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Author: Search Influence Alumni

  • One Link To Rule Them All: The Canonical URL and You


    “I will take the Link,” [Frodo] said, “though I do not know the way.”

    When the Internet was a wild frontier in the ’90s, URLs appeared to me magical glyphs that television advertisers and producers revealed only to the worthy. What secrets would be revealed if I, a ten year-old, borrowed my aunt’s computer to type in “trojan condoms” as the commercial on MTV requested? What hidden jokes would I learn if that same “net surf sesh” eventually took me to “http://comcentral.com/“, the URL appearing in the end credits of Dr. Katz?

    Luckily, my youthful precociousness was maintained as I never visited the former, but for a time, the latter URL stuck out in my mind as an oddity. Where was the www in that URL? Did I need to type in the http:// portion? Shouldn’t their website be at http://www.comedycentral.com/ since it’s, you know, the channel’s name? Also, why the heck are two websites I’m visiting the same thing?

    To this day, visiting http://comcentral.com/ will redirect you to the logical URL for their branding. In terms germane to our company, http://www.comedycentral.com/ is the canonical URL for Comedy Central, or the TRUE URL that Comedy Central wants you to access their site by.

    Multiple benefits exist for canonizing a URL, especially in relation to Google’s Analytics and Webmaster Tools. A preferred domain can be set, and data will be formatted to represent the canonical URL. If an accessed subdomain on a site (For example, http://www.xyz.com) presents the exact same content as the domain alone (http://xyz.com/), but each URL exists on its own without redirects, it’s important to canonize one of the two by setting up 301 redirects.

    In relation to the Google tools mentioned above, you might miss out on potential data related to traffic unless you set a preferred domain and ensure that it’s the exact URL served up to site visitors. If a Webmaster Tools account is setup for http://www.xyz.com/ but not http://xyz.com, incoming links for http://xyz.com/ will not be tracked in Webmaster Tools. This is because the www version is treated as a subdomain, and is therefore a different site in the same way that http://mail.google.com/ differs from http://www.google.com/. As the horse says above, setting a preferred domain in Webmaster Tools and setting up a 301 redirect will allow incoming links for either version of the site to appear.

    Another problem averted by setting a canonical URL popped up in a task I received recently. Google Analytics has a neat “In-Page Analytics” feature that provides some interesting metrics on user behavior directly on your site. My task was to determine why this wasn’t working for the client. The error message provided basically asked me to verify that the tracking code was installed on the page, and I found that it was. Digging further, I found that setting the “Website URL” in Analytics to the proper canonical URL (which didn’t have the “www” in it as was set in Analytics) cleared up that issue, and we could see the compiled user data on the In-Page Analytics viewer.

    In general, consistency in the presentation of a website is good practice, be it in a site’s graphical layout, or, as this blog post dances around, in sitewide URL structure. It’s commonly known, but setting your URLs up in a clean, uniformed fashion may result in a smile of good fortune from Old Man Google for your humble homestead in this cyber frontier.

  • When Did The Chicken Cross The Road? Chick-Fil-A, Facebook Foul Ups and Web 2.0

    It’s January 1st, 1999.

    The Euro is established. A month later, the U.S. Senate acquits Bill Clinton of impeachment charges. Then Star Wars Episode I, Napster, Columbine. And in an article entitled “Fragmented Future,” Darcy DiNucci states that, “The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear…” That was thirteen years ago, and I don’t remember anything called Web 2.0. What I do remember are static web browsers, a screeching dial up modem, fights with my sister, and AIM chat rooms — certainly not the Post-Internet proposed by DiNucci.

    So what was she seeing that I wasn’t? When she said “The web we know now… is only an embryo of the Web to come,” did anybody stop to ask her what she meant?

    Is the Internet of today even knit from the same quilt as that of 1999? Perhaps. It takes benchmarks to notice the change. Here was my wakeup call: Chick-Fil-A.

