Posts Tagged "Google"

VSEO – Ranking Factors Behind YouTube

Posted on Oct 5, 2009 in Guest Posts, Marketing |

Guest Post By Ryan Sammy.

Everyone knows the importance of video marketing as well as the tremendous potential YouTube offers in creating a strong presence for your brand and company image. However, does everybody know how to use YouTube optimally to gain the desired advantage and leverage for your videos and thereby your company?

Just creating a good video of your company, or a video containing information intended for your target customers and uploading onto YouTube is not enough to get the desired results. There are many ranking factors behind YouTube that you should know if you want your video to score high marks in the popularity charts. Good VSEO takes into account these ranking factors to help build a good brand image and enhance the reputation of your company.

Apart from creating quality video content that information seekers will be willing to watch, there are other important factors that you can use to optimize your videos for YouTube and get higher rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The first and foremost is not to be just a passerby, but a player. Create a presence in the YouTube community for yourself. Listen to others and be heard. The rankings on YouTube depend on various factors, just as the factors behind organic search results on Google or any other search engine. YouTube in itself is a major search engine now, and it adheres to its own algorithmic parameters to decide rankings.

YouTube ranks videos that are watched most number of times rank very high on its SERPs. So you need to make videos that have a strong viral capability to bring in more viewers for your videos. The more people your videos can bring in to watch, the higher in rankings your video climbs. Now, this does not mean that by simply uploading a video that will be watched by many people can get you top spot in rankings; the videos have to be acceptable and engaging to make people vote for the videos. The more times your videos get viewer votes; the higher the chances of you getting top billings in the rankings! Another factor that could push your videos up is the number of times your videos are bookmarked for attention. These are the basic factors that can help your videos to get maximum visibility, and your attention when making videos should be to make them in such a way that they satisfy all the conditions stated above.

Having good titles, meta-descriptions, tags, comments, flagging, shares, comments, channel views, subscribers, inbound links, and latency do matter, but if you stick to the ground rules and include some, or all the above factors, there is no reason why your videos should lag behind. That said, being an active member of the community will help tremendously, and using video analytics such as “YouTube Insight” and “TubeMogul” should help make your videos better and to stay constantly updated on developments. Make good videos and stay engaged; that should drive you to the top spot very soon.

ASE09 Session: SEO Tools You Can Use Today

Posted on Aug 11, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: This session is a quick moving brain dump of how to use the most advanced powerful tools to help you with SEO. Expect to learn how you can walk out and use several SEO tools to grow revenues today.  The speaker was:

• Wil Reynolds, Associate, SEER Interactive (Twitter @wilreynolds)

I’d never previously had the chance to hear Wil speak, despite meeting him a few times.  It always seemed poorly matched up against other sessions that were more relevant to me as an affiliate manager.  This time I made sure to make it to Wil’s session, and I was NOT disappointed.  He’s an SEO genius and did, in fact, give us tools that I used TODAY!

Bullet Point Review!

