SEO, search and social consultants unite in Manchester! Brief SAScon debrief…

I cannot believe it’s been a week since SAScon.  Really, a week!  It was a huge build-up to the event, with 200 search, social and SEO consultants finally attending on the day…what a result for the industry.

In all honesty, when we first made the decision to get this off the ground, I did have concerns that we were shooting too high, but so pleased we could make it accessible to so many, both at the day event and the evening event that we opened up to all.

Not forgetting that SAScon was produced by managers of search, social and SEO consultants from around the North West and UK, with a not-for-profit agenda.  But we’ve heard all of this before, so to follow is a mini debrief of SAScon 2010!  :)

SAScon highlights

Being one of the organisers, I could play the diplomatic card and say that everything and everyone were equally brilliant, but not being one to provide a bland answer, I’d say a major highlight for me was hearing the feedback from people.

Professionals in their respective fields want different things from each event that they attend, but I can say that the format, speakers and social events saw some truly awesome feedback – better yet considering it was SAScon’s first year in production, with plenty more ambitious decisions to make in the coming years for 2011 and beyond…

A huge speaking highlight for me though was Ralph Tegtmeier / Fantomaster – an utter spectacular panellist – sharing very frank, possibly libellous and fun answers.  Really entertaining and very informative indeed.  I heard many people share this opinion too so very happy that we were able to tempt him away from Belgium for a couple of days.  J

SAScon Thank You’s

I really am quite proud of those that have been involved, whether helping to organise the event (Nicky Wake, Richard Gregory, Pete Young, Simon Wharton, Peter Cobley and Richard Hudson), or those that attended from around Manchester and the UK.

And, without a doubt a huge thank you to our sponsors.  We had such fantastic support, and couldn’t have asked for a more positive bunch of folk to help raise the profile of all these wonderful things people and companies are doing in the UK industry and beyond.

SAScon Videos

If you couldn’t make the event, then once you have emailed me to reserve your ticket, make sure you catch-up on the going’s on with a number of videos from one of sponsors video production company, Little Orchard.

SAScon Live Blogging

If, on the other hand, you are more of the avid reader then make sure you pop-by and see PushOn’s SAScon live blogging coverage, along with that of David Towers at Good Web Practices.

Anyway, I’m going to carry on enjoying the wind-down from the last few months, until Simon drags us back in to planning meetings for SAScon 2011! 

SAScon 2010 now launched! Search, Analytics & Social Media 28th April

We’ve been working hard on a project that we’ve been keeping under-wraps for quite some time, so it’s a huge relief to finally get it out there! I am so pleased to announce the launch of a new Search, Analytics and Social Media conference to the UK online marketing scene: SAScon.

With the support of SEMPO and Manchester Digital, SAScon has been organised by a team of digital marketing specialists from around Manchester and the UK. It’s a conference for the online marketing industry by the industry – a tweaked cliché, but oh so true! It’s combined the energy, attention and talents of the following online marketers:

• Myself, Ben McKay, Mediaedge:cia
• Richard Gregory, Latitude
• Pete Young, MediaVest
• Simon Wharton, Pushon
• Richard Hudson, Vanilla Storm
• Peter Cobley, iSpy
• NickyWake, Don’t Panic
• Gary Bramwell, Brazen PR

It’s kind of funny really, individually I had previously spoken to many of these people about how great it would be to put Manchester on the international map for all the talent that currently exists and create an event that people want to travel to…And this one is certainly going to be one of those events!

Confirmed SAScon Speakers

Working as part of a project that has drawn such a high calibre is quite an honour, and I think it’s going to be an event to really draw the industry’s attention. Excitingly, I can announce that speakers attending include:

• Fantomaster / Ralph Tegtmeier – a prolific SEO tool developer, often associated with what some might describe as the darker arts of SEO. Will be an exciting session!
• Richard Gregory – Chief Operating Officer for Latitude Group, a leading European, digital agency.
• Joost de Valk / Yoast – a hugely well regarded developer of SEO tools and widgets, and recently established Orange Valley online marketing.
• Jon Myers – Head of Search at MVi, the online marketing arm of the Mediavest Group.
• Massimo Burgio – a founding member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation), and Chief Strategist for Global Search Interactive.

More speakers to be announced, but I can assure they are truly superb, super high-calibre speakers. Getting a ticket now wouldn’t be a bad idea at all whilst they’re on the early bird discount.

Who should attend SAScon?

So, so, so many people should attend…here are a few:

- Agency-side Search & Social Marketers

- Client-side Search and Social Marketers

- IT Professionals

- Web Designers and Developers

- Heads of Marketing

- Heads of SME

SAScon Event Details

Date: April 28^th 2010

Venue: The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK

Early Bird Tickets: £225 + VAT
Early Bird SEMPO / Manchester Digital Member Tickets: £195 + VAT

SAScon is going to be one of the UK’s finest search and social events for those agency and client side looking to excel in their field. If you haven’t already, ensure you pop-by SAScon.co.uk to register for your ticket – at £250, they’re an absolute bargain!

