Google's Amazing Adwords TIPS (WTF)

Having run my digital agency for around 6 years now I've always wondered why I've never relied a little more on relationships with Google and participating a little more with the Google team to help grow my business.

So a while back we decided to join the Google partnership program.

NOW, I KNOW WHY!

• We get spammed daily with pathetic partner emails and newsletter. Look at these AMAZING TOP 4 TIPS TO IMPROVING YOUR ADWORDS ACCOUNT.

• We get Christmas vouchers to hand out as part of our rewards program to try and sign up new clients. I get the vouchers on the 25th November which expire on the 10th December. What is the point of that.
• They send amazing vouchers to clients of R500 for Adwords, but you can't use them is you've already signed up for Adwords, so why are they sending them in the first place.

I don't know if this is just Google South Africa - but guys, for a multi billion dollar company, the service so far has been pretty dismal.

6 Solid Ways to Market Your Infographic

Ok, so while my research may not be as pretty as an infographic, I've nonetheless got some sound advice on the best ways to market them and get your information out there for everyone to see.

Following these 6 steps, your infographic will be going viral in no time. It may take some time and effort, but what good things don't.

An example of an infographic.

       

• Firstly, you can’t market   something that doesn't look good. The data has to be solid, plentiful and informative. It has to be relevant to your target audience, pretty and useful.
• Your infographic must have embedded code that lets others repost it. You have to let people know it’s ok to share your infographic if you want it to  spread.
• Obviously you would like the infographic to go viral, and it seems like these are the recommended steps to do it: create an SEO optimized press release, a social media release (which is the press release optimized for social media), a social media sharing plan for your infographic, submit your infographic to directories and start reaching out to blogs and direct message popular twitter users (who have a connection to the subject of your infographic) to get them to share what you’ve made.
• You can also use your site network (if you have one) and get them to share your infographic, in exchange for doing it in return in the future.
• Add “Pin It” buttons to any imagery you use in your infographic post.
• At the end of the post, have entertaining and tweetable facts to encourage user interaction (these might be more difficult to come up with but are an excellent way to get users to share your post). One of the better one's I've seen recently looks like this:

People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad

[ tweet this ]
Who could possibly resist this?

Follow what you've just read, and watch your infographic spread like wildfire!

Video advertising momentum according to Double Click

Digital video has brought new energy to brands and publishers.

Here are some of the trends DoubleClick's advertising platforms. Double Click found which advertiser and publisher categories are growing video ad investments, why programmatic is an efficient channel to buy and sell video, and how viewer choice benefits everyone.

Below you can find some vital stats on how digital video ads have brought new energy to brands and media companies in the infographic below.


Thanks to http://www.google.com/think/infographics/video-advertising-momentum-infographic.html

When to submit Google reconsideration requests

Thank to a post from Barry Schwartz on http://searchengineland.com/google-advice-on-when-to-submit-reconsideration-request-how-to-clean-your-link-profile-164263 - Google came out clean with when and how you should submit a re-inclusion or reconsideration request for your site through Google webmaster tools.

• Fix your website first before you submit the request, asking for help before you submit, is going to get you into more poop, if you're unsure what's wrong, ask an SEO company to assist you
• Use Google’s “links to your site” report within Webmaster Tools to analyze bad links pointing to your site. It's quite difficult and a very tedious process, if you're unsure as to what you're doing, rather ask someone that know's what they're doing. Removing links that you think are bad, when they're not will drop your rankings even further once you recover
• Remove bad links by disavowing them, nofollowing them and having them completely removed. This is easier said than done, however a good lawyers letter should the company who has your link refuse always works nicely
• Make sure when you submit your re-inclusion request that you give a detailed explanation of what you changed and removed and why. If it was your SEO company that did some dodgy link building, tell Google you've changed SEO companies as well
• Responses for reconsideration request can take a few days but may take much longer depending on the site and current workload. From my experience up to 4 weeks
• Googlers review each reconsideration request manually, so don't think their UBER bots are that clever 

These are guidelines and a summary of the original posting by Google - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/06/backlinks-and-reconsideration-requests.html

Tumblr launches ADS to promote blogs and posts

Finally, Tumblr, the world's largest blogging service has decided to launch an advertising platform. This Tumblr advertising platform will be used to either promote individual posts or the blogs themselves.
For the most part, the new ads don’t intrude on Tumblr’s users blogs. Instead, the company is using its Radar and it's spotlight features to highlight content from its advertisers.

Although Tumblr hasn't had the push and drive in South Africa's market, in the USA Tumblr has more searches on it's BLOG search than Google has on it's Google Blog search. 

So what does that mean for South African companies and how can we benefit from this service? Well, if your target market is in the US, here's a marketing platform that's going to be cheaper and more cost effective than Google adwords, Facebook paid ads and Twitter.

So, what is it that people are using Tumblr for?
Well, according to Socialmediaexplorer.com the TOP 5 blog categories are;

1. Celebrities
2. Humour
3. Photography
4. Art
5. Gaming

2 weeks ago at the SES london conference, can't recall who it was that stated this but stats have shown that 75% of the users on Tumblr are teenagers. This is also reflected in the TOP 5 Tags on Tumblr for 2012;

1. One direction
2. Exo
3. Tom Hidelston
4. Love
5. Harry Styles

To summarise; If you are launching either a band. a new song, love art or a new computer game and your target market is teenagers in the USA, Tumblr ADS is without a doubt your platform.

SES London 2013 - Paul Madden - Social Media and SEO

Paul Madden formerly blackhat SEO @SEOIdiot now SEO and in building guru based in the UK http://www.paulmadden.co.uk/ gave some great tips on link building post penguin.

I didn't take many notes having been a little stuck in the moment of listening however I did take some notes and hopefully caught the gist of what he was trying to get across.

