X SEO

Chances are if you’re reading this, SEO analysis is part of your life in some capacity, whether it is auditing for a client, creating a campaign strategy, or reporting performance to the higher-ups. How to sharpen the SEO analysis sword is something that I’ve really been wanting to write about for a while because great analysis and reporting underlies effective problem solving and objective decision making that is part of so many great campaigns.

1) Use tools as a filter for looking at websites, not the other way
around

This may seem on the face of it, so obvious that you’re probably gonna want to bounce from this blog post, huh? You may think that this is so self evident that it should not even be on this list – well, it is and let me tell you why: looking at a website while running tools on it gives a third dimension to the data. There is a big difference between glancing at a website and truly analyzing it. I find that many people simply peek at a website quickly before diving into tools and looking at the website through the tools, this is patently incorrect. The real critical lens is looking at the website and using tools as filters to highlight certain features of the website. I am not even going to lie, early on when I started SEOing I definitely spent a couple cycles  every once in a while wondering why ‘the numbers’ looked so off, only to have a DUH! moment as soon as I looked on the site.

Putting it into practice

• Start to understand how the tools you use everyday work. How are they grabbing data? How complete is the data? This will give you an idea of how seriously you should take the data.
• Anytime, literally ANYTIME, you’re looking at tool output you should have  a second window  open with the actual site – no minimizing!
• Don’t move too fast through the data, analyze. I was guilty of this one too when I was starting out. Take your time, really look at things and always drill down.

2) Look at multiple data sources because a different data set or a different view can give you a whole new picture

I’m a huge tool omnivore. I will try anything and everything and find the beauty in it – I even tool hunt in my spare time! Feindish, I know but not without cause. I believe that if you’re looking at one data source, you’re not getting the complete picture. I never use just one keyword tool (or even just 3). I never use just one backlink tool…and so on for any other SEO activity. I build in redundancies into everything I do. I try to be smart about it though, to save myself time. I ask myself a couple questions when deciding on what tools from my arsenal to use. Is this a quick and dirty look under the hood? There are some tools that are great for just the down and dirty. Am I trying to be exhaustive in my analysis? In this case, I start running tools that I know have different data sets to get a complete picture, this is especially true for link tools for backlink analysis.

Putting it into practice

• Try lots of free tools and try free trials of lots of paid tools. There is so much great stuff out there and if you have you have the time to tinker, it is well worth your time. Check out the following articles by some of my fellow ninjas to get ideas for some pretty sweet tools worth testing.
• Browser Plugins
• Data Visualizing Tools
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Pinterest Tools pinterest super cool, I couldn’t resist
• Give tools that don’t give you insights the boot quickly. It is really easy to get into the habit of running the same tools just because you’re in the habit of doing it. Don’t fall into this habit.
• Don’t get too comfortable with the tools or methods you’re using. Commit to always try new ways of solving problems. One way to do this right now is to dig through your bookmarked how to SEO blog posts and try one of the the ‘cool things’ you found, saved, and forgot about

3) Fetching too little data or presenting too much Information

Proper data gathering and information presentation are the two unsung heroes of SEO analysis. You’d be surprised how often people grab a screenshot of the graph from Google Analytics for organic search and used that in external reports. Fail. Especially when you have a wealth of data, such as what Google Analytics provides, you cannot get away with presenting unsegmented screenshots and pie charts as complete data. Drilling down into data is something that is critical to the success of any analysis you do. Personally, I think it is always worth taking the extra time to verify the completeness of your research. On the other side of the coin, there is presenting too much data and too much research. The big rule here is that you never want to present a big giant data explosion spreadsheet to anyone. You want to make sure that you have a well manicured and well formatted document of course but as an analyst, it is your job to do the actual analytical legwork and to present only the creme off of the top, so decisions can easily be made based on the document you created or problems solved.

Putting it into practice

• Starting right now, commit to taking the extra time to drill down deeper and segmenting more then you ever have into the data that you have available to you for the problem you’re try to solve for or the phenomena you’re analyzing.
• Critically revisit the last piece of analysis that you did and critique the presentation of the document. Is the document formatted in a professional matter? Is data presented in an objective and non-misleading way (i.e. are ratios and percentages explained with all the necessary raw numbers to give them proper context)? Are recommendations and conclusions action oriented? A thought experiment that I like to use to test how actionable a particular piece of analytical reporting is is: can I hand this off for someone to act upon and can they write ‘done’ on everything I recommended. If I am doing analysis for something to aid in decision making the though experiment I use is: if I was the decision maker, would I have all the necessary and
  sufficient information to make a objective and maximally beneficial decision based on analysis provided?

