Jon’s In Waikiki (AKA The Waikiki Marketer)

Marketing Sherpa just came out with the results of a new survey. They polled 2500 Search Engine marketers/marketing firms and found that SEO and SEM ran neck and neck. At least with the marketers.

This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve found that search advertising, such as AdWords, is as profitable and beneficial to business as search optimization. Besides, as I’ve said before, the 2 can work together to create a dual front effort that can cross-pollinate. It’s win-win if you do it right.

SEM has gotten a bad name with some businesses, unfortunately. Google’s limp response to the click fraud problem is at least partly responsible. At times they made Ford’s response to the Pinto look good. But there’s another factor in that perception - and it’s short-sightedness by the businesses themselves.

I have heard businesses over and over talk about how they won’t use AdWords or other search advertising because ‘you have to pay for it’. As if all the other advertising and marketing they do is free. And all the money they pay for organic search optimization is from their Monopoly game.

SEO & SEM are both great tools and great ways to get business. Both cost money. Both will pay off. Why would you not take advantage of both?

In the past, optimization for images & graphics consisted of stuffing keywords into the ALT tag. This tactic was so abused that Google no longer takes the ALT tag as seriously as it once did. Still, it’s worth using that outlet for a keyword or 2, as long as it’s done with a lighter touch.

The new SEO opportunity for images, though, is the image name. This isn’t completely a new discovery. SEOs have been using keyword rich names for their graphics for a while - just in case it did matter in the great search engine algorithm we’re always chasing.

What IS new is the Universal Search that Google now uses as their delivery mode. Searches can now get a mix of media in their results, including pictures, web sites, videos & just about anything else that might be relevant to the keyphrase used. The amount of ‘mixing’ you see will vary from search to search, of course.

Still, this Universal Search has elevated graphics and videos from just web site elements to something a little more important. At least in the eyes of the search engines. They’re now given a little more weight as they just might be what the searcher is looking for, rather than an entire web site, or web page.

What does that mean for you? It means you should start naming your graphics with keywords, but with one crucial criteria - doing it only when appropriate and relevant. Still, that opens a lot of opportunity. How do you do it right?

You must separate words, just as you would if they were written out. No words running together. That means using a dash (’-') as a divider. For example, if you sell convertibles, you might name a picture ‘Ford-Convertible.jpg’ or ‘Vintage-Mustang-Convertible.jpg’. It’s easy. You can probably use the underscore as well ( ‘_’ ), but it can create confusion as it is overlooked often. It’s position there on the floor can bring problems you never thought of. Trust me on this.

It looks like the other side of the coin is valid as well. A couple of posts back I wrote about studies that showed how search directly influenced offline sales. Now, another study has come out, done by Jupiter Research.

This time, the numbers told us something interesting about offline influencing online. According to the study, 2/3 of searchers have done searches on certain keywords as a result of exposure to offline marketing/advertising.

That makes a solid case for traditional advertising/marketing being far from dead.  Some have trumpeted the end of these outlets in the past few years, but this study has shown those funeral notices to be premature.

Even better news for offline efforts - 39% of those who were ‘influenced’ to do an online search made a purchase on-site. That’s the kind of traffic businesses want to get.

It backs up my belief that offline/online advertising and marketing can serve each other, building both sides of the business to new heights.

Google, more specifically Google AdWords, has just launched a new site dedicated solely to click fraud - info on it, info on fighting it, info on what they’re doing about it. At least that’s what they say the site will be. Right now there’s not much there:

http://www.google.com/adwords/adtrafficquality/index.html

Check it out for yourself. At the time of this writing the front page has 3 very brief entries. 2 of them are just listings of upcoming conferences for AdWords professionals/advertisers. The few other pages have very little content as well. If this is supposed to be a show of force in the war on click fraud, it’s apparent they only brought a popgun.

