SEO Marketing

Yahoo's line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo's advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers.

It will benefit advertisers because it will increase search volume, with results from both Bing and Yahoo being taken into consideration. It will benefit consumers because by combining advertisers from both properties, there will be a greater pool to deliver sponsored results from, which Yahoo says will mean increased relevance. It will benefit Yahoo, Bing, and their publisher partners with increased liquidity, participation, and relevance. That is basically the sum of it, according to Yahoo Vice President of Search Advertising David Pann.

WebProNews recently sat down with Pann and discussed these things and how the deal will affect advertisers.

According to Pann, the migration across all international markets will occur over the next 24 months or so, but they will not rush it at the expense of quality, they say. "Our focus is really about developing a plan that is smooth, seamless, and with quality. So we anticipate doing the U.S. migration sometime before the holiday season in 2010," says Pann.

In the above interview, Pann goes on to talk about how things will be split between Yahoo and Microsoft. He also addresses some privacy concerns, related to data sharing between the two companies.

WebProNews also interviewed Yahoo Sr. VP of Search Products Shashi Seth and Director of Search Marketing David Roth, both of whom talked about the deal in more detail. You can catch both of those interviews, as well as a recent keynote from SMX West where the deal was also discussed, here.

The Wall Street Journal has the Blogosphere abuzz with rumors of Google testing a new set-top box with Dish Network, which would allow people to search television and online video content like YouTube. Google has given the usual "we don't comment on rumor or speculation" statement on the subject.

According to the WSJ, only a small number of Google employees and their families are testing the box, which runs on Google software (Android is implied), and lets users create personalized lineups of shows. The testing has reportedly been going on since last year. Aside from these things, the details are sketchy at best, which can only mean one thing: let the wild speculation commence.

Assuming that this service ever comes to fruition, it could open up a lot of new opportunities for Google to dominate or at least heavily compete in areas in which it isn't dominating already. Rather than doing too much speculation myself, allow me to just list some questions and open this up for discussion:

- What if Google gets exclusive deals with Dish Network as well as other major satellite and cable providers? Google TV Ads already has deals in place to provide ads on close to a hundred cable networks.

- What if Google makes more deals to boost its movie rental selection on YouTube? How big of a player would that make YouTube in the movie rental space? This will be something to keep an eye on with or without this box as Internet-ready TVs permeate the mainstream.

- Will Yahoo and Bing be looking at opportunities like the Google/Dish Network box? Are they already?

- What would widespread integration of web search and television mean for TV advertising?

In the not-too-distant future, we may start to really see TV advertising getting more targeted, which has long been the medium's biggest downfall. People often record shows simply so they don't have to watch the commercials. What if the ads were targeted at the individuals watching the TV? What if they were relevant? Search advertising paved the way for this kind of relevancy, and may just be a key to the future of TV advertising in a world where viewers want their programming on demand.

There I go off on that speculation. This all sounds good in theory, but a lot of puzzle pieces have to fall in place, and a lot of stars have to align for this to become a reality. Deals must be made, and money must be spent. That's not to say the concept is far-fetched.

Consider that advertisers are finding online to be a better option than even the super bowl in some cases. This past Super Bowl, Pepsi skipped a TV spot for the first time in 23 years. TV is going to have to adapt.

Tell us what you think.

Has it ever occurred to you that you may have keywords on your site that are misleading to search engines? Or that you need to take a look at all of the keywords you are trying to rank for, and think about the different meanings and contexts that those could be taken in that are unrelated to your actual product, and then eliminate other seemingly unrelated words that to a search engine could be misconstrued as an indication of one of those other contexts?

At SMX West last week, WebProNews sat down with Bruce Clay of Internet Marketing firm Bruce Clay, Inc. who made some interesting points about understanding searcher behavior, intent-based search, and how that should affect keyword research.

Note: We talked to Bruce about quite a few search-related topics, but this subject is focused on more toward the end of the video (about 20 minutes in).

Clay talks about Google delivering more personalization in search results, taking into consideration things like how prior queries influence future queries. "Ranking is going to be less of a measurement," he says. "We're going to be focused on more the traffic."

"When I decide I'm selling a hammer, I have to actively go out of my way not to have certain things appear in my site, because the search engines could be confused about what I'm talking about....I don't mean the Armand Hammer Art Museum at UCLA. I don't mean a bowling ball...you know, the things that show up for hammer are all over the board," says Clay.

"One of the things that I think is important, and that we've been working on is how do we actually do keyword research without knowing the behavioral aspects our personas that are actually going for our product? You have to understand personas now a little bit better - what kinds of things are they likely to search on, in sequence - before they type in hammer...so if they're on an arts and crafts site, and then they type in hammer, I ought to understand that behavior in sequence, so that I can better do my keyword research and determine how I'm gonna put the words on my page. I don't see a lot of people even thinking that way."

Personalized search is nothing new. Google's been personalizing search results for some time, based on various indicators, and it appears that Google is looking for more ways to deliver users a personalized experience (whether they want that or not).

Between personalized search and other sources of information infiltrating search results pages, traditional SEO is becoming harder to accomplish, and Bruce says, even ineffective. That's why it may become increasingly important to focus on relevant elements of the SERP for queries you hope to be found for.

Spending on online advertising and marketing will surpass print in 2010 for the first time, according to a new report from Outsell.