Things to remember when link building;
- Links don't expire you have to take these off.
- Link data is a must!!!!
- Understanding the sites you get links from don't just say yes

GET A MONTHLY LINK AUDIT PROCESS IN PLACE!

Signals that should tell you your site is at risk;
-Far higher % of on anchor text
- site wide links are a no no
- stay away from suspect Cctlds
- Remove links that have died check BACKLINKS and if the sites still exists or not

% of link anchor text is the answer
GOOGLE IS BASED ON LINKS, don't forget this!!!

What you need to ask yourself when you are measuring link metric value;
What is the cctld
What is the purpose of site, is it of value?
Check for Banned words
Does the site have Links to bad places (use Xenu Link sleuth)
Commercial anchors
No interaction on site, comments, tweets, reviews
No social activity on site

TOP 4 things to remember when building links;
- audit link profile
- make sure the guys know what they're doing
- don't stop building
- watch link profile

Basically, measure, measure , measure and then keep track!!!
Link building is NOT dead, it's just getting tougher.

Link Building in a post Penguin era by Kevin Gibbons (snippets from SES London)

So I think the great way Kevin started this chat off was by defining the difference between Penguin and Panda updates from Google. I don't think that everyone quite has this one bedded down and defined just yet. To be honest it's pretty simple though;

Penguin penalizes links.
Panda penalizes content.

That's it!!!

I think the reason a lot of these discussion we're based around post penguin updates really comes down to;

People needing clarity on how to clear penalized sites.
How to actively engage your sites backlinks and effectively monitor or prevent this from happening again.
How to build links without raising any flags

So, what is a rubbish site that Google finds spammy?
Websites that have no links, no comments, no activity or shares! I also think sites on dodgy tld's I.e. .info sites

How does Google identify crappy link building?
Your site has over optimized anchor text
Your sites link profile consists of social links, directories, article submission sites and blog comments
You have a totally one sided link profile I.e. great links from great sites with nothing else
You push links heavily and then stop and do nothing for months

With Author Rank becoming more and more prevalent and relevancy playing a huge part in everything were doing these days it is essential to start using Google plus.
You must have a plus page
You must link your plus page to your blog
Dont believe me, straight out of Eric schmidt's mouth, look it up.

Become a recommended author!!! That's the goal.

TIPS FOR SEO companies;
Use Rss subscribers
Watch your Bounce rates
Monitor Average number of links per post
Monitor Average number of social shares
Ask yourself, What would Matt cuts do?

What can I do to keep track of BACKLINKS

Download BACKLINKS from majestic SEO.
Track % of anchor text distribution.
Analyze links vs. referring traffic.
Find out what number 1 competitor is doing and what his link profile looks like.
DON'T CHANGE ANCHOR TEXT - rather remove link.
Focus on audience and topical relevancy to build a natural link profile.
If content is not generating links its not natural is it?
Don't publish rubbish.
Remove links with no value to users.
Replicate link models of top sites.

However, the most important Thing to remember with seo and link building moving forward for 2013 is:

Create scalable content marketing strategy and focus on audience, social thinking!!!!

SES London Day 1 keyword research training by Bill Hunt

After having spent an entire day at a fantastic SES London conference opening today I decided to look back at yesterday's training session will Bill Hunt, ex IBM search guru and head of SEO and relate what I thought were some very good and valid pointers with regards to understanding keywords for both paid and organic search and how these two relate.

Apologies for the brief pointers but it's pretty late and if i don't write this post now I'll never do it.

The moral or message that i really want to get across is that you need to identify keyword opportunities and what you are spending trying to rank or convert these opportunities.

So its a closely debatable topic and one that paid department and organic departments often debate internally. The problem is its not a debate it's a discussion that needs to be had.

If I rank 1st organically and I'm bidding on the same keyword is it really necessary?

- if you are ranking for both paid and organic you need to get people to recognise that both are same company. Otherwise you compete with your own rankings.
- 53% click on first organization listing
- 81% of paid listing don't have organic rankings
- 90% of users for travel are using mobile

What this has to do with the topic at hand, no fucking clue but the stats are cool.

IDEAS

- Segment by intent or interest
- Segment by content type
- Segment by device

KEYWORD SEARCH

Google keyword tool is not enough to do the research data you need to use multiple tools. Raventools have a great bit of software that pulls from everything.

WORK OUT

Cost of missed SEO.
Cost of paid search.
How much would it cost to get x number of clicks on paid vs seo and which is more profitable for you.

KEYWORD RESEARCH!!!

Use google suggest.
Über suggest.org great tool.
Identity seo and paid keyword terms.

Start by asking questions when doing your keyword research;

Make a list of products, services and categories
What do people search for when finding your products
When you search for your own site what do you search

With B2B searches - add the word strategy cause thats what management searches for.

identifying missed keyword opportunities;
Total, inspiration, discovery, design, purchase, relationship(5 phases of the buy cycle)

GOOGLE COMING OUT WITH NEW VERSION OF SERCH API! This is for all those seo agencies out there.


It is imperative that you separate landing pages based on the phase of the search cycle that they are in:

Learn, shop, buy, get, use...
Research, buy or returning...

Live person is a brilliant way to find what people are searching for by asking them what their jobs are. This would work really well for insurance.

NB : SALES PITCH
identity how many keywords you should be ranking for.
Give top 10 competitors.
Identify opportunities
Show them % of traffic being missed
Revenue that they are missing out on

BACKLINK TIP Match up "organic keywords" to social media tracking. Find website back link opportunity. Using social media to help identify what people are searching for in your industry and then use that in Adwords.

Facebook knowledge graph tool is available to find people's interests.

As I said this post was pointers from the conference so not the best English but hopefully useful.

From SES I'm out!D