    Blasted by liberal groups for being opposed to gay marriage, the conservative corporation now finds itself in hot water for allegedly creating a fake Facebook profile (of a teenage girl), then using it to defend the company’s actions and promote blatant falsehoods. The non-existent girl, Abby Farle, even quotes the Bible, ending her post with “…John 3:16,” and “derrr,” which is appropriate because nobody says “derrr” anymore.

    The wakeup call is not that corporations lie: it’s how saddeningly fickle this whole story is. More concerning than the fact that Chick-fil-A, a quick-service chicken restaurant, is opposed to gay marriage, is the fact that we care that a quick-service chicken restaurant is opposed to gay marriage.

    What causes a billion dollar corporation to resort to such childish techniques? To actually embody a child to plead their case? Why can’t you just be you, chicken company? Do fake people defend better than real people?

    Even the article “Did Chick-fil-A Pretend to Be a Teenage Girl on Facebook?” published by Gizmodo.com that “broke” the story seems strangely suspect. The story’s screenshot of Chick-fil-A’s Facebook page depicts the conversation, where would-be Chick-Fil-A savior Abby Farle is exposed for being non-existent just two hours after telling one of the belligerents, Chris, to “check his info…” Yet the odd part is that whoever took the screenshot only has one friend on chat. Who has only one friend, right?

    If social media has come to serve as the hammer and anvil of democracy (see Wikileaks, Tahrir Square, Syria) and if our own voices are to be the liberalizing agent, what’s to be done when a conservative voice, like Chick-Fil-A CEO S. Truett Cathy, starts chirping “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.”

    To me, this is the high water mark of social media: when an asshole can’t be an asshole in peace.

    When a four billion dollar (and growing) corporation cares about public opinion enough to create a fake consumer to defend the owner’s socio-religious beliefs, something is very, very wrong. It’s not Chick-Fil-A. It’s us.

    Take 400 years of rabid capitalistic mentality, add a dash of recession-inspired fear, introduce social media and you’ve got the current “debacle.” If Web 1.0 took our bodies, 2.0 has edged toward our souls. Is this what Darcy DiNucci was talking about?

    The unprecedented access and information Web 2.0 provides to marketers (via social media platforms) allows businesses endless opportunities, if they only knew how to take advantage. Don’t overestimate the importance of assenting voices on Facebook, as Chick-Fil-A has. It’s at least reassuring to know that in our world of expressive freedom, backfires do still exist; genuine goodwill is the strongest form of PR a company has (and it’s free, too!), and faking it just won’t cut it. Moreover, the astroturfing of social media platforms, when discovered, inevitably leads to enormous backlash.

    So to the people who post pictures of all their meals on Facebook, I say, “Just eat it,” and to Chick-Fil-A, I say nothing.

    (P.S. I just found out Gore Vidal is dead. Welcome to Web 2.0.)

  • 5 for Fridays — Links, Stories, & Posts for Your Weekend

    1. How to Get a Video to Rank on YouTube — SEOMoz

    With a little help, your video can rank higher for competitive terms on YouTube. The team at SEOmoz went to the whiteboard to give us all a lesson on uploading more effective content on the web’s biggest video resource. Use this advice to increase your views and improve your campaign.

    2. London 2012 – A Very Social Olympic Games — Media Bistro

    The 2012 games might be remembered as the first truly social Olympics. Facebook and Twitter have hosted an unprecedented amount of social interaction about the events, the athletes, and the coverage. This SEO.com infographic takes a look at why 2012 became the year of the Socialympics.

    3. Think Twice Before You Jump on the Guest Blogging Bandwagon — Blind 5-Year-Old

    Getting links is not as easy as it used to be before the Penguin update. This has convinced some SEOs to turn to guest blogging when they want more exposure. The author of this post thinks you should avoid the temptation to trade your original ideas for a link and a temporary spotlight. See if you agree with his take on guest blogging.

    4. Capturing Unrealized Revenue Through Keyword Order Analysis — Search Engine Watch

    The author of this post ran an experiment comparing the performance of primary keyword phrases and reordered secondary phrases. Starting with the hypothesis that targeting some reordered combinations could uncover unrealized profits, the testing revealed some interesting insights that could help search engine marketers expand their campaigns.

