Google enraged the masses last week by changing their privacy policy  - mainly because it reminded everyone that Google had a privacy policy. The company who was formerly a poster child for open source, flipped from serving the 99% to acting like the dreaded 1%. Just before that, Google changed their search algorithm to promote their own social networks (Google+, YouTube) over Twitter and Facebook. The public outcry was so intense that it culminated into bookmarklet called Don’t Be Evil.

Don’t Be Evil uses Google’s very own search results to prove that they are altering their own search results. Confused? This video might help clear it up.

Altering search results? This seems bad, like voter fraud bad. Gerrymandering comes to mind.

Google just recently went “black” alongside Wikipedia, Reddit and other popular companies to protest a government bill aimed at suppressing information, and now it seems they’re trying to do it themselves? Are we going to let them get away with this?

The short answer is: probably. The internet may seem like an ethical place when it takes on Washington, but DC is the outsider. Google is the internet’s Capitol and we can’t afford to fight a war on two fronts.

So what does this mean for you? If you want to continue to get results from SEO, you’d better brush off that Google+ account.

This is really frustrating because most of us have too many social networks. Fortunately, there are several ways to bundle all those social platforms into one seamless action. Here are a few resources:

• Wordpress to Twitter to Facebook
• Update Facebook from the Google
• Facebook to Twitter
• Facebook to Tumblr

One clever way is by using Google+ to email your Facebook status, Facebook then sends that to Twitter, Twitter to Tumblr, Tumblr to Wordpress. (Of course by that point, who knows what you’re actually publishing.) But check out If This Then That - it is incredibly easy.

If you’re wondering more about what to post than how to post, we’ll be covering that topic soon.

2012 is certain to come with a lot of changes in the way that search engines work. More importantly, we’re going to see a lot of changes to the way that search results that show up. I’ve collected a few things that I think we’ll see (or in some cases, see more of) in 2012:

Search algorithms will continue moving toward personalized results.

Last April, Google rolled out their “Panda” update that made significant changes to their search algorithm in an attempt to “provide better rankings for high-quality sites —sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” Suddenly, news and social networking websites rose toward the top of the search results, oftentimes pushing content farms off of the first page.

Google’s releasing of ‘Search Plus Your World’ last week was a giant leap in the way that search engines work – although I’m not entirely sure if this was a leap forward or a leap backward (post your opinion in the comments section – I’d love to hear what you think). Regardless, Google is becoming more and more personal with each algorithm adjustment, and they’re showing no signs of stopping. People are the new authority.

The takeaway: Google believes that social + timeliness = relevance. If you want to rank high on Google search, now may be a good time to dust off that Google+ profile.

Quality, not quantity.

This is one of those things that should have been at the core of search engines upon conception, alas … Over a decade later, search engines are finally starting to understand that just because a site has a lot of pages, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the quality of those pages are very high (we’re looking at you, content farms).

The takeaway: If you want to rank high in search results, then you need to take the time to create fresh, high-quality content for your site on a regular basis.

Mobile search will soon be in the driver’s seat.

The fact is that about 35% of Americans own smartphones and if you’ve ever bought one of those, you know that you’re required to pick up a data plan as well. So, aside from playing an obscene amount of Angry Birds, what are people doing with their phones?

The short answer: searching. Mobile search is increasing, and it’s increasing rapidly. With the advent of Siri and other voice-based mobile searching, it won’t be long before mobile search overtakes all other mediums. I’d put money on it happening before the year’s end, unless of course, the Mayan’s end of the world prediction proves to be true.

The takeaway: Start thinking about the way people search on mobile vs. computers and leverage this. Browse your analytics and look at the keywords that came from mobile devices. Use this data to optimize your paid search campaigns. In order to maximize conversions, make sure that your website is optimized for mobile devices.

What do you think the biggest changes in search are going to be? Sound off in the comments section below!

