Google Analytics has long been a favorite tool of those looking for data on their Web site traffic. Now Advanced Segmentation makes that data even better by allowing users to easily filter it according to almost any category they want. The tool allows you to hone in on certain trends and behaviors regarding your site’s traffic by using default segments or by creating your own custom segments. Used correctly, the knowledge provided can help you make strategic business decisions to improve your site’s performance. Once the hotel chain made use of Advanced Segments, they were able to determine from which cities their site was getting the most visitors and geo-target those locations (by creating campaigns specific to those cities), ensuring that they were making the most out of their Paid Search budget.

Google Analytics has always allowed users to filter their data, but it was a much trickier process that wasn’t nearly as intuitive or user-friendly. With Advanced Segments, separating your data is as simple as dragging and dropping the filters you want to use. Clicking the Advanced Segments tab in Google Analytics will lead you to a list of the default segment options offered, or to create a segment not offered in the default list, you can choose the metrics and dimensions you want from a comprehensive list provided by Google Analytics.

So what are some examples of how this tool can be used? As we saw with the hotel company, one way to use the feature is to enhance paid search geo-targeting. In Search Engine Optimization, you might use this data to drive localized keyword strategies and/or create geo-specific landing pages for areas that drive significant traffic (or leads) to your Web site.

Another area where Advanced Segments can come in handy is determining the time(s) of day that your site performs best. You can use this data to day-part PPC efforts (select times of day your text ads will serve impressions) or strategically time Email marketing deployments to touch potential customers during the hours that are historically highest in traffic and conversions.

Of course, these are just a few examples of the many ways Advanced Segments can be used to learn more about the traffic to your Web site. The increased ease of use created by Advanced Segments makes Analytics an ideal tool for understanding this data. Click here for more information on creating and using advanced segments.

In the past, many marketers took a shotgun approach to link building, sending out a massive number of generic requests to trade links. This was (and still is) very typical for affiliate marketers and small businesses hoping to get some traffic and (more importantly) an improved PageRank for their Web site. There are several major flaws in this link building approach:

- The format for directory-style listings on “link pages” provide little opportunity to use custom anchor text (linking to the URL instead)
- Trading links no longer offers the SEO benefits seen in the past
- Results in the formation of “link farms”, which are now looked down upon by the search engines and will not help improve rankings.

Instead of focusing merely on the number of backlinks to your Web site, prioritize quality and diversity in your link building efforts. Quality links come from credible Web sites relevant to the products or services you offer.  There are several quality-related questions you should consider when developing a link building strategy:

- Is the link on a Web site related to my product or service?
- Does my link use keyword-rich anchor text?
- Is the link on a credible Web site?

In addition to quality, you should ensure you’re developing a diverse link profile, sourcing links from a range of Web sites (including blogs, articles, social media, bookmarking, etc.) instead of putting all your eggs in one basket.  Links from various types of Web sites, especially sites viewed as credible resources, result in the links appearing to have been acquired in a more natural manner to the search engines and enhances their effectiveness. This is because the goal of the search engine algorithms is to provide improved rankings based on what their users link to, not links that are acquired through link building campaigns – so the more ‘naturally acquired’ your link profile seems to be, the better the results.  By including quality and diversity in your link building campaign, you ensure the highest probability of success for this aspect of your marketing program.

Developing quality content and a syndication strategy is critical for link building success. First, you need content seen as valuable to a Web site’s users (often referred to as “link bait”). This content can take several forms including a blog, case study, a tool/application and technical information. After developing the content, it is very important to develop strategies to syndicate the content to interested users, Web sites and the community in general. Quality content has no value from a link building perspective unless people are able to find it (and link to it).

The shotgun approach is no longer an effective link building approach, and marketers must develop more elegant content-based strategies to create quality backlinks to their Web site in order to maximize the benefit to their program.

1. Impact on Search

The partnership allows Yahoo to focus on developing itself as a portal while providing the Yahoo/MSN alliance with a more significant piece of the search marketing pie in an effort to compete with Google, the dominant player in search. All Yahoo search results (both paid and natural) will be MSN-driven, meaning Microsoft’s Bing engine will generate the results seen on the portal.

The new alliance is expected to control 30% of the United States search market, and it positions the partners well to be more competitive players in the search engine industry. New competition for Google can only mean one thing—both search engines will want to improve. This is great news for users and advertisers, as the two dominant search engines will be driven to become more effective and user-friendly in the face of the new circumstances.