Companies will spend $119.6 billion on online and digital strategies, from search engine keywords to webinars, while committing $111.5 billion to print such as newspapers and magazine ads. Overall, U.S. spending on advertising and marketing will increase in 2010, but only by 1.2 percent to $368 billion.

Outsell forecasts spending, share, and growth for five media categories including online, events, print, TV/radio and PR/other.

"Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding," said Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst, Outsell.

"As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they're spreading their spending over a widening set of options."

Print magazine advertising will be up 1.9 percent to $9.4 billion even with the popularity of online channels.

Other key findings include:

*51 percent if B2B marketers rate Facebook as extremely or somewhat effective, followed by LinkedIn (45%), Twitter (35%) and MySpace (25%).

*B2B advertisers see cross-media marketing as most effective; 78% combine three or more major marketing methods.

*Methods creating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers' own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows: direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters. 
 

At SES Chicago last year, Yahoo VP of Consumer Products, Larry Cornett suggested that blended search results bring businesses a broader range of SEO opportunities, a chance to take control of their brand, and a potential increase in qualified clicks. While these blended results can tend to divert users away from organic listings, as SEO Dave Naylor pointed out at that same conference, Cornett does have a point.

Blended search results offer ways to get to the front page of search results beyond just the highly more competitive organic rankings. Sites have opportunities to show up for:

- real-time results
- news results
- image results
- video results
- shopping results
- local results (customers don't even need to go to your site in some cases)

At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, WebProNews spoke with Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, who says companies should still build a foundation in organic rankings before trying to conquer other areas:

That said you can break these different elements of blended results down one by one, and look at ways to have your site perform well in each particular one. Here are tips for image search optimization, for example. Here are some for video. Here are some for real-time search. Here are some for news search.

Back to Cornett's point about qualified clicks - focus on what makes the most sense for your site. Is focusing on real-time search worth your time? With Google, at least, even if you show up here, your presence will quickly give way to the next in line, and you will be off the page momentarily (although there still may be times when it makes sense to be seen here).

If you don't have quality video content, video search optimization is not bound to be a very practical use of you time. However, if you do have some good stuff, perhaps you should be heavily focused in this area. I think you get the point.

Of course there are plenty of other factors of today's search results page that drive users away from the "ten blue links" of organic results. It's not just the blended search elements discussed above. You've also got search suggestions, related search links, location, mobile use, paid listings, search options, and various other elements of the user experience that compete for user attention. This is one reason why the lines between search marketing and other types of marketing continue to blur (consider that users of Google or Yahoo can customize their home pages to accomodate many of their favorite sites, making those just a click away).

Still, that foundation in natural search that Besmertnik mentioned is definitely a big part of the overall picture. I suggest taking advantage of your listings here, and maximizing those, regardless of how well you rank. Things like site links and breadcrumbs come to mind.

Last year, Google's Matt Cutts dropped the bomb (to put it in the exaggerated tone that many took the news in), that Google was considering taking site speed into consideration as one of many potential ranking factors for search results.

Is your site's performance up to snuff? Comment here.

This of course freaked a lot of people out, but as Matt and Google as a whole has maintained, this would not trump relevance. It would be taken more into consideration when there are two sites of relatively equal relevance, but one site loads faster and delivers a better user experience. Matt reiterated this point in an interview we did with him this week at SMX.

WebProNews also chatted with Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer for Google at SMX, about website performance (speed), how that pertains to search rankings and the user experience, and some tips for making sure your site is up to speed, so to speak.

Stream videos at Ustream

As far as site speed as a ranking factor, Ohye pretty much makes the same point as Cutts, and it's probably not going to be something where all of a sudden all of the faster sites are ranking better and the slower ones are doing worse. But it does enhance the user experience, and she refers to a study that found that an optimized site actually increased conversions by 16%. So if you're not optimizing your site's performance for Google, maybe that's a good enough reason on its own.

Watch the video to get some specific advice regarding some simple adjustments you can make to your site that can make a big difference.

If you're one of those freaking out about getting your site performance optimized, you may feel better after hearing what she has to say, and realize that it might not be as big a deal as you thought.

By the way, Cutts also mentioned that the speed thing is completly independent of Caffeine.

Do you think site performance is a manageable attribute of your search engine marketing strategy? Discuss here.

When businesses think about search and social media, a great deal of the time, they are thinking about traffic, customer engagement, and brand awareness. While these are all good things to consider, there may be more to that last one that you have spent much time thinking about.

Brand awareness goes beyond just having a random customer find your site in a set of search results or through a link from their Facebook news feed. Have you considered how channels like search and social media are used by media outlets and journalists? The fact of the matter is that journalists and bloggers alike utilize both to a great extent while covering their beats.

Do you take press coverage into consideration? Comment here.

Search and social both play significant roles in PR. This is a topic that WebProNews recently discussed with TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden. Odden calls journalists customers, and in many ways they should be treated as such when it comes to getting your product or site in front of their eyeballs.

Odden says to look at what it is you can do as a marketer to make it easier for the journalist to do their job. Optimize your content for what a journalist is looking for. This is one way you can potentially increase your media coverage, which can obviously increase brand awareness.

Odden makes a great point online journalists often having tighter deadlines, and turning to blogs and social networks for sources and quotes. For example, the real-time nature of a Twitter search might be just what a journalist or blogger need to find someone who's talking about the subject they're writing about, at nearly the moment they're looking for it.