    5. Study: YP Delivers “Better Value” Than Google AdWords — Search Engine Land

    A recent study found that advertisers enjoy a significantly lower “cost per call” when using YP.com versus Google AdWords. The extensive survey covered 62 businesses in 20 different categories across 18 US cities. Is heavy competition driving up prices in Google AdWords, or is this study just bunk?

  • SI Around The Web — Mentions & Quotables!

    Search Influence has been getting a lot of love in the press lately, and we’re here to share the good news with you! Our CEO Will Scott lends his expertise to several publications, Olympic frenzy takes the Internet by storm and more, right after the jump!

    • A New Social Media Strategy for the Olympics, Future Sporting Events — Forbes

    The Olympics have been touted as the first “social media games,” and it’s inarguable that the feverish pitch of the competition has been mirrored in the frantic tweeting, sharing and pinning of thousands. But is the Olympics Committee itself doing as good of a job as it could be with their official efforts? Their attempts to place restrictions on nearly every aspect of the games has drawn heavy criticism. Will talks with Forbes about the IOC’s pitfalls, saying “The moment the IOC set restrictions that limited the voice of the athletes, they made the Olympics less relevant to the Millennials.” These restrictions mean stifling good speech as well as bad, and have hurt athletes’ ability to help the Olympic brand.

    • Marketers: No Brand Deserves Gold Digital Olympics — AdWeek

    Speaking of the Olympics, Will was also quoted in this article about the Olympic advertisers’ social media shortfalls. Given its ubiquity in modern-day communication, social media offers a longer-lasting and intense value from endorsements than with traditional forms of advertising, and athletes’ ability to do so is a crucial part of the process. Click through to AdWeek to see his thoughts!

    • Why Online Marketers Are Rethinking Their Yelp Strategy — Street Fight

    Finally, Will wrote this article for Street Fight about the changing face of Yelp and how changes to the system will make it easier, more useful and more profitable for consumers and businesses alike. The increasingly mobile online world, smart search apps such as Siri, and the importance of reviews in buying decisions (among other factors) all drive home the importance of actively managing your business’s online presence. Whether you’re a restaurant, retailer or service, get out there and own your name! Participating in deals and ad campaigns is a great way to get folks in the door, but don’t make the mistake of buying or soliciting reviews — it’s almost sure to backfire. The best way is the old-fashioned one: wow them with your quality and the positive reviews will roll in!

  • Pin It To Win It: Increasing Your Fan Engagement With Contests and Giveaways

    We’ve touched on how to put Pinterest to work for your brand in the past, but some businesses are now using the social media site in even more exciting ways. With the site’s unbelievable growth (it recently passed Twitter, Bing, and Stumbleupon in the rankings), if you aren’t using Pinterest to promote your business already, it’s very clear that you should be.

    But, did you know that besides pinning your products and using the images to drive traffic to your site, you can also engage your target audience with contests and giveaways? It’s a practice that’s been coined “Pin It To Win It” and it’s taking Pinterest by storm. We’ve talked about using Facebook contests to promote fan engagement, but this is the first push towards competition-based community involvement we’ve seen on Pinterest so far.

    Some contests simply require you to repin an image and include a hashtag. Others require Pinners to follow one or more of their business’ boards in exchange for a chance to win.

    http://imom.com/all-pro-dad-pin-it-to-win-it-contest#.T7pfnV5bey8.pinterest

    While this approach has been used on many a blog, it is also an effective strategy for Pinterest. Some companies, however, are getting especially creative with their fan engagement and taking it a step further. In addition to having Pinners follow them, they’re also having them create a board filled with their products.

    Take World Market’s recent Pin It To Win It Contest. They begin by having entrants follow them on Pinterest. Then, they have Pinners create their own board with at least 10 items taken either directly from their site or from the company’s own Pinterest boards. (You can see my entry here!)

    Genius.

