PR Helping SEO

PR has long since been recognised as an effective means of enhancing the SEO value of a website for a number of reasons.

• Brand – we know Google takes note of how many people look for your brand online as one of many factors that determine how strong your online ‘brand’ is. More press and publicity means more people looking for you.

• If you’re in the press, whether TV, radio, print or online, there’s a good chance you can leverage this to acquire good, solid, natural links back to your site from high authority press and media websites – as well as links from bloggers, industry specific websites and others who come across your press coverage. Links remain a hugely influential off page ranking signal.

• Brand citations – get people talking about your brand (even if they’re not linking!).

So it’s little wonder that SEOs particularly enjoy working on campaigns where their efforts can be fully integrated with PR efforts.

SEO Helping PR

By the same token, SEO can have a positive impact on PR as well. Optimising a website to ensure it has a high prominence in search for non-brand terms means a wider audience will find that site

We see time and time again how journalists and media researchers use non-brand terms to find potential sources for news stories. Here at Tecmark, we have been approached by a number of journalists seeking to quote us in articles relating to what we do because they’ve found us in Google for a non-brand search.

In addition, SEO tactics can be employed to ensure a high brand presence throughout the entire top 10 in Google for your brand terms. What this means is that when your potential customers research you in Google (by searching your company name etc) the results should show your site and sites where you control the content predominantly.

Social Media – Benefits for Both!

Social media is, of course, newer than SEO but over the past 12 months has been something SEOs have increased their remit to include. This is because search engines have confirmed that they take note of social factors.

PR agencies too have taken to social media as a digital PR activity – and rightly so.  You don’t have to look far to find examples of social media being accountable for masses of media coverage.

Making PR, Search and Social Work Together

I genuinely believe that SEO and PR offer one another mutual benefits. And of course it’s in the best interests of the client concerned when everything works together.

Regardless of which party physically handles the various elements of the day to day management of social media (advertising, analysing, audience building, incentivising, engaging, answer queries…) every party simply has to be involved in formulating the strategy behind it, with an agreed set of targets and objectives.

Search, social and PR working together can ultimately result in:

• Better quality digital coverage to a wider audience
• More citations of your brand on and offline
• A more natural and high quality link profile
• A more engaged social audience
• Increased search visibility

Essentially, if you’re paying for the services of a PR agency and an agency to handle your SEO, you’ll get more from both of them by enabling (and encouraging!) them to communicate with one another.

Google’s Larry Page last night announced the company’s Q4 revenue information and some other bits of information about their services.

You can find the full breakdown here.

One of the key pull out facts of all that was about the growth in Google Plus user numbers. The number has more than doubled in the past three months. Here are the figures:

• There are now 90 million Google Plus users
• At least 60% of them log in daily
• At least 80% of them log in weekly
• There are now 1 million business pages on Google Plus

Google Plus launched in June 2011 in closed beta, before opening up to anyone in September 2011. That level of growth over such a short period of time makes it the fastest growing social network to date.

90 Million in REAL Terms

Now we know how many Google Plus users there are, let’s put that in some context.

• There are only 12 countries in the world with populations higher than 90 million.
• So Google Plus, if it were a country, would effectively be the 13^th largest by population.

• Amongst the countries with a population of less than 90 million are the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

How Does it Stack Up Against the Other Social Networks?

In terms of number of registered users and active accounts, Google Plus is still some way behind the other big players – but its speed of growth would indicate it won’t be long until it catches up!!

As it stands at the time of writing:

• Facebook boasts over 800 million registered users.
• Twitter has over 300 million.
• LinkedIn has over 135 million.

If All Social Networks Were Countries:

If all social networks were countries, then based on population:

• Facebook would be the third largest
• Twitter would be the fourth largest
• LinkedIn would be the tenth largest

Google Plus by the End of 2012

The launch of Google Plus was met with some cynicism, but Google is integrating this social product with search and focussing heavily on increasing its membership. Recent ‘Hangouts’ on Plus with celebrities like Will.I.Am and David Beckham, serves only to encourage more consumers, while the increased prominence of Plus for brand and name searches is encouraging businesses.

