The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the trade association for online advertising.

They recently published a Social Media Handbook which contains a contribution from me titled ‘Using social media to increase paid-search marketing effectiveness’.

- Read my contribution here
- Read the full Social Media Handbook online
- Download a PDF copy of the Social Media Handbook

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Behind every new look, new launch or new advert there has been thought as to how it will affect the industry, press and most importantly the end consumer.

Rebrands get planned months, if not years ahead. To make sure they’re right.

What does our new brand need to reflect? How will our current consumers/customers feel about it? Who are we trying to speak to with our rebrand? 

Product launches take years to master. To make sure they’re right.

Who would buy this? Why would they buy it? Where would they buy it?

And a lot of effort, by a lot of people goes into creating TV adverts, to make sure they’re right too.

How can we make impact? What times and which channels will it be on? Do we need a celeb in it?

Many will present a rebrand, product launch or advert and tell those in charge of their online – “this is what we’re doing, make our online fit”.

The wrong way round? I think so.

Nobody at Pizza Hut thought about registering or acquiring www.pastahut.net or www.pastahut.com

Vodafone has an exclusive deal to launch BlackBerry Storm in the UK – utilising online PR should have seen them rank #1 organically for ‘blackberry storm’, instead they’re bidding and paying per click.

Love Bingo could’ve made sure they ranked #1 for their name before advertising on TV – they rank #3 for ‘love bingo’ but I am sure JackpotJoy and ilovebingo.com, who rank #1 and #2 respectively, are the main benefactors of searches for ‘love bingo’ from Love Bingo’s TV advertising campaign.

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Some websites make money by selling products.

Some websites make money by selling advertising.

Some websites make money by referring customers to other websites.

Some websites make money by collecting customer data which is sold on.

Ask an SEO for help and they’ll promise higher search engine rankings will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

Ask an email marketer for help and they’ll promise email promotions will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

Ask an online media buyer for help and they’ll promise banners, buttons and MPUs will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

And so on.

The dilemma for most websites is that they’re all right. Everything helps. For instance, it helps your click through rate in Search if people recognise your brand from a banner advert.

Helping is good, but limited budgets and high expectations can often lead to a desire for marketing that does more than help.

Stripping away every type of marketing that fails to directly impact the end need - selling, referring or collecting – is a short term measure to hitting those high expectations with limited budgets.

After all you’re not interested in investing marketing budget which “helps”, you want it to “do”.

Great. For a bit. Until your competitors do the same as you PLUS the stuff that helps.

That’s when the thing that “does” it for you, “does” it for them instead, and consequently it stops “doing” it as well for you. All because they saw the value in “helping” the thing that “does it”. Get it?

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Black hat, white hat, grey hat, whatever. Today’s SEO guru is a much more complex being.

The Content Colonel
Where’s the linkbait? The Content Colonel will ask.

Until he can see plans for sticky, engaging and constantly updating content on your website, The Content Colonel won’t touch yours with a barge pole.

Not only can this guy tell you in advance where an article on your website is going to rank, he can tell you how many visitors you’ll get from it and how many other websites will link to it.

The Submitter Tryer
The Submitter Tryer means absolutely no harm. Far from reading up on SEO, he’s invented it himself – this guy doesn’t need or want to learn.

After playing around with HTML, CSS and a bit of PHP here and there, he submits websites to search engines using those dreadful fast submission tools that you thought were out of circulation.

He doesn’t quite get why his efforts never work.

The PR Luvvie
He may not talk much about your title tags, content or even ask you about target keywords, but The PR Luvvie is working on your SEO like a P.I.G.

This guy is BEFs (Best Email Friends) with the most influential bloggers in the world.

He’ll get you a PR7 link from a website in your niche before you can say Matt Cutts.

Be warned, he has a reputation to maintain. Not just any paying company gets The PR Luvvie SEO treatment.

The Link Lover
He’s a developer’s dream. The Link Lover doesn’t need you to make changes to pages; he can control everything remotely via external links.

This guy understands the power of anchor text inside out. Even if your title tags are uniform across your website and you’ve got multiple versions of pages, The Link Lover can get your visitors to the correct landing page with military precision.

The Page Fixer
You’ll never have two title tags the same or a missing alt tag again with The Page Fixer.

