want to mention for this day, first is “How to speak Geek: Working Collaboratively with your IT department to get stuff done” Chris Boggs is a great guy and he is so right, we are living in the 21th century, nerds rule the world and they will do that more and more, Management language does not help you anymore. The world changed people want to cut the BS and come to the point. So start speaking Geek it will help you at work, with your friends and maybe even you can finally connect to your kids again.

The highlight of the conference was “Black Hat, Whit Hat & the Best kept secrets to Search” With Todd Friesen, Eric Enge, Doug Heil and David Naylor in the panel. Some people expected that somebody would start a bar fight but David Naylor just stole the show. If somebody did a video of the D..k head parody please send me the link over. We didn’t have the changes to see a bar fight but it was almost an hour long discussion about all the nice things what you can do to make yourself disappear in the search results.

Not only was this the funniest panel of the conference, but it also had a ton of information in it like how Google will not allow tons of results in there SERP that are leading all to the same upstream end point. You can mask a lot of things but you can’t mask the upstream end point. If all the search results send their traffic to the same end point Google will eliminate the ranking of your affiliates to created more diversity in their results. With creating multiple end points for your affiliates you are able to create this diversity.

But I need to repeat the warning from Todd and Doug from last night, be aware of the risks and only do things that are relevant. To quote David Naylor on this "If a user clicks on a link that says 'Buy Viagra', they're going to land on a page that's selling Viagra." If the user clicks on ‘Buy Viagra’ and lands on the page of Al Gore the user is properly not very happy. With staying relevant you can’t do much wrong. I really hope somebody did a video of this panel. If not too bad you were not here.

Conference Summery

Before I bore you guys to death, I guess I already did here are some recommendations if you ever plan to attend a SEO conference.

• If you come for just one day, save the money for the conference get a Expo only ticked, take the money that you saved and go to the bar.
• Look for the Geek with the most people around him and by him drinks till he can’t stand anymore. You learn more in the bar and with being social then you could ever learn from the panels.

To summarise the conference, it was a great week, thank you so much for the opportunity Aaron. I had so much fun and even so that I would say SES should move this event ether to a different city for December or to a different hotel all the complains are gone as soon you get in the Bar and be social. I can’t wait to attend the next conference even if it is in the cold again, the information and knowledge you gain in one night is worth a lot more than the cost of coming to the conference. I almost wish that the conference would have not ended but my lever hurts, I’m tiered and I had the most fun week working ever. I hope to see you around on the next events maybe the SEO Community conference?