Should SEO Become SO?

I recently blogged about SEO becoming SMO. Call me fickle but in this podcast I suggest that SEO should become SO (search optimization). Whichever acronym you prefer, this is a healthy debate.

The demand for SEO services is at an all time high. A recent survey from B2B Online survey says that nearly one third of B2B marketers will spend more on marketing in 2009. 42% will remain unchanged in their marketing budgets. 62% said customer acquisition was their highest priority. The highest increase in marketing budget allocation in 2009 is going to online activities including search (50%) and social media (46%).

Given this trend of “search” and “social media” why do we still call search “SEO?” The answer is simple. It’s an entrenched term. Have you ever noticed that when a musician has a new release it’s still called a new album? But, it’s not an album, it’s a CD. The point is obvious. Some old terms just don’t die.

The point in this podcast is we should consider pulling “engine” out of search optimization. Searching on the web is no longer the sole domain of search engines. Buyers have the easy ability to visit all kinds of sources on the web to find information.

People who search on the web are still finding information from search engines as well as from other sources such as Technorati, Blogsearch.Google, DIGG, Stumbleupon, Slideshare even Twitter as well as vertical industry web destinations with blogs and other links to credible sources of information.

A related factor to this trend is the “social” culture of the social web. Users create content and express opinions about products and services. These contents and opinions shape buyer’s opinions and their decisions as they get shared prolifically on the social web. The interaction that occurs on the social web is dynamic compared to a search engine result.

I don’t expect SEO as we know it to dramatically change tomorrow. But, there are changes coming from Google in 2009. They recognize the shift in content on the social web and will display results of all kinds, not just websites. The websites with rich media will get the best results in Google and other search engines.

You could say that Google doesn’t just view their competitors as Yahoo! and Microsoft. They understand that people can get answers to their searches from many other sources on the web. So, like the old cliche goes rather than fight it they are joining the movement.

The point of this podcast theme: SEO becomes SO is that buyers are looking for information on the web, not only in search engines. Buyers get their information from various sources on the web. The culture or mindset of searching on the web has shifted and will continue to shift.

Have a listen to this podcast. Do you think I’ll get on Larry King or Anderson Cooper talk shows due to my radical suggestion?

I’m sure you have an opinion on this topic. Many people do…Let’s hear your opinion below.

@berniebay

Measuring Brand Equity Through Social Media Marketing

There are several tools available to help marketers measure the effectiveness of their social media marketing efforts.  Some of them include free tools like, Blogpulse, Trendpedia, Trendrr, Google Blogsearch and other vote-centric sites such as DIGG, StumbleUpon and Reddit.  These tools are some of the most popular and readily available tools used to track, measure and monitor social media content.  They are all free to the user community. 

In the spirit of sharing good content, Nathan Gilliatt, Principal at Social Target, LLC has published an impressive list of tools to monitor social media results which include commercial tools which have a cost.  The list of tools is growing every day. 

But, how do you measure brand equity? Admittedly, measuring brand equity is somewhat intangible.  But, that depends on your perspective (is the glass half full or half empty?).  Large companies place a lot of importance in measuring brand equity.  But, most companies are not Nike.  So, how do the rest of us measure brand equity? 

In social media marketing there exist new opportunities to positively affect your brand equity.   It all starts with the people in your company who are active in social media marketing.  Previously, I’ve used the example of Matt Cutts from Google.  When someone from your company takes a visible position in a social media community, and they effectively communicate meaningful stuff that the community truly appreciates, you are positively affecting your brand.  How do you measure this? 

If you hire a PR agency with good social media skills, that’s one way to measure it.  If you use some of the tools described above including some of the commercial tools, that’s another way to measure your brand equity.  But, here is a simple tip that takes ten minutes and doesn’t cost a dime.  Go to your Google Analytics account or equivalent website traffic analytics program.  Assuming you have had your analytics in place for more than one year (which you should have), look at the traffic that came to your website from the keyword “your company name” (insert the name of your company).  Study the traffic coming to your website from your company name over different periods of time starting with a period of time before you became active in social media marketing.  If you are actively engaging, listening and interacting with your community in social media, you will see an upward trend in traffic to your website coming from some combination of your company name or the name of the person (or people) who are actively involved in your social media strategy.  I’ve experienced this firsthand as both “find and convert” and “bernie borges” are two of the top five keyword phrases driving visitors to our website.  Likewise, the Find and Convert blog home page is in the top three most frequently visited pages in our Google Analytics account.  These two data points alone tell me that my efforts in social media are positively affecting our brand. 

The lifecycle of social media is a continuous loop.  The good news is that when you apply the simple principles discussed here, good things can happen.  But, the flip side is that the “continuous” part of it is such that if you discontinue participation you can lose all the benefits. 

 

 

Measuring Web 2.0 Buzz

At Find and Convert we’re all about measuring.   We provide our SEO clients detailed metrics.  You know, the usual stuff including unique visits, page-views, time on site, conversions, bounce rates, keywords, referral sources, yada, yada, yada.  I’m not trivializing it by any means.  The metrics we track for SEO and PPC are very important.

But, as more of our clients enter the brave new Web 2.0 world the question is how do we measure results?  Great question!  Not a simple answer….But, there are ways to measure results from your Web 2.0 campaigns.

If you’re blogging, you can measure RSS subscriptions.  You can measure how many others link to your blog.  Who are they?

You can measure how many social bookmarks you receive from popular sites like DIGG and StumbleUpon and how easily your social media content is found in Technorati and Del.icio.us.

You can certainly monitor and measure the comments on your blog.  You can see the tone of comments and the trends in the comments.  In fact, you may find comments to be invaluable “research.” 

Don’t overlook your web stats reports.  You can track referral sources from social media sites.  When you see social media referrals increase, that’s a trend to watch.  If you run campaigns in social media sites, track your web stats carefully to observe traffic from these sites and time spent on your site.  Make sure to have conversion strategies in place for these referral strategies so you can track them easily.

Don’t overlook tools such as Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts.  In Google Webmaster you can track links from social sites. 

If you manage a large brand, or multiple brands there are more advance social media tracking tools.  Some of them include Andiamo, Website-Watcher, WathThatPage and Visual Sciences.

Internet Marketing strategies require planning, measuring and revising.  The methods and tools used to measure Web 2.0 results vary somewhat from measuring SEO and PPC, but not drastically.  The web analytics field is evolving.  Keep up to date and profit from the results you can measure.