    Not only are they gaining followers, but also they’re increasing the number of pins on the site from users and capturing countless other views in the process. I’ll say it again – genius. Anyone can fill out a contest entry form, but World Market is engaging its audience in a way that’s fun and beneficial for both the company and the Pinners, and they’re not the only ones.

    GAP recently held a similar promotion, as did Microsoft Windows. And as their popularity increases, we’re sure to be seeing more of these contests and more consumers engaging with brands on Pinterest.

    So, what about you? Would you consider running a Pinterest promotion for your business?

  • New Influencer Faces — August 2012

    As Search Influence’s client base continues to grow, we keep expanding to our team — we’ll be running this feature periodically so you can stay up-to-date on the ever-expanding SI family. We are so very proud to announce today that we have 6 new employees!

    Laura Manning has been hired as a Junior Account Associate. A recent graduate of Tulane University, she was Secretary of Undergraduate Student Government. While in school, she worked in the Tulane Admissions Office where she ran and maintained their social media accounts.

    Julie Simmons has been hired as a Junior Account Associate. She recently graduated from Loyola University New Orleans College of Business. Originally from Denver, Colorado, she has been living in New Orleans for the past five years. She interned at Greater New Orleans Inc, Southeast Louisiana’s economic development alliance, throughout her senior year.
    Andre Eble has been hired as a Web Developer. A native of North Carolina, Andre attended University of North Carolina at Pembroke where he received his bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. Since moving to New Orleans, he has worked at the House of Blues and become actively involved in the community, volunteering through St.Bernard Parish and HandsOnNOLA.
    Maggie Johnson has been hired as a Junior Account Associate. A newcomer to New Orleans, Maggie moved here from Ruston where she studied Marketing at Louisiana Tech University. While at LA Tech, she worked as an office manager for a local photography company.

    Ari Braverman has been hired as an Internet Marketing Associate. She is originally from Denver, Colorado and went to school at Bard College in New York. She moved to New Orleans to work for a local non-profit in 2008 and has been here ever since.
    Mattie Kenny has been hired as an Internet Marketing Associate. She graduated from Wayne State University and moved to New Orleans shortly after in 2009. She hosted and wrote for a podcast called Geek Troika in her hometown of Detroit.

    A warm welcome to all of our new faces!

  • Read This! — August 2012

    We’re back with another edition of Read This!, our monthly series exploring the DIY tips and tricks you can use to succeed online today.

    • The SMB Guide To Changing Business Names & SEO — Search Engine Land

    Recently found yourself changing your business’s name and hemorrhaging precious web traffic? A shift in title doesn’t have to mean the end of your Internet edge. Check out these strategies to get all of your ducks in a row and preserve your web presence before, during and after the shift.

    • How Amazon Grew My Audience By More Than 24,000 Readers in Three Days — Copyblogger

    Amazon is a superb content marketing platform; if you’re ready to spread your knowledge to the world, it can be perfect place to both get publicity and increase your own sales. Check out this story of an experimental voyage into Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program and how giving away stuff for free can net your personal brand big returns.

    • Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What makes you different then the rest? — Nifty Marketing

    Your business is unique, offering advantages distinct from everyone else in your industry. When you start working on marketing strategy, why not focus on that? Here are several examples from the industry that highlight the importance of knowing thyself and a practical guide to creating your own unique selling proposition.

    •  How To Merge Google+ Business Page With Google+ Local — Search Engine Roundtable

    Exciting news for Google+ For Business users: you can now combine your business’s page with your Google+ Local page to get the best of both worlds! This how-to gives you all the information you need to position your local data right next to your social posts in a heartbeat.

    • How to Conduct a PPC Audit in 5 Minutes — Search Engine Watch

    PPC, or point-per-click, advertising is a source of mystery to many — and interpreting the results can be even trickier. In this clear and concise guide, Search Engine Watch’s Noran El-Shinnawy lays out the steps to doing a basic check of your PPC stats and demystifies the meaning behind the figures.