• Tool: Google Insights
• Tool: Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (Formerly MSN adCenter Add-in for Excel)
• Watch your bounce rates, because even if keywords rank this is a problem.
• Always check Google Trends for the keywords.
• Evaluate bounce rates daily for each keywords (this catches problems quickly)
  • SEER did this for a client and caught a page 1 ranked keyword with a bounce rate sometimes as high as 80%)
  • Home page was ranked for the product search instead of a product page.
• Ranking is a big distraction.
• If you are analyzing search engine performance by where you rank you would never have caught the issue – analyze SEO by more than just rankings.
• Tool: Microsoft adCenter Labs Audience Intelligence – remember to search for singular keywords and plurals.
• Affiliates need to know research vs. commercial queries to help convert traffic.
• Marketers need to know what kind of message to put in front of people when searching.
• Plural tends to convert much better, but is not a hard & fast rule.
• Know the flaws before you use any tool so you know how far to trust the data.
• Yahoo Keyword Suggest is better than Google’s because it’s a general phrase match and not a character match.
• A 40 to 60 ratio isn’t enough to suggest a strong patter – go for closer to 30 to 70.
• Look for the queries highly skewed to one side or the other (commercial v. noncommercial) & look for high degrees of confidence from the engines.
• Test against your own data set on keywords that are currently ranking well before using the tool so you knoe how far to trust the data.
• You have to look at things through a marketing lens and not just take the word of the tool’s data.
• Affiliates need to take advantage of hot keywords because they can move much faster than larger corporations.
• Major competitive advantage: big companies move slow.  Their inability to act for mid/long tail/hot keywords = opportunities for you.
• Don’t look back too far because trends rapidly change.  Look at more current data sets, around 30 days old at most.
• Check out the Rising Searches area towards the bottom in Google Insights to see what trends are on the rise.
• Don’t go back more than a year data-wise, unless you’re looking for seasonal trends.
• How is a product getting hot?  How do you rank for it?
  • Try moving it up one level in the hierarchy of the site – possibly link from homepage in a hot product section.
• Top 200 products no more than 2 clicks from home page.
• Suits = slow = opportunity for you
• Google’s algorithm seems to be favoring large brands more and more; you’ve got to find ways to compete.  Lots of ideas at blogstorm.co.uk
• Link building is about exposure to stimuli.
• You can’t have all the ideas – you need a Spark.  Put yourself in a position to have great ideas.
  • Install Greasemonkey script in Firefox.
  • Install Twitter Search Results on Google for Greasemonkey
  • It’s about being exposed to things that will trigger your brain to a link building opportunity.
• Tool: Google Trends Hot Trends
• Paid Tool: SEOmoz Labs – has a graphical representation of links.
• Put plug-ins and stuff at the bottom of the HTML code in case they hang up loading so they don’t stop everything else from loading.
• Wikipedia links help.
• Paid Tool: Hub Finder from SEO Book
• Tool: SeoQuake
• Seed Keywords allows you to find scenarios if you’re having an interal battle over which keywords would work best.
• Google Universal Search’s thumbnail pictures will definitely start to influence clicks in search.

Questions were really peppered in throughout the presentation, and Wil didn’t get to all his slides but promised they’d be made available and any links would be shared through Twitter if asked.  It was a terrific session and I learned a ton that I’m ready to go back and start using now! For your benefit, here’s the presentation:

Cribbed Content for May 29th

Posted on May 29, 2009 in Rambles | 5 comments

At first glance when starting to compile this week’s Cribbed Content, it didn’t look like much was going on.  My Google Reader was kind of light, as were the other scoops and news coming across my desk.  But then when I really started to dig, I found some cool stuff!  Including a really easy Twitter Contest from DIY SEO to win a Kindle!

• Last week I reported that Affiliate Summit East 2009 was all sold out of booths.  They’re now all sold out of Meet Market tables as well, the first time for them that they’ve sold out of exhibitor space before Early Bird pricing was done.  Congrats to the ASE09 team!
• Speaking of Affiliate Summit, co-founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins were in Dallas at the Inbound Marketing Summit speaking about monetizing blogs.  Missy was kind enough to share their slides from the presentation.
• Affiliate network ShareASale is toying with an Affiliate API and has released the initial sections for use.
• Google recently changed their trademarks policy in regards to AdWords paid search ads.  Search Engine Land wrote an article on how to protect your brand under Google’s new trademark policy, and Geno Prussakov also wrote an article on how this applies to affiliate marketing.
• Apparently Google mucked around with PageRank… AGAIN… and devalued Twitter profiles.  Which is fine with me since I realized awhile back my twitter page was  PR9 when this here blog was only PR2 (currently my twitter page is a PR3).  What really irritated me was that, out of nowhere, this blog went down to PR0 out of nowhere with no real changes other than a redesign (that, if anything, should have HELPED SEO).  So in my opinion Google can shove with with their PageRank racket anyway.  Anyway, Andy Beard explains a few things about the change.
• I’ve seen a certain someone from a certain CPA network tweeting a lot in the last two days about making money from Twitter with CPA ads.  That seems to be ALL this person is tweeting about and it’s getting on my anti-spam nerves.  So instead of calling this person out, I’ll be passive-aggressive and just pass on this article for everyone: 10 Irritating Mistakes that People Make with Twitter. Thanks Nikki Pilkington for a good article right when I was thinking about it!
• I’m a big fan of to-do lists.  There’s been some talk about different apps recently (I was turned onto Toodledoo and love its integration with iGoogle homepage).  Nate Moller wrote a great article on why to-do lists are key to entrepreneur success that any slightly unmotivated or scattered entrepreneur should read!