Top 15 Most-Followed SEO Lists on Twitter

After writing a little more serious post on SEO strategy last month, I thought I would go to the other, more light-hearted end of the search and social spectrum, and nothing beats Twitter for that!  In fact, follow me,  Ben McKay, on Twitter.

Inspired by a number of Twitterererers that I have started to follow of late, I have compiled a list of lists promoting those SEO / search marketing / social media lists that are getting the most followers.

Lists can take some time to develop – so great work to those that have compiled and promoted their own!!

So here they are, the most followed SEO lists on Twitter:

1. Search Marketing by Danny Sullivan, 330 Followers – Danny is a leading industry SEM journalist, speaker and editor over at SearchEngineLand.
2. Inbound Marketing Stars by Hubspot, 229 Followers – a list created by Hubspot, a so-called inbound marketing software company.
3. Search Marketing by Lee Odden, 188 Followers – a search marketing specialist and owner of TopRankBlog.
4. Inbound Marketing news by Hubspot, 174 Followers – another list by the Hubspot company.
5. UK SEO’s by Rishil Lakhani, 90 Followers – I subscribe to a work list and Rishil’s so naturally recommend this one!
6. The SEO List by SEO Gadget, 84 Followers – a good looking list from another UK SEO, Richard Baxter, but not exclusively of UK SEO’s.
7. Search Marketing List by Matt McGee, 66 Followers – another list from a SearchEngineLand editor, who’s also a speaker and online marketing consultant.
8. Search Engines by Danny Sullivan, 69 Followers – another list from Danny, and strictly not just a list of search engines but a good list for those search marketers that are interested in them.
9. Web Marketing by SEO Guru, 58 Followers – quite a few search marketers on this list not seen on other lists so might be a good way of discovering new followees.
10. SEO List by Kalena, 51 Followers – another list that might help you discover the occasional new search marketing guru.
11. Firehorse Friends by David Harry, 47 Followers – a good list with a stack of search marketers that are friends of Huomah and the gang.
12. Members of SEO Dojo by David Harry, 39 Followers – another great list to befriend those in the SEO Dojo – providing some of the finest SEO training forums on the planet!  ;)
13. Rockin SEO’s by Angie Nikoleychuk, 32 Followers – a great list of SEO’s from around the world – again a list where you’ll find some new tweets to consume happily.
14. In-house SEO List by Aaron Bradley, 30 Followers – I’d have loved to have had a list available like this when I was working in-house…it’s always good to network with people that face the same challenges and opportunities each day.
15. Movers and Shakers by Benjamin Zalasky, 29 Followers – strictly not a pure search / social list with guys like Tony Hawk on there but interesting to see a mix like that.

Add yourself to lists

AND, if you’re not on a list and feel you should be, then I don’t see any reason with pinging them to get yourself adding to it.  The worst that can happen is that they say no!  :)

Niche Lists

Are these the lists you should follow?  Well maybe, but having looked at them, there is a lot of overlap.  I’d also look to smaller niche lists – to cover link-building, online PR / social media, online marketing or management topics, for example:

Twitter’s Manchester SEO List – For Manchester SEO’s (me included), Shane Jones threw together a list of guys who contribute to the local SEO community.  More info and contacts for future events (next is on 28^th January)

Source

Previously, people have compiled their own Twitter Lists via good ol’ HTML – e.g. Marketing Pilgrim’s list of 200+ internet marketing Twitterererers, or Pete Young’s UK SEO’s to follow, but the joys of Twitter lists have kindly been encapsulated by Listorious, so thanks for making this post so much easier!!

Another Manchester SEO Event! Wednesday 4th November

Following the success of last month’s Manchester SEO meet-up, the next event is all lined-up now for the infamous Manchester SEO group-ies!  Have you dropped a note on the Manchester SEO group’s thread to say you’re attending?  Do so here. If you’re not part of the group, drop a comment on this blog post and make sure you say hello on the night!  :)

Don’t forget this, like all ‘Manchester’ SEO events are not just for SEO folk from Manchester but from all over the North West, and I even hear we might be having some attendees from as far away as Leeds coming!  It could also be a good chance to learn more about freelance SEO services from any of the guys attending too.  So do make sure you pop by.

Regarding details…

Manchester SEO Meet-up Venue

Same venue as last month, House 9 Bar, but this time it’s upstairs in the loft of House 9 Bar – just follow the stairs up.  Feedback was good last month regarding the venue but people just wanted a little bit more elbow space so this time we’re heading upstairs to the same place where the Manchester Twestival held, here (just across the road from Deansgate Locks):
View Larger Map

If you do get lost, or have any queries, feel free to give me a ring (07828 760 343) or drop me an email: ben [at] justmeandmy.com

Time & Date

Wednesday 4th November, 6pm onwards

Drinks Promotions

If you like a mid-week drink then you’ll be pleased to hear about the following offers until 9pm:

• Bottle of house wine – £6
• Beer – £2 per bottle
• Many half price cocktails
• Shots – £1

In case anyone is especially keen to buy me a drink, I’ll have any of the above.  Ta!  ;)

Future Manchester SEO Events…

Oh, and make sure you feedback regarding the venue – fancy a change let us know, like the location for convenience, then let us know!  Feedback is always welcome!