For that matter, Google's real-time search can help for the same reason, and most journalists and bloggers frequently use Google to search for what they're looking for. If what they're looking for happens to be related to a newsy topic, they just might see Google's real-time results literally before anything else. If that topic happens to be related to something you're talking about, you just might end up in those results too. Google is also indexing updates from Facebook Pages here now, by the way.

The point is, if you are looking for increased media coverage, there are ways to increase your chances of getting in front of the right people, and it is certainly not limited to real-time search. Sometimes journalists/bloggers will simply tap their contacts within their social networks (or email of course) to find sources. This is as good a reason as any to engage in social media on a regular basis and network with lots of relevant people.

If attracting media attention is what you're after, consider these five tips I offered in a SmallBusinessNewz article last year:

1. Do something that's different - Simply do something that makes you stand out: something that gets people talking. If it creates enough buzz, the media coverage will likely follow.

2. Look for niche publications - the more niche the publication, the more likely they probably are to cover you.

3. Personalize your message - When you're writing an email to a publication to talk about your business, for example, personalize the message for the specific person you're contacting, so they know it's not just a manufactured piece that you're sending all over the web. Journalists like exclusivity.

4. Find multiple contacts - If you can find more than one contact for a particular publication, it may be wise to send your story pitch to them. This will increase the potential visibility among the publication's staff.

5. Provide plenty of details - When sending such a pitch, it's a good idea to include as many details about the product/story as possible. The more details available, the less research is required, and time is more valuable than ever, especially for a journalist.

Another piece of advice I would give is to not let your press center hold back your marketing opportunities. I've seen a lot of companies fail to keep their own press centers up to date with the latest news, even as big announcements are made, and even if they have issued press releases. Often times, these releases won't even be available on the site until later. If you want to increase your chances of more media coverage, you should always have your latest news readily available in your press center, or via your blog - wherever you make announcements. And always provide contact info.

Share your tips for increasing press coverage.

Watch the Keynote live at live.webpronews.com.

At SMX West in Santa Clara, the State of the Search Union keynote is taking place today. It's moderated by Chris Sherman, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land, and features SEL Contributing Editor Vanessa Fox, Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik, Yahoo Director of Search Marketing David Roth, and Misty Locke, President, Range Online Media and Chief Strategy Officer of iProspect. The official description for this keynote says:

We've just come through the most turbulent period in history for search marketers. Economic disruption, massive algorithm updates, the disappearance of a major player through consolidation with one of its former competitors… these events and others have reshaped the search landscape, creating both challenges and opportunities for search marketers. On this panel we’ve assembled some of the sharpest minds in search to discuss where things stand and where we’re going – you won’t want to miss the insights and recommendations from this group of super-savvy panelists.

I will liveblog the event below, when it starts 9:00am Pacific/12:00pm Eastern (please forgive typos):

Liveblogging starts:

12:00 EST: should be starting anytime now...

12:03 People are taking the stage...getting set up with audio...

12:04 Sherman: An interesting year in search. Often not a whole lot has happened, usually just Google, Google, Google. IN the past year, we've seen more radical change than in the past 15 years or so. no sign of change letting up...

12:05: A few questions: key question: when we were here last year, we were in the early stages of an economic meltdown...everybody uncertain....what's going to happen...search itself was still relatively young/ what was going to happen to industry? so now, how are we doing? 

Sound problems...dave says as a search marketer, it gave oppotunities to show stuff and shift strategies. support business goals/shipping landscape. maybe used to optimize for ROI now different metric...shift back to SEO. not just paid side.

Misty: ecommerce still did well in some areas. some clients due to search, record breaking months at times. even in downturn. some marketers utilizing different techniques, driving revenue, and reoccurring customer loyalty. combined search with other marketing channels...flexible companies saw growth.

12:09: Vanessa: Super bowl - with pepsi, they decided to spend their money on social. interesing that some companies think online is a better way to go... one thing from super bowl ads...so many large brands seem to only just now understand that search is important. across the board, it was better than last year as far as big brands in search during super bowl. a lot of work left though.

12:10 Avinash:  emboss your brand on somebody's brain (branding)..search can do this. at the end of the day. when people want to run a branding campaign.....what do you want out of it? one night stand? long term relationshiP? depending on what you want? search is a massively effective way to get to the right kind of people..

12:13: Microsoft/yahoo deal: Dave: since we got regulatory approval, the integration is on. huge project. lot of resources from both companies. proof will be in the pudding. advertisers start to migrate...i'm yahoo the advertiser. we're going to continue to innovate around the customer experinece around search. products tah live outside of the index....

12:14 Sherman: anomisity? integration with cultures? Dave: just beginning. large amoutn of resources at yahoo to be moved over and work with MS. will be a portion of yahoo that stays at yahoo. a lot remains to be seen. clearance still to new...people hard at work. everybody on the project understands that this is critical. it absoultely MUST work.

12:15: Misty: clients excited about deal. allows viable number 2. may not drastically change how they upload campaigns, but it does allow to shift focus stategy for bing....60/40 time split between google and bing...excited about volume...reach....

12:16: some changes in showing results will open up some new ways to utilize Bing to advertise. new customers...cashback is a big driver. marketers in geneal have been slow to adopt....