4) Don’t miss the forest for the trees

When doing analysis, it is often easy to get too focused in one place and miss the overall picture. All to often, analysis is bogged down to just, say, onpage keyword strategy and internal linking, missing the boat on off page strategy or content strategy. It is really easy to miss the boat the other way around as well. It is so important to keep a global perspective when doing analysis; more specifically, all your analysis should somehow lead back to important KPI’s and therefore, the bottom line for your company or your clients business. To truly meet the individual business needs, you need to be prepared to analyze broadly to see patterns and opportunities, in addition to being able to drill down.

Putting it into practice

• Try to somehow document your clients/ your company’s key business objectives and KPI’s fore the campaign being analyzed – this is so important because this is the weight by which you measure success or failure. Having a clear idea of what these are will also help you not less your analysis digress. In a word, make your clients business, yours as well.
• Make sure you have a clear definition of what qualifies as a problem worth further analysis. I have a little thought experiment that I use: Does what I am looking at have the potential to move the needle up or down? I also ask myself, does answering this question/solving this problem involve more work and opportunity cost, then the potential value that solving it will bring? By keeping these little questions on my mind, I fall into Alice’s data wonderland a lot less often.

To wrap up, I am curious if you all have some common analytical pitfalls that I may have missed or ideas on how to make an SEO analysis sharper.

By Eric Goldman

Advertising and Marketing

* CLRB Hanson Industries, LLC v. Weiss & Associates, PC, 2012 WL 20539 (9th Cir. Jan. 5, 2012). Ninth Circuit rejected a challenge to the CLRB Hanson v. Google settlement over AdWords budget caps. Prior blog post.

* Facebook is rolling out Sponsored Stories in users’ newsfeeds, while making the disclosure incredibly opaque by calling it “featured” (with an additional disclosure that shows when users mouse over the word). Between this spamming of users’ newsfeeds and the MySpace-ification of Facebook via its Timeline UI, Facebook is making it harder and harder to actually use the site to communicate with each other (which, Facebook might have forgotten, WAS THE WHOLE POINT).

* Facebook v. Adscend Media complaint over “likejacking.”

* Rebecca on the injunction in the Fresh Step kitty litter case.

* The FTC’s settlement with Upromise is a deja vu to the old adware wars of the last decade. Prior blog post on the adware wars.

Consumer Reviews

* Britain’s ASA says TripAdvisor can’t make claims “”Reviews you can trust”, “… read reviews from real travellers”, “TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers” and “More than 50 million honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers around the world”" because it has fake reviews on its site.

* EFF brought a declaratory judgment action for LawyerRatingz based on 47 USC 230.

* Law firm sues the BBB over an adverse rating. Compare CHW Group, Inc. v. Better Business Bureau of New Jersey, Inc., 2012 WL 426292 (D.N.J. Feb. 8, 2012) (dismissing a Lanham Act false adverting claim against BBB for an allegedly bogus letter grade).

* Rebecca on a litigation battle over fake consumer reviews.

Search Engines

* Danny Sullivan: 2011: The Year Google & Bing Took Away From SEOs & Publishers

* Google is bundling Gmail and Google+ accounts; is this a way of padding the number of Google+ accounts, or forcing people to take Google+ accounts who don’t want them?

* The “Focus on the User” website provides some evidence that the Google+ integration into search may not be in users’ best interest.

* PandoDaily: “Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else”

* Search Engine Land: An Interview With A Google Search Quality Rater. Prior blog post.

* A Microsoft-sponsored event to attack Google sours one European member of Parliament.

* Bing presents integrated results similar to Google’s Universal Search, even though Microsoft fronted groups have raised antitrust concerns about Google doing so.

* Reagan-era FTC chairmen (and Google consultants) tell the FTC
“>to back off Google.