Manchester SEO Meet-up > 8th October

Right, quick post….

So firstly, you’ve heard about the Manchester SEO group by now right?  Well if not, sign-up here. Technically speaking, it’s not just for Manchester SEO’s and we see people visiting from all over the North West, so do make sure you do too.

[Update: more info on the latest Manchester SEO event here]

SEO Manchester Meet-up

Secondly, you’ve heard about the Manchester SEO meet-ups that are being organised, haven’t you?  Well, if not, make sure you attend the next.

If you’re not part of LinkedIn the idea of signing up to the Manchester SEO group seems like a huge pain for the sake of meeting for a few beers, so here are the details anyway:

Date: Thursday 8th October

Time: 6pm

Venue: House Bar 9 (same place the Manchester Twestival was held at – the bar on the far left of Deansgate Locks)

Agenda: Anything you like.  It’s a casual affair and a very sociable bunch of people in a bar; so could be anything from discussing latest SERP aesthetics, to search engine patents, link-building approaches, blackhat techniques (to avoid?!), sharing contact details or something quite removed from SEO all together.  You decide!  It could also be a good chance to learn more about freelance SEO services from any of the guys attending too. 

Thirdly, did you know that Mediaedge:cia Manchester (part of WPP Group) are on the look-out for North West’s best SEO talent?  If you’re looking for a new SEO job, this would be a great opportunity to pop-by and say hello to myself or David Towers, as we’re always keen to meet ambitious SEO’s in the Manchester area.  Or of course connect with me on LinkedIn.

So, who’s in?

[Update: more info on the latest Manchester SEO event here]

The 2nd Tier Advantage of Modern Day SEO: Online PR example

As major news sites try to retain some of their link-equity, many have turned to not linking-out at all, rarely or building landing pages for those companies as opposed to linking to them directly. This has created a sort of SEO blackhole, but what are the implications for people who work in SEO?

What is the 2nd tier link advantage?

2nd tier links are links from authoritative sites or pages that filter through to your site via a middle-man/page.  However there is a second version, whereby companies develop internal landing pages that are linked to rather than linking directly to the website in question.

2nd Tier Links

Reporting in your link-profile might therefore only find one link from a site when in actual fact that link has (on a basic level) amalgamated the value of many links from internal link structures.

The original thread on WebMasterWorld talks about the value of 2nd tier links, but instead of just explaining the situation, I thought I would apply it to a popular link-building method – online PR.

2nd tier links in context

2nd tier links can be effective.  But many items feed in to their effectiveness.  Consider whether these links come from the sidebar/blogroll, contextual links, or quick-links/breadcrumb navigation, how frequently they link (both on grounds of volume and velocity), authority, the strength of those pages providing the link and the page’s strength itself.

Online PR benefits beyond direct links to your site.

Some sites, rather than linking directly to your website, will link to a landing page that has a description of your website / company.  This is not ideal, but it’s not so bad either, especially when that page links to your page of course.

As the strength of this page increases from the sites internal linking, so does the weight that is passed to your site.

Case in point: I was analysing a client’s link-profile as part of a ‘digital landscape review’ recently and enjoyed seeing the benefits of this to great affect.  In this instance, I could really see the affect of online PR as this caused so many citations of the company in question.

Measuring the 2nd Tier Advantage: SEO Tools

One of my favourite aspects of SEOBook’s toolbar is the SEO X-ray, it tells you how many pages link in to the page from the site. This means, on a basic level, that you can see how strong the page is as a 2nd tier provider of the link.

SEOMoz’s Linkscape will define this strength, trust, authority of those pages and links, but as it relies on major updates (reported to be every 3-6 weeks) it cannot consistently be relied upon to track changes as frequently as you might like.

Whilst in the process of link-building too, you can begin to learn which sites use this approach in your niche via brand mentions.  Do you know who’s talking about your brand?

Citations with or without a link may matter

Citations from 3rd party websites without a link have previously been thought to be fruitless when looking at a website’s link-profile. But the development of non-linking citation ranking factors could well be beginning to play a role, and as such factors in some of this buzz into their algorithms.

If this was the case it is likely that there would be considerations of certain TrustRank (or similar) algorithms to consider high-authority news sources’ citations, over a spam network.

The problem with SEO’s blackhole

Sites that build-out pages can end up out-ranking you for brand-orientated queries.  If this landing page ends-up outranking your site you could well be in trouble with regard to shifting it too -  many news sites are very authoritative in niche and mass markets…SME websites are likely to be the most vulnerable here.

Other examples of the 2nd Tier Advantage

There are also other examples too, maybe not the same quality but there’s quite a few out there.  For a long time now, people have applied this principle when looking for ‘good quality’ sources of links.  These might have included checking DMOZ, using forums and social media sites (comments link back to profile pages that link-out), or even looking at what certain top-level domains link out to,  such as .gov or .edu, etc, for those much loved high-trust links.