  • 5 For Friday – Links, Stories, & Posts for your Weekend

     

    Welcome to the Twitter Olympics – CNN

    In case you live under a rock, the Olympics are going on, and the whole world is closely watching as the best of the best compete. Leave it to the internet to bring both humor and serious discussion to the event via Twitter. There was some mud-slinging, as to be expected, but when a Greek athlete was suspended from the games for racial comments via her Twitter account, it makes it clear that Twitter etiquette is becoming just as important as real life.

    The 10 Keys to Optimizing Facebook Engagement – Social Media Today

    So you spend all this time queuing up posts for your business Facebook page, only to have them sit there like a stone with no comments. You feel so unloved! But how can you optimize your Facebook posts to actually encourage more engagement? There are some great tips here to help you get savvy about how to get your clients talking.

    Helping or Hurting – The Debate Over Google+ Local – Search Engine Land

    I admit I personally haven’t given much thought to Google+ these last few months. After an exciting launch, it seemed to kind of fall under the radar, and everyone defaulted back to their old Facebook habit. In the background, however, Google+ kept working to offer more to its users, especially businesses. Over at Search Engine Land, the debate goes on as to whether or not Google+ Local is a good or a bad thing. SEOs love it, while consumers aren’t so sure they jive with what’s going on. What do you think?
    Facebook Working on Better Search, But Won’t Rival Google – Search Engine Watch

    Proper in-site search functionality means the difference between how many users will stick around and how many will bounce in frustration. Google’s pretty good when it comes to giving us what we want in searches, but it’s no surprise that the social behemoth Facebook wants to take a cue from them and make their internal search more efficient. They are currently searching for help to flesh out search, so who knows what’s coming down the road. Maybe tracking down people to add to your network will become easier than ever.

    Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook – Mashable

    It’s hard for me to imagine using a client other than GMail, but apparently, some people still do (like my mom). Hotmail has needed an overhaul for a long time, so it’s good news to see that it’s finally happened, and it even has a new name. Now called Outlook, it has lots of cool social integration stuff built in. It’s probably going to scare my mom, but these changes will surely be handy if you want to use the platform for business.

  • A New Media Paradigm or Mismanaged Effort? Social Media and the London 2012 Olympics

    IMG_5649As the self-declared first “Social Games,” the London 2012 Olympics are currently wowing audiences worldwide with an arsenal of tactics for every social media outlet imaginable. In our digital age, the instant, hyper-specific gratification of Twitter and Facebook is playing a huge role in how fans engage, interact, and react to the show. It’s so big that there’s an entire page devoted to the social aspects of the Olympics on the games’ official website.

    The London 2012 Social Media dashboard on the official website shows the number of growing fans for the Olympics on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also view where to check in, which hashtags to use, and what are the most recent tweets from @London2012. Twitter leads with 1.39 million+ followers, while Facebook is edging up with 1.37 million fans. Google+ only has 698,647+ followers. By so prominently playing up the social media count, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) is encouraging athletes and fans to interact through these platforms — but snafus like the pearl-clutching fuss made over a US soccer player’s personal Twitter account or blaming fans for outages of sharing-heavy networks have caused many to be harshly critical of the International Olympics Committee’s handling of the issue.

    Aly_Raisman_GoldMedalIn addition to the three social media platforms mentioned above, fans can also watch “Gold Medal Moments” and behind the scene interviews with coaches and Olympic athletes on the Team USA YouTube page. If you can’t decide between the eight official Facebook pages to like or the five different Twitter accounts to follow, you can just check out the Olympic Hub page for the latest updates from your favorite athletes. The current top three most followed athletes are LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Roger Federer — as if that was any surprise. But the Olympics are also a time for the non-celebrity athletes to shine and create those true ‘Olympic moments’ with their world records and flawless routines.

    As with any large scale operation, there’s always potential for bumps in the road. One notable disadvantage of all the social media frenzy is that American viewers, who are 5 or more hours behind Greenwich mean time, often get the outcome of the events spoiled before being able to watch the competition itself. The NBC tape delay caused a stir with fans when they preemptively learned about the results of the games while waiting for prime-time TV. Some took to Twitter with #NBCFail to voice their complaints about the prime-time delay, while others made their voices heard on Facebook.

