Search Engine Marketing Blog: piloSEO

Yeah, so this has nothing to do with Search Marketing but who cares.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I see a lot articles discussing how to be a useful and productive member of social media sites. Nobody is speaking for those who want to fail. Sure most people want to become useful members and help the site become better (while sometimes even helping themselves in the process) but there are some people who want to use social media for their own purposes only and in no way contribute to the site in a positive manner. So for those of you who fit this profile I have great news. I have decided to compile the top 5 ways to fail in your social media efforts. Follow this advice and you will have no problem getting under the skin of all the other members and achieving your ultimate goal of a permanent ban.

5 Rules to Guarantee that you fail in your social media efforts

1. Do not complete your profile: By creating a complete profile you will inherit some credibility. Heck, by doing a little more than the minimum will allow to at least look like you desire to become a valuable member. If you don’t want any credibility you will need to fill out the bare minimum. Don’t add a picture, don’t add any interests, don’t join any groups, etc. Just throw up a user name and an email address. This will help you avoid participating in the social part of the equation.
2. Only submit or vote for your articles: To make sure you are unsuccessful be sure to only submit your own blatanly self promoting stories. Social media and news sites are designed to help members discover and spread interesting articles, news items, blog posts, etc. The most successful members submit, vote for, and comment on interesting stories regardless of the source. You don’t want to be like them. Write a bunch of poorly written, spammy, self promoting articles and submit them as fast as you can. Oh, and be sure that you do not submit or vote for articles from any other sites but your own. Being an active participant can lead to at least some success, you don’t want that.
3. Don’t comment on anything: Again, participation can lead to success so avoid commenting at all costs. Commenting on stories allows you to express your opinion and can lead others who agree with you to send friend requests. You don’t need an social media friends. Why would you want that. Avoid the possibility of receiving friend requests by not participating at all (other than submitting your own stuff). If you feel you must comment on something make sure it is trolly and obnoxious. That way you can get the need to comment out of your system and at the same time guarantee nobody will want to send you a friend request.
4. Deny any Friend Requests: If you are doing this right you should not get any but there are some weird people out there and you may actually receive a friend request from time to time. Make sure you deny these as fast as possible. Again, why would you want to create a network of friends on a social site? Sure, they could turn into loyal readers of your blog or find something on your site that they find interesting and write or talk about it on their blogs but who needs that. You have enough friends in the real world and your entire family reads your blog every once in a while. Bonus Advice: If you really want to lower your chances at success send a snarky email to member who made a friend request explaining that you have enough friends and you don’t need any loser online social media friends. Be as mean as possible.
5. Create multiple profiles: Refer to point number 1 when creating these profiles. Once you have more than one profile make sure you follow all of the steps I have listed. You should take extra care to only vote for and submit your blatantly self promotion stuff. Switch it up. Submit with one profile for a while and vote with the others. Then submit some other articles with a different profile and vote for it with the others. Do this all the time. Social media sites strictly forbid multiple profiles but you can get around this. The other members will generally pick it up fairly quickly if you follow the rules I have given you but who cares right. You don’t need their approval or acceptance you just want them to buy something from you. If you get booted just create a new profile and start the process over again.

Follow my rules and you will be on your way to complete failure

By following these 5 rules you will be guaranteed failure in your social media endeavors. If by some chance you don’t get banned or draw the ire of everyone who happens to find your profile you are on your own. I am sure you can find other ways to fail here. Chances are if you follow my rules you don’t have to worry about succeeding and becoming a useful member. So get to work.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Google attempting to take Office Application market share from Microsoft

The Sunday NY Times ran an interesting article about Google’s efforts to gain traction in the Office applications market. The article does an excellent job of laying out how Google would like to change the culture of Office applications and computing to be 90% web based. I believe there are a few issues with this IMO but the article either glossed over them or completely ignored them. While I agree that web based apps have great potential I believe that Google has some big issues to deal with.

