The Tendo View » google

If Google ignores keywords, should you stop using them?

Selena Welz — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:29:45 +0000

It’s finally official: Google ignores keyword meta tags. Here it is from the horse’s mouth.

This may be really, really old news to some (circa 1999 anyone?). But judging from the long string of responses to the Google post, it was indeed news to many people. And the practice of including keyword meta tags is clearly still widespread.

Yet, the Google announcement does beg the question: If these tags are being ignored by Google, are you wasting your time by including them?

I think not. Selecting a few strong keywords or key phrases just isn’t that time consuming, so you’re not losing much by including them. And the increase in file size of individual pages is negligible. Even if your keyword meta tags aren’t directly enhancing your search rankings on Google, there are still come compelling reasons for including them:

1) Google isn’t the only game in town. Other search engines, such as Yahoo and Bing, could still be using keyword meta tags. Regardless of what you may have heard through the grapevine, short of an official announcement, there’s no reason to believe other search engines aren’t using keyword meta tags.

2) Keyword meta tags won’t harm your rankings. If you follow the traditional SEO best practice of including five to seven keywords in your keyword meta tags, you certainly aren’t going to harm your rankings on Google, or any other search engine. If you try sneaky things like stuffing your meta tags with competitor keywords and that sort of thing, you may indeed harm your rankings. But following the straight and narrow path won’t hurt you—and it may help your rankings on other search engines.

3) Keywords can help with internal sorting and search. You may want to build your own internal search engine for your site, and using keywords is certainly easier than configuring the sophisticated algorithms that Google uses. And in some cases, building your own search engine may be preferable than using an embedded Google search function. If you want people searching for keywords such as “human resources” or “jobs” to land on the same page, your own search engine might serve those needs better.

4) Keywords help you keep your content focused. I saved this one for last because I think it’s actually one of the best reasons for keeping keywords. Selecting three to five strong keywords before you even start writing your page will help you keep that content narrowly focused on the topic. Incorporating those keywords into your copy will go even further to keep you focused. In addition, repeating keywords into your copy will improve your search rankings. Not because a search engine is looking at your keyword meta tags, but because it’s scanning the content on the page. And if it contains a few keywords tightly focused on your topic (and that match the language of your users), your page will rank higher.

So, what do you think about using keyword meta tags? Do you still use ‘em? Been omitting ‘em for years? In either case, what are your reasons?

Seeing a brand in new light

Bill Golden — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:29:42 +0000

I had one of those rare moments recently when an ad actually influenced my brand sentiment.

Maybe it stood out because it’s a rare occurrence for me. Or because it involved a brand I”m not particularly fond of. Or then again, maybe it was compelling creative. I think it was mostly the latter.

It was a TV spot for Microsoft Bing. Yeah, there’s been a ton of publicity about Bing stealing one or two percentage points of search-engine marketshare from Google. I’m a little predisposed as a result. But that wasn’t it entirely.

After seeing the guy who mimics Google search pages by uncontrollably spewing out irrelevant phrases about Hawaii, how to fix parking tickets, and talk to hot singles in your area, I laughed, paused for a moment, and thought, “yeah, that does sort of happen with Google.”

Then it occurred to me that the mightly, infallible Google, smartest search engine ever, might actually be flawed; something I’ve never really considered.

I’ve only used Bing a couple times, so I don’t know if it’s any better. But that’s not the point.

The Bing ad not only engaged and entertained me, it also made me think twice about Google and search in general.

Nice work, Microsoft.

Is Bing the new Google?

Christine Zender — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:57:19 +0000

I originally sat down to write about how much I disliked Bing. But as I explored it further, all of my arguments fell apart; I found myself coming back to “but it’s not Google” again and again. And while I applaud brand loyalty, my job is about using the best tools and technologies for the job—whatever the job is. So, “It’s not Google” isn’t really an argument—that’s just being resistant to change. Which I’m not. Or, I shouldn’t be…

My initial reservation was that Bing just wasn’t that good at, well, searching. It’s billed as a decision engine, and it definitely slices and dices information in new, sometimes helpful ways, but before it helps me decide something, it should give me the best possible choices from which to decide. Yet it didn’t find the results I needed for pretty simple searches. For example, I wanted to know more about an information architecture company called EightShapes. Last week, a search for “eightshapes” in Bing pulled up lots of results on mathematical principles, but no company website. This lack of results was repeated with several other simple searches—so I switched back to Google, which gave me the EightShapes site as the top search item. Just for fun, check out Bing vs. Google to compare search results in each engine.