* Polls like this are interesting and probably unreliable:

87 percent agreed with the statement “I feel I can easily switch to a competing search engine if I’m not happy with the results I receive;” just 8 percent said they were “stuck with using a particular search engine and don’t have the ability to switch.”

Respondents were then asked whether “the federal government should regulate the content and appearance of search engines and their results.” A whopping 79 percent strongly or somewhat disagreed with this idea, compared to 12 percent who strongly or somewhat agreed. The depth of opposition was striking – 64 percent strongly disagreed versus just 3 percent who strongly agreed.

Participants were presented with arguments about more enforcement of federal antitrust laws, and then asked to choose which statement was most true. A massive 76 percent agreed that “More government involvement and regulation will make the Internet worse for consumers,” while just 8 percent thought that such involvement and regulation “will make the Internet better for consumers.”

* Custom Led v eBay complaint: alleges that eBay didn’t give the promised priority in search results for eBay Motors “Featured Plus” listings.

* Scroogle is dead. I tested on Scroogle in my 2005 Internet Law exam (see also the sample answer).

By Eric Goldman

Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee, Inc. v. Does, 3:12-cv-00240-MEJ (N.D. Cal. March 8, 2012)

The Doe Defendants registered the alias “NHLiberty4Paul” at YouTube and Twitter and posted a YouTube video attacking Jon Huntsman. The video ends “American Values and Liberty – Vote Ron Paul.” The Does acted without Paul’s permission–so much so that Paul sued them for violations of the Lanham Act and defamation. After filing the lawsuit, Paul sought to unmask the Does.

The court denies the unmasking request because Paul’s Lanham Act claims weren’t valid. (By doing so, the court sidesteps a battle over which of several different legal standard should govern the unmasking request). The federal court then declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law defamation claim.

The lawsuit’s subject matter is a fake political video. It’s “selling” a candidate (or, more accurately, trying to improve the competitive posture of candidate A by degrading the attractiveness of rival candidate B), but it’s not selling anything commercial. Rebecca explained this when the complaint was first filed. Because the Lanham Act governs commercial activity, not political activity, it’s clearly inapplicable to this situation.

To try to salvage the situation, Paul tries two mockable arguments. First, he argues that YouTube and Twitter are commercial sites, and that gives the dispute enough commerciality. The court rightly points out that the inquiry is about the defendant’s conduct, not the websites where it took place, and notes the argument’s illogic would mean non-commercial activity on any commercial website would be governed by the Lanham Act. In a footnote, the court adds that “using another company’s commercial website to post a comment or video is just far ‘too attenuated’ to result in an individual’s own conduct automatically meeting the Lanham Act’s commercial use requirement.”

Second, Paul argues that “the video was intended to frustrate Plaintiff’s fundraising efforts and increase the amount of money contributed to Presidential nominees other than Ron Paul.” The court says the Lanham Act is predicated on the defendant trying to improve its competitive status, and these defendants had no competing services; and the video on its face didn’t try to solicit any donations.

In this case, it seems likely that the Does would suffer extra-judicial punishment if their identity gets revealed, irrespective of the case’s merits. Kudos to the judge for aggressively gatekeeping the unmasking request rather than just rubber-stamping it. (Venkat emailed me: “I wonder if N.D. Cal. Judges are savvier at screening out these types of issues since they must deal with so many request to unmask.”).

This case also reinforces that the Lanham Act is not designed to regulate fake content or consumer confusion about the source of content injected into the information ecosystem. But that makes me wonder if other reputation-protective legal doctrines might apply better, including defamation (kicked to the state court) or perhaps California’s recent e-personation statute.

Some related posts:

* Reputation Management Lawsuit Is Shot Down–Bernard v. Donat
* Court Smacks Down Koch Industries’ Attempt to Shut Down Satirical Website — Koch Industries v. Does
* Griping Patient Goes Too Far Posting Fake Content in Doctor’s Name–Eppley v. Iacovelli

We’ve just experienced another season of roundups in the sports, music and movie industries and throughout it all, I noted interesting things about marketing and human behavior. Super Bowl It began with the TV commercials during the Super Bowl. Usually my favorite part of this final game of…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Data suggests that content and ideas online spread most effectively through large numbers of people sharing with small groups. There is little supporting data to prove that influencers are the best way to go viral and share information online. The future of media and online advertising is social and social media users are engaged visiting sites like StumbleUpon and Buzzfeed to find out what content friends, families and colleagues are sharing with each other. The proof is in the more than 4 billion page views each month the two platforms experience.