Potential Stumbling Blocks

Privacy Concerns: Privacy is something that Google has been dealing with for a while and it will only get worse as their tools become more integrated and prevalent. Google wants users to create an account that ties all of their applications together. With Gmail and Google Tool Bar Google has the ability to track what you are searching for as well as your email. They use this to serve relevant ads to you through Gmail and provide personalized search results based on previous searches and clicks. Many users were (and still are) concerned about this but when you start adding the ability to track what you are doing with spreadsheets and word documents the privacy concerns become heightened. Most individual users will not have many problems with this but I am sure plenty of businesses do not like the idea that Google essentially has access to all of their trade secrets and sensitive business data.

One of the main goals in Google’s efforts to move into the office application world is to bring businesses on board. To succeed at this they must be able to alleviate privacy concerns and ensure businesses that there data will be safe and secure from anyone they do not authorize to view it.

Customer Support: Google takes a self service approach to most of their products. Their products are generally easy to install and they want users to be able to everything themselves. From Ad Words to Gmail they rely on the user to download, install, and troubleshoot. Ad Words does offer individual account reps to agencies and businesses who spend a lot of money on their services but they really push most users to online help pages and self service troubleshooting. This obviously allows them to offer their products for free or at a much lower cost than traditional software developers. For many of their products this is a good approach and works well. But when they start dealing with business applications and enterprise level products they really need to step up their customer service efforts. And they can’t just man their customer service department with entry level employees and interns. They need to provide high quality service. Anyone who has tried to get in touch with Google knows how difficult it can be. They rarely provide a way to call them and it takes some work to actually talk to someone on the phone. If they want to compete with Microsoft they need to exceed their customer service level. That may not seem like a big deal but the current state of Google service needs to be greatly improved.

Anti-Google Sentiment: Currently Google has a pretty good reputation among the general public. Many users like what Google is doing and have a general affection for the company. Most people believe that Google is a good company and holds their best interests at heart. The opposite is true for Microsoft. The main reason most users do not like Microsoft is because of their near monopoly status in the OS and Office Application marketplace. Google is nearing the same status in the Internet world. They own the majority of the search marketing revenue and as they add more tools and products they continue to cement their status and THE place to access information online. Go to any SEO/SEM forum or blog and most of the discussion is focused on Google. Many users rely on Google to find what they are looking for and many businesses rely on Google to send them business. Now I am an advocate for the need to diversify revenue streams and not rely on Google but the fact is that Google owns so much Internet traffic that doing well there can make make or break an online business.

This has lead to quite a bit of negative sentiment towards Google among some businesses and the search community. Many people in the search marketing world believe that Google is forcing them to change their sites and the way they monetize their sites based on Google’s algorithm limitations. There have been countless arguments recently with the crack down on paid links and I believe there are valid points on both sides. In the end Google has the right to do whatever it wants even if it means they don’t actually provide the most relevant results (search for John Chow). The suspicion and negative thoughts on Google are still mostly limited to the search marketing community but as Google continues to grow and seemingly monopolize the online world this sentiment could grow. As more and more average users start to see Google as a monopoly like Microsoft they may begin to rally against them and look for alternatives to their products and services.

Google has a unique opportunity but will their gamble work out?

Google is seeing almost unprecedented growth and they have gone from being a quirky start up to an industry giant in less than 10 years. For this growth to continue they need to be careful about how they proceed and address some of the concerns that many have as they move into more and more markets. If they don’t they may have difficulty overtaking Microsoft in the Office application world but they may join them as one of the most hated and feared companies in the tech sector.

Popularity: 35% [?]

I just noticed a new message in my AdWords MCC Account offering a the ability to create and share templates between linked accounts. According the help page this will allow those with MCC accounts to create templates that their clients can grab and use themselves. This seems like an interesting new feature that will allow clients who have the resources to do some things themselves to have a bit more control while still utilizing the expertise and services of the AdWords professionals they have hired to run their campaigns.

Here are some links with a little more info on the new Template Center. I have not started playing with this but when I do I will try to provide some feedback.

