I had the opportunity to attend a Google Business webinar last week hosted by Avinash Kaushik. The topic was outcome driven digital marketing. Avinash divided web marketing skill sets into three stages.

Cute Toddler: When web marketers are in this stage they are focused on cost; tracking things like clicks and impressions to figure out the cost per conversion/acquisition. At this level, tracking is implemented like Google Analytics but is only used to see the basics like traffic volume, most visited pages, bounce rates, and conversions.

Rockin’ Teenager: As your web marketing skills grow and develop, you start to focus on revenue instead of just cost. If your site has e-Commerce, this is especially important. At this stage you’re also probably using Pay-Per-Click advertising. Creating advanced segments in Google Analytics will start painting a clearer picture of how your visitors interact with the conversion path. Also, linking your analytics with you Adwords (or other PPC) account allows you to start looking at not only cost-per-click, but revenue-per-click. You can now factor in cost of goods sold to find net profit.

Ninja: After mastering the skills above, you are now in the ninja stage. You understand analytics and know how to calculate revenue but now you’re onto something much bigger…value. Ninjas hunt for what’s beyond the basics and try to unite web marketing with total marketing efforts. In addition to major conversion points like purchases, ninjas track customer value by tracking minor conversions like email submissions, catalog requests, loyalty programs, and social media. Using data gathered from the web and from traditional marketing, ninjas can estimate not only cost and revenue per acquisition/conversion but total value to the company.

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My Thoughts: I was extremely pleased to learn that our Web Marketing team here at Beacon is packed with skilled ninjas. We become partners with each and every client in order to reach the most sophisticated level of understanding and achieve powerful results. If you want the best in Web Marketing, hire the ninjas! 

Microsites are not recommended because…

1.      Your company will lose brand identity and audience engagement.  Think about how much you have spent and will continue to spend through corporate energy and funds on positive brand perception and awareness. Building a microsite is starting over completely from scratch with an entirely new brand. If you are trying to reach an entirely different audience and your current brand would be confusing to this new audience, then building a subdomain would be a better option than building a new site or microsite.  In most cases, microsites are subsets of or promotions for the main site, with exactly the same audience. There are two questions you should ask when considering a microsite.

Do you really want to work at building up multiple brand identities?

Do you really not want to benefit from the brand building in one category for another related category?

2.      A microsite will confuse people and search engines.  You do not want to exclude your regular visitors from your microsite content.

3.      You can’t leverage all areas of your business.  For example; If your company launches a new product andomeone writes up a positive article about this new product (with a separate microsite) in say, the NY Times, readers will start clicking over to the microsite.  But, what if these visitors are also in the market for another one of your company’s products?  If you have a separate microsite, you’ve just missed a great opportunity to reach a targeted and motivated audience currently looking for your other products.

4.      A big part of rank is the number of inbound links from other sites.  You don’t want to split partner links between two sites. You want to keep it all coming back to the main site.

5.      If this is a new site and concept the buzz will not be as strong.  Why not build up the buzz on your main site using the current PR and traffic as a spring board?

6.      What about time and costs?  You are going to have to spend extra time and money to maintain two separate places with different styles, and hopefully different content, etc.  And…if you are building a microsite for a specific campaign, what happens when the campaign ends?

Coming into this first week, I was not very familiar with web marketing or search engine optimization (SEO).  I had heard of both terms and I could describe what they were on a very basic level.  Basically, if I were asked what they meant, I would have simply defined them as the following:

*Web Marketing – Marketing online through use of websites and social media sites

*SEO – Making your website appear higher in Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other searches

Over the past two and a half days, I have spent the better part of my 20 hours a week here at Beacon Technologies (Beacon) reading blog after blog on what SEO really is and how it is done.  I had heard of Google Analytics (GA) through a friend of mine, but I had never had any exposure to it nor a reason to research it further than the few discussions we shared.  All I can say about GA is that I am amazed at the simplistic complexity of it.  On the surface, it seems very intuitive.  You can track information regarding visitors to your websites such as if it was their first time visiting or if they were a return visitor.  At the same time, GA allows you to dive much deeper into statistics.  The complexity of GA comes from designing filters and goals to determine exactly what information you are after.  From what I can tell, almost anything you wish to know about visits to your websites is obtainable in GA.  All you have to do is think it and visualize how to find it.