IAB Revising Interactive Ad Units

Posted on Apr 30, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing |

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today announced that it has held its first meeting of the Re-Imagining Interactive Advertising Task Force, comprised of top online publishers, media agencies and, for the first time, creative officers from the nation’s leading advertising agencies. Their purpose is to examine the current standards and update them, taking into consideration the evolution of online advertising.

“We believe we can make interactive advertising far more hospitable to the craft and practice of persuasion by putting creativity front and center in the development of advertising standards,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “By bringing creative agency leaders into the discussion of the standards, we highlight our industry-wide mission to showcase brands and engaging consumers in meaningful ways.”

The IAB first established a set of standards for interactive advertising in 2002.  These standards have become the golden rule in online advertising, be it traditional CPM or affiliate advertising.  The board includes players from heavy hitters like Cars.com, Disney Interactive Media Group, Google, Platform-A, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo, and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

Also coming out of the IAB today is their Impression Exchange Solution.  This document sheds light on impression data and makes it easy to convert to a single standard that all publishers will recognize.

The document identifies the key functional requirements necessary for the automated exchange of impression data between publishers and third-party ad servers, which will allow publishers and agencies to detect and address discrepancies in near real-time.

Their goal is to minimize discrepancies in online data.  Good luck to the IAB!

Web 2.0 Expo: Making Government 2.0 a Reality: A Citizen’s Guide to Essential Reforms

Posted on Apr 27, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: The potential for Government 2.0 is both real and exciting: technology-wise, we can now cheaply and efficiently enable a government that is transparent, participatory, collaborative, and effective. But there are some very real, very stubborn obstacles in the form of outdated laws, regulations, and policies. Andrew will outline these barriers, and set forth an agenda for reform.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009 and kicked off the Government 2.0 track of sessions.  The speaker:

• Andrew McLaughlin, Google

This was a fascinating session, and Andrew did his best to cover what he did to assist with the transition committee, Tigger, to transition President Obama into the White House.  Andrew dedicated his personal time, taking three months off from his job at Google to commute to Washington DC during the week and back home to the Bay Area on weekends, from Election Day to Inauguration Day, to help.

He used a really cool software called MindMap (I think) that he actually said was proprietary, but it was basically an outline on steroids, so forgive me if there are a LOT of notes; I tried to get everything, but I’m sure some might not make sense.

Bullet Point Review!