I’ll stick my neck out and hazard a ‘guestimate’ that Google Plus will have more than 250 million registered users by the end of the 2012.

Since March 2011, the Advertising Standards Authority has been responsible for advertising and marketing online.  All marketing and ads on your website must now meet the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code). This means what you say online has to be “legal, decent, honest and truthful.”

That might seem like a common sense approach to advertising on your website, but prior to March 2011, despite frequent complaints from consumers about online advertising, the ASA was powerless to regulate this. However, as stated on the ASA website, their remit now includes:

• “Advertisers’ own marketing messages on their own websites
• Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under the advertiser’s control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
• Marketing communications on all UK websites, regardless of sector, type of businesses or size of organisation. “

Does Your Website Meet the Required ASA Standard?

Examples of cases of failure to meet the required standards include (but this is in no way exhaustive):

• Displaying false reviews or testimonials – the ASA could ask you to verify the authenticity of any such material.

• Displaying inaccurate or false pricing information.

• Displaying anything untrue about your products or services.

How Would the ASA Know About Your Advertising?

Complaints! The ASA receives plenty of them and it might only take one single complaint to initiate an investigation.

What if Someone Makes a Complaint to the ASA About Your Site?

• The ASA will assess whether or not your advertising is compliant. If not, you will be asked to remove/modify the advertising.

• The ASA states that it prefers to resolve complaints informally. Essentially, this means that in some cases the problems can be solved without the need for a formal investigation or any public adjudication.

• If you believe the complaint to be unfounded or you do not resolve the matter informally, it’s likely that the complaint will proceed to a formal investigation by the ASA Council.

• Formal adjudications are published on the ASA website here.

• Failure to comply several times could result in your being listed as a non-compliant online advertiser

An ORM Nightmare

Your advertising should be honest anyway. Aside from any advertising standards, there’s common sense and decent business practice to consider as well. But for the sites that do fail to comply, it can have a dire impact on online reputation.

Take ‘Betting Scalper,’ a company listed on the non-compliant online advertiser list.

A quick Google search for their brand term shows that ASA listing third – not a great introduction to the brand for anyone searching the brand, is it?

 

Resources

• All regulation is detailed on the ASA website.
• Advice on ensuring your online claims meet the required standards is provided on the CAP website.

Having now returned from CES 2012 in Las Vegas, I’ve had time to reflect on what we saw and learned during the past week’s exhibitions, events and after-parties.

Despite the enormous volume of new technology launched at the event, Tecmark’s main reason for attending CES was to discover new trends that will impact our Mobile and Digital Marketing business.  Reassuringly, mobile phones have penetrated every corner of CES across all technology sectors.  From in-car technology through home appliances and entertainment products, mobile phones and in particular the Android operating system are almost omnipresent.  For many, the mobile phone is the portal to the digital world and CES demonstrated that this trend is only continuing to grow.

When Tecmark started developing mobile applications and mobile-optimised websites a few years ago to complement our marketing services, we felt that technology and digital marketing were becoming ever more closely linked and that our continued success in fields such as SEO and online advertising would hinge on our ability to understand and take advantage of the new ways in which we access the internet and content in general.  CES 2012 has only strengthened our conviction in this strategy.  We’ve returned to the UK with increased confidence and plentiful ideas – accompanied with severe sleep deprivation as well…

On the mobile side of things, our main take-aways from CES are that Apple continues to be a thought-leader in the field with Android’s new Version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) demonstrating Google’s renewed effort to catch up with Apple’s iOS and show that Android can be both beautiful and functional.  While Android has become very close to iOS, Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, with its Metro interface, is giving users something different to consider – a fresh perspective.