This week, I have also been able to sit in on meetings and brainstorming sessions.  I feel like this is the best part of the week so far.  Coming in with little knowledge of the services Beacon provides is a little unnerving.  However, all the people here have really made an effort to take time to explain things to me as well as treat me as an equal part of the web marketing team.  It’s a comforting feeling to go into something new and know that the people there are ready and willing to help you and guide you along the way.  Also, before I even started, Beacon had already set up everything I needed to integrate with the team.  There was a cube with a computer, phone, and the other essentials already in place for me.  In addition to that, Beacon had already set up all of my internal accounts such as email, network access, and etcetera.

As I am wrapping up week one, I feel confident in what is expected of me as well as how to accomplish the tasks at hand.  Thanks to the large amount of reading and videos I’ve watched on GA, Google AdWords and other resources, I am ready to hit the ground running next week.  It doesn’t hurt that I know that I have several people that I can go to for advice if I get stumped either.

Despite the fast paced world of SEO, many decision makers and analysts have a hard time dealing with change.  It is my goal to help you feeling more comfortable with the updated version of GA (still in Beta mode), because whether you like it or not- the older version will be going away.

The newer version allows for users to create up to 20 custom dashboards, each with up to 12 widget sections to be used.  The four types of widget options are metric, timeline, pie chart, and table.

• Metric: Shows the value of a metric and an information graphic of that metric over the selected time period
• Timeline: A graph of any metric over time. You can also compare two metrics in the same graph.
• Pie Chart: Best suited for displaying breakdowns of a metric by a certain dimension. E.g., Visits by Browser Type.
• Table: Think of this as a mini-custom report. You can show one dimension with two metrics and up to 10 rows of data in a table.

The option to have 20 customizable dashboards each with their own ‘quick stats’ widget sections is extremely beneficial for agencies and organizations with multiple people looking at a multitude of metrics.  It will provide faster results when filtering and has a clean looking user interface.

Another cool feature getting a lot of positive press is their new interactivity goal tracking within the reporting feature.  This allows you to have GA track file downloads to improve your products. Charts of your statistics can be analyzed over time on graphs, and a simple toggle between multiple profiles cuts down on confusion when going through the site.

Embrace change, especially when the benefits are great my analytics friends!  You can currently switch back and forth from the current version to the new version of GA by clicking on the option displayed in the top right ‘quick clicks section.’

When restructuring a site’s URLs, the proper use of 301 redirects can make or break the continuous flow of traffic without a significant drop-off. Not only will this ensure that any traffic intended for the previous page will reach the most appropriate new destination, but it will also pass Google PageRank of the previous page to the new one. This makes it much easier to build or maintain search engine rankings than trying to build a new page up from scratch.

301 redirecting through an .htaccess server file is a pretty straightforward process. The line of code for a redirect can be as simple as:

Redirect 301 /site/original-destination.html /page/new-destination.html

For pages that end with a file extension, it is just about as simple as that. However, many systems nowadays will actually drop the file extension from the name. For example, /site/original-destination.html will actually appear as site/original-destination. This is a subtle, but important difference when it comes to redirects. It may not be wise to use:

Redirect 301 /site/orginal-destination /site/new-destination

This is because the standard 301 redirect is actually path prefix redirect, meaning that not only will /site/original-destination get moved to the new page, but so will /site/original-destination-A, /site/original-destination-2, /site/original-destination-iii, etc. Any page that begins with the redirected term will get moved. If you are moving an entire directory, this is a good thing. However, if just a single page or smaller group of pages needs to be moved, this is too broad a brush and can lead to problems.

The solution lies in using regular expressions with the RedirectMatch phrase. Use the carrot (^) to match the beginning of a string and a dollar sign ($) to indicate the end of the string. This will ensure that only the page designated is redirected:

RedirectMatch 301 ^/site/original-destination$ /site/new-destination

Note: As different systems have their own variations on how to handle redirecting, make sure to have an understanding of the syntax and redirect/rewrite rules in play before implementing this.

Follow me on twitter: @ejwestksu

Get ready everyone because having a +1 is no longer just for party RSVP’s.  Recently, Google launched their new +1 button on Google search to allow users who are fans of your business to click to recommend your paid ads for all of their friends and contacts to see.  This feature, which to me is their attempt to one-up Facebook’s like button, has already started popping up, and will continue to increase in visibility over the next few weeks.  In order to see the +1’s attached to the organic listings and paid ads, you must be signed-in to Google and not using IE7 or any earlier version of IE.