Recently, I’ve been hearing ads on the radio for a national company that provides email distribution software for small businesses. This company has made a name for itself by spending big bucks on traditional advertising promoting their online software to send email newsletters. Now I’ve heard their ads before, but this one stuck out in my mind, for one big reason.

The leading statement in the commercial says something along the lines of “Now we can help you harness the power of social media to really give life to your email newsletters.” Well this sounds pretty great, until you listen to the explanation of their “social media integration”.

The commercial goes on to explain that this breakthrough new technology allows you to “place a button directly in your emails that lets your users share your newsletter with all their friends on Facebook or Twitter.”

Really?

That doesn’t sound like social media integration to me. It sounds like copying and pasting the code from Facebook for their “Like” button into the body of an email. What they’re missing is that most people are comfortable enough with online services/software to achieve this on their own. Copying and pasting a snippet of code from page to another is a tangible skill that anyone should be able to quickly master. And just putting a “Share” button in your content is no guarantee that anyone will find your content worth sharing. What about the intangible aspects of integrating social media with email marketing? Those areas are much more valuable to your business and overall marketing success.

How much time do you spend crafting a compelling subject line for your email, to encourage more opens?

How long do you dedicate to writing intriguing content that will encourage your readers to share?

Are you spending just as much time developing relationships with your community on Facebook or Twitter, so that when you do send out a newsletter, you’ve become a trusted voice to them?

These are just a few questions to consider which, I would argue, are much more valuable to your business than a technology feature. New features and functionality are easy to put into commercials, because they can be condensed down into a bullet-point list. But most of the time the more abstract concepts, and the real expertise that comes along with understanding them, are infinitely more valuable to your business.

We’ll cover the concepts listed above in future blog posts. In the meantime, consider the strategies and methods you can employ to encourage better integration between your social media and email. You won’t hear them promoted in a commercial, because they’re much more valuable than a “Share” button!

by Daniel Hadaway

If you’re planning to begin marketing your business online, there’s a chance you’ve got a plan laid out for all the different types of marketing you’d like to utilize. It’s important to note, however, that while most businesses will see success from all online marketing channels, different types of online marketing lend themselves more favorably to specific vertical markets.

Remember, that at the end of the day, the purpose of marketing is (most of the time) to generate sales for your business. The best way to do that is by finding users who may be already prepared to buy your product or service. With this in mind, we can look at how the behavior of consumers in specific verticals is uniquely influenced by online marketing and popular website formats.

Mashable recently posted an infographic called How to Influence Purchasing Decisions on the Web, which outlines how consumer behavior is affected by different online channels. For example, we can see that the top influencer in the automotive category is brand websites, followed by search results. So, if you’re an auto dealer you might want to consider focusing your initial efforts on creating an awesome website, optimizing it for SEO, and investing in paid search ads. The influence for baby products is much more social, with the top influencers being forum comments, Facebook, and blog posts. So if you’re ready to launch a new line of baby pacifiers, you might want to invest in reputation management, off-page SEO (inbound links, etc.), and Facebook advertising.

Your business category may not be listed in the infographic, but it’s important to start your marketing efforts armed with some knowledge of the buying behavior of your target audience. The best source for such knowledge will be an experienced digital marketing company (hint hint!) who is willing to help educate you based on their past experience in your vertical market.

Starting out your marketing efforts with thorough knowledge of your target audience, and then acting based on that knowledge is the best method to ensure success from your digital marketing efforts!

by Marcus Snyder

The year is almost over and that can only mean one thing – list season. Every one who is anyone is busy creating their lists of 2011 and Facebook is no exception as they recently posted the 40 Most Shared Articles in 2011.

Most of the headlines jumped out as being extremely familiar. After all, who could forget the announcement of the 13th Zodiac Sign or the homeless man with a golden-voice? Not me.

As I browsed through the list, I noticed a not-surprising commonality to it all. Almost every story is a human interest story, chock full of emotion and highlights tragedies, social issues and unusual news. The fact is, people are inherently attracted to other people, and they’re very open about it.