Economics of the 2nd Tier Advantage

How far back up the link-profile do you want to go?!  2nd, 3rd, 4th tier advantage – the link-graph is a complex, multi-dimensional system so maybe just look at the 2nd tier for now…I’m sure there’s plenty there to keep you busy in your analysis 

The economics of such a link-building method is even more difficult to measure the return, than a specific link to a specific page – measuring one relationship is easier than the merger of several of course.  Putting an exact value against hundreds of links if the PR has been especially successfully can be difficult too.  So if your activity is closely managed on ROI metrics then this might be a tough approach, but needless to say it’s something to keep an eye out for in your clients link-profile.

**Formula to remember:

PR = Interested Audience = Citations = Links = Organic SERPs Visbility + Media Visibility

Radian 6 Review – Social Media Monitoring Tool

I had a great conversation with a guy called Cory at Radian 6 today. He talked me through the their social media monitoring tool, developed internally by their guys in the States.  I think anyone that provides SEO services should be aware of such tools as they can play an important role for more than just social media marketers.

The Issues and Opportunities of Social Media

One of the ongoing problems that social media marketers have is the degree to which they can gauge how effective each social media marketing campaign has been.  I have said before that for social media to be a realistic marketing solution, it has to tick a lot of business boxes…these boxes include items such as accountability, understanding (i.e. not making it a stab in the dark) and of course creating a return on the investment.

Not only this but for social media marketers to be the perfect social media marketers it certainly helps if you can be everywhere, socialising, all of the time!  Social media monitoring tools help industry professionals keep their ears and eyes open to new opportunities, responses to marketing efforts and mine this invaluable data on a level not previously possible.

Importantly for marketers social media is measurable in many ways:

Users of social media share a lot more than just their opinion. Those who enter the social media domain leave behind a lot of clues about who they are and how they think via information found in social bookmarks, comments, engagement, influence, friends, followers, downloads, favorites, views, votes and links. From all of these user actions, you can measure what’s important, what ideas are gaining ground and who, or what, is having the biggest impact on your, or your client’s brand.

…so this certainly awakens the need to tackle so many social media management issues.

Social Media Monitoring and Online Reputation Management

Social media monitoring has become all the more important as more conversations are recorded online. This means that brands have the opportunity to listen-in on the conversations around their brand, and deal in online reputation management there and then if they choose to do so. You can imagine the benefits of this if you are a working with a brand where an immediate response would be value in any way as it puts out the flames before they have even begun.  For this reason and others, I wanted to provide a bit of coverage to a tool that I have been exposed to lately called Radian 6 – a premium social media monitoring tool.

Radian 6 Tool

There’s loads of information provided by Radian 6 on their website and their sales guys are really helpful, but I just wanted to provide a run-down on my perspective of it’s pro’s and con’s.

If you’re unaware of Radian 6, this is how they describe themselves:

Monitor social media effectively with Radian6’s user-friendly web dashboard.  It allows topics to be quickly set up for monitoring, queries and analysis.  Use it to uncover seemingly hidden issues and trends that could affect strategic directions for clients.  Easily share the real-time analysis with clients and others to support your recommendations and proposals.

Radian 6 Dashboard

The dashboard for Radian 6 is really easy to use. It has an array of different windows that can be flipped over to access their settings. These are really quite more extensive than at first sight and provides plenty of opportunity to drill-down into the item(s) discussed around the brand in question.

Brand Conversations and Engagement

Interestingly, Radian 6 allows brand owners, social media marketers and SEO’s to see the comments on a live basis in what they call River of News – a cheesy term for a live feed where you receive brand mentions.  Here you can mine this data in more detail to their location, their various networks, the positivity towards your brand and even the degree to which they influence your market.

Benefits to the Marketing / SEO Agency

As a result of being able to easily and accurately monitor the response to social media activity, agencies can save time in reporting, learn more about their clients consumers, be more accountable for their success or failure and of course justify continued expenditure in the SMM field…something that could pose as a serious competitive advantage.

This is where Radian 6 see the key benefits for agencies and brand manager’s alike:

• spend less time collecting brand sentiment data and trend data
• uncover the top online influencers affecting your clients’ brands and develop a plan to engage them
• analyse trends and spot opportunities for your clients – something that might be priceless
• find and promote third party endorsements, by retweeting them as an example
• justify more advertising and engagement in social media through accountability and ROI
• give your creative department a new way to research an audience or use content for concept inspiration.

For SEO though, there are great benefits too…it picks up on positive/negative trends around brands, keyword clouds that are used around your brand, highlights key market influencers that could help in championing products/services.

As every marketer wants to get closer to their niche’s consumers and promote 2-way engagement in conversations around the brand online social media monitoring tools are increasingly being seen as the way forward for many agencies.

Negative Points for Radian 6

There are plenty of social media monitoring tools, but none as far as I can tell that are this comprehensive (please let me know if you know of others around a similar kind of grade)…but for this you have to pay a fair amount.  Think along the lines of £500/month/brand…then again, for the insight and engagement opportunities it provides, it really could be justified.

Outstanding Points from Radian 6 - these points are not exactly negative but I would like to know more.  As extensive as the conversation was, I still left the meeting with a few outstanding questions about the reach of the tool, especially as it relies upon it’s own bots. Questions I have raised have included a break-down of the API’s used and an understanding of the reach of the in-house search bots, but more testing will help me understand that I hope.

