« April 2008 | Main | June 2008 »
May 23, 2008
Client Hits Home Run With: URLs Matter!
On this Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would share something very smart that a client recently said to me and a group of his colleagues.
In a nutshell, the discussion was about potentially rewriting dynamic URLs.
He said:
"One thing we can't forget is that URLs are marketing assets....they matter....they need to be friendly to both users and search engines."
For a moment, I felt like I was at Progressive Field, about to rise out of my chair and high five complete strangers around me after a Grady Sizemore home run.
I couldn't have said that better myself. Bravo!!!
Posted by doug at 02:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 22, 2008
Tumblr and SEO: A Case Study in Rapid Response
Here's a quick case study in how social media sites (more important, the conversations going on at social media sites) are enabling companies to interact with and respond to their users.
Here's the rough chronology. I may have missed some letters in the middle, but points A and Z are pretty accurate.
- Melissa Chang runs a blog on her own domain, using the Tumblr platform. (For the uninitiated, Tumblr is roughly similar to Blogger or Wordpress, although many people seem to use "Tumblogs" as a middle ground between article-length posts and Twitter-like microblog posts.) She is unhappy with her search traffic and writes a post saying so.
- Steve Rubel reads the post and bookmarks it at Del.icio.us.
- Steve's bookmark shows up at FriendFeed, where he aggregates his various social media endeavors.
- A conversation begins at FriendFeed about whether, and to what extent, the Tumblr platform is or is not search-friendly. A somewhat lively and mostly constructive discussion takes place.
- Others lend various perspectives at their own blogs.
- Tumblr reps follow -- and join -- the FriendFeed conversation(s).
- Tumblr responds on its official blog, saying it has already made many of the changes that came from the discussion on FriendFeed and elsewhere.
- Many are happy with the changes; some are not. My personal opinion is that Tumblr may have entered the egg-breaking stage of omelet-making. The site will be better off in the long run.
So a logical question is, how is a "conversation" like the one at FriendFeed different from Tumblr users merely writing to the Tumblr staff and making the same recommendations -- which some users claim they've been doing for a while? I don't know the answer to that. But I think the interest in and productivity resulting from the FriendFeed conversation had a lot to do with it.
Back in the day, big brands used to respond to customer letters. I mean respond. Like type up a reply and send it. This is because they realized that for each person who took the time to write or type a letter, stamp it, and walk it down to the mailbox (later known as the "barrier to entry"), there must be about 10,000 people who feel exactly the same way.
Today, you can send an email as easily as you can cook a Hot Pocket. Anyone can do it. So the 10,000:1 ratio or yore is more like 1:1 today. The FriendFeed conversation shows that not only is more than one person affected, but that actual recommendations can be spat out the back end. I think that's why the response was more rapid.
Very soon, this will be the norm in customer relations, at least for progressive, consumer-focused companies.
Posted by erik at 11:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2008
The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update
This is from much earlier in this fleeting year, admittedly, but with most focusing on the average words per search query increase angle of the story, I wanted to make sure and dig out a fine morsel from the very mouth of Google that may have been lost had I not:
14% of Google clicks come from paid search and 86% of clicks are organic.
True in court it may only qualify as hearsay, having come from the Google mouth of Avinash Kaushik to the ear of beu blog before finally being transcribed into print; yet, as you may remember from my earlier quest for a documented source behind that most mythical of numbers in all of SEM, the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, hearsay here surely now trumps unattributed there.
And the alleged statement is said to have come from Google's Analytics Evangelist, folks, so I think we are getting closer...
Posted by john at 06:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Corporate Blogging - Just Say Yes
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has a blog. That's big news. Joe Sharkey's February 10, 2008 NYT article, "Tell the T.S.A. (and Don’t Hold Back)," illustrates how the TSA has boldly begun a blog to help foster better communication between airport security employees and the flying public. The Evolution of Security blog is chock full of useful info and they aren't afraid to tackle tough issues - as in this discussion of a pilot program for screening airport employees - or to provide the latest expert opinion on hydrogen peroxide and Tang bomb threats.
Mr. Sharkey's article quotes Kip Hawley, the TSA's director, on the value of the TSA blog: "We knew we were going to get a big surge of negativity; we knew it would be a very juicy opportunity" for the angry, Mr. Hawley said, adding: "I think once people realize we’re putting substantive content on there and really answering questions, the tone will calm down — and it will lead to the same thing happening at the checkpoint."
While some companies think that they can't risk negative publicity by inviting public comment on a corporate blog, they maybe should think again. If the TSA, surely a magnet for anger and potentially inflammatory public comment can see the value of reaching out to the public, what might a brand gain from doing the same thing?
Posted by lisa at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2008
Googles Beta Dashboard View
Today logging into a new Adwords account that was created about a week ago I find a new dashboard that Google is beta testing.
I believe that this is a huge improvement seeing how now you can separate the Search Network cost and conversions from the Content Network cost and conversions at the campaign level. You can also sort your data view by the following –
• All (Search + Content): See separate campaign statistics for the search and content network, as well as an aggregate line combining the two. Click the link in the CTR or Conv. Rate column to hide clickthrough rate (CTR) and conversion rate information, which will also switch the page to the Summary view.
• Search: See statistics for the search network only.
• Content: See statistics for the content network only.
• Summary: See aggregate statistics only for each campaign. Click the link in the CTR or Conv. Rate column to show CTR and conversion rate information broken down by search and content network, which will also switch the page to the All (Search + Content) view.