2. Changes to SEO

Since the new, merged search engine will hold a greater percentage of the market share than either Yahoo or Bing did individually, it will become more important than ever to ensure you’re monitoring Bing positions and conversion data —not just Google. Maintaining high-quality content with keywords, clean coding, and optimized tags are all important for Bing as they are for Google. However, some changes brought about by the merger could have a more significant impact on SEO efforts.  We will provide updates on how you should alter your SEO strategies as the effects become clear.

3. Changes to Your Paid Search Program

Once the shift to a Yahoo-MSN alliance takes effect, Yahoo’s Paid Search system will become obsolete. Instead, Microsoft’s adCenter will become the sole search advertising service used by both companies. This means that any PPC campaigns previously running in Yahoo will have to be integrated into adCenter instead. Yahoo’s Search Marketing system will offer assistance in moving your PPC campaigns to MSN, but you’ll need to familiarize yourself with adCenter in order to fine-tune certain aspects of your campaigns within the new advertising platform.

Major changes to consider during this transition include:

-Titles for paid search ads will be reduced from 40 characters (on Yahoo) to 25. Ads not meeting this requirement will be paused upon transition.

-Keyword match types will change from “standard” and “advanced” to exact, broad and phrase matching

-Bing will offer demographic targeting

-Number of negative keywords expanded from 250 to thousands per campaign

4. Getting Started with the Transition.

Yahoo and Bing have simplified the process for transitioning to the new alliance. Below, we’ve outlined our recommended steps for advertisers currently advertising on one, both or neither platforms:

Get started with adCenter. If you’re currently only advertising with Yahoo’s Paid Search, it’s advisable to get an adCenter account and learn the ropes of search advertising with MSN as quickly as possible. Launching a few ads with adCenter sooner rather than later ensures you’ll be familiar with the new system before the merger is complete and all your information will need to be transferred to MSN.

Complete the transition. If you already hold an adCenter account in addition to your Yahoo account, it’s important to transition all of your advertising to adCenter soon—once the migration is complete, your ads in Yahoo’s Paid Search system will gradually stop appearing on Yahoo results pages and will be replaced by Bing’s results. A tool to facilitate your transition will be available until January 2011, and adCenter will start delivering paid search results on Yahoo early this fall. Agencies should work with their Yahoo account representatives to ensure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.

Get on Board with Paid Search. If you’re not currently implementing any paid Yahoo or Bing paid search campaigns for your site, now is a great time to get started. The new merger will encompass 30% of the market share—a good enough reason as any to implement paid search with adCenter.

The Yahoo/Bing alliance may cause uneasiness for many managers of SEO and paid search programs, but by following the steps outlined above, you can ensure your program continues to operate normally during and after the transition.

Broad Match Modifiers (BMMs) were released in July 2010 after a successful beta test in the UK and Canada. Broad Match Modifiers are targeting features that provide more specificity than typical broad matches, but are less restrictive than phrase matches. By placing a “+” in front of a word in a broad match keyword or phrase, only a query that includes that keyword (or a close variant) will trigger your ad.

Broad Match Modifiers provide an interesting opportunity for advertisers who traditionally use phrase matching to expand their volume without sacrificing traffic quality as significantly as traditional broad match. Those primarily utilizing broad match in their current campaigns must understand that BMMs will reduce volume if implemented in broad-matched campaigns.  However, they provide an opportunity to increase the relevancy of your advertising without reducing your traffic volume as significantly as phrase matching.

While the additional level of targeting afforded by Broad Match Modifiers is an exciting prospect, it is important to note that this change doesn’t solve an old complaint about broad matching – Google decides what they consider as synonyms and close variants to your target keywords. Therefore, it is still important to monitor search queries and maintain a list of negative keywords to prevent your ad from appearing unnecessarily. A possible solution might be a “modified phrase match”, where each word that makes up the phrase (no synonyms or variants) would have to appear, but allow them to appear in any order. This would afford advertisers with additional/total control while offering an option to increase lead volume.

We recommend testing Broad Match Modifiers in your program, especially in campaigns where the scope needs to be expanded or reduced. Have you started using Broad Match Modifiers in your program? We’d love to hear about any early results!

Although search engines might not directly punish a site if the same exact content is published on multiple URLs, the value of the original content could be diluted. Google states that they do not have a duplicate content penalty; however, if the Web site with the copied content has a higher page ranking than the originating page, then that original site might not appear in a search because Google doesn’t want to have multiple search results with the exact same content.

Google says when it comes across duplicate content they group all the URLs together. They then select what they think is the “best URL” to represent the content in search queries. In our case it is unlikely that the translated blog post ranks above ours for this particular topic, but it is possible for search engines to choose a site with copied material.