12:17: Sherman: 2 major players: shrinking? couple of giants? no 2 strong players. market growing. Avinash: competition is a good thing. gets everybody to innovate. important to realize...prudent to have portfolio strategy with acquistions. think about content network, youtube ,search, doubleclick. poeple get far too obsessed between microsoft, yahoo, and google. you should have already had a very effective strategy across all search engines.

12:18: Avinash says a blog post of his got way more traffic from bing for the word analytics than google.

12:19: You will find new customers and use dollars more effectively with the portfolio strategy.

12:19 Vanessa: waiting to see how things shake out with integration. searchmonkey? boss? waiting to see how it works out...yahoo did try to make a play for innovation. don't know how much they'll be motiviated.. it will be great if they do. reserving judgment.

12:20 Vanessa: hopefully we won't lose all the yahooness.

12:21: Caffeine: rolled out after holidays? no. still just one data center. sherman talking to vanessa: what impact is caffeine going to have on SEO? is Google going to continue in spirit it always has to provide tools/insight...Vanessa: changes - social, real-time,local, etc. things will ramp up more and more. caffeine specifically. i don't know it's going to impact seo that much. just back-end. on their side, a better way to crawl the web. their hope is just to do it better. that's a benefit for site owners. it's not a rankings impact, except in more of an indirect way. i don't think from an SEO perspective, there's much you need to do. I hoep they  keep reaching out. when i was there i loved being able to go out and see what people needed. don't see a reason why they would stop doing that. they have kept doing it. 

Avinash: if every googler woke up and for the entire day, they would answer questions for webmaster, it wouldn't answre all questions. how can we help people at scale? webmaster tools. a number of tools thag google puts out. just a few more releases for wm tools over the last six months. you'll continue to see google keep puting out tools that allow this kind of self help at scale. help you make better decisions with search data. orgasmic about amount of data google has put out there in terms of your ability to make better decisions. love access you have to google's organic search data....insights for search, ad planer....etc.
 
12:26 with google ad planner you can look at certain demographics and sell to them, but who have done a particular search....target with very relevant display ads using search data. we'll continue to put tools like this in your hands.

12:27 Sherman: back to dave on microsoft/yahoo: Dave: yahoo's staying committed in search. in sales side, very experienced in search and display. maintain high touch with big customers. small businesses and self service customers more directly managed on microsoft side.

The goal is to work on the acenter platform and make it the platform of choice on microsoft as well as yahoo.

12:29 Sherman: Yahoo search in dna? Dave: rich data from search, now idea is what can we do with the data we have and the assets to create a better ad for the consumer...behavioral, targeting, etc. teams of people focused on new ad products...

12:30: Sherman: social media - replacing search as the way people interact on the web? i don't see it, but Facebook has huge stats. what's happenign with that and what can search marketers do? Vanessa: reporter last week said search is so old news, so why still do search? she said people are still searching and they're searching more and more. and thy're going to keep doing so. doesn't mean don't think about social media, but it's about audience. it's not an either/or thing. misty agrees.

12:32 MIsty: with social you can do traditional things outside of search. boundaries are dissolving between different marketing strategies...

12:33: Misty: social/real-time can drive search volume. marketers will find new ways...it's a new beginning for search.

12:34: Dave: big companies look for search marketers for expertise in this. Avinash: media loves all stories, facebook/google/twitter/...world's is all about one thing or the other ....video killed the radio star...it's not like that here.  once said twitter was the dumbest thing on earth....now he uses it and thinks its the coolest thing since sliced bread.  important to realize that as you think about different elements, you use them for what they're good at. the worst strategy is the tv strategy...to shout at peopl...thats why most big brands have pathetic number of followers...they're not having conversations like danny sullivan.

12:36: Sherman: Managing info overload? how to make advertising legitimate business? will search be absorbed? siloing? Avinash: what we do today is try to influence people....there are many ways now to do that...one emerging way is to have these conversatiosn (is it going to survive)....single greatest reason for google's success is relevance..........advertisers (madmen style)...that way is dead.

12:37: Avinash: when i work with some of the largest companies....the small ones will use search to get people to raise money, brand awareness...very broad range...Dave: Siloing? exactly the opposite. social media is finally...we used to talk about the promise of engaging with a consumer. social media is the first channels that's accomplished this. it's forcing the breaking down of the silos. who should own social media in your organziaton? Who owns the paper in you organization? It's breaking down the silos.

Misty: everybody wants to own a piece of that because it can be so influential. PR, marketing, brands, search all involved. all can communicate more effectively. in the end we'll win, because w're tapping into what the consumer is truly looking for. customers can tell stories for us...make the pieces of our brand that they love more accessible to them...

12:41 Vanessa: we have to go the opposite way of silos. If you think about the data side, if all the areas of marketing can share data, there's going to be so much more engagment...

12:42: Sherman, people are engaging and being social...but we're still in the young, naive days in terms of black hat use...unethical marketers using data? What's gonna happen if gov. steps in and says privacy is an issues...we don't understand the issues, but will legislate it anyway:

12:43: Misty: thanks the gov. for paying attention to privacy (over healthcare,etc.). Avinash: talks about spam comments in egyptian tombs....spam has been a problem for a very long time and will continue to be...just try to use intelligent ways to surpress it as much as possible and provide incentives to do the right thing.

12:44: Misty: yes there will always be spam....marketers are always going to find a way to use/exploit media...years ago it was different people screaming "you're a black hat"...now it's the users who are policing the good/bad. consumers can sniff out the authenticity. the hard part is being so authentic that you don't get called out by the consumer...