Today, however, if you search for EightShapes (or any of the other search items I tested) on either engine, you get roughly the same results. So, perhaps Bing, like HAL, is learning… The bottom line is that Bing gives you the ability to search text, images, video, news, maps, and shopping. So does Google. Bing helps shortcut your search by linking directly to specific pages within companies. So does Google. Bing provides sponsored links. So does Google. One nice feature that Bing has that Google doesn’t, however, is the ability to save and share search histories on Facebook and email.

Where Bing really excels, however, is by leveraging the awesome marketing power of Microsoft. The Redmond giant’s ability to develop and coordinate a truly impressive array of marketing and promotional campaigns is awe inspiring.

It’s not just the standard deals to make Bing the default browser on HP and Dell PCs and Verizon smart phones. Here in San Francisco, not one week after Bing launched, DJs on every Viacom-owned radio station in the city suddenly stopped using “Google” as a verb and began using “Bing.” As in, “We should Bing that to see if it’s true.” Coincidence? Probably not. And then there’s the Bing Cashback program, which rewards shoppers for purchasing products on Bing by giving them a percentage of the purchase price as cash. Sweet.

Is Bing a better search engine? The jury’s still out for me. Is Microsoft better at marketing and promoting the product? There’s no contest.

10 killer iPhone apps for marketers

David Murphy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Ahh, the iPhone. One part cell phone, two parts Internet device, four parts customized application craziness. It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t filled their shiny Apple device with pages upon pages of free and paid-for applications. And it’s easy to see why. You can play games on your iPhone, check your stocks on your iPhone, synchronize files from your iPhone to your desktop computer… your ability to interact with your handheld device is only limited by your imagination (and your desire to search for these awesome apps).

To that extent, we’re going to make it easy for you marketers to combine your profession with your portable. We’ve rounded up some of the best iPhone apps that marketers should have on their phones, everything from the real-time searches of social media to Web analytics. We’ve left few stones unturned–with more than one billion apps in the Apple iPhone store, it’s always tough to find the gems. Here are a few of the best:

SEM Calculator
(Free)

This application builds in a number of calculators that you can use to evaluate different parameters of a Web marketing campaign. You can evaluate potential cost-per-thousand and cost-per-action figures in a number of different ways, including direct cost-per-click to cost-per-thousand analyses and an evaluation of the maximum amount of money you should be spending on CPC based on your goals and conversion rate.

Analytics Pro
($3.99)

Want the power of a Google analytics database at your fingertips? Analytics Pro is perfect for the marketer who just can’t get away from the stats and figures: Carry your website’s traffic measurements, target goals, and visitor details wherever you go. For a slightly pricer version with a different interface and feature-set, you can also check out Analytics App ($5.99).

SalesForce Mobile
(Free)

If you rely on the comprehensive databasing functionality of the SalesForce platform to manage your business relationships, then you’ll appreciate the ability to pull this information onto your mobile device. Navigate customer records, send emails, call contacts, and create queries, amongst other features–all you need is an unlimited SalesForce account or one with a working mobile license.

TweetDeck
(Free)

If you’re serious about marketing, it’s imperative that you know exactly what your customers are thinking and saying about your brand at any given moment. Enter TweetDeck: Unlike most other Twitter clients for the iPhone, TweetDeck allows you to structure incoming Tweets in a column-based format. You can set up real-time searches for specific words and phrases in addition to the general Twitter functions like friends lists and customized groups. It’s the easiest way to know exactly when JoeSmith01 is hacked off at your customer service or, for that matter, when he’s praising your efforts to all of his 341,402 followers.

Pokeseo
($0.99)

It’s not extremely comprehensive, but this 99-cent iPhone application does deliver a quick way for checking the page rank of any website on Google. You can also see just how many links are funneling into your site on Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and AOL. For access to Alexa data as well, check out the Domain Tracker app (free).