Other factors that help search engines determine the originator of the content is by backlinks, post date and respect of the site. A more powerful, respected site is more likely get credit for the content because they are unlikely to copy others.

Here are some ways that you can protect and help prevent your content from getting duplicated.

1. Add a copyright notice at the bottom of all your content and warn that you check for duplicated content
2. Perform internal audits has many Web sites have duplicate content across various pages throughout the site
3. URL canonicalization- have clean URLs

Copyscape is a great tool to use in order find out if any of your content has been copied. It lets you identify sites that have duplicated your content without permission and even shows you who is quoting your site. All you have to do is type your domain into the search box and Copyscape will tell you how many pages have your content on their sites. It will tell you how many exact words are used and the percent of similarity throughout the entire page.

If you discover that your content has been copied you can do a couple of things to resolve the problem. You can contact the person who copied your content and ask them to take it down. If you do not get a response or the person refuses to take it down, you can file a complaint with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). They will assess the situation and send the duplicate site owner a takedown notice.

Has anyone else had issues with their content being duplicated before?

When you search in Google in the old index, you are not searching live on the Web; the results that are returned to you are most likely a couple of days to weeks old.  To better understand how searching works, watch this video: How Search Works

Google’s decision to create Caffeine was due to increased content on the Web. With so many people on the Internet frequently uploading videos, blogs, images, and Web pages they decided it was time for a new system. Google’s last index consisted of several layers, and it took weeks to update them because they would to analyze the entire Web. Caffeine analyzes smaller portions of the Web to continually update the index.

Besides Caffeine’s increased indexing speed, it will also rely more on keywords, and more importance will be place on exact matches in domain names. Another big change is that local results may be detected based on one’s  IP address even if they’re not logged in.

So what does this mean to the average Internet user? If you are searching in Google you will get fresher result and up to date information. If you are a content publisher that updates your site, Twitter, blog, or e-commerce store regularly you should receive improved rankings. This is bad news for those of you who aren’t adding content on a regular basis. You may start to see other sites pass yours in rankings based on the new indexing methods.

If you don’t update frequently, here are some things you can do to your Web site to avoid missing out on the Caffeine rush:

- Get an SEO friendly content management system that will allow for easy updates to your Web site.

- Add a blog to your site about the latest news in your industry and update it regularly.

- Add a link to your Twitter profile to your Web site.

- Post relevant pictures and videos.

- Get others to link to your site

Carrie Grimes, a Google software engineer is confident in the new system and stated “it’s a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and more comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online and delivers even more relevant search results to you.”

Local search allows businesses to leverage their customers’ decisions. When an internet user needs to find an accountant in Des Moines, Iowa they go to their search engine to return results. They type in “Des Moines accountant” and up pops a 7-pack of results which includes businesses’: Web site, phone number, address, reviews, directions, coupons, tags (for less than a dollar a day, businesses can tag their location to stand out), maps, and pictures. Place Pages have an individual dashboard that allows business owners to view information about how many times people have found their business on Google, what keywords are used to find their business, and what areas people traveled from to get to their location.

Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local are the 3 main search engines people use. To create a local listing on each of these sites you will need to have an account log in (ex. Windows Live ID, Google Accounts.) The links below will help you set up your local listing on these 3 main sites.

Google Places: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtFuarYnWqU

Yahoo! Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfgidVap-mM

Bing Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826Xy11H6uw&feature=related

As a business owner there are many advantages of utilizing the local component of search engines, but it’s important that necessary steps are taken to provide a good ranking. Information is drawn from David Mihn’s 2010 Local Search Ranking Factors.

TOP FACTORS TO INCREASING RANKING IN LOCAL SEARCH

1. Claiming your Place Page

Claiming your page is essential for good rankings, however on average only 1 out of 5 businesses have claimed their page. If your page isn’t claimed search engines, like Google, will get information from third party sites, where the information could be incorrect. An unclaimed page also allows anyone to make edits on the page.

A claimed page lets search engines knows they have the most up to date information for the location. It is also vital that information about your business is accurate and consistent among the Major Data Providers (MDP) and search engines.

For example: To see if you have claimed your Place Page, start off by searching your location in Google. If the top right corner of the Place Page says edit this page or business owner, it means you have not claimed your page. If it says owner verified listing, you are good to go. If the page need claiming, then click business owner and it will direct you to log into your Google account and click edit business information. Google will then send letter with a pin and activation instructions.

2. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories

Categories are like keywords, just less specific. It’s important to know what the most commonly searched categories are for your industry. Businesses can now customize categories. This will allow them to differentiate themselves from competitors. Businesses should make sure to use one of Google, Yahoo!, or Bing’s default categories also. This will allow you to pop up with multiple keyword searches.