12:46: Dave: regulaton - a fair degree of risk...double edged sword. potential to do unehtical and criminal things. ....mentions recent product from Google that raised privacy concerns (doesn't blame google necessarily)...not enough understanding in regulation to deal with it....some degree may be needed, but capitol hill's understanding of the internet is frightening.....education is required.... fears that legislators aren't up to speed.


12:48: Sherman:  shift from US perspecitve to global. what is the opportunity for search marketers to go global, and how do you deal with restictions in other countries like China.....Vanessa: you've always had to understand your audience whree they are. it's not just about geography/translating...understanding the culture. government stuff is a whole other set of issues...starts with understanding the market before you go into it.

12:49: Avinash: there tend to be very sophisticated marketers in other countries. those that are doing web are sophisticated....just not enough of them. many countries extrememly young. opportunities in these countries...like vanessa's point...you have to truly engage and understand the market. Misty: some other countries are doing more cool and unique things in social....

12:52:  Dave: a lot to be learned from other countries. some are leapfrogging...some not even using email, but going straight to Facebook, etc.

12:52: Mobile is here, but maybe it's not what we thought it was gonna be....we're about to see things change very drastically...iphone was a game changer...heading very quickly in a direction we didn't anticipate a few years ago...

12:53 sherman: changes for search marketers? Avinash: story about being with his kids wanting to see something and using his nexus one....used google search and transcribed what he said through voice search, used location, gave him driving directions fast....i wonder as SEOs/marketers, if we've thought of this as the use case. sites optimized so they can do these things....for their business....not just on google....i really think...i have to rethink my search strategy...not even a fragment of marketers in search business are thinking about that as search. encourages marketers to think of mobile like that...not just a WAP version of a web page.

Misty: are all your local listings up to date, ready for navigation, prodcuts easy to access? then think of advertising things...usability of site in mobile...

12:56: Vanessa: Avinash is right. ubiquity in mobile opens door for a lot of new opportunities. it's not that new ways of searching will replace google, but it's just presenting different ways. people don't think about using some things as searching, but it is....urbanspoon, etc.  Look at where the new opportunities are.

12:57 Sherman and audience thanks panel. It's over.

Online analytics firm Omniture and Facebook said today they have partnered to offer marketers tools to improve Facebook as a marketing channel.

Initially the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement on Facebook. The partnership builds on Facebook analytics the companies introduced last year to help marketers join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers.

The partnership is aimed at helping companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in an effort to connect and have relevant conversations with Facebook’s more than 400 million users.

“Working with us, Omniture has been able to develop a rich and immersive set of tools that will help our clients better understand the value of their Facebook advertising campaigns,” said Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of business development and monetization.

“By creating a single dashboard to plan, deliver and measure campaigns, Omniture can make advertising on Facebook easier and ultimately increase ROI for clients.”

Omniture customers can now use the company’s SearchCenter Plus, a combination of its search engine marketing management application with added functionality for buying Facebook Ads.

In addition, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as pages and applications.
 

Google is looking to improve upon its own internal SEO efforts. The company has created what it calls an "SEO Report Card," designed to improve the user experience and visibility of some of its own properties. The company says it aims to identify potential areas for improvement in Google's product pages, which could help users find them more easily in search engines, and fix bugs that annoy visitors and hurt the pages' performance in search engines.

Google is making this report card publicly available though, and that means other businesses and webmasters can study it themselves, and use what they learn to improve their own sites. It may come as a surprise to some, but Google appears to have a great deal of improvement to do when it comes to search engine optimization, the irony of course coming from the fact that Google operates the world's most dominant search engine.

"Simple steps such as fixing 404s and broken links, simplifying URL choice, and providing easier-to-understand titles and snippets for our pages can benefit both users and search engines," says Google's Search Quality team. "From the start of the project we also wanted to release the report card publicly so other companies and webmasters could learn from the report, which is filled with dozens of examples taken straight from our products' pages."

Here's a quick look at their scoring:

The whole document is about 50 pages (though much of that is graphical), and is available to download in PDF format. Google began by reviewing the main pages of 100 of its different products across a number of common SEO topics, and says it will go deeper into the sites in future versions of the report card.

What do you think about Google's SEO scores? Do you find the information within the report card helpful?

Update: I finally got word back from Facebook, who confirmed that the feature is indeed only a test. "The "Promote" feature is just a test and is unrelated to our Promotions Guidelines," the company says. They  did not give any specifics about a possible full launch.

Original Article: Facebook appears to either be rolling out or testing a feature that lets Facebook Page owners promote specific posts. When you make an update, a link that says, "Promote" can be found by the links for "Comment" and "Like".

Once you click that Promote link, it brings up a dialogue box, which asks you to create an ad, with targeting descriptions, the ad duration, and the maximum price of "Up to $50.00 USD".

Editor's note: Feel free to become our fan on Facebook, by the way.

You can click on "Edit Ad" to go to the standard Facebook Advertising Page, or you can click "Create Ad" to go to this page:

Interestingly enough, this comes after talk last week about how you have to have promotions approved by a Facebook account representative, which would reportedly cost you about $10k. This would appear to eliminate that notion.

The feature appears to only be available for some admins of some pages. We're not sure if they're rolling out the feature or just testing it. I've contacted Facebook to learn more about the feature, and I'll update when I receive a response. Any other Facebook Page admins getting this feature? Let us know.