It’s another sign that Google doesn’t get it. True, it’s just the initial launch. But for a problem of this magnitude, a limp effort like this doesn’t inspire much confidence. To say the least. It looks like more of the same from Google. That ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto they trumpeted so loudly is becoming harder and harder to hear these days. As they say ‘Money Changes Everything’. Maybe that should be Google’s new motto.

2 new studies and their findings were revealed recently, one of them commissioned by Yahoo. The Yahoo study involved 175,00 subjects who were divided by theri exposure, or non-exposure, to online ads. Their demographics and ‘behavior’ patterns were identical otherwise. Very interesting data emerged that showed the strength online advertising gives to your offline sales:

> Those shown ads online did more pre-shopping, ie research, and they spent 41% more in-store than their non-exposed counterparts.

The 2nd study, by comScore surveyed 3,000 consumers. They found that these local searchers (ie people specifically looking for a store, product, service offered in their area) followed up their online research with offline contact 82% of the time. That contact took the form of a store visit, phone call and/or purchase. Of those who made the offline follow-up, 61% of them made a purchase. That’s not a bad payoff.

The lesson here is that online advertising - whether that’s Google AdWords, Yahoo Ads or MSN’s program - bring profits and business to you offline as much, even more, than through online means. An AdWords campaign that doesn’t produce emails or other online interaction isn’t necessarily an unproductive effort. There’s more to online marketing than just having a website.

Google has been taking Squidoo pages out of its index today - and it looks like a house cleaning, not a case of taking out a few bad apples. Is it a case of the good being taken down with the bad or is the site’s problem that widespread?

According to news and industry reports - the problem is really that Big. Squidoo has been  notorious for some time as a place for spammers and Black Hat SEO practitioners to thrive. It’s been discussed openly for over a year and a half in SEO/SEM forums. It was a known issue, but it just wasn’t deal with until now. This is another problem with the User-Created Content that has made Web 2.0 the Big Deal of  the past 2 or 3 years.

Sites like MySpace have made stars of people who normally would have flown under the radar. In some cases, it’s made stars of people who should have remained under the reader and out of my sight, like Dane Cook. The problem is that the free reign can be manipulated fairly easily if you have the time and motivation. And Black Hat SEOs have both.

What does this mean for Community/User-Created Content sites from now on? Does it mean closer policing by Google or by the site’s overseers? I’m betting on inside policing. After all, with Squidoo’s pages being banned now, traffic to their pages has dropped like a stone. And that only took a few days to happen.

Basically, without the Google traffic, Squidoo can’t offer its members much. After all, that’s the whole point of  the pages - attention. At least for most people who actively use them. Cut off the source that provides the audience and you’re left with not much to sing about. Sure, you have a page you can send your friends to, but you can do that anywhere on the Net.

The lesson is that Squidoo, and sites like it, need to do a better job of keeping an eye on their store. Sure, it’s difficult, but would they rather be doing that or enjoy life outside of the Google index, which is where they are now? Just because it’s User-Created, doesn’t mean the User can’t take you down with them. Catering to Black Hat SEOs is not good for long-term business. Just ask Squidoo.

Google, or at least its Australian brand/version, is being sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The allegation being made is that Google is not making the distinction between paid listings and organic listings clear enough. This will be interesting to watch as it could affect the entire industry, advertisers included.

This isn’t the first time this has been noted. Ask was notorious for piling up their paid listings before the searcher got to see the first organic one. They took the path that said the best thing to encourage the sale of search ads was to put them in pole position. Forget down the right side - on top of the listings is where it’s at!

Though Ask has backed off from that policy, Google went the other way, though not to the extreme of the former. Before, Google placed their ads exclusively down the right side. This was all part of their famous ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto. That motto has been taking a beating lately, what with Google’s adherence to demands from the Chinese government and other transgressions.

The placement of 2 paid search ads directly above the organic listings has been going on for a little while now. True, they do put the in a shaded box, which may represent the gray areas they now dwell in instead of the Black & White ‘Don’t Be Evil’ ones they once claimed.

