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I remembered the saying “any press is good press” as I read this amazing and cautionary article from The New York Times, A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web.  It’s a long article, but it’s definitely worth reading. In short, it tells the story of how one woman unfortunately found out the hard way that Google rankings do not incorporate “sentiment analysis” for how it crawls the Internet to produce its search rankings. What this equates to is that search engine results that appear in the coveted top of the search results might appear in this spot due to negative feedback, like customer complaints, posted on review sites.

More precisely, the takeaway point of this article is summed up in this paragraph, referring to how Google ranks pages:

“A crucial factor in Google search results, the spokesman explained, is the number of links from respected and substantial websites. The more links that a site has from big and well-regarded sites, the better its chances of turning up high in a search.”

Wow! So this means that companies that seek out negative press, like DecorMyEyes (the company in question in the article), are just as likely to be ranked number 1 as law-abiding, hard-working and honest companies who legitimately deserve this ranking?

What the what?

And that is exactly what the almighty Google thought too. According to TechCrunch, in response to The New York Times article, Google has changed its algorithm to prevent any negative feedback helping a company’s search ranking.

And all is well in the world again.

But this brings me to my point, and please indulge me as I digress for a moment. As I read this story, I began to think of college. All through college a variety of my professors lectured to me the same golden rule: research is king.  And who says you don’t remember anything from college?

Why would this article bring back memories of distant professors? Well, apparently they were right. Whether it was a history professor saying that there are two sides to every historical event or one of my public relations professors saying that without research you are just blindly throwing darts at the wall, the message was the same – do your research!

Even though Google has changed the way it ranks to incorporate “sentiment analysis,” companies will always try to increase their rankings, and some might even find seemingly sordid ways to drive traffic to their site. While Google rankings can go a long way in your website visibility and client traffic, continue to do your research before opening your wallet.

I love Vietnamese food. The word “love,” as a rule, gets thrown around with some degree of carelessness. I doubt, for example, that my International Relations grad-student roommate is romantically enamoured with Nelson Mandela despite proclaiming her undying affection for his “dreamy” social policy, but there’s just no other verb to describe my all-consuming desire for bánh mě sandwiches and bánh bao steamed buns.

When I heard about Google’s new HotPots feature, I immediately (possibly because it was close to lunchtime) started envisioning a sour soup, maybe canh chua tom, redolent of tamarind, spicy shrimp, pineapple and enough bean sprouts to keep me chock-full of phytochemicals for a month. Oh baby.

HotPots, despite its deliciously misleading name, is Google’s new location-based “recommendation engine” that spells big news for both consumers and businesses looking to optimize their location-based advertising. Much like the soup I’m now craving, it’s an amalgamation of several complementary features– user reviews combined with a less subjective star rating system, location and preference-based recommendations and a social networking aspect.

Google had already edged in this direction in late October with its new streamlined integration of content from review websites like Yelp and Zagat, but the addition of HotPots content to Places pages may prove the most relevant factor for searchers. Users are now encouraged to directly rank and review businesses from their own Google profile, but are given the option to create a unique HotPots handle that is not linked to their general Google information.

Social results are relevant results here– there are options to display only reviews from friends, and places will get bumped up or down users’ search rankings depending on how said friends have rated in the past. The interface is a streamlined grid without an overabundance of information, making the feature remarkably user-friendly and available to consumers of all technical proficiencies. One feature I particularly like in the initial search page is the display of neighborhood or intersection in lieu of specific addresses; when I’m trying to decide if Cafe Minh is too far away to justify a sudden envie for summer rolls and beef pho garnished with lime and bristly Thai basil, I’m far more likely to immediately pick up on “Canal & Harney St.” than a context-less street number, and obtaining details such as phone number and address is as simple as clicking through into the establishment’s Places page.

To be honest, I initially wasn’t sure what to think about HotPots– Google has already done a great job integrating external reviews into their results pages, and I’ve never had a complaint with the location-based rankings they’ve provided me with thus far. Having poked around the application, though, I’m impressed. Google has done an admirable job adapting what could have been an unwieldy and overcomplicated tool to its potentially enormous audience, and I love the different levels of detail the user is allowed to provide– from simple smiley/frowny faces to detailed verbal reviews. There’s also potential for it to be incredibly useful to travelers, as the service by its very nature promotes businesses that make their customers happy. Quality rises to the top, and local word-of-mouth promotion has suddenly gotten a whole new venue.

HotPots is still in its beginning stages and it remains to be seen whether Google users will start providing rankings in earnest. However, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed poking around the interface and reviewing some of my own favorite (and least favorite) joints. I’m excited to see what interesting locales Google will suggest for me in the future, and will watch the service with interest as it accumulates more user data. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see if any of my friends have suggestions for the best noodle house in town.