Twitter is expected to launch an ad platform this month (some have speculated this will happen at SXSW). While this hasn't been confirmed, the industry has been waiting for quite some time to Twitter to launch such a monetization model.

That's not to say the industry has been sitting on its hands as it's waited. Third-parties have taken it upon themselves to offer services for Twitter, that Twitter itself doesn't offer. That includes apps of course, but it also includes Twitter ads. 140 Proof is one such company, and it calls itself the "first scalable ad solution built exclusively for Twitter."

"The Proof network aggregates the Twitter client and application ecosystem (roughly 100+ million Twitters users) and then segments users into a dynamic audience that advertisers can buy the same way they buy keyword advertising," a representative for the company tells WebProNews. "Advertisers are excited to final have a mechanism for extended their conversations on the Twitter social network and the Twitter ecosystem is eager to have a targeted, non-obtrusive advertising solution that allows them to monetize their applications while still respecting  the ethos of the Twitter community."

The 140 Proof Network features hundreds of advertisers, who the company says are reaching their target markets on Twitter. "Some are large well know brand names that everyone is familiar with and some are small businesses that are trying build their presence on Twitter or advertise in a very local or targeted manner," the rep says.

We asked the company if they think Twitter's ad platform has a chance to damage businesses like theirs and others that have been making a business based on sponsored tweeting (Sponsored Tweets from Izea comes to mind).

"We welcome Twitter to the advertising world," the rep tell us. "Clearly we think that their entrance in the marketplace is a great validation of what we are doing, but we also believe that the market is large enough to support many major players. Further, we feel that our experienced advertising and engineering team, our advantage of being fully operational for months, and our patented, proprietary technology will give us an advantage over all competitors."

Quite a display of confidence from 140 Proof - an advantage over Twitter at Twitter ads? What do you think?

A little more than a month ago, Google introduced click-to-call phone numbers in local ads on smartphones.  Now, the popular program's undergoing an expansion as Google's made it easier for large companies to take advantage of the offering.

A post on the Inside AdWords blog explained today, "[W]e're bringing the same click-to-call benefits to national advertisers through phone extensions.  Phone extensions allow you to add a phone number that will be displayed whenever your ad is triggered, regardless of the user's location."

Here's the upshot, then: "This enables customers to connect with your business by phone directly from the ad and can be especially useful if you have a call center to handle customer inquiries."

Advertisers should profit as a result of this development, considering that phone calls are more likely than clicks to lead to purchases.  Google looks set to make a lot of money, too, since this move will encourage corporations with big advertising budgets to give click-to-call ads a shot.

Perhaps the only losers will be the companies that don't adapt quickly.  They'll risk losing sales to competitors with more eye-catching and actionable ads.

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the online marketing and behavioral targeting practices of pharmaceutical companies.

The CDD says few U.S. health consumers are aware they are being identified, labeled, profiled, and tracked on the Internet while they search or access information on specific conditions or concerns.

"The health and safety of U.S. consumers must be protected from inappropriate and potentially harmful use of digital marketing applications that have been embraced by pharmaceutical and health marketers," said Jeff Chester, Executive Director, CDD.

"It is essential that the FDA craft regulatory safeguards for Internet-related promotion, especially since interactive communications will become the dominant form for the delivery of health information and advertising to both consumers and health professionals."

The CDD asked the FDA to work with the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies to develop a set of policies for regulating the use of behavioral targeting and data collection in the marketing of drugs and health-related products.

The FDA held two days of hearings last November on the role of the Internet and marketing for regulated drugs. Chester said at those hearings, "pharmaceutical marketers purposely painted a sanitized, storybook image of social media marketing."

"Direct-to-Consumer Digital Marketing of pharmaceutical and health-related products requires the FDA to re-evaluate its standards for advertising practices, including what should be considered as truthful and non-misleading," he said.
 

A while back, WebProNews had a conversation with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn about how the long tail of search is getting more competitive. Companies like AOL and Demand Media are working on dominating long tail searches with content across a broad scope of article subject matter. We had another conversation with another company that is doing this, called Suite101, which is placing an increased amount of emphasis on SEO to up the competition in this space even more. Suite101 President and CEO Peter Berger took a break from Olympics mania in Vancouver (home of the company's headquarters) to tell us about it.

"Making sure well-written articles get found online involves continuous hard work and search engine knowledge," says Berger. "We know that in order to help our writers get their stories found, we need to increase our expertise in the area of search." That's why the company just hired search strategist Aaron Bradley as its SEO Director to implement new SEO tactics across its articles.

Berger tells WebProNews Suite101 attracts over 25 million unique monthly visitors. The company's revenue comes from advertising - mainly AdSense, but other networks have been integrated as well. They don't charge writers fees, but they have a strict submission process. Only 20% of writers are accepted, with 80% being turned away. Writers are required to submit work samples and resumes before being accepted. The first article must be submitted before it goes live, but after that, articles go live and are then reviewed by editors.

Berger says "quality is key," and is the reason he doesn't seem too worried about competition from big name brands like AOL. That, and he says most writers want to write for numerous publications, so even if a writer does work for AOL, there's a good chance they'll submit to Suite101 as well.