With Australia’s move to sue them, this could be the end of the 2 ads above structure. Even if it is only in Australia where that takes place initially, it could spread, prompting the same change worldwide.

It isn’t clear exactly how much more valuable the real estate is above the organic listings, as opposed to the lots to the right of them. Still, the advantages of that placement are clear. If those 2 places are lost to Google through legal/government intervention, will that depress prices? Businesses probably won’t pay the same highg bid prices if the standard gain from being #1 or #2 is lost. Then again, maybe they will if the profits still come in from AdWords advertising.

Either way, it’s something to keep an eye on. Who knows - maybe your click bid price will be coming down. But your click-thru rate might come down with it.

Good Question. I’ve been gone to a family reunion. We all stayed in a large cabin near/in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It’s like Vegas gone Country, without the gambling or alcohol. A great example of knowing your market and fulfilling their expectations. The place is a cash cow. More on that later.

I’ve also been writing articles - if you’re interested, take a look:

My Marketing/SEO Articles

talk to you again soon
jon

Few need to be told about the Wikipedia - it’s a internet phenomenon that has helped make Web 2.0/User-created-content the latest revolution. Bigger than hip-hop! Hawaii residents were proud to see a Hawaiian word on something so important, even if the word didn’t represent the vital quality that made it so unique. ‘Wiki’ means ‘hurry’ used here mostly in pairs, ie ‘Wiki Wiki’. When you hear that, you know you need to get a move on. I used to hear it from my teachers when test time was almost up.

Today, our local newspaper carried a story on another Web tool in the works with a Hawaiian name. A new specialized search engine is in the works, entitled ‘Mahalo’. If you’ve visited Hawaii, you probably already know that it is the Hawaiian word for ‘Thank You’.

The idea behind the search engine is that it will specialize in large scale or popular enquiries such as lodging in top tourist destinations or consumer electronics (ie plasma televisions, gaming, etc). The aim is to give you more wheat than chaff. For you youngsters, that means more Tony Hawk, less Hudson Hawk.

It is human-generated, harkening back to the ODP. The bad thing about that comparison is that ODP was meant to do the same thing - have humans who can recognize real quality create the listings - basically imploded. Many editors took over sections related to their day-job industries. By night they kept their competitors out from making it into the index. You can take the story from there, I’m sure.

However, Mahalo does have in its favor a paid staff, rather than volunteers. That should keep things a little more honest. Currently they have pages for 4,000 of the most popular search queries and will keep working to increase that count, of course.

Where’s the money going to come in from? You guessed it - search advertising. If they can supply what they promise to, this could be an excellent ad outlet for businesses. Google is still the big man in this town, and will continue to be for some time. But, the return on investment with Mahalo just might make it a better buy. We’;; see. In the meantime, Mahalo for reading.

The past month has had its difficulties. Nothing like Lindsay Lohan Difficulties, but enought that my eye was taken off the ball for a little while. Now I’m back and swinging for the stands (VISUAL: Me standing at home plate, pointing to center field, Babe Ruth style).

I’ve read a few good books lately, like the Charlie Chan series. Charlie comes off very well in those books. Prejudices are dealt with in the book and Mr. Chan is always the victor, in both that arena as well as solving the crime when no one else can; I highly recommend them. I’d say that even if he wasn’t from Honolulu.
A book that’s more pertinent here is ‘Made To Stick’. It’s an excellent study of how to structure a message or story to….make it stick. They emphasize the structures of Proverbs (Early to bed, early to rise…) and Urban Legends.

Their analysis identifies qualities that make a story/message stand out AND take root in the mind of those who hear it. It’s very applicable to anyone in business, especially those trying to put together a concise, yet complete marketing message.

It’s essential reading for all marketers and business people. If I could put a greater emphasis on how good the book is, I would. In the meantime, I’m heading down to the beach with Nigel. It’s time for his walk and I need to get some sun myself.