Despite having a large exhibition stand to promote their new devices, RIM (BlackBerry) failed to have any significant impact at CES in my opinion. Instead, it made up part of the background ‘noise’ at the event behind the other major exhibitors at the event that delivered meaningful announcements that captured our imagination – Intel, Microsoft, LG and Motorola to name a few.  BlackBerry’s new launches appeared to have less impact at the event than a dancing robot unveiled by Justin Bieber.

Microsoft Windows 8 was shown on several devices on the event and we have to admit it looks pretty awesome.  As Windows 8 platform rolls out towards the end of this year with the obvious advantages to businesses using Microsoft software throughout their organisation, BlackBerry’s long-serving USP of enterprise-grade email support starts to look a little weak alongside their otherwise uninspiring product range.

Predictions for 2012

Based on what we’ve seen at CES 2012, I offer the following predictions for the coming year:

• Microsoft becomes cool again: Now that Microsoft have realised the importance of satisfying both the consumer and enterprise markets, Microsoft Windows 8 will allow Microsoft to ‘turn the corner’ and re-establish itself at the forefront of the technology marketplace with a renewed brand that resonates with the cool kids and IT Pros alike.

• x86 vs ARM: The battle between the rival x86 (Intel) and ARM processor technologies will reach boiling point this year.  Intel’s new x86 (traditionally used in desktop PCs, but now poised for release into the mobile market) and the competing ARM technology (used in most mobile devices including Apple’s iPhone and most Android devices) will push the boundaries of what is possible on a mobile device. They’ll allow users to run enterprise-level software programs on their mobile and tablet devices.  The distinction between a mobile device and high-powered desktop PC will be increasingly blurred and for many people the need for multiple devices will be a decision of screen size alone rather than capability or performance.

• Android takes over the world: Android will grow exponentially across a multitude of devices (not just mobile phones) as manufacturers take advantage of the openness and zero-cost of the platform.

The SEO blogosphere is saturated with talk of social media’s growing importance as a ranking factor. Blogs, including this one, are filled with advice about creating unique and original content for your site regularly (must keep the Panda happy!).

All of that is good, sound advice.

But let’s not forget that links still matter. In fact, they remain the single largest off page factor determining where your website ranks for any given keyword. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how Google perceives the value of a link and how it determines whether or not that link is one that you’ve acquired for editorial value (a big ‘yay’) or because you paid the blogger to stick your irrelevant link on his high Pagerank website (a big ‘nay’).

Your Competitors Want Your Links

When we start a new campaign, whatever the sector is, the first thing we do is identify the competitors (generally, those ranking the highest and carrying out the most activity geared towards achieving rankings for the keywords we’re going after).

Then, we take a look at competitor back link profiles. Why? Well there are a few reasons:

• We want to know how many links your competitors have and what quality those links are in order to determine how much work we believe it will take to ‘beat them.’

• We want to know if there are any websites (whether directories, industry bodies or similar) that link to all the competitors. This could be indicative of a site or organisation that it is important that you acquire a link from.

• We want to check out their best links!

If a competitor has some particularly good links, there’s a good chance that we will go out and acquire those too, wherever possible. That will be one tiny part of our link building strategy. The majority will be in acquiring links for editorial value and more often than not, these are links it is difficult for competitors to just simply ‘acquire.’

Use Your Contacts and Case Studies

If you’ve worked with a major brand, a charity or a Government body, you’ll benefit from a link from them. But why would they link to you?

Personally, I’m not a fan of just asking all your clients to link to you. We don’t employ that strategy at Tecmark. If our clients ask if they can link in, of course we gladly take those links. But we don’t employ a strategy of, by default, pasting our links all over a client website.

One thing we do, however, is issue a press release or blog post when we’ve worked on a particularly notable project. We’ll also offer up a version of that to the client for posting on his or her own site (with links to both parties and other relevant content on the web). These links, within these release, benefit both sides but, most importantly, have editorial value. There’s a reason for them being there. And what’s more – competitors cannot replicate them just by emailing the webmaster!

Link Bait!