If he asks you to make a change to a page change it. He’ll notice every missing H1 tag, the words that are supposed to be in bold and can smell duplicate content a mile off.

He’s totally unconcerned with links as he is convinced everything can be done by tweaking pages.

The Operation Optimiser
The Operation Optimiser really gets SEO. He also really gets everyone else to do it for him.

He surrounds himself with the other SEO types and manages what they all do.

This guy is great at managing multiple SEOs and getting the best out of them. He could never in a million years do it on his own.

The 360 Doer
Ask him for the most important thing needed for high rankings and he’ll say “everything”.

There’s no way he would choose between creating more content and getting more links. The 360 Doer finds time to fit everything in, simply because everything’s important.

So, do you recognise any of these SEOs? Or maybe you know which one you are, let it be known in the comments box below!

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This week I was sent a link to a ‘SEO in 15 minutes’ chart. It’s great checklist for anyone who wants to understand on page SEO techniques. But a potentially dangerous tool for those who think studying these points makes them an SEO expert.

Dangerous not for those in SEO, but to the company that thinks doing these things alone will see their visits from Google Organic soar.

You may remember a couple of months ago, I blogged on E-Consultancy.com about the role of the SEO becoming dead – and this idea of “SEO in 15 minutes” partly backs up this theory.

Everyone is becoming aware of on-page SEO, but many find it difficult to comprehend the idea of online PR and having to create compelling content to attract links – which then translates into a higher SEO ranking.

The thing is every company has competitors doing the same things to make their on-page SEO effective. So ask yourself this, with everything else being equal if everyone in your space followed these 15 minute points who would win the Google race?

You see when you adopt something that works for a competitor (on page SEO) you’re being reactive and that creates a standard (an optimised website). Standard never wins (because everyone has an optimised website). Doing more than them (attracting links through content that is resourceful, humorous etc.) will see you win the SEO race – and that’s a ethos that is true for any product, service offering or marketing activity.

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Economic downturn = offline advertising (unmeasurable) spend down, online marketing (measurable) spend up?

That’s what a lot of people seem to be saying [here and here]. But not me.

Not entirely anyway. I can see online marketing spend increasing in line with the already forecasted increases, but in terms of a higher jump because of the downturn no.

A downturn should not necessarily lead to an increase spend in measurable online marketing tactics such as PPC and email, instead the growth area will be social media monitoring.

So the majority of spend moved to online in theory should be spent on monitoring services (analysing brand conversations on blogs, forums, social networks etc.) rather than spending on pay per click.

That’s my crystal ball view at least, only time will tell what will really happen.

If you subscribe to the idea that businesses that brand build through traditional advertising, such as TV, during an economic downturn benefit greatly when the economy picks up, then you’ll agree the best thing big brands can do is to push spend to monitoring their brand online. They can use this insight to increase the effectiveness of their brand building activities.

It would be nonsensical to conclude from this that direct response isn’t the way to go. For many businesses budget restraints and aggressive targets there isn’t a choice.

What I am saying is that any business that is thinking of moving spend away because they assume it is the thing to do in the short term should consider the benefits of continuing with awareness building and how social media monitoring can help.

A fair criticism that marketers can point at this analysis is that brand building doesn’t bring in the sales like direct response, but after the downturn you will have to keep selling. When people have more cash they’ll be choosier, and they’ll buy into a brand, not into what suited their pocket the year before.

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This week on my Drapers blog you can find out how Jordan/Katie Price can market her equestrian clothing range online.

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I’ve put together some tactics that businesses can do, without the help of an SEO team, to help their search engine rankings.

Read them here on the Score Communications website.

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Seth Godin thinks we should tip websites we like by clicking on adverts.

His heart may have been in the right place but the recommendation didn’t go down well with many in the online marketing world.

Here are some alternative ways you can tip a website that you like.

Bookmark it
Return
Digg/Delicio.us/Furl the link
Add it to your Facebook
Email/Send the link to a friend
Send the URL to your friend
Link to it from your own blog
Write about it on a forum/message board
Tell your friend about it
SMS is to your friend
Comment about it on another blog
Sign up to a newsletter
Register with the website
Add a comment to the article
Send a thank you email to the author/webmaster/editor
Send content suggestions to the author/webmaster/editor
Take part in a poll
Engage in the forum/message board
Enter a competition
Buy something
And finally, click on an advert ONLY if you’re genuinely interested

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Are adverts the new online tip jar? Seth Godin thinks so. Apparently if we read something online that we like we should say thank you by clicking on an ad.