This popularity feature is the next step that Google is taking to help their searchers see more relevant results, while helping businesses continue to gain better qualified traffic.  And, it doesn’t end with paid ads because soon you will have the option to include these +1 buttons to your website’s pages to make it even easier for people to approve and validate your content.  This personal annotation of “+1’ing” something is the next step since Google opening admitted to using data from social services, such as Twitter and Flickr, as signals in organic search rankings.

So far, Google says that quality score and ad rankings will not be impacted by the +1’s.  Hopefully the buttons will contribute to better click-through rate for paid ads since the personal annotations will increase user confidence to click on the ads if their friends, family, and colleagues already approve.  You will also be able to track the number of +1’s your campaigns are getting within the Adwords interface.

To sign up for email updates with more information about this button go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1button.

If you have been confidently and accurately tracking goals within Google Analytics consider this post review.  However, due to the large number of questions our firm receives from companies in the area, I thought it would be a good idea to have this in our company blog.

Back to Basics

There are three different match types to help Google Analytics track goals within their interface.  They are regular expression match, head match, or exact match.  Below is a brief description along with an example.

1)      Regular Expression Match:  This type of match allows you to capture the special characters constant within a URL such as the stem and/or trailing parameters that might be coming from different domains or sub-domains.

You would use this match type if you needed to track the URL string: cart-checkout.cgi/?id=3 in both http://www.nicole.is-awesome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?id=3&fm=2 as well as http://www.michael.is-awesome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?id=3&language=fr&fm=4 .

2)      Head Match:  This type of match allows you capture identical character strings from the beginning to the end of your string that may include extra parameters at the end of the URL such as user id’s, session tracking, or other added cookie codes.

You would use this match type if you needed to track the URL string: http://www.nicole.isaweome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?page=3 in both http://www.nicole.is-awesome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?page=3&id=3245783475634 as well as http://www.nicole.is-awesome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?page=3&id=46834643, or  even http://www.nicole.is-awesome.com/cart-checkout.cgi/?page=3.

3)      Exact Match:  This is the most specific type of match because you have to match every exact character in the URL you provide without exception from the beginning to the end.  You would only use this on sites that do not have any dynamic information in the URL for an id, session, or other potential query parameters.

You would use this match type if you needed to track the number of times this URL is visited: http://www.nicole.isawesome.com/cart-checkout/thankyou.html.  Because it is going to be the same URL every time, you need to make sure to exclude the leading elements of the URL and only put “/cart-checkout/thankyou.html” for the exact match to make sure you don’t invalidate the goal.

We are always here to help if you need us, so just fill out our contact form and we will be in touch!

Cheers!

Long live Social Media and all that it can provide a company when it comes to brand awareness, customer service, link building, and website referral traffic.  The strength of social media and social bookmarking sites grows every day.  Just as your company needs a solid website, so does it also need a presence in the social media world for users that are searching here as opposed to the more traditional search engines.

While each business must determine what networks are best for their company to actively participate, LinkedIn should never be one to cast aside.  LinkedIn’s organization has grown to over thirty-three million members in the United States, and over 60 million world-wide in less than ten years. Recently the company announced its 60 millionth member via a Tweet.

Create / Claim Your Company Profile

Like any other networking site, you want to establish your presence by first creating an account, and then by spreading the word that you are there to get the attention you need.  Once your company profile is created or claimed, you now have the advantage of being indexed by search engines and be able to be presented in the organic search results for your brand.

Any employee if granted access can edit their company page if they are a current employee with their position listed and linked to the company profile page and has a confirmed email address at the company registered to the account, so if you are using a personal email address to access your personal linked account profile, update it to be your company issued email address. If your email address connected to LinkedIn is already your company email address try the below steps:

1.      Click “Companies” at the top of your home page and search for your company name.

2.      Click “Edit” in upper right of the Company “Overview” tab.

3.      Modify information as needed.

4.      Click “Publish”.

If the “Edit” link is not visible, take the following steps to make sure the position on your Profile is properly linked to the company name:

1.      Click on “Profile” towards the top of your home page.

2.      Click “Edit” next to the position in the “Experience” section of your Profile.

3.      Click “Change Company” and begin to type in your company name. A drop-down list will appear.

4.      Click on the correct company name. This step is very important.

5.      Click “Update”.

6.      Follow steps listed above to edit your Company Page information.

If you are still unable to edit information on your Company Page, contact LinkedIn at https://help.linkedin.com/app/ask.