I’ve never been a fan of the whole ‘build it and they will come,’ thing. The sheer volume of unvisited websites on the net testifies to the fact that it simply doesn’t apply online.

Build it, maintain it, market it, share it, nag your friends to share it, revise it, try again… and maybe, if you do it well, they will come.

The same applies to link bait. Create an amazing piece of content, whether it’s text, video, image or audio, and get it on your website and you’re half way there. Then you need to get people to it.

However, once you get people there, you’ll also find (if the content is as good as you think it is) it results in some links that you simply can’t just ‘acquire.’ These ‘natural’ links are by no means passively acquired. You have to put the work in to ensure visibility of your content. But they’re frequently links that you couldn’t have achieved any other way.

Link Bait Example

In January 2011, we released some of our own mobile web statistics. We updated this with a second release in August 2011. We have since found that our figures have been quoted (and us cited as a reference) on a whole host of websites – many of which chose to link to us, either to the research page itself or back to our homepage.

Examples of those include a link from the First Choice holiday blog, a brand mention from the Telegraph, scores of links from tech blogs and even links from our competitors.

 

What we did was essentially become a source of information by spending time researching using data we have access to. It’s good practice to cite your sources and as such, hordes of great websites used our information and cited us.

This has resulted in a large number of links back to the Tecmark site that simply cannot be easily replicated by our own competitors.

And the same applies whatever field you are in – creating a piece of content that has some worth to others can and will generate back links for you – back links that, given their nature, are likely to be more valuable than spammy, paid links.

Creative Link Building

As I said at the beginning of this post, links still matter. Google still uses links as a critical ranking factor and it’s unlikely to change. What will matter is the way in which we acquire them. Google is getting better and better at identifying spammy or paid links. Google’s also getting better at identifying link farms and devaluing them.

The focus should be on:

• Link bait
• Socially shareable content
• Links your competitors cannot replicate
• Links that are there for editorial value

This means, if you haven’t already, you need to get a lot more creative with your link building than simply emailing webmasters.

The first few days of Tecmark’s visit to CES 2012 in Las Vegas have been amazing. We’ve tested some great new technology including the latest mobile phones, 3D TVs, smart home appliances and robotics. We’ve heard great keynote speeches from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Intel President Paul Otellini and Paul Jacobs, Chairman of Qualcomm. We’ve also been lucky to sit in on some more intimate discussions about the future of the technology ecosystem with Google’s Eric Schmidt and Tim Baxter from Samsung, as well as a great discussion about the future of mobile with an interesting panel including Heroes actor Greg Grunberg, Samsung’s Esteban Contreras and photographer Chase Jarvis amongst others.

3DTVs at CES

One of the most impressive demonstrations of new technology at CES 2012 is LG’s range of 3DTVs.

Personally I’ve never been a big fan of 3DTV, but LG’s new 55″ OLED TV has completely changed my view. The clarity of the picture was unbelievably good, and the 3D experience was truly awesome. Several of the people standing next to me actually reached out to grab hold of objects projecting out of the screen, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing could be anything but real, physical objects jumping out from the crystal-clear OLED screen.
Nearby LG’s demonstration models of the new 55″ screens was an enormous 3D experience made up of hundreds of screens.

Innovative Workstations

An interesting new idea from the Canadian company MWE Lab is a great office workstation comprising of a very comfortable chair combined with ergonomic components to hold a computer, keyboard, mouse and monitor. The whole thing is powered and fully customisable and boasts an integrated Bose sound system. Sitting in the chair felt like being in my own little bubble and I can imagine the focus and concentration this workstation would offer. I think some of the Tecmark developers would kill for one of these.

Motorola

Motorola made an important announcement during the Intel CEO’s keynote on Tuesday, confirming a multi-year strategic alliance with Intel which means Motorola phones will be making use of the new Intel Atom mobile-optimised CPUs in the near future.

On Motorola’s stand was a selection of their new devices. One of the most impressive was the new Motorola Droid Razr.