There is a sharing behavior that is similar to what happens in the real physical world that disproves the past marketing practice of using influencers to reach audiences. The behavior can be witnessed on both BuzzFeed and StumbleUpon. Online sharing, even viral, takes place most effectively through many small groups not by an influencer or even a few influencers making single posts or tweets. Influencers can reach a wide audience but their effect is actually only for a short time. Content really goes viral when it is shared beyond particular spheres of influence and spreads out across the social web by regular people sharing the content with their friends.

The largest stories on Facebook come from the intimate sharing of people, not from one person sharing in hopes of getting thousands to follow. Sharing is often compared to “word-of-mouth,” but when something is recommended in a casual conversation it’s far more memorable than if a bullhorn is used to spread the message. Intimate sharing is remarkably more effective than broadcasting. Sharing directly with friends is the most common outlet for content. To get content shared, marketers and publishers should focus on content that will resonate and get people talking to their colleagues, friends and families. Social media is about engaging people in conversations, like the real offline world.

Pinterest is a reasonably new social networking site that seems to have turned into somewhat of a hit in social media circles of early 2012.

Pinterest say that their service ‘lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web’ and that people can ‘use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes’.

Sounds fun doesn’t it? Although I’m assuming the above description probably isn’t ticking a lot of business boxes yet.

Here are some pretty impressive stats that might change that:

• Pinterest has more than 10.4 million registered members, that’s 20.8 million potential eyes on your “pinboards”
• Shareaholic recently reported that Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.

So how can you use this virtual pin board to help your business?

Before we address this, it may be useful to arm you with some basic Pinterest Terminology:

• Boards are where you will (virtually) pin your images.
• Pins are images you find or create and Pin on your Board or Repin from another person’s Board
• A repin is adding an image you find while browsing Pinterest to your own board. When you repin an image, the user who first pinned the image will also get credit.
• Pinners are the Pinterest community who pin and repin on boards.

As we’ve learnt from the brief terminology crash course, similarly to Facebook shares and Twitter retweets, when you “pin” something new, your followers will see it. They can like, comment or re-pin it to their boards allowing your Pinterest pins to potentially go viral.

Therefore, if you run a product based business, you could pin your own products to share with other users. Pinterest can act as an extension of your websites product catalogue but as with all social media platforms, remember to keep it social and add some personality to your account.

Think about what kinds of content and topics your existing or potential customers would enjoy. What would they find interesting and want to share with their followers?

Although I said that Pinterest can act as an extension of your catalogue, it is important to ensure that images of your products or work are pinned alongside lots of other visually appealing and fresh content. If a customer wanted to be sold to, they’d visit your website so make sure you’re not just sharing images and links to your existing product pages, blog posts, and online catalogues.

Instead, share content that other users will love sharing. Here are some examples of businesses that I think are doing it well:

Etsy is a place where shoppers can ‘buy and sell handmade or vintage items, art and supplies on the world’s most vibrant handmade marketplace’

Etsy (at the time of writing) have an impressive 58,949 followers which can only be a testament to the fact that they really ‘get it’. They’ve also recently added Pinterest share buttons to their website listings – This makes it much easier for browsers to pin an item that catches their eye. What makes this new addition even cooler is that when you use the etsy/pinterest button, it will automatically populate with the seller’s price and link.

Owners Direct don’t quite have the same follower count as Etsy but I like that they’re doing. With boards named ‘camping made fun’ and ‘outdoor living’ they’re able to raise awareness of the many different types of holiday properties they have available on their website.

Back to your business. Once you’ve set up your account and started a few boards – follow, follow, follow!

By following other users it will alert them that you’ve set up an account and will provide you with a wealth of content that you might want to share with your own followers. You can use the search function to search for users that might be worth a follow by typing in keywords associated with your brand/field or interests. Don’t forget to share with your fans and followers and connections elsewhere that your business is on Pinterest too!

Pinterest isn’t specifically made for direct customer engagement, there’s no official “business” section on there but as you can see from the above examples, businesses are harnessing its potential and reaping its rewards although when I say rewards, like with most social media channels it’s unlikely that it will deliver direct sales or hard business opportunities but will instead create those even more valuable connections and relationships.