Presumably Berger is hoping the hiring of Bradley will help with the competition in terms of search engine traffic, the company's biggest traffic source (though they do see spikes from social media as well). One writer for Suite101 achieved a monthly earnings record of $5,000 for articles published at the site, which splits revenue with its writers. It will be interesting to see how quickly that record is surpassed with the company's new SEO efforts.

Naturally, the more quality articles the site is able to obtain, the more content it will have out there in the search engines, and if their SEO efforts are as effective as they hope, they will be getting a lot more eyeballs and clicks on their ads. Berger thinks writers like Suite101 because it’s the "closest" they can et to "actual professional editors in a lot of cases. Quality, he says, is the "key differentiator" between Suite101 and its competitors. 

There has been a lot of talk about how SEO practices can hinder quality, because you should write for people, and not search engines. Berger thinks they can achieve both.

There is an interesting discussion going on in our WebProWorld forum about search engine optimization post Microsoft-Yahoo deal. For those unfamiliar with the topic, Microsoft and Yahoo recently gained regulatory approval on a search and advertising deal announced last year, which will see Yahoo using Bing's algorithm in its search results. The discussion is about whether or not this means businesses and webmasters will only have to worry about optimizing for 2 search engines (Google/Bing) rather than 3 (Google, Yahoo, and Bing).

Will you focus your efforts more heavily on Bing? Discuss.

What Bing Coming to Yahoo Means

It's important to note that Microsoft and Yahoo still have plenty of details to work out before anyone knows just how the product of this deal will function. We know that Bing will be used in the back-end of searches on Yahoo, but we don't know what other elements Yahoo will still be incorporating into the search experience. For example, Yahoo said last week that the companies will still be discussing how SearchMonkey and BOSS figure into the mix.

Optimizing for Yahoo is not going to be limited to showing up in Bing's results. That's not to say that showing up in Bing's results won't have its advantages for Yahoo search, but there is a lot more going on at Yahoo than that. The company has been stressing that it is still very much focused on search, and under the deal with Microsoft, Yahoo will still be controlling the user experience at Yahoo.com.

Right now, Yahoo.com has plenty of elements to consider, from news and trending topics, to a whole slew of "applications" that users can customize on their Yahoo homepage. Among these are Facebook and Flickr. If you want to get in front of Yahoo users, it's not limited to Yahoo search results. That said, Yahoo search results also have their own thing going on. Keep an eye on the box that appears under the search box after you enter a query. It contains related queries, and "related concepts". This is one area that could conceivably be independent from Bing (although that remains to be seen at this point). Yahoo is not shy about putting brands in these "related concepts" either. You can find WebProNews in there for a query like "ebusiness news".



The point is, Yahoo has made it clear that it will continue to control the user experience, and that means there should be plenty of areas within Yahoo that are out of Bing's control. This leads me to presume that Yahoo will not be something you'll want to ignore, just because Bing is integrated into it. Remember that at this point, Yahoo controls a much greater percentage of the search market than Bing.

All of that said, you may want to pay closer attention to your Bing rankings if you haven't done so in the past, because while Yahoo will still be Yahoo to its users, the deal also means there will be significantly more eyeballs on what Bing determines to be the most relevant results to searches.

Why Stop at Google, Yahoo, and Bing?

These may be the biggest three search engines in terms of market share in the United States, but there are still plenty of people using others. For one thing, YouTube is number 2. Not Yahoo or Bing. If you are concerned about simply being found where people are searching, you should have a YouTube presence. That of course means having a video strategy, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a huge video budget.

There are still people using Ask as well. In search industry coverage, it often gets overshadowed by the others, but there are still a lot of people using it. In fact, the Ask Network's market share grew by 6% from December to January. Ask.com's market share grew by 1%. A lot of people search with AOL. AOL's search is powered by Google, but it doesn't always return the same results as Google.

Facebook's search market share grew by 13% in that same period of time. You may not think about Facebook for search as much, but people are spending more and more time on Facebook, and it stands to reason that they'll be conducting more and more searches from Facebook. Granted, Facebook's web search feature is powered by Bing, but that's only a piece of the Facebook Search puzzle. If you don't have a Facebook strategy, you may be missing out on a lot more searches. By the way, did you know that Facebook recently passed Yahoo as the 2nd most visited site (just under Google)?

These are just a few examples. People are searching from a lot more places. Rather than just optimizing for Google, Yahoo, and Bing, perhaps you should think about all of the places where your site/business would make sense when a user searches (consider niche sites as well).

Does the Yahoo/Bing deal make optimization easier? Weigh in with your thoughts.

Newspaper websites are the most valued sites for people seeking credible and trustworthy local content, according to a new survey conducted by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

More than half (57%) of the 3,050 respondents cited local newspaper websites as the top online source for local information. That percentage increases for upper income households (63%) and for the college educated (60%).

Newspaper sites ranked first as a source for local information (29%), local sports (27%), local entertainment (26%) and local classifieds (39%), over both local television websites and online portals.

"This important research provides further evidence of newspapers' successful multiplatform transition, with the medium serving as a continuous local resource for consumers," said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.

"While newspaper Web sites often face dozens of competitors touting their own local offerings in any given market, they have been able to thrive by leveraging trusted brands and strong local content to appeal to consumers and advertisers alike."

Local newspaper websites ranked first among all sources for trustworthiness, credibility and being the most informative place to find local content of all types, including news, information, entertainment, sports and classified advertising. When respondents were asked what sources were most trustworthy or reliable, local newspaper websites beat out local television sites (34% vs. 22%), local sports (30% vs. 24%), local entertainment (30% vs. 20%) and local classifieds (42% vs. 13 %).