• The promise: transparency, participation, collaboration, efficiency & effectiveness.
  • Get a better government; spend less money.
• Some Examples:
  • DC: CapStat Mapping Application
    • Puts government data in citizens’ hands in real time.
    • Key facts:
      • All 911 and 311 reports are viewable online, same day, with full tracking to resolution.
      • Every city agency must provide public data feeds; now more than 260 live data feeds.
      • 2008 year to date homicide rate down 19% over 07.
    • Mapping applications
  • DataCatalog
  • Apps for Democracy
  • DC Stumble Safely
    • Virtual Alabama
      • Emergency response platform becomes backbone of statewide gov collaboration and performance.
        • Changed government culture across the state to reward sharing and use of data, rather than hoarding and ownership.
    • Now used to improve operations in all kinds of ways not originally envisioned.
    • Key facts
      • Total cost $160k + 2 staff.
      • Supports 550 agencies.
      • 10 days from decision to functioning system.
      • Enables state to mothball expensive emergency operations center, saving millions.
      • Uses Google Earth geo platform.
      • Can be used by governor and police/responding agencies.
      • If you want access to this, you have to give us your data in real time and keep it updated – has worked well.
      • Hopefully positive political pressure will also en courage participation.
  • Washington State Dashboards
    • Since 2005
      • 93% of highway projects completed on time, 95% within budget.
      • <24 hour response time to child abuse calls went from 69% to 95%.
      • Doubled job placement rates.
      • Lowest traffic fatality rate in history.
    • Data driven management isn’t new; what’s new are the cheap, powerful IT tools that drive performance.
  • SeeClickFix
    • Lets you create an area to monitor reports of complaints.
• The Obstacles:
  • Acquisition and procurement.
    • Federal procurement.
      • Must government use of free online service be subjected to a competitive bidding process?
      • Gratuitous service agreements for free apps.
        • Library of Congress iTunes, Flickr, YouTube
        • GSA: YouTube, Flickr, vimeo, blip.tv
      • Advertising: agencies are restricted from carrying advertising for private individuals, firms, or corporations (so if it’s ad supported, can’t use it).
      • Government subject to terms and conditions, but has to individually evaluate and perhaps not be subject to those.
    • Indemnification
      • Anti Deficiency Act
        • Federal contracts can only provide for ltd indemnification unless a specific statue provides otherwise.
        • But conventional website boilerplate terms and conditions like Google, YouTube, provide for unlimited liability.
        • Example: The VA wanted to use Second Life to rehabilitate vets.
          • Linden Labs contract specified unlimited liability, so had to have a special contract drafted.
    • Legal jurisdiction and venue.
      • Federal agencies are governed by fed law. Agency GCs won’t sign contracts that bind them to state law.
      • Most internet companies terms define legal jurisdiction in a specific state.
  • Access
    • Employee access and use of social media.
      • Acceptable use of Facebook during work.
      • Some agencies prohibit use of social networking and other web 2.0 sites.
      • Need to establish a presumption.
    • Disabled Access
      • Needs to be equally accessible for disabled and non disabled
      • Can the government sign a contract with a web service that is not section 508 compliant? If so, how to ensure equal access to info for disabled employees and citizens?
    • Freedom of Information Act
      • Challenge if iterative media
        • How many versions of a document are subject to FOIA requests?
      • Danger of disclosure of user login data, which would discourage citizen use of web tools.
        • Need to clarify that personal data is exempt from FOIA.
  • Privacy and Security
    • Privacy
      • OMB circular on cookies.
        • Prohibits federal websites from using persistent cookies unless certain conditions are met.
          • Persistent browsing.
        • So federal web can’t remember preferences or settings, or gather web analytics.
        • Needs to be fixed to enable persistent cookies while protecting citizen privacy.
      • 3rd party websites and embedded content.
    • IT Security
      • Malware, spyware via web 2.0 use, threat to agency networks and citizen personal information.
      • Every technology platform adopted by the government must undergo a rigorous security review.
      • Federal Information Systems” included.
  • Management Statuses.
    • Paperwork Reduction Act
      • Requires some forms of web 2.0 information collection to undergo a time-consuming OMB clearance process.
        • Example: solicitations of input and ideas to improve government that involve particular data about users.
          • Stories and Experiences
        • Public engagement tools can trigger OMB info collection requirement and approval process.
      • “Public Information Collecting Activities”
        • Example: TSA blog’s use of a survey.
    • Presidential Records Act
      • Requires preservation of all written white house communications.
        • “Document Material” = records
        • When is a wiki doc or online comment forum final and thus is a “record”?
      • Electronic records must be kept in written form.
        • Printer overload
    • • Need to enable electronic storage of web-based records.
        • Official websites like WhiteHouse.gov
        • Official postings on third party sites like YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Facebook status updates.
  • Commercial Endorsement
    • Advertising supported 3rd party sites?
      • YouTube
      • Facebook
    • Exclusive use of a single service?
      • They do redundancy of services.
• A Reform Agenda
  • Laws, regulation, rules
    • Takes time.
    • Sometimes there are statutes that require the cooperation of Congress, etc.
  • Culture
    • People -> Send Good People
      • President Obama really personally “gets it”.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• GMAP really fantastic management process but still needs work; not really parsable.
• Wonderful in theory, hard to manage in practice.
• Now considered mandatory in campaigning to have a great website with lots of awesome content.
• User interface always lags behind the back end.