Pinterest probably isn’t for everyone, it may not be for your business but you’ll never know if you don’t try. Businesses who embrace new ways of communicating and engaging with their network are much more likely to find right platforms for them.
Ready to get your business set up on Pinterest? First you have to go to the site and request an invite. You should receive one within a few days but if you know someone who already has an account, they can invite you – perhaps you could ask your Twitter followers or Facebook fans nicely for an invite?

Happy pinning

Francesca will be hosting the Online Business Makeover at Microsoft HQ London on 12th March 2012. You can find a full list of speakers here. To find out more about top content for search engines and actual readers, as well as how to use social media to boost your online presence, book your ticket today. And we still have a couple of 50% discounted places left if you quote promotional code MICROSOFTGUEST when you book. Don’t miss out – order soon!

Optimize For Customer Experience

When people learn I’ve recently written a book called Optimize they usually ask what it’s about. I say it’s about optimizing customer discovery and engagement with content. The response I usually get is something like, “Oh, cool. I thought it was about SEO.”

Well, in a way optimizing content and customer experiences is SEO. That’s because what most of the better SEOs practice today is really more about the promise of marketing: attracting, engaging and inspiring customers to buy.

Whether it’s Google, Social Networks, Online News Media, Digital Assets or any other channel/format for content – best practices optimization is in effect for smart companies that want an advantage.

2005 Called, It Wants Its SEO Back. If your SEO is still overwhelmingly focused on massive keyword lists, ranking reports and directory/social bookmarking style link building then you’re stuck in 2005. It’s time to evolve with an optimized state of mind.

Optimize Throughout the Customer Life Cycle. To “optimize” in the search world may have traditionally focused on keywords and links but has changed to focus holistically on the journey from prospect to customer to advocate. At least in my view it does. When companies look at the entire customer life cycle, it will reveal a tremendous opportunity for optimization, not just for the top of the sales funnel.

Modern Optimization is Adaptable. When Google, Bing and Ask implemented various media and data sources into common search results (Universal Search) SEOs adjusted with digital asset optimization. When Google evolved their place pages, SEOs adjusted with local, mobile and geo-specific optimization. Panda? Better quality and less duplicate content. Personalization? Better title tag and meta description writing to inspire greater CTR. Social? Say hello to a tirade of G+ SEO. Conversions? Check. Pigeon Rank? If was real, check.

Helping Search Engines Helps Our Optimization. Technical SEO will have it’s place as long as there is an opportunity to create advantage by doing so. Search engines are imperfect in their attempt to crawl, index and rank all of the digital content that exists online. Making that process easier, more efficient, more useful and meaningful for search engines is something website owners must pay attention to regardless of how the search experience evolves ala universal, personal and social.

Optimization is Art and Science. Process, continual data analysis and tools are also persistent characteristics within the world of SEO because they enable some science into the art of optimization so it can scale.

Holistic Optimization for the Win. At the same time, the notion of optimization with a holistic view extends to all aspects of the customer experience with brand content. Whatever can be discovered, consumed or shared can be optimized for better performance – both for customers and for achieving brand business objectives. That means marketing, public relations, customer service, investor relations, human resources/recruiting and any other content a businesses publishes online.

Optimization Follows Search Engine Innovation. The best practices of optimization mirror many marketing best practices and in the end, the best way to view business investment in modern SEO is as an investment in marketing and all that marketing tactics can achieve. Optimizing the search experience works concomitantly with changes in search technology and how search engines work. There is no death to SEO, just a shift in what to optimize in order to improve performance.

Continuous Optimization Is Forever and Profitable. Just because Google masks keyword referrers for logged in users, emphasized Google+ content and signals, elevated content quality standards and changed how links are evaluated doesn’t mean opportunities to optimize have gone away. For companies that employ optimization as a process of continuous implementation, assessment and improvement, there’s nothing closer to effective online marketing than the practice of optimization.