That said, if you’re looking to improve your link-building campaign, or to promote shared content in general, your best bet is to write with a human interest slant. Not only are people more likely to read your content, but they’re much more likely to share your content with others. Perfect!

Consider this: the average user on Facebook has around 130 friends. By tapping into Facebook’s social graph, a single person can influence 130 other people. When one of their friends shares that same story, it’s pushed out to 130 more people. If the story is good, it won’t take long before it’s flooding news feeds everywhere, rapidly spreading your name/brand and content.

The next time you write something, keep this post in mind and let us know how it worked out for you – we’d love to hear about it!

Consider this: When potential customers look up your business online and see your Google Maps listing, they’re hit with a promotional ad for your services. Genius, right? Well, maybe.

This hypothetical can easily become a reality as Google Adwords recently extended their reach to include their Google Maps service. It’s time to gather your marketing team because with the right approach, there’s a lot of potential here for your business. However, while you’re doing that, you might want to gather your public relations team, too.

So, what could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: everything.

While there is nothing stopping you from running an ad, there is also nothing stopping a competitor from doing the same. Since this service runs on their auction-based ad network, the best you can do is to set your ad placement for Google Maps, add the appropriate keywords and hope for the best. Strangely enough, all Google Maps listings are fair game – including memorials.

That said, if a competitor has a higher quality score, more relevance and a high bid, they’re going to appear in the ad spot under your listing. Imagine owning a small, local bookstore and having Amazon.com advertise on your listing – this is now possible. Worst of all, there doesn’t seem to be much that you can do about it (there is speculation that Google will allow you to pay them to remove unwanted ads, but nothing is in place yet). The first shots of reputation warfare are already echoing on the internet.

Blumenthals.com compiled a series of screenshots showing the new ads in action, including a completely tasteless advertisement for a tour company on the 9/11 Memorial listing.

Overall, from the small and medium-sized business owner, this service feels like a huge miss. It seems that the real winners will be Google (who will get your Adwords dollars) and large businesses that have the resources to advertise on your business listings.

by Daniel Hadaway

In September, Google announced a new factor for landing page quality score that they will be considering when serving up paid search ads. This new factor is whether or not the website for the advertiser is mobile-optimized.

If your website is mobile-optimized, Google is more likely to show your ad higher up in the paid search listings. Google will be determining the quality of your site’s mobile experience based on several factors including:

• Basic Site Navigability
• Prioritization on Content
• Minimal Flash
• Simple Layout
• Mobile-specific Features
• Touch-specific Features
• Landing Page Load Time

The thinking behind this change is that a poor mobile experience will negatively affect a user’s opinion of a brand or company. According to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website (on a computer or phone!) if they have a poor experience with the site on their mobile phone.

If your website isn’t mobile optimized, and you’re running paid search ads, you may want to consider hiring a professional team to optimize your site. It will lead to more conversions for your business, and a lower cost-per-lead over time!

On June 28, 2011 Google rolled out their own social media platform called Google+. The demand, excitement and potential for this new service was HUGE.

10 million users joined within the first two weeks. In October, the number of unique users grew to over 40 million. This pales in comparison to Facebook’s 800 million active users, but then again, they’ve got seven years and mainland China on their side.

For a couple of months, users added their friends, lumped them into circles and then sat back waiting for something magical to happen. It didn’t take long for interest to wane and people began to go back to their old haunts, Facebook and Twitter. Google+ was quickly becoming a social graveyard.

It wasn’t until 132 days after their initial launch (but, who’s counting, right?) that they allowed businesses to register their pages. I had hopes that this would act as a social defibrillator and would get people re-engaged with the platform. Google+ had a real chance with this one … until it fell on its face.