Especially with my involvement of late in lobbying in Sacramento against legistlation that could really hurt my industry, this session hit home for me and convinced me to stay for the rest of the Government 2.0 sessions that day.

Web 2.0 Expo: Optimize Your Organic Search Results Leveraging Social Media & Blogging

Posted on Apr 21, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: I’m all a Twitter ‘Cause your MySpace hurts my Facebook when I’m Linked-in – Learn how to leverage social media and your current website to DOMINATE search engine results and improve your organic rankings! Sponsored by Verio.

Industry expert and published author Heather Lutze gives you the rundown on her social media strategies from her new book, The Findability Formula. This breakout will give you actionable tactics you can implement immediately to get your website ranked higher in search engine results. Social media is HOT and delivers results if you know how to use them to their fullest potential. Learn how to use keywords effectively with Twitter, Linked-In, Youtube, Facebook, as well as your own company website to increase your search engine rankings. It is all about knowing and understanding the Findability Formula – and that is what you’ll learn in this workshop!

This session took place Thursday, April 2, 2009. The speaker:

• Heather Lutze, Lutze Consulting

Heather had a lot of great things to say; it was a shame that she didn’t have enough time to really go over it because of such a long pitch by Verio, the sponsor of the session.  One thing Verio did that was annoying but I can’t really fault them for, was parking someone at the door and using the leads scanner to scan the name badges of the people coming in.  Annoying, but since they were sponsoring the session, I can’t really fault them for it.

Bullet Point Review!

• Social media gives you a platform to position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Strategy:
  • Connect with the right search keywords.
  • Edit your social media profiles and elements with keywords.
  • Track the results in Google search results.
• Know how users search:
  • 15.2% are 1 word search phrases
  • 31.9% are 2 word
  • 27% are 3 word
  • 14.8% are 4 word
  • 6.5% are 5+ words
• The longer the keyword, the faster you’ll show up.
• Longer search terms are looking more to purchase, less informational or shopping.
• Resources: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug and The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
• Tool: Google External Keyword Tool
• Tool: Keyword Discovery
• Connect with the customer when they’re ready to take decisive action.
• Misspellings can rank highly (sometimes they convert higher).
• Look at the pages and be sure you actually want to show up amongst that company.
• Anything over 100 searches, long tail.
• Open tool, whats most targeted keyword, then write blog post (put the keyword at the front).
• Recommends All in One SEO Pack, ShareThis for WordPress.
• On LinkedIn, when you put your last name in put a dash and your keyword.
• Start on the long tail and work your way backward.
• Do it for your name, do it for misspellings, rank the whole page to push out the “sucks” terms.

Because of the 20 minute pitch for Verio at the beginning of the session, there was zero time for questions, which was a shame.  I was hoping for some more real-world examples that weren’t just about Heather.  There was time for one where a woman who is a voice-over talent was looking at it from her standpoint and Heather walked through the practical application, which was pretty cool.

Overall it was a good session once Verio was done talking, and I wish she’d shared her slides with the Web 2.0 Expo folks, but alas it’s not on their website.