Don’t Tread on SEO, Elevate It. For those who think SEO is dead. It’s just your limited understanding of SEO that’s dead. For web developers that treat SEO as a one-time task during web design and only focus on marketing content (vs. ALL of the website content), and no ongoing content promotion, you’re only touching the surface and may be causing your clients to lose revenue in the long run. For bottom feeding SEOs that continue to over-promise and under-deliver with sensationalized accounts of traffic boosts, rankings and links, you’re short sightedness is hurting companies and our industry.

SEO is really just marketing, so deal with it. The evolution of customer centric content marketing and it’s intersection with social media and optimization represents the kind of online marketing that companies are really sinking their teeth into in 2012 and beyond. To be a great SEO, be a great marketer because that’s what SEO is.

Learn More at Search Congress, Barcelona. I am very much looking forward to presenting on this very topic at Search Congress in Barcelona this week. I may not speak a lick of Spanish or Catalan, but hopefully my enthusiasm for the topic will make up for my Midwestern accented English.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
It’s Not SEO Anymore, It’s Marketing. Deal With It. | http://www.toprankblog.com

I don’t know about you but to me it seems social is much more on the agenda than any other previous year I’ve attended SES. It’s been mentioned in the context of social search, search engine optimization and today –in the advanced keyword modelling session- social was almost likened to a free marketing focus group. It’s a way to know what your customers are interested in and moreover what words they are using when they are talking about it. Read on for some tips from Ron Jones, CEO of Symetri Internet Marketing and author of ‘Keyword research for search, social and beyond’. Find out how you can structure your keyword research and how your audience keyword insights can inform the design of a higher converting website. 

Phases of keyword research

Phase 1: Brainstorm: find all possible keywords.

Phase 2: Refine – Identify your best performing keywords.

Phase 3: Categorize – Break down your keywords into categories or segments.

Phase 4: Test performance.

Categorizing keywords

There are different ways to categorize your keywords. On Wednesday we attended ‘PPC campaign structure’ on which a blog post written by Efficient Frontier’s Jonathan Beeston will follow soon. Today Jones advised the audience to look at separating keywords into sections by

• Product category
• Product features
• Product attributes
• User intent
• Type of audience
• Price

Using social to fine tune your keywords to your audience

Whilst listening to the talk this morning I could almost see how you could liken social media conversations to expensive marketing focus groups. When I was a student I was once invited to eat chewing gum in front of a group of marketers and asked to talk about what I thought of the taste & packaging etc. Today you can simply tune into your social channels and listen. What do your customers talk about when they talk about your products? What words do they use? Is there specific slang used to refer to it? Words you may not be bidding on? Jones recommends finding out in what context words are used and use this to segment your keywords better and to include any words they may be using you had not thought of yet.

Keyword research informing your site structure

Now is your site up to scratch? This is kind of a funny one as oftentimes as a PPC expert you are presented with a website and set up a PPC campaign structure accordingly but I guess we should sometimes view how we work from various angles and this is a very different but logical angle from my point of view.

Jones suggest that when you know what keywords are most important to you and your users and once you understand what their needs are and how they search that this should inform how your site is laid out and how your landing pages are named. This may not be practical to anyone right at this moment but, when you are re-designing your site or starting from scratch, an interesting idea which may decrease the bounce rate of your site as customers are taken through – what is for them- a very natural and relevant journey. With discovering content in mind it is also to be recommended to create a broader and less deep site structure opposed to a narrow and deep on (i.e. less clicks needed to get to the information wanted). When you are designing the pages also pay attention to where you place the content and make a proto-type site you can look to research how people respond to it.

Serving up content guided by user intent

People search for different kind of words during different parts of their search journey. When they start looking around they are likely to use broad terms such as ‘camera’ when they know a bit better what they want they refine and search for ‘black camera’ and when they made up their mind and are ready to part with their money they’ll search for ‘Panasonic DMC-FZ20’.

Align your landing pages to the user intent. Are they researching – send them to high level informational pages, are they looking for information? Maybe direct them to ‘how-to’ pages. Shopping around? Pass them to category and comparison pages. Ready to buy – the most specific landing page possible from where they can buy, sign up whatever is relevant.

Benefits keyword remodelling

Not totally convinced yet? Those who tried & tested say they’ve noticed the following benefits to this approach:

• Increased keyword ranking
• Higher relevance of results leading to higher conversions
• Increased engagement
• Identified new product and service opportunities
• Offered the opportunity to learn the wants, needs  and intent of the target audience leading to being able to serve the audience better.