Additional Suggestions & Tools

Online social media monitoring tools are not the only means of analysing your prospective consumer base, visitors and general online activity. Also think about tools and data found at services such as:

• Hitwise / ComScore / Nielsen / Compete – site/industry stats
• Rank Pulse, maybe? – changes in search rankings
• Google Analytics / Woopra – website analytics
• Clickheat / Crazy Egg – site-usage via heat mapping
• Keyword Research Tools – understanding keyword usage and search volume
• Competitiveness analysis tools and queries
• For monitoring Twitter conversations, try Monitter

But remember, in researching your market, search marketing tools can only go so far. A healthy level of analysis and experience creates a massive amount of value in using these tools.  Although I have to say, I am pretty excited about using it some more!

Have you used Radian 6 or any other social media monitoring tool?  Please share…

Is Semantic SEO the Marketers SEO?

This post looks at the cluttered web, filtering process that focus on meaning and quality in the form of semantic SEO, and simply good quality search marketing services – something we all can work towards. It’s a work-in-progress but I’d be keen to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

The rehashed bit…

Blurring the lines: brands in hands of the social web

Does semantic SEO exist? Most people would say that SEO is exactly that…SEO is semantically driven, as it is driven by the meaning of the words. Although this is only a relatively recent phenomenon in search engine’s information retrieval. It is not necessarily about keywords any more rather about key-meaning.

I needn’t explain why this is important but what I should do is explain it’s ramifications.

Most unoriginal statement of the century

Information on the internet is merging…uh oh here we go – heard this all before! Well it really is. (Sometimes we have to start from the obvious statements to build an argument!).

I want to remind everyone of how it used to be, in the good and / or bad old days…

Standalone websites > Internet in an Information Flux

Companies and websites used to operate online as standalone businesses, picking and choosing where their brand operated. Any brand that was mentioned in a forum or blog was relatively underground. This is a very important distinction compared to where we are now. Just think of the flux and flow of information on a topic – information is continually being encouraged to flow on and off a page through all forms of social media and the like. It can now take an increasingly wider array of forms, but what are the implications for online marketers?

The interesting bit…

Human and Bot Comprehension

We have become immune or numb to this information online, with clever neurological filters, but just think how radically it is different to a basic search engine’s comprehension of the web. Imagine the complexity of the information in it’s most raw form and then try to realise the complexity in evoking ‘meaning’.

Busy Crowd or Quiet Space? An online marketers conundrum

With websites taking various forms, everyone becoming a blogger and information transferring across various social media platforms, it provides a great deal of channels for marketers but so to a great deal of noise. For search engine marketers, this noise can be quite disruptive if we are using the same keywords and marketing techniques in similar ways. How can we stand-out? Does it mean fall into sync with your cluttered neighbourhood and unleash a torrent of content, or, leave some white space by stepping away from the crowd and promoting clarity of meaning? Both cases have been proved to be successful.

140 characters of clarity

Information rich societies are ultimately brand managers’ dream come true and nightmare all wrapped into one big ball of string. Brand managers love communicating clear messages, but are so too clearly misunderstood. Clarity rocks! Does 140 characters express a clear message, why yes, it certainly can. Can 140 characters express a clear message as it moves across the screen where 14 other conversations are taking place…maybe? My confidence in the clarity of the message communicated severely drops when I ask that question.

How can your website, your online presence in general maybe, take a form that markets your activity in a way that stands-out from the crowd, or even apart from the crowd? Your online activity, is your brand…what can you do consistently to represent your brand? Do you use the same colours for all your activity, the same images, same logos, the same presentation style? How often does McDonald’s change it’s logo?! These are the same triggers of recognition that provide visual meaning to your future contacts / network / clientele / friends.

Search Bots and Meaning

For the search engines that dominate the industry, they unfortunately don’t have the capacity to understand these characteristics…so they look elsewhere. In fact search bots have and do fail on many quality scores, focussing more on relevancy and popularity and NOT necessarily quality…hence the rise of social media sites, and more recently SearchWiki.

Search engines are coming around to latent semantic analysis highlighting the importance here, so this in itself makes it especially important in thinking along these lines.

In search marketing, quality is therefore quite obviously deemed to be important – it builds traffic and builds conversions. But what is quality in respect to search marketing? To me quality is something that has relative value regarding purpose and / or meaning. This is almost a definition of semantics.

Semantic HTML > SEO?

A guy I work with, Ben Hunt, from Web Design from Scratch, deliberately focusses on promoting website design that ‘Saves the Pixel’…using semantic concepts in coding and presentation. It works, and, he’s drawn a great deal of attention as a result.

He told me last weekend that he is currently researching [maybe you can help him out?] into semantic pixel saving, to see whether his hypothesis on the correlation between stickiness and semantic html is correct. Simplicity in design and marketing is certainly an option I like the sound of!

As search marketers this is something that we should certainly be interested in, but how can we expand it to be even more relevant to what we are working towards?