    Another social media mishap occurred during the men’s cycling road race when, according to Reuters and Gizmodo, the IOC asked fans to stop tweeting because it was interfering with their broadcast and to only tweet when it’s “urgent.” Later IOC blamed the issue on an “oversubscription on one particular network.”

    It’s indisputable that the new prevalence of social media, particularly Twitter (which has grown exponentially since the 2008 Beijing games), adds unparalleled amount of richness to the Olympics experience. Fans around the world can watch favorite athletes getting their gold medal, peep Missy Franklin’s fan gifts or get second-by-second updates from six sources at once. However, its immense presence can lead to downsides — even athletes have reported the negative effects of the constant distraction, and many have levied complaints against the IOC’s restrictive policies.

    Whether you’re tuning into the Olympics via live stream, on the tube or even with a list of Twitter feeds, you’re experiencing something completely new in the world of communications and of sport. However strong the effort, though, the IOC’s handling of it has been less than pristine — Search Influence CEO Will Scott weighed in on this very topic in Forbes earlier today, saying “The moment the IOC set restrictions that limited the voice of the athletes, they made the Olympics less relevant to the Millennials… They have taken a large, influential group out of the equation.”

    How do you think the Olympics have handled their social media presence so far? Is your experience better for all the new options, or is their oversaturation taking away from the games themselves?

  • Internet Form Response Times — Does A Quick Reply Really Matter?

    In the search engine marketing world, one of the main tools for generating leads is the use of an online form. Forms can be an invaluable tool for generating leads and increasing revenue. They also provide a metric for classifying return on investment. We are all familiar with the usage of forms, but are we ignoring their full potential by underutilizing leads? As a business management major and online marketing enthusiast, I couldn’t help but wonder how these leads are handled by the staff at the many business for which we work, so I did some research.

    I found a number of great sources on how the timeliness of a response affects the outcome of the lead. One study on lead responses went a little further then the rest. The level of detail in the study is fantastic, but I don’t want it to distract from the most important figures.

    The study was conducted by the team at LeadResponseManagement.org with a sample size of over fifteen thousand leads over a three year span. The purpose of the study was to find out how the time of day, day of the week, and the time to respond to a online lead affected the rate of contact. While the conversion rates were not discussed, we can project standard conversion rates on to the study to get a basic idea of its overall impact.

    Lets get to the meat of the study.

    • The best day of the week to contact a lead is a Thursday, best by 50% compared to the worst day.
    • The best time to contact a lead is between 4-5pm, best by 109% when compared to the worst time.
    • 69% of leads that were contacted initially within the first hour became qualified. (In the study, qualified had a few meanings including setting an appointment.)

    Okay, we all get it. The time when we contact the lead matters. Let’s dive deeper.

    • The odds of contacting a lead decreased by over 10 times in the first hour.
    • The odds of qualifying a lead decreased by over 6 times in the first hour.

    These statistics may seem a bit extreme. Just think for a second about your personal behavior. After submitting a form, there is a reasonable expectation that someone will be in touch with you soon — but how soon? Are you going to wait around all day to be contacted, or are you going to continue your search? Personally, I continue my search until I find someone that will sell me the product or service that I am looking for at the price I’m willing to pay.

    Now for the most important piece of data in the entire survey.

    • The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drops by 21 times.
    • The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 10 minutes drops by 4 times.

    Think about the logic behind why a quick response rate is so important. If you can manage to respond within 5 minutes, the potential customer is most likely still interacting with your website or brand. You are still at the top of their mind. With all of the psychological benefits of quick contact, the ability to get back to a potential customer before they move on to another business is invaluable.

    The bottom line is responding to online leads within five minutes results in a 900% increase in contact rates!

    While this kind of dedicated effort may not be possible for all businesses, the numbers seem to suggest it’s worth the effort. You could work 900% harder or just respond a bit faster — which do you prefer?

    Do you use forms on your business’s website? What kind of response times do you usually stick to?