The world of search engine marketing has been rocked in the past month with events surrounding the link building strategies of JC Penney and Overstock.com.  You can click on the links for more information about each situation, but for the purposes of this article suffice it to say that each site was caught purchasing links to manipulate their site higher in Google’s search rankings for select lucrative phrases.  It should be noted that this was not a case where Google’s alorithm caught something fishy going on and raised a red flag.  No, these sites were outed publicly (JC Penney by the New York Times and Overstock at WebmasterWorld) – forcing Google to either penalize the actions or condone them through inaction.  Cutts & Co. chose the latter with the result being that neither company ranks high for many of the terms where they previously held number 1 positions.  Most of the analysis of this has been done to death by others in my industry, but I wanted to take a look at this from a different perspective – that of Wall Street.

We see an interesting difference in the reaction of investors to the news surrounding these two companies.  Overstock has seen a solid dip (almost a 3% dip in their stock price) since they were penalized.  After an initial drop of almost 1%, JC Penney rebounded and has barely skipped a beat.  The likely difference here lies in the nature of the retailers’ respective businesses.  JC Penney claimed that organic e-commerce makes up a small portion of their business (less than 7% according to the Times article) and apparently stockholders agree.  Of course, that begs the question of why do it in the first place if it’s not going to have a measurable effect on business, but I digress.  Meanwhile, Overstock is obviously a dot-com who does most of its business online, and thus would be laughed out of the room if they made the same claim.  We likely will not know the full effects of Google’s penalties on either company until the next set of financials are released.

While neither of those ticker movements would be considered extraordinarily volatile, they were movements nonetheless.  The ability to predict these movements is what makes or breaks Wall Street careers.  Analysts must do a better job of valuing the stock price than the market as a whole.  Countless factors weigh in to determine stock prices – everything from company balance sheets to the possibility of a terrorist attack.  The question I ask is this:  Is it time to start valuing SEO into these stock prices?

Should Goldman Sachs be hiring SEOs to go over link profiles and analyzing tracking data to effectively predict whether or not a site’s search engine exposure is at risk?  Can anyone say comfortably that a stock (especially for an e-commerce company) is accurately priced if this has been ignored?  For companies that have the brand strength of JC Penney and Overstock, the non-branded organic traffic may only make up a small portion of the bottom line.  But for smaller e-commerce companies, such as many of the dot-coms that erupted into the NASDAQ during the 90s, that only have limited brand strength, the possibility of facing a Google penalty is an enormous risk for any potential investor.  Yet, I would find it hard to believe that many investors are accurately informed as to this level of risk.  Investing in an e-commerce site without analyzing their link profile would be akin to investing in a restaurant without knowing anything about their food supplier(s).

As I wrap here, I would be remiss not to point out Forbes actually felt the wrath of the Google hammer recently as well.  However, since that site was nailed for selling (not buying) links and is also a private company (non-traded) that does not have real-time valuations, it was impossible to include Forbes accurately into this discussion.

Why should you optimize your videos for search?  Because search is the #1 referrer to web videos, that’s why.  A video is 50 times more likely than a text page on the same topic to appear on Google’s first page of search results (Forrester Research: The Easiest Way to a First-Page Ranking on Google, January 2009).

To get the best results within the search engines, make sure you upload your videos into your website as well as your YouTube channel or blog.  Videos are a natural link builder and this backlink will help increase the juice flowing to your website.  The more places you upload, the better.  Make sure the name of the video matches the title tag of the page, and that your video is no longer than 2 minutes to keep your audience engaged.  Surround your videos with keyword-dense content and or a summary section as well. If your video will be housed within flash, make sure you have backup content to help the search engine better identify what is there.  I would also recommend having the last frame of the video be your company logo and contact information to increase conversion rates and traffic to your website.

After the video has been posted, test your thumbnails and headlines to see what grabs your audience’s attention to achieve the most optimized results.  As of right now, Video SEO is a long tail kind of approach since Google can’t determine the actual content of the video off only a one word video title.  You are not very likely to see your video for “jeans” in the top search results, but if your video is titled “blue jeans to make my legs look longer” you have an excellent chance of topping the rankings.  If hosted within your company’s website or blog, make sure you have an easy and obvious share button to help your video spread to other social media networking and bookmarking sites.