Search Marketing can take something away from this…

Semantic HTML might help tidy up the page, reduce the page load speed, increase cross-browser compatibility even…but there’s more to it than that for search marketing. Semantic-thinking, helps us see advantages of so many activities in search that already exist but aren’t always capitalised on…it helps us align our attention with what really matters: meaningful search quality.

Examples of Semantic SEO

I’d be keen to hear of people’s thoughts on the use of semantic-thinking in search engine optimisation, and how it feeds into everyday activities. These are my initial thoughts on semantic SEO anyway…

1. The use of long-tail terms would be one answer…long-tail keywords certainly get your message across clearly….but it’s still an under utilised facet of search marketing. A focussed long-tail strategy can create a great deal of quality, convertible traffic.
2. Thinking about keywords in greater detail, we can think about their role in the context of what has been said – our good old friend latent semantic analysis pops up it’s head again. Meaning is everything in search marketing – semantics in communication is therefore vital…
3. What about your landing pages? Are you focussed on who you are targeting. Have you ever written a landing page for [strictly] one purpose and [strictly] one outcome. I’ve not, although I probably should. One message, one call to action and one outcome…it would be an interesting exercise.  We so often provide too much information, and too many options.  This is why great designers are simply great at what they do: they can see what is necessary for the information to be communicated clearly.
4. Think about the page structure too…everything there regarding the order and layout of the content and code has weighted meaning.
5. Every sort of interaction of information (aka web and website information architecture) presents meaning to search engines…this is what we have to ALWAYS remember as SEO consultants. An example of this is where links act as a sort of funnel where surrounding text and anchor text’s meaning falls through the funnel and carries meaning through to the next page.

I expect there are dozens of examples, please feel to share where search marketers sometimes miss opportunities to express meaning in their day-to-day activity.

Competing on the grounds of meaning

We’re dealing with clutter by making more clutter, so essentially we are crowding the market by trying to stand-out from the crowd. The Tragedy of the Commons becomes all the more apparent as we allow our marketing activity to be driven in this way.

Digital space is essentially infinite, and it seems that we, online commerce and other competing organisations, are competing on grounds of size – scalability of content/keywords/links that drives traffic. And in essence this is how marketing has always been – a scalability game of reach, pick-up rates, visitors, etc. How about if we started competing more along the lines of meaning…scalability/presence plays a role, but more as a bi-product of producing meaning for all those parties your trying to draw attention to search engines.  I believe the best search marketers do this.

Semantic SEO ticks a whole lot of marketing boxes, regarding surfers, visitors and search bots. Shouldn’t this level of meaning be what we work towards as search marketers?  So is Semantic SEO the Marketers SEO?  Yes, I think it is.

[This piece is a work in progress, but I would gladly take feedback on the subject, so please feel free to share you thoughts...]

Could you Buy or Sell Social Media Profiles like Business Assets?

I have been thinking a lot about social media and brand management lately, with the rise of Google’s SearchWiki and growing commercial interest in Twitter and other social media sites, focusing on how to capitalise on or simply monetise this medium more.  Just think how many global social media sites reach right across cultures, countries, languages and interests, 1000’s are out there…

This also got me thinking that Social Media has been used for a whole lot of purposes regarding marketing online, and what appears to me to go a long way is the people who are deeply embedded into that specific social media site; those authority members who go straight to number one because of their credibility. Now, this says to me that this is essentially a huge benefit, an asset, maybe even a commodity that could be traded…without knowing anything more than that I did a couple of searches and voilà, there have been instances of social media profiles going up for sale. So why is this?

The commercial value of social media and credibility

An interview with a anonymous top Digg user suggests that companies / organisations are willing to pay up to $1,200 submission and promotion fees for the privilege of having access to this Digg users reach. OK, so this means that this Digg user, after just 2 years of membership, can take a very respectable income as a return for his credibility in this community, benefiting quite obviously for his participation. But it’s this obvious commercial affiliation that worries people so much.

Selling social profiles is not popular but happens

The sale of online community profiles raised a number of negative responses from the community of bloggers and social media proponents…but why? Here’s a couple of the responses, before I go onto expand that point…firstly, a more response on the selling of Facebook profiles by Social Media Butterfly:

Let me be abundantly clear – this is not what social media marketing is about. If you have to be sneaky about your brand, then something is wrong with your product!

There are a whole lot of responses to this comment, one might be that social media marketing like all forms of marketing is about exposure and there is a very good business case for this practice to occur. Or how about the remarks made by the Blog Herald, regarding another twitter profile for sale:

Personally, I find the whole thing insulting. I hate it enough when my favorite blogs change editorial hands. But to sell a profile or account, that people have chosen to follow, is just weak. I would immediately unsubscribe; and I have a hunch I’m not alone. Hence, making a potential buyer, pay the price.

Well the reasons that it’s not popular are quite obvious, but that does not mean to say it doesn’t happen.

Playing devils advocate, selling social media profiles is no different to buying an established website or business

We don’t like it when our favourite sandwich shop changes hands, we worry that the sandwiches won’t have the cucumber cut to the ‘right’ thickness or they add a splodge of mayo instead of a splidge…we don’t trust the newbie. In business though this happens, and so often consumers are unaware that a company has changes hands. Is this deceptive, in the same way a Twitter profile might change hands?