The screen’s clarity was phenomenal and appeared to be easily as good as the retina screen on the iPhone 4. Motorola have also customised the Android OS on their latest devices to include some features unique to Motorola. One of the most impressive new features is called Smart Actions and allows the user to create ‘rules’ to customise the phone’s setup according to changes in the phone’s status or location, for example. One potential use of this system is to have the phone automatically turn off non-critical services such as Bluetooth when the phone’s battery goes below 10%. The user can create any rule they like, giving them total control over the device and enabling the device to become much smarter than the average smartphone. Smart Actions is one example of how manufacturers choosing Android as their OS are differentiating themselves not only from competing platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone, but also from other competing Android platforms. In Motorola’s case, they are trying to stand out from Samsung, HTC and others in the crowded Android marketplace.
Intel have been slow to enter the mobile sector with their processors, but CES 2012 marks their arrival. Their chips appear incredibly fast with powerful graphics capabilities and extremely low battery usage compared to other existing phones using rival processors such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon CPUs.

Intel demonstrated their own ‘reference design’ smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0 (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich). We put the devices through their paces and they were incredibly slick. Lenovo’s K800 will be the first smartphone to use Intel’s new Atom mobile chip and will be available in China in the next few months. Intel’s partnership with Motorola, which is now part of Google, suggests that the three companies are forming a strong strategic bond designed to compete more effectively with Apple who, despite being absent at CES 2012, clearly remains the benchmark of quality in terms of hardware, software and the ecosystem bringing the user experience together.

Electric Powered Delorean

We’ve seen so much already at CES 2012 that it isn’t possible to cover everything in this one blog post. One final area worth mentioning, though, is the innovation in renewable energy with many solar power and other clean power alternatives being demonstrated this year. Outside of the exhibition halls are solar-powered mobile phone charging stations which came in very handy. NRG, a solar power company, brought an electric-powered Delorean with them to promote their clean energy initiatives.

The Evolution of ‘Smart’

Although discussion of the technology ‘ecosystem’ and the launch of ‘ultra-books’ (slim laptops) have dominated much of the show so far, in my opinion one of the most interesting trends is the possibility for all electronic devices to evolve ‘smart’ capabilities in an always- on, always-connected environment. Some examples at CES include home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines running the Android OS, giving them the ability to send notifications to their owner’s smartphone. The possibility of every electronic device communicating its status and location to the cloud would save us time and energy, and significantly change the way we live our lives. Although we’re not there yet, this appears to be direction many companies we’ve spoken to at CES are heading. In particular, Google are very strongly positioned to sit at the epicenter of this future world, due to the openness of their Android operating system which can lend itself to much more than just smartphones, as we’ve seen this year at CES 2012.

We discuss social media on the Tecmark blog frequently. We talk about the benefits for your business, how individuals interact with brands and how companies can leverage that. So here’s something a little different – a piece of commentary from Amy Murray on the potential detrimental effects social media could have on communication.

Coming to work for Tecmark as a technology and digital newb (please refer to urban dictionary for those not down with the lingo) has allowed me to form my own opinions and thoughts on the influence of technology on our world and interactions with it. I love technology and am truly amazed by how we have invented such fascinating gadgets and gizmos. However, aside from my appreciation of all things techno freaky, I am a traditionalist girl at heart, and can only wonder what these inventions that are replacing traditional concepts are doing for our society.

As human beings our interaction through time has been based upon traditional communication, whether through letter, telephone or popping round for a cuppa. Yet with the relatively recent invention of various social media platforms, it presents the question:

Are the generations to come at risk of losing the ability to effectively interact and engage on a natural human level due to technology taking its place?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am the first to admit that I am a Facebook freak! I love the way it enables people to contact friends from the past or share their lives with others who may not live close by. However, what effect could this be having on the younger generation whose development will undoubtedly be influenced by this change in the way we communicate? We could potentially be nurturing a generation that lacks the very thing we, as humans, are best at doing – communicating with the emotion and feeling that, in my eyes, computers and technology will never be able to replicate. The intricacy of our minds and personalities is exactly why we are unique and it’s safe to say technology diminishes an element of this.