Domain Scout
(Free)

Looking to build out a new Web presence? Have a great idea for a new website on-the-fly, but you’re not sure whether the name is actually available for purchase? Check out Domain Scout, a free application that tells you if your potential domain name idea is free or purchased. A full history of your searches allows you to go back and stalk old ideas that might have lapsed past their renewal dates.

Ember
($9.99)

Contribute to your company’s Campfire network with this helpful application. This application (and Campfire) is a great way to save and archive corporate communications from anywhere in the world–a solution that’s far more elegant than your typical instant or text messaging conversation. Keep your team on the same page without having to scroll through endless email replies in your already overflowing inbox.

OmniFocus
($19.99)

This expensive organization tool is the crème de la crème for keeping your busy life in order. You can keep track of your tasks by categories, locations, involved people, or dates. And like the iPhone’s native calendar integration, you can synchronize OmniFocus wirelessly via Apple’s MobileMe or a WebDAV-supported server. Never miss an engagement again.

Scribble
($0.99)

Ever find yourself having trouble articulating a concept in a business meeting or lunchtime discussion? Can’t find your pen? Wouldn’t you love a way to diagram your thoughts without having to turn to the back of an easily lost napkin or non-existent whiteboard? That’s where Scribble comes into play. Draw your thoughts into a quick, finger-scribbled diagram, then email your doodle to all interested participants.

Air Sharing Pro
($9.99)

Transform your iPhone into a portable storage device by connecting it to your company’s wireless network and mounting it via your laptop computer or any connected Internet browser. From there, you can transfer files to your device and–better still–view these files on-the-go. The application supports documents like PDFs, Microsoft Office files, iWork files, and more. It’s a perfect tool for practicing your PowerPoint presentation sans laptop.

Have any favorite apps of your own? From marketing to games, what tickles your iPhone/iPod Touch fancy? Let me know, and I’ll feature your submissions in a future article!

Keywords are no longer key; it’s the content

Charlotte Ziems — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:10:40 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the intersection of SEO and content strategies after attending a webinar on Google’s new search algorithm. To sum up, the keywords you use to drive traffic are only as good as the content that surrounds them. But until you measure the effectiveness of different content, you’re not really benefiting from SEO or content strategy to turn readers into leads. This blog post from TippingPoint touches on the process of measuring content effectiveness and iterating until you see improved results. The writer goes on to talk about monetizing each page of content:

When you’re optimizing your conversion rate, try giving each page — or better yet, each piece of content (video, podcast, blog) — a numeric monetary value.

For example, in our Breville case study, we showcased how content can increase conversion rates. Let’s say, the price of an espresso machine is $100. If Page A sells 5 espresso machines and Video B sells 20 espresso machines, then Page A is worth $500 and Video B is worth $2000.

This helps you to visualize what is working and will suggest ways to replicate and build on your successes.

“Working your content until it works” is a great call to make sure we’re combining SEO, content & keyword and metrics strategies, because they all work together to boost the effectiveness (and dollar value) of your content.

When Google revises search algorithms, marketers crumble

Charlotte Ziems — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:29:14 +0000

I participated in a webinar from WebMarketing123 this week on SEO and learned some fascinating stuff. Google revised its search algorithms on May 12, and it’s useful to stay abreast of them so you can update your content’s SEO strategy accordingly. First, the interesting facts:

There are 14 billion internet searches done each month (Comscore, March 09)
CNN moved their search ranking from #4 to #1 and got 50 million more visits a month on their website
Spending on on-line marketing is forecasted to increase 11% in 2009; search is expected to increase 14%; 60% of respondents expect to cut traditional marketing (Forrester, April 2009)
68% of the population of people who use search only access the first page of Google search results (Jupiter, 2008); of the webinar attendees, 30% visit the first page only and 48% visit the first two pages (but attendees are presumably more advanced search users).
In 1998, Google indexed 26 million pages; in 2008 that number rose to 1 trillion, which means your competition for search ranking has increased 400 million percent in the last 10 years.
If your search term delivers 5 to 10 million results, that’s considered a “competitive” term or keyword. “Disaster recovery”, for instance, delivers 19,700,000 results.