The survey also found that people consider local newspaper websites to be the most trusted source of online advertising, with ads that are seen to be more current, credible and relevant to them.

Forty percent of adults agreed their opinion of online advertising is influenced by the type of website on which the ad appears. More than one third (36%) selected local newspaper websites for trustworthy advertising compared to 23 percent for local television websites and 12 percent for online portals. This was true across all demographics.

"This survey reinforces the notion that consumers value and trust the premium-quality content found at newspaper Web sites as well as the advertising on those sites," said Randy Bennett, NAA's senior vice president of Business Development.

"It also provides further evidence that newspapers, which attracted a record 75 million visitors in January, offer advertisers a high-value audience that no other medium can match."


 

 

Twitter is testing an ad platform, which is expected to be released next month, possibly at the South By Southwest event in Austin. Though the timing of the release has not been confirmed, Twitter's head of product management and monetization, Anamitra Banerji, told MediaPost that they "are working on an ad platform, but it's only in the test phase."

According to Banerji, when Twitter does launch the product, it will make it clear when sponsors have paid for ads, and the ads themselves will be "relevant and useful, so the user doesn't think of it as an ad." This strategy seems to have been working well for Digg, which launched Digg Ads last year, to generally positive feedback from users (users can participate by voting ads up and down, which makes the more interesting ones more likely to be seen).

Twitter doesn't exactly operate like Digg though, but Twitterers do contribute to trending topics. On a recent panel, Banerji showed off a chart that looked at peaks and total tweets throughout the Super Bowl, with one line representing tweets about the actual game, and another representing tweets about specific advertisers.

It is possible that Twitter's ad platform would tie into this "what people are already talking about" kind of thing, but that would seemingly make it much more difficult for a lesser-known brand to have any kind of advertising success.

The truth is, nobody knows exactly how Twitter is going to present its ads yet. The question is, how can they do it in a way that users won't think of it as an ad? It's probably going to involve some real-time engagement on the part of the advertiser, which leads one to wonder how they will be different than any other unpaid, branded tweet.

"People are constantly talking and engaging with brands, sharing their feedback," MediaPost quotes Banerji as saying. "What if brands start to participate? What would the chart look like then?" I thought brands already did that.

It's going to be about how Twitter presents it. That could be a difficult problem to address, given that Twitter users use the service through many different third-party apps and devices, and often not the site itself. This is not a concept Twitter is likely to have ignored though, so if they're planning on launch next month, they must have a pretty good solution.

How would you like to see ads displayed on Twitter? Discuss here.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today starting April 1, advertising for "free credit reports" online will require new disclosures to help consumers avoid confusing "free" offers which often require them to spend money on credit monitoring or other products and services.

The FTC's Free Credit Reports Rule will require new prominent disclosures in ads for "free credit reports." Any website offering free credit reports must include a disclosure, across the top of each page that mentions free credit reports, which reads:

THIS NOTICE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Read more at FTC.GOV.
You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com
or 877-322-8228, the ONLY authorized source under federal law.

The website disclosure must include a link to "Take me to the authorized source" and links to AnnualCreditReport.com and FTC.GOV.

The amended Rule also restricts practices that might confuse or mislead consumers as they try to get their federally mandated free annual credit reports. The new Rule requires consumer reporting agencies including Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to delay any advertising for products or services on AnnualCreditReport.com until after consumers receive their free credit reports.

 The wording of the disclosures for television and radio ads goes into effect on September 1, 2010. The FTC said it will monitor the effectiveness of the amended Rule, and will consider additional changes if necessary.
 

 

A Facebook Page can be a great way to build your fan-base, inspire engagement with customers/readers, and generally build upon your brand. However, if you want to do a promo on one, that'll cost you.

Facebook's policy dictates that one must get written approval from a Facebook account representative. In order to get one of those, you have to spend about ten grand advertising with the company, according to Eric Eldon at Inside Facebook.

>>Become a fan of WebProNews on Facebook <<

So basically, if you don't want to violate Facebook's promotions guidelines, you can't really do any advertising or run any sweepstakes without actually paying for Facebook ads too. "You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except that you may administer a promotion through the Facebook Platform with our prior written approval," that particular section of the guidelines states.

"The business model, with pages, is to try to get as many people using them as possible, then make a little money from each person if they want to do paid advertising — the preview fee goes against this model to try to keep Facebook legally safe," writes Eldon. "The problem, as many people trying to build promotions for Facebook have been discovering on their own, is that the fee requirement is never clearly spelled out. And, neither is the rationale for the fee. The result is confusion among marketers and developers trying to build promotions for Facebook, especially for small-business clients."

Well, if you stick to the classic advice handed down from a great many Internet marketing consultants, you'll want to use Facebook for engagement, and participating in the conversation. Using your Facebook Page to deliver a sales pitch has pretty much always been ill-advised anyhow.

That said, the lines can get blurry from time to time, and as Eldon notes, many businesses are still trying to figure Facebook out. Guidelines like this may not be particularly encouraging for them. They also raise questions about Facebook's future with regards to e-commerce, as Facebook continues to head in that direction (they're even taking PayPal more).

Facebook told Eldon that it doesn't have the resources to approve all possible promotions, and they all must be approved, so Facebook isn't held liable for illegal promotions.