A few resources from us

If you are doing keyword research the Microsoft Advertising Tool may help. It’s a free excel plug in which you can download here. There’s also an interesting blog post on keyword research which may be helpful that you can find here.

Other blog posts from SES London 2012:

SES London Day 1: How To Optimize Your Landing Pages for Conversion Happiness #seslondon

SES London Day 2: Social Media Solutions on a Budget at #seslondon

SES London 2012 Day 2: Social Media Marketing – Killer Advertising Tactics #seslondon #socialmedia

View our SES London images here, follow us on Twitter or join our digital advertising, search and social conversations on LinkedIn

Simone Schuurer – EMEA Community Site Manager

You see them everywhere, all the time, offering tips and building brands. Blogs! Blogging isn’t just a way to increase brand awareness. You can ultimately drive revenue through your company’s blog once you know what to do. If you’re just trying to dip your toe into the blogosphere or you already consider yourself a pro, you should never stop striving for better blogging.

The Compete Pulse (blog.compete.com) has risen through the ranks to become a staple of the Ad Age Power 150 ranking of the best media and marketing blogs across the globe. Our successes haven’t come easy and certainly weren’t built overnight, but by using some good marketing strategies, and through some old fashioned trial and error, we’ve built our blog into the achievement that it is today. Let us help you become blog heroes!

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- Track your results and determine how you can improve

Download the 8 Steps to Blog Greatness today!

Though Apple and the late Steve Jobs have been praised (with justification) for improving, streamlining, face-lifting and otherwise revolutionizing the cellphone, it’s only fair to note the one thing Jobs and his company did not do: invent the contraption. That honor belongs to Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, who gave the world its first commercially available cellphone in 1984: the DynaTAC 8000X, yours for only $3,995. This was the phone that would later be dubbed “the brick,” and which became famous when Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko used it in the 1987 film Wall Street.

Meanwhile, Finnish competitor Nokia was working furiously to deliver the counterpunch. It came in 1988 with the P-30, a phone that appeared in the U.S. the same year as the Radio Shack CT-301, shown in the ad at right. This nifty chunk of high tech was close to 19 inches long (including the antenna), weighed nearly two pounds and would only set you back $1,499. Go ahead, laugh.

Given the tectonic changes that have hit the cellphone market since then (2 million Americans owned cellphones back in 1988; today it’s 300 million), it’s hard to find much that’s similar about the two ads on these pages. Nevertheless, if you look past the obvious differences in technology, you might notice something interesting: The marketing psychology at work here is identical.

“Both ads are talking the exact same way to the exact same person,” said Stuart Leslie, president of design and innovation firm 4sight inc. “The key element is lifestyle. Whether it’s a golf course or a sushi restaurant, they’re nailing your aspirations and dreams.”

Let’s back up a moment. Aside from doing the necessary work of explaining what a cellphone was, the 1988 Radio Shack ad takes the critical step of inviting the reader to imagine himself using the device. The CT-301 “lets a person make or take calls at a job site, in a rental car, on a service call, or even on the golf course.” Leslie said that phrase alone lures the would-be buyer into imagining himself as the Goldfinger of his world: “This phone was the essence of cool at the time. You pull it out and everybody admires it. So you’re the guy, it’s your time, you’ve arrived. It’s brilliant marketing.”

The pitch, in other words, isn’t really about the phone; it’s about the phone as a facilitator of the sophisticated lifestyle that’s yours if you buy the phone. And that, Leslie said, is also what Apple is doing 22 years later with its ad (opposite) for the iPhone 4S.

“Apple’s focus in not on the device; it’s what’s going on in your life,” Leslie said. “It speaks directly to your emotional state: ‘Hey, I feel like sushi.’” Then Siri, the 4S’s “intelligent personal assistant” leads you to that sushi. “We all want to find a great sushi place. It’s a real-world thing,” Leslie said. Take your chums to an awesome restaurant, and you’re the man—just like you’d have been back in 1988 had you pulled our your CT-301 on the fairway. (There was just no Siri back then. Oh, and no Internet either.)

None of which means that 22 years from now, we won’t be laughing at the design of the iPhone 4S. “We absolutely will,” Leslie said. But at least it looks better than a brick.

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