A social profile as a database for market research

We all know that famous saying ‘information if power’ and we know that consumer information has a real value across most markets, and information and databases are bought and sold, built-up and merged, very legally and legitimately.

This is a business interpretation of why this so freely happens:

• Businesses wish to learn about consumers in their market or future markets.
• By understanding their customers they can provide better goods and services
• We as the consumers potentially receive better goods and services as a result.

Christopher Penn raises the issue over social media profiles as databases of information for marketers, but any information captured online can become a database. My background in marketing leads me on to think about other examples of multiple forms of market research that occurs, sometimes unknowingly to the customer…

• Customer profiling using data in your shopping cart and contact forms
• Prospective ‘ideal customer’ research in high streets
• Keyword research, competitor research, off-site competitive analysis, trend watching
• Emails and telephone correspondence – use of language, requests, FAQ’s, etc
• Website Analytics, e.g. visitor loyalty metrics and site usage
• Website / blog polls
• Newsletter sign-up pages

…naturally, there are a wide variety of methods in which data is gathered on and offline. Is it consistently made clear that this data will / could be used for marketing purposes? Unlikely. So how is this explained to users, maybe via a passive privacy statement, P3P adoption, *small print? It’s not always too clear, is it?

Ethical buying and selling of social media profiles?

Now attaching this notion to the sale of information / profiles it becomes unclear as to whether this is indeed unethical, or maybe it happens all around on a degree already that it has become the norm?

However, can you sell these networks/relationships/connections that have been built (possibly) un-commercially or at least unknowing that the your online friendship will be sold to another with more commercial interests…there’s certainly something seedy about that.

So, as personal information is unknowingly being sold, is this one step too far?

T & C’s and ethical consequences of exchanging data via social profiles

The terms and conditions of many online communities and social media platforms typically disallow, either directly or indirectly, such practices and as soon as such profiles are put up for sale they are removed, hence devoiding their value as they simply don’t exist! This essentially means that this practice will, and probably has already, been driven underground.

Now, a point to promote a little paranoia in online communities…If a member of your network starts behaving a little oddly, maybe they’ve had their profile taken over by another party, but how would we ever know?! Just imagine if Guy Kawasaki sold his twitter profile, currently hovering around 30,000 followers and supposedly valued at about $10,000…he puts out a wild mixture of content, he’s always updating, would you really notice a mild change in links, ideas, content that hit’s the updates if it continues to be remarkable enough?  Paranoia alert!

Blackhat Social Media Marketing: the underground sale of social profiles

With so many articles discussing leveraging social media marketing as part of your online marketing tool kit, it’s no wonder that there is a market for pre-established social media profiles that carry so much weight.

So…..

Having run through this debate in my head, so many times now, it is the nature of the transaction that bothers me…the method in which the credibility and trust is sold. If the intention is made clear and public, I see this as less of a blackhat / greyhat exercise, but in doing so the profile fails to exist.

It will therefore occur underground, and unknowingly to the followers / social network that supports that profile. This deception of trust over a personal profile and associated network seems to me to devalue the respect of your target audience, and in doing this makes it unethical. I personally don’t follow the mantra ‘the business of business is business’, as that discounts far too many ethical principles. Businesses who don’t respect their target market ultimately loose out in the end.

If the profile is run on behalf of a business and exchanges hands as part of the sale of the business, I would not expect the same rules to apply. An example of this is that people’s intention to follow CNN are not following a personality but rather a global brand…this maybe automatically updates / non-personal updates, and is unlikely to offend if it were to change hands. Maybe there are better examples but I think people are likely to be more offended if they are following a person.

BUT, with all blackhat marketing activity a cost-benefit analysis will take place making the decision for them, i.e. the risk is worth it for the reward.

Possible other points of discussion?

Knowledge of what personal data is used and how – People and websites can naturally participate in the P3P policy programme as advocated by W3C, but my understanding is that consumer awareness and website adoption is very low (does anyone have any stats on P3P adoption as I couldn’t find any reputable / current statistics?).

P3P adoption has been very low, so does this mean that we as webmaster are less motivated to promote the use of visitors information than we are to cry out about the use (neither my site currently has adopted P3P as an example [it's on my list of jobs along with privacy policy], or the sites I quoted above…raises an interesting debate, I feel.

Google Analytics Data for sale – I also did a few searches for selling or buying site log files / Google Analytics data…this could add a great deal of value in the right hands, especially for instance a non-ecommerce site selling their Analytics data to an ecommerce site.

Would you sell you site Analytics data? If you were losing interest in Twitter, would you sell your profile (I’m not asking to buy it from you!)? Have your websites complied with P3P?

Can of worms

You may disagree and regard this practice of selling personal profiles as reasonable, and and even whitehat in nature? Many aspects of data are collected in the contact us forms, polls and web analytics  without the knowledge of consumers, so why not treat profiles as databases?