• What is the Template Center
• What is a Campaign Template
• How do I get Access to the Template Center
• How can the Template Center Benefit Me

Popularity: 18% [?]

What is the Ron Paul Revolution?

If you follow politics in the United States you have probably heard of Ron Paul. Even if you don’t follow politics and spend any time online you have also probably heard of him. It is becoming more and more difficult to not read a story about Ron Paul at any of the social news sites. His popularity and motivated followers have forced mainstream news sources to spend some time talking about him even if they believe he is a fringe candidate.

What started out as a small and mostly ignored candidacy has become a national phenomenon. Paul’s campaign has the capability to change the way politicians promote themselves. In the past, and even now to an extent, politicians relied on money from big corporate donors and publicity from major broadcast media networks. This left the average person out of the equation until it was time to vote. Ron Paul’s campaign has eschewed all of that and uses a more grassroots effort with the Internet as a publicity medium. Most of his money comes from average citizens because they believe in what he has to say, which is impressive considering the amount his campaign has collected.

Ron Paul and the Internet

The Ron Paul campaign has utilized the online world to spread his platform more than any other politician before. Not only has it used the Internet to disseminate his message but his supporters have embraced social media and helped spread his message. Ron Paul the first candidate to embrace the Internet to broadcast his message and his supporters are the first to actually utilize Web 2.0 infrastructure to spread his message in a peer to peer format. This has been very successful as his support online is HUGE. The effect on his overall campaign has been less noticeable because many Americans still don’t trust any candidate who does not get mainstream media coverage. While the mainstream media has begun to mention Paul they talk more about his online popularity and not his positions. They don’t give him the same exposure they give to the big names. I believe this Internet exposure is laying the groundwork for future political campaigns and opportunities for search marketers.

How can Paul change Political Campaigns (and provide more opportunities for SEM’s)?

The Ron Paul revolution has shown that the need for a strong Internet presence is necessary. More and more Americans get their news from the Internet and if a candidate is not viable online they will have a hard time reaching all of the potential voters. As Internet connectivity becomes more ingrained in US society the need to have an Internet presence will become more important. Of course politicians are generally slow to adopt new ideas and try new things. The fact is that none of the candidates are using quality SEO practices even after the Googlebombing of Bush and Kerry last election. Even Paul and his supporters do not make full use of the SEO potential of his campaign. They are better than others but they are still lagging.

SEO and Social Media Optimization can help politicians in a number of ways.

One of the most important ways SEM’s can help candidates is in reputation management. Using good SEO practices can help the politician’s web site rank better than sites denouncing him or her. If nothing else it gets the candidates message to the public before the anti-candidate message. Using social media is important for reputation management too. Bringing articles and writings about the candidate to social media sites increases exposure. Since social media sites foster communication it is also a great place to counter negative stories about the same candidate.

It is a way to reach more potential voters and rally support. As more and more people look to the Internet for their news it is important to be active online. By achieving quality SERP rankings on the candidates name as well as relevant keywords the candidates message will reach more potential supporters. A secondary (and possibly more important aspect) is that many of these supporters will spread your message themselves. This is true of Paul whose supporters are out in force online and expanding their reach offline with a huge number of meetup groups and members. These supporters also make websites that end up ranking well and furthering the proliferation of the message. Most searchers do not go past the first page of results so it is great to have the official site along with a number of sites made by supporters crowding the front page.

Will Candidates begin hiring SEM’s as part of their campaign teams?

That has yet to be seen but if they are smart they will. As the Internet evolves and becomes an integral aspect of our daily lives it will become more important for every candidate to have a solid presence online. Ron Paul has shown what the power of the Internet can do and it is only going to increase in the future. Candidates must take notice of how the Internet can help (and hurt) their chances and plan accordingly. Ignore the Internet at your own risk. Professional SEM’s can help candidates enhance their presence online and market their campaigns to the online world. Now the only question is are there any SEM’s who want to work on a political campaign?

Popularity: 16% [?]