I see this dashboard as a step in the right direction from usability and a data model prospective.
Posted by charles at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2008
Social Media News: Socially-networked Friend Requests Via SMS
There's a new company online who is looking to make it easier for mobile users to create connections via their Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin profiles. rmbrME is an innovative solution helping people connect via mobile phone on the fly. With our busy lifestyles we need to be able to make connections easily as well as keep our social network profiles updated from day to day. rmbrME describes itself by stating the following: rmbrME gives you the power to send a socially-networked friend request to anyone you meet in real life using just SMS. Simply text their phone number or email address to RMBRME (762763) and we’ll send along a convenient link that unlocks your Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin or other profile. In a couple of clicks, they add you as a friend, and you stay connected. We even keep track of when and where you meet people so that you can remember them more easily than ever.
This system has the potential to make it easier to bridge the gap between mobile phones and social network connections by helping end users stay connected from one platform.
Posted by brett at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 06, 2008
Yahoo!'s WarningTo End-Users
Here I am on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon doing some searching on Yahoo! (this doesn’t happen too often I might add) and what is this I see???? A WARNING from Yahoo! telling me the following in bolded red letters at the top of page three of the SERP's "1 potentially harmful website is marked on this page." Hmmm...
I began scrolling down the page and find the following immersed in natural search results:
This is the first I've seen of it's kind and have a feeling Yahoo! is setting a new precedence for end-user security when searching their index. Personally, I think its an incredibly valuable tool to at least provide some level of insight to Yahoo! users in terms of end-user security risks when surfing Yahoo! search index and/or providing personal information to sites that may be selling your email, demographic data, etc., to third parties. The tool itself is a Beta product called "SearchScan" which is powered by McAfee. If you scroll over the mid page listing in red, a pop up occurs letting you know specific details on why the listing has been flagged by McAfee as a potentially harmful site to visit.
Brilliant play Yahoo!
My question ultimately is when will Google or MSN follow suit or will the search engines at some point take data like this and just omit these types of sites from their search results entirely?
Posted by sean at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2008
Breaking: Yang Googles Ballmer
Just when it seemed the twain might soon be making their way down the aisle, arm-in-arm, the mere spectre of Google is enough to call off the nuptials: Mashable has the goods, including Balmer's e-mail that is really more about Google than Yahoo:
We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:
He goes on to devote almost half of his e-mail to explaining how bad an idea Yang's Google threat is. I caught this on my Mashable feed as I began watching the original Frankenstein movie with my kids. No kidding.
Posted by john at 10:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2008
Implementing a 301 (Permanent) Redirect - Part Two
Back in September 2005 I wrote a post discussing how to 301 redirect in .htaccess. In that post I did not mention two important points:
1. Always re-upload your modified .htaccess file in ASCII mode. FTP programs generally transfer files in Binary mode. The modified .htaccess file will not work if it's transferred in Binary.
2. When you edit the .htaccess file in notepad or other text editors they tend to add .txt file extensions on the end. You have to go ahead and upload the file with the extension and then rename it once it's on the server (remove the .txt).
Quoting myself from 2005 (2005?)
There could be many reasons why you may need to use a 301 server-side redirect. Usually having to do with a site redesign, pages that no longer exist, branding issues, marketing campaigns and/or a new domain name.
Server-side redirects are the safe way (as opposed to the meta refresh technique) to transfer your traffic to the new site while still retaining your search engine rankings.
The Moved Permanently directive in the HTTP header tells the spider that the page they crawled has permanently relocated to a new URL.
It will take usually 6-8 weeks to see the old site drop from the rankings and the new site indexed. In the meantime you will probably see fluctuations in your rankings and/or traffic until things settle down to a comfortable level.
How To Implement a 301 Re-direct
Permanent Redirects using .htaccess:
Download the .htaccess file from your server's root directory. If there is no .htaccess file present then go ahead and make one in notepad and save as .htaccess (just as it appears, no extension). Upload it to your root directory after you've made the changes (in ASCII mode).
Place the following code in the .htaccess file:
redirect 301 /index.html http://www.thenewsite.com/index.html - to redirect a single page
or
redirect 301 / http://www.thenewsite.com/index.html - to redirect a whole site
The initial command must be the path to the file name of the old page (/index.html)
That’s followed by a space
The final command must be the full URL of the new page (http://www.thenewsite.com/index.html)
If there is already code in the .htaccess file, place the new code at the bottom.
Upload the file to the server's root directory (in ASCII mode).
Here are a few other ways to redirect using your .htaccess file. These methods require the Apache Mod_Rewrite URL Rewriting Engine to be in place:
-Are you planning to move from an old domain to a new domain? There are many different reasons why you would need to do this. Place this code into your .htaccess file (modify to your URL):
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.thenewsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
-Do you want to redirect from a non-www version of your URL to the www version so you can avoid the possibility of duplicate content? Try this code in your .htaccess file (modify to your URL)
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^thenewsite.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.thenewsite.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
Permanently redirect using IIS:
Start/Programs/Administrative Tools/Internet Services Manager
Click on the -Home Directory- tab.
Click the -A Redirection to a URL-.
Enter a URL in the -Redirected To:- section
Check the -A permanent redirection for this resource- to make it a 301. Leave it unchecked and it becomes a 302.
Click –Apply-
Posted by james at 12:28 PM | Comments (2)