On his blog Seth says…

“If you like what you’re reading, click an ad to say thanks.”

In the view that the company or blogger will pocket your click cost from the advertiser.

But LEON Bailey Green says…

“If you like what you’re reading, keep coming back. And click on an advert IF you like it.”

So what are the effects of the visitor, webmaster and advertiser?

Seth’s way

Visitor – They have to load a page they are uninterested in.

Webmaster – Reduced advertising as advertisers notice the clicks are of poor quality (as nobody wants the product/service, they just wanted to tip).

Advertiser – Poor quality website visitors.

LEON’S way

Visitor – Enjoys the content. Comes back for more enjoyable content.

Webmaster – Repeat visitors. More eyeballs on adverts resulting in an increase in potential person-to-product relevancy, equalling ad revenue.

Advertiser – Quality visitors.

I totally get what Seth is trying to say, but I think there are better ways people can support publishers - Update here are a few.

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Read my article ‘How else can Google ascertain relevancy?’ on E-Consultancy.

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This week on E-Consultancy I asked the question ‘Is the role of the SEO dead and should PRs own natural search?’.

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There’s been much talk in meedja circles about UKTV’s rebrands for three of its main channels, UKTV Gold (GOLD), UKTV Gold+1 (Watch) and UKTV Drama (Alibi), but little mention of how the brands will work online.

All three channels quite rightfully have unique identities, although I do think UKTV should have stuck to the formula of having an overall brand feel so viewers know the channels belong to the same family.

I say that with my online marketing head on as that strategy would have allowed UKTV to offer a marketable web presence which houses content to complements the programmes, video on demand and community features.

We will have to see if UKTV plans to house the websites for the new channels on UKTV.co.uk as it presently does.

Dave, the only channel which does not use UKTV branding, is hosted on the UKTV.co.uk domain. This URL (uktv.co.uk/dave/homepage/sid/5002) shows up in Google when you search for the brand.

So although there is no UKTV branding on the Dave channel or Dave marketing material, it is expected that people have an affinity with UKTV (as that is the domain name), after all that’s what shows up on the Google page and that’s where the online brand engagement by people using search begins.

And yes, as well as the title and descriptive text, searchers DO look at the URL to when deciding whether it’s the right website to click on when looking at a search engine results page.

Unsurprisingly all UK domain names for the new channels are gone, as are the .tv equivalents. So I can only assume the websites will remain on the uktv.co.uk domain.

Once all UKTV stations are stripped of UKTV branding the public will cease to have an affinity with UKTV and thus UKTV.co.uk, which will certainly have implications for click through rates.

There’s also the possibility of confusion when advertising the URL on air? Advertising UKTV.co.uk on air does nothing to drive engagement with the individual channel brands, as they are totally divorced from the corporate name.

I know UKTV is very active with its marketing, and they have been very successful with rebranding UKTV G2 to Dave, and probably have a strategy in place for online. We’ll have to wait and see what it is.

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1. You’re website’s been dropped by Google (BMW)
2. You’ve dropped in rankings (GoCompare)
3. A uncomplimentary website is bidding on paid search for your brand name
4. A competitor is bidding on paid search for your brand name
5. A bad news story ranks for your brand name (British Airways)
6. A porn site ranks for your brand name
7. A web page which damages your brand reputation ranks for your brand name (McDonalds)
8. Google crawled your website when it was down (Sainsbury’s)

9. A company with the same, or similar, name ranks for your brand name (British National Party/BNP Paribas)
10. Search engine usage is decreasing (although that’s never gonna happen, right?).

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Self styled commercially focused search engine marketing agency Maven Metrics was set up last year by Lucie Follet.

I caught up with Lucie to get her thoughts on the search marketing industry, why she has set up automotive parts websites and her plans for new bottled water company Sip’s online marketing campaign.

Maven Metrics is described as being commercially focused. How do you think this approach makes Maven Metrics different to other search marketing agencies?