I realise I’ve picked up on a MASSIVE topic, colossal in fact, it is no wonder that I am struggling to keep this post short, as so many points can be expanded, and in this lack of detail there are a number of points that I could clearly add to. Maybe you would like to pull me up on some points; I’d be happy to hear your thoughts…

SPAAM: why I HAD to take a Sphinn holiday…

It’s sounds crazy doesn’t it, why would anyone need to take a Sphinn holiday?  Well there are some good reasons.

What is a Sphinn holiday?

A Sphinn holiday is when you break-away from the addiction (certainly not affliction) that is Sphinn.  A Sphinn holiday therefore entails removing yourself from your Sphinn environment – which essentially entails leaving the country to a place without 24 hour internet cafe’s, leaving your laptop behind, your PC, your mobile phone, blackberry, PDA or other, all at home, locked safely away so that at some later time, you can not have it mailed to you on your holiday. That is a Sphinn holiday.

Sphinn is not a bad place though. Sphinn is where so many of the best search marketers hang-out; a social media site with fast-flowing, new online marketing content that encourages users to share their thoughts and continue to learn more and more about the search marketing industry in ways that relate to them. Great stuff!

Articles range from ridiculous challenges that sucker me in, to classic interviews, interesting titbits, and plenty more help advice and humour…a great place to spend your time.  So why is Sphinn so bad for me?

Why Sphinn is bad for me

Sphinn is bad for me because it is too good.  You know when you go to bed at night to sleep, well I didn’t do that…I lay there waiting for Mrs Ben McKay to fall asleep then sneak down to check-up on Sphinn comments…so much activity goes on across the Atlantic when I’m supposed to be sleeping that actually sleeping is no longer an option – I could simply miss too much.

Is it just me but, embarrassingly, there has been times when I spend more time hovering around the comments feed, looking to pounce on any lively conversation than I do anything else…surely this isn’t healthy?!   But is this really an addiction?

The Free Dictionary states that an addiction is:

The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

Now, call me silly, call me Ben McKay even, but being immersed in reading blogs, Sphinning, commenting, shunning spam, licking my lips over the thought of the next ‘Hot Topic’ or ‘Greatest Hit’, or even taking pride over finding a gold mine of information from the topics that go underground and not ever making it off the What’s New list, to the detriment of getting my Zzzzzz’s, my sanity, my time away from working, is not a good thing?  So, how did it all begin?

Every addict is asked “so, how did it all begin?”, well this is my story…

It happened fast, too fast for me to know what was happening.

My profile shows me to be a relatively new member but I had in actual fact been a member since some point in 2007 but not an active ‘user’. But something happened to my details (the problem with hapving multiple pseudonyms, aka’s and nicknames) – my password didn’t reset, I re-registered but it left me with an empty feeling of loss and despair…I did however make the decision to be more vigilant, thinking: “OK, if I lose my details again I am going to leave a long paper-trail behind me”…

So, rather than just Sphinning or casually browsing, I started laying down the odd comment, and that’s where it really began.  One comment leads to a response, a response leads to you making a response to a response, which in turn…the addiction overwhelmed me.

I did try to cut-back by just making the odd comment but someone might reply to a comment and then leave me in the predicament of either ignoring them and being considered rude or simply making just one more comment.  Anyway it was too late, I was fully immersed on the world of Sphinn, writing posts about my love of Sphinn and my even greater love for Sphinn Japan.

Rehabilitation

I’m not a total addict though. I did ‘the test‘, to see whether I was in actual fact a social addict of sorts, and came out a little better than what I expected actually, a rosey looking 96% addiction…but, I’ve been told that this still needs a little bit of work.
96%

Like with any chronic form of addiction, whether it be physical or mental…rehab is needed.  For me it took a 4 day break in Poland to get over the Sphinn obsession…success!

Although…monday afternoon, I was back at it. Shinning away!  I am glad to say though, I have not hit the Sphinn pages with such ferocity as before, probably bringing down the average page views by quite a large proportion over the last week or so.  It’s OK though, Danny Sullivan did drop me an email to mention that the servers were in need of a break too.

In response to what I have learnt from my rehab, knowing there’s a whole lot people far worse off than me, I have set-up SPAAM – Sphinn Addict Anonymous Meetings, to give something back.

SPAAM are here to help

Does anyone else have this addiction to any sort of social media?  I’ve seen a fair few twitter holics in my time, but I know there’s a huge number of people out there not ready to admit it to themselves.  It’s OK, SPAAM are here for you.

Psychoanalysing yourself over an addiction to Sphinn is not a pleasant process, I grant you that, but MUST be done.  Remember, you’re only kidding yourself when you say that you’ll be OK, just one more Sphinn.  I’ve said those words to myself before – I still do at time but you’ve got to fight it.  Consider trying the SPAAM patches or the SPAAM gum.

Meetings Time, Date and Location

SPAAM take place daily at http://sphinn.com, where you can share your opinions, support each other and generally try to distract yourself from your addiction by reading blog posts and articles on search marketing.

And remember, here are some addiction cliches to consider before you Sphinn that next fantastic post:

One Sphinn is too many, a thousand is not enough.

A message from SPAAM:

We’ll love you, until you learn to love yourself.

Good luck with your addiction conquest. Ben McKay, CEO of SPAAM and recovering Sphinn addict