It’s an honest question. Tons of people have. There’s nothing wrong with it. It let’s you know what you’re up against. Here at Search Influence, we do it all the time. In fact, we measure it so much that it’s almost become ritualized. So I’ll ask again, have you measured your return on investment for all those dollars you’re spending on marketing?

Many business owners are under the impression that the more money they throw at a marketing strategy, the more money they’ll get back in return. It’s a logical strategy, but if you’re not measuring your ROI, how do you know is if it’s truly working? Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there that help you measure it.

The first step anyone should take is setting up a Google Analytics account. Analytics is a free web-based service that tracks visitor behavior on your site.  It’s an amazing tool that helps track your various marketing efforts.  It lets you know which keywords are used to reach your site and where your visits are coming from. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg. It can also tell you your Cost Per Lead if you have a Pay Per Click campaign, and also let’s you know your site’s conversion rate, which is your number of  leads divided by the number of visits to your site. This is critical information to know. Traffic is great and all, but if those visitors aren’t doing anything once they get there, it’s kind of pointless. Conversion rate distinguishes between which businesses are showers and which are growers.

The next step is to install call tracking. What this does is allow you to assign a unique phone number to all of your advertising efforts. You can have separate numbers for your ads in print, radio, television, or on the ‘Net. Not only does it allow you to distinguish which of your campaigns these calls are coming from, but it tells you when they called, where they’re calling from, the duration of the call, and whether or not it results in a sale. It also records information on calls that you miss.  This is invaluable information when measuring your ROI.

Lastly, if your site offers a service or call to action, install a form system. Don’t be shy and hide it on your “Contact Us” page, either. You want it in people’s faces, so put one on every page you can. It’s so much more beneficial than having people email you directly, which only gives you a snapshot of what you can know. With a form, you not only get the same information as you would through email, but you can see how they found your site, through what search engine (if any), and by using what keyword (again, if any).

There it is, the Holy Trinity of measuring your website advertising numbers and gains, or W.A.N.G. if you will. Now you’ve got no excuse. Pull out those proverbial rulers and start measuring!

Don Draper is the suave, womanizing Creative Director of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce on AMC’s Emmy Award-winning Mad Men. He’s intelligent, handsome, and has a Superman chest for crying out loud, but he is also the epitome of a tragic hero. Despite his best efforts, he just can’t seem to get a grip on his personal life and constantly falls into the trap of his compulsive infidelity and lies. Yet, many fans of the show covet his life even though he barely wants it himself. I chalk this up to two things: fantastic writing and the character’s genius and success in his work. When it comes to the world of 60s advertising, his wisdom is unparalleled, and most of it can be applied to modern-era marketing as well. So before I digress into a raving fanboy over my love for this show, I present to you a few tips from the “Don Draper Guide to Internet Marketing.”

“Give me more ideas to reject.”

SEO is a game of trial and error. Sure, there is a playbook of rules to follow to ensure some success, but these are constantly changing and you need ideas on how to overcome the challenges you’ll face when they do. It doesn’t matter how many bad ideas you come up with as long as one of them is a winner.  Not everything you try is going to work. The only thing that matters is the one that does. That’s the one people will copy and that’s the one they’ll remember.

“You manage people’s expectations.”

As a member of the account management team at Search Influence, one of the main things I do is manage accounts (obviously); however, almost just as importantly, I manage the expectations of my clients as well. I can get any one of them to rank higher organically in Google, but this doesn’t mean they’ll see more sales simply because they’re listed above their competition. If their site is hideous and hard to navigate and they don’t want to put in the money necessary to fix it up, I can’t guarantee that our efforts will amount to more money for them. Don’t make promises just to make the client happy, unless you know for a fact that you can keep it.

“Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. They take all this monkey crap and stick it in a briefcase, completely unaware that their success depends on something more than shoeshine.”

Like I said previously, I can get someone higher Google rankings. That’s formulaic. It’s easy. The hard part is delivering an ROI to the client. That’s the service for which they are paying. They want to make much more money than they’re spending on me, and I’d better deliver. Ranking higher on Google is a simple shoeshine. Getting them more business is like giving them a new wardrobe. That’s what they want. It’s what they need. Otherwise they wouldn’t need me.

I really want to end this blog post with a profound, Don Draper-esque quote, but I’m not that suave. Instead, I’ll let the real Don Draper close us out: “Yeah, I eat a lot of apples.” OK, maybe that wasn’t so profound. What do you want from me? I’m no Don Draper. I’m more of a Pete Campbell…