People can feel safe hiding behind a profile, especially those who struggle to communicate (for example individuals suffering from autism). Yet this can prove a dangerous place to hide, as all I believe it does is nurture the introvert in us. Let’s also consider the part social media played in the riots, and how the Salford nurse accused of poisoning patients was harassed and abused on Facebook before she had even been convicted. Through the invention of social media, our online reputation has become increasingly at risk, as fellow colleague Joel Stein talks about in his recent blog post for Search Engine People on online reputation management.

So as harmless and innocent social media may appear to the majority of people, it is hard to see how the brains of generations to come will not be different to generations previous. I’m all for social media, yet I believe emphasis should still be on engaging in real relationships with real people, not a computer (they can’t talk back!).

We blogged a while back on Google’s ridiculous infuriating stupid controversial decision to make encrypted search the default for signed in users and hold back referring keyword data from organic search. You can read that here.

A few months on and we have had some time to fully assess the situation. Reports on various blogs indicate that some websites are finding far more than Matt Cutts’ suggested “10%” of Google organic traffic affected.

Of course, Google keeps reiterating that it’s all about privacy (privacy mattering much less if a visitor arrives at your site from paid search, apparently) and it’s looking unlikely that the search giant is about to back down.

But is this really going to be as much of a difficulty in 2012 as many are expecting?

The Size of the Problem

Let’s assume that Matt Cutts is right and that, at present, no more than 10% of your website’s organic traffic from Google will be affected. Now let’s assess some hypothetical (but very realistic) figures for an example ecommerce website:

–       100,000 organic visits/month from Google

–       Average conversion rate from organic traffic of 2.5%

–       Average transaction value of £20.00

A website fitting this criteria would have organic revenue figures looking a bit like this:

So based on 10% of Google organic traffic falling foul of (not provided) a site that looks like this loses visibility over keywords that drive up to £5000 worth of revenue each month – of £60,000 over a year!

However, we know that Google is actively pushing services such as Google Plus, Gmail and Apps. We also know that if you are signed in to any of these services (unless you manually sign out) going to Google’s search engine and searching will be a signed in search. So if Google plans such rapid growth of its services (particularly Google Plus) then surely this 10% is only going to grow.

Could the problem look more like this, as many are suggesting, by the end of 2012?

Perhaps that’s even conservative.

The point is, this is a growing issue.

Marketing Blind Spot

One of my favourite things about Google Analytics has always been the ability to see exactly which keywords are generating sales and enquiries. It’s through this type of Analysis that web businesses are able to identify ‘low hanging fruit’ in Internet Marketing terms and are able to assess how their customers are finding them. This is crucial in order to effectively tailor your SEO campaign on an on going basis.

Losing even 10% of that visibility is disappointing. But to lose 25 or 30% could really limit your ability to use your existing data set to identify new potential areas of opportunity.

Solutions

The solutions are limited.

Google has now enabled you to link its Webmaster Tools service up to Analytics and this way you can find the top 1000 keywords referring traffic to your website.

But what you cannot see is what these users did on your site, whether they stuck around, made a purchase or just bounced right off. So the data is incredibly limited.

EConsultancy also published a little Google Analytics hack to allow you to get some data back, albeit again one that has its limitations.

Sigh. Sulk. Whinge.

This isn’t something that’s looking likely to change. As much as I stamp my foot about it and speculate about the motives, it seems this is simply a challenge SEOs will have to deal with in 2012.

We’ll have to make more use of the data we do have and perhaps even experiment more with PPC for research purposes to make more detailed Analysis of keywords.

Paying for clicks for keyword research and performance analysis purposes is nothing new, of course. But I’m sure Google will have no complaints if more SEOs turn to Adwords for keyword research. [Insert cynicism].