So, what happened? Here’s a couple of things about the new business pages that disappointed me:

• No multi-user support. To borrow Facebook’s terminology, only one person is allowed to ‘admin’ a page. This means that a business will have to select a single person to create and maintain the page or they will have to create a new account that will be shared amongst their social media marketers. If your business goes with the first option, know that the page cannot be transferred (see also: if that one employee leaves the company for whatever reason, you’ve also lost your page).

• No vanity URLs. Right now our URL looks like https://plus.google.com/u/0/112902429086367330249. It’s not very sexy and it’s definitely not very marketable. Of course, you could use a service like http://gplus.to/ to create something presentable (for example, we’ve created http://gplus.to/southcentralmedia), but this should be built into the platform itself.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Google+, though.

The most important feature (I think, anyway) is circles. Fortunately, these are also available in business pages and they could be a game-changer in your online marketing strategy. Unlike Facebook, Google+ allows you to sort of act like a person. You’re able to follow people, you’re able to put people, or customers, into different circles depending on your marketing strategy (group your followers by location or product-type, whatever makes sense for your business) and from there you can send each circle a targeted message.

Is this single feature enough to significantly shift your businesses social media strategy, though? Maybe.

by Daniel Hadaway

Search Engine Land just posted an infographic based on some research they recently wrapped. The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report provides some key insights into how marketers are viewing the roles SEO, Search and Social Media play in effective marketing:

SEO currently has the biggest impact on lead generation. Marketers (both B2B and B2C) currently view SEO as the most effective tool for generating leads, which isn’t surprising considering the positive perception and emphasis the digital marketing world has placed on it during the past 5 years. But, the current emphasis and “trendiness” of social media as a marketing tool is driving change on this front…

Despite SEO currently generating more leads, social media will receive the biggest increases in spend next year. This marks a significant sea-change in the digital marketing world. Generally, marketers will find out what is generating leads, and plan on spending more on that next year. But in this case, almost as many marketers are planning to maintain their spend on SEO as are planning to increase. Compare this to 60% who are planning to increase spend on social media vs. 36% who are maintaining, and you’ll see an industry that believes social is the future of marketing.

Even though the allocation of spend is shifting to different mediums, people are most interested in learning more about comprehensive, cross-promotional digital strategies- which is a great sign for the future of digital marketing! A comprehensive plan, spanning not only SEO, social media and paid search, but also landing pages, email marketing, display advertising and more is key to effective long-term marketing.

Based on the infographic, the state of digital marketing is as strong as ever- but look for social media to become a more prominent aspect of comprehensive marketing strategies moving into the future.

As crazy as it may seem, the holiday season is almost here. Right now, advertisers everywhere are getting ready to blast consumers from every angle, including online search campaigns. So, what does this mean for us?

The Skinny: It means that now is the time to optimize our campaigns to make sure that our ads aren’t lost in the impending barrage of our competitor’s campaigns. What has traditionally worked well in the past may not be good enough to compete during the holiday madness as the cost of bids are driven up, which can potentially push an ad’s page position down.

The Fatty: Saving a campaign begins and ends with smart campaign management and optimization. Here are some things to watch out for as well as some possible resolutions:

1. Low Click-Thru-Rate (CTR)

• Test multiple ads
• Make ad groups more focused
• Make ads more relevant to keywords and landing pages
• Add negative keywords

2. High Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

• Make sure landing pages are up-to-date and more importantly, make sure that they’re relevant
• Revise ad copy – mention special offers and use call-to-actions
• Lower bids
• Add negative keywords

3. Low Traffic

• Expand keywords
• Increase bids to improve page position
• Expand geographical targeting

4. Low Conversion Rate

• Use dynamic text in ads
• Revise landing pages to better match keywords and ad copy
• Increase bids on well-performing keywords

Keeping a close watch on the performance of running ads and making the appropriate adjustments is essential to having a healthy campaign. By using the above tips you can give yourself the edge over your competition by maintaining or even improving your page ranking and staying visible to your target audience!