Some SEO basics:

Make sure your keywords are used in the content of your page. For B2B sites, the webinar speaker recommended that 100 to 500 pages of content are needed to match competitors’ search rankings.
Make sure your meta page descriptions are unique for each page
Insert your keyword(s) in the URL
Target inbound links to increase rankings

The new Google revisions and how they affect your content strategy:

Go to www.google.com and search on something (try disaster recovery); on the search results page, right under the Google logo, click on Show options.
Notice the time parameters? Those are new-which lets you sort results by when they published. And that means that fresh, keyword-rich content will become increasingly valuable for your SEO ranking.
Also, search queries have evolved over time, such that people have increased the number of words they enter into search engines. That means the “long tail” of search becomes more relevant and that a larger number of keywords might optimize your search rankings. Those who are searching on the long tail terms are much more qualified leads than those searching on one- or two-word common terms. The depth of their search means they’re more educated and/or interested in the topic, and more likely to want to find your site and/or buy what you’re selling.
Now, back to Google. See the Wonder wheel at the bottom of the options navigation? Click on that. It delivers a graphical taxonomy of search terms around your original term. Cool, huh? This might be helpful for your keyword strategy-e.g., use keywords that surround your original term.

The webinar was only an hour, so it just touched the surface of Google’s new functionality. But I learned enough to know that as search technologies evolve, not only should your SEO strategy evolve but also your content strategy. Make sense?

Obama and Web 2.0

Bill Golden — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:11:13 +0000

In a move demonstrating the Obama administration’s commitment to technology to continue possibly the most brilliant voter engagement efforts ever, it was announced recently that the president plucked a product manager from Google to serve as “director of citizen participation.”

The appointee, Katie Jacobs Stanton, formerly a group product manager at Google, worked on Google Moderator, a tool the Obama campaign used to let the public submit questions during debates. What’s the big deal? For starters, it demonstrates how well the Obama administration gets it in terms of understanding Web 2.0 technology and audience engagement.

Secondly, it underscores how critical technology is to facilitating human interaction these days. Notice that they didn’t choose someone with more traditional political chops, such as a community organizer.

The online story I read in MediaPostNews didn’t specify Stanton’s exact responsibilities, but it indicated a focus on moderating online forums and facilitating the administration’s dialogue with the public.

A quote in the story from Forrester Research analyst Shar VanBoskirk sums up nicely the context of this appointment for marketers in the private sector: “If we think about Obama’s administration like a corporation, the smartest corporations are ones that put tools in place to help them listen to, speak with, embrace, energize, and support customers.”

The White House is proving adept at Web 2.0 and conversational marketing. Where are you with your conversational marketing efforts? —Bill Golden, managing editor

Gmail Goggles means…never having to say you’re sorry

Margie Wylie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:48:05 +0000

It’s 3 a.m. and you are dead certain your ex-girlfriend is just dying to hear what you really think of her new husband.

While you’re dispensing wisdom, your boss could use a few pointers on personal hygiene. In fact, he’s so stupid that you don’t need him or that dumb job anyway! Why not quit!?

For those times when social media threatens to become antisocial, Google Labs offers the gentle restraining hand of Mail Goggles.

The new option, now available in Gmail under Settings–>Labs, may help save you from yourself by holding an e-mail until you pass a quick sobriety test.

Solve five simple arithmetic problems in 60 seconds and the nuclear option yours for the taking!

Fail and it’s “Water and bed for you. Or try again.”

For the perfectly sober but mathematically challenged (ahem), failing the test three or four times should provide just enough time to come back to your senses and go to bed instead. —Margie Wylie, senior editor

The Tendo View » google

If Google ignores keywords, should you stop using them?

Seeing a brand in new light

Is Bing the new Google?

10 killer iPhone apps for marketers

SEM Calculator (Free)

Analytics Pro ($3.99)

SalesForce Mobile (Free)

TweetDeck (Free)

Pokeseo ($0.99)

Domain Scout (Free)

Ember ($9.99)

OmniFocus ($19.99)

Scribble ($0.99)

Air Sharing Pro ($9.99)