The main difference with us is that we have worked in other, highly commercial and competitive environments – specifically non-marketing, ‘non meedja’ industries. In my own case, I worked in Investment Banking as a Japan equity sales/analyst until 2002 and also operate my own niche websites which I use as a test bed for hands-on work for any tips or advice I find in blogs and forums.

This combination of being commercial and hands-on is unusual and not always found in larger agencies. It’s not uncommon to find individuals working in SEO and especially web analytics who are so hung up on terms such as ‘conversion rate’ or ‘measuring engagement’ or the anthropological nature of blog networks that they have forgotten the commercial purpose to the website and how this relates to the bottom line – it has become totally abstract and a mere blip on an excel sheet.

I personally find this quite alarming.

Many search marketing agencies are becoming full service, or becoming part of media agencies. Do you think there will be demand for specialist search agencies? Where are you taking Maven Metrics?

Arguably, it could well be said that such large behemoths pose a very real threat to smaller, specialist search agencies as they have the name and client base to pull them through, regardless of the quality of their work and leave smaller agencies to mop up what little there is left.

For example, I am always suspicious when I hear of large, well known pr agencies launching ‘digital marketing arms’ yet when you cast an objective eye over their own websites, you often find all manner of things which make you wonder whether they can actually ‘walk the walk’, (absent or duplicate meta tags, non-search engine friendly flash etc.) There’s no doubt that they perceive online to be nothing more than a convenient money-spinner and they benefit from their clients’ ignorance in all things online.

Realistically, we can’t change that and have to work double-hard to get the business. We get most of our business through word of mouth referrals and, perhaps surprisingly, we do receive unsolicited approaches from companies who have found their experience with larger agencies to be unsatisfying, both in terms of lack of personal attention but also on value for money.

It has to be said, though, most companies are not this enlightened or have too many layers of internal politics to be able to make such a choice and will plump for what they consider to be the ‘safe’ option – which is not always the case.

Tell me more about your niche automotive websites.

I import car parts from Germany and operate several niche automotive sites including one for Volkswagen and Audi water pumps. This one in particular was set up as an arbitrage site to take advantage of perceived flaws in Original Equipment (OE) parts which are, on the whole, manufactured in China.

The obvious benefit to me in doing this – aside from an additional income stream – is to keep my hand well and truly on the commercial pulse.  For example, at present, my North American sales have dropped considerably on a YOY basis on account of the unfavourable exchange rate and as I am not importing huge quantities and cannot forward fix my rate, I am having to raise my prices. So I am more than sympathetic to those retailers who are trying to sell into the
US – it’s not easy in such price-sensitive times – and it means that you have to work extra hard to build up online coverage.

You’re doing the online marketing for Sip water. What are the advantages of marketing an up and coming brand online?

Sip is a great company to be involved with, mainly for the fact that the founders are both incredibly open to the idea of using SEO and web analytics and are always hungry to learn more.

Not only is this attitude extremely refreshing, but it means that it is entirely possible to work in sync with the sip PR dept so that at all times, we can monitor just exactly how useful, say, a particular article in a particular magazine or event sponsorship has been in terms of visits to the site. This approach is ideal and is one I would highly recommend to others.

What is the online marketing focus for Sip? Is it driving brand conversation across the web or driving traffic to Sip’s website?

At present, the sip site is not selling online – yet.

This means that our task at this point is twofold – a/increasing awareness amongst potential distributors both UK and ex-UK and pushing them to the optimised, multilingual pages on the sip site and b/using the optimised blog to highlight offline press coverage we have achieved to get people to find out more about the brand. It is working – since the site’s launch in February, unique visitors to both the site and blog have increased on a month on month basis.

What exciting projects are on the horizon for Maven Metrics?

In addition to working with new clients, we are also building up our preparation to launch a new site which will act as a go-between for PR firms representing brands and consumers.

Our experience of working with PR firms, especially in the health, beauty and lifestyle sectors, has shown us that there is still very little knowledge and appetite within PR co’s for proactively targeting consumers online, other than to send out the, hopeful press release and sample to a relatively short list of ‘themed’ blogs.  Given the current economic outlook, this will become increasingly more important.

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Maven Metrics

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