For example: A pizza joint would want to use the categories of pizza, Italian, restaurant, food, and deep dish.

3. Keyword in Place Page Title and Description

When a customer wants to find information about local upholstery businesses near their home they would type “upholstery” and their zip code. A business with the word “upholstery” in their name is most likely to be one of the first businesses returned because the keyword is in Place Page title.  It is customary that your Place Page title is the actual business name. Some businesses go around this rule and they find themselves booted off local pages for breaking standards. So future business owners, when naming your business incorporate your brand with a keyword.

When writing your 200 character description, it’s important to include keywords that you think your customers are searching. If the Place Page doesn’t have a keyword in it, having keywords in the description will help you rank in a broad range of searches. However, do not over pack the description with keywords cause this can also lead to a search engine dumping your listing.

4. Citations

Citations are listings of your business on third party sites that search engines and MDPs trust. Citations are as important to local search as inbound links are to SEO results. Having many citations is a good thing, but having high quality citations from respected sites is a better way to get indexed faster. What make a strong citation are the trust, age and authority of the Web site containing your information.

Good places for a business to get citations are from their vendors, clients, local charities where they volunteer or donate, partnering companies, and professional organizations. The Web version of the Yellow Pages is also an example of a trusted site that can be used for citations because it is a reputable source for business data.

5. Reviews

Search engines want to know what others are saying about the business. When a business gets reviews, it shows more information in the initial search. A star rating system will also be shown if the business has 5 or more reviews. Reviews are eye candy to customers because customers want know what others experienced with the business, not just what the business has to say about itself. Google and Bing help their listings out by pulling reviews from other sites and posting them to a listing on their respective sites.

The name purposely looks like an official BP account and even has the BP logo (although it is an all black version with splotches on it), but it is actually run by outsiders posing as the BP public relations team who are tweeting satirical comments about the oil spill situation. There is also a hash tag “#bpcares” for others to contribute to their efforts. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing these tweets, here are a few recent ones:

“So YOU want to see pictures of dead animals covered in oil and WE are the bad guys!? Sick bastards. #bpcares”

“Just got 100k followers and our oil is headed to Florida. You know what this means… WE’RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD! #bpcares”

“Utterly confused as to the difference between the dome and the top hat, but barreling forward with it anyhow. #bpcares”

“As part of our continued re-branding effort, we are now referring to the spill as “Shell Oil’s Gulf Coast Disaster”. #bpcares”

You can imagine the effect this could have on unwary tweeters when they come across this account thinking it is actually BP sending these statements. Major crisis right? Perhaps not. BP embraced the account and its purpose, and their spokesperson Toby Odone intelligently responded with “People are entitled to their views on what we’re doing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up.”

They haven’t tried to shut down the account (yet), and instead they emphasized that all of their focus is on fixing the bigger problem as it should be. BP does have its own official twitter account @BP_America, and they are actively sharing updates on their efforts. They are also actively updating their Facebook, Youtube, and Flickr in addition to paying for Google ad space to share what they are doing for the oil spill.

Creating your own content for social media sites is far better strategy than the alternative of trying to shut down the negative comments and user generated comments, especially on a huge scale like this. Other companies have learned the hard way. Nestle took an authoritarian approach to their Facebook page back in March when they were under fire for using palm oil from an Indonesian company that was destroying rainforests (see below) and started deleting user posts.

That gave the already upset Facebookers another reason to dislike them, and Nestle had to apologize for its failing reputation management strategy (hey at least they admitted they were rude, right?). Although BP has and will continue take heat for the oil spill, their decision to let the @BPGlobalPR account stay alive should at least help their critics see that they are understanding. Besides, shutting down one account will only be effective until the next fake account pops up on Twitter or any of the other social media platforms on the Web, and there’s no real way to fully control user generated content. BP is doing the right thing by concentrating on their own efforts for both online reputation management, and for the oil spill.

Hopefully that pays off soon (for everyone sake).

We knew about this acquisition since last November, but the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation over concerns that the deal would give Google too much power in the mobile advertising market.  However, just over a month ago Apple unveiled iAd, its mobile advertising platform, which helped Google’s acquisition process move forward because iAd looks like it will be a solid competitor. After the federal government said the acquistion was approved last Friday (5/21/2010), Google wasted no time in closing the deal.

Google shared some statistics about mobile advertising that shed light on why they were after this deal in the first place. “Over the past two years, Google’s mobile search volumes have grown more than fivefold, at an accelerated pace. In the first three months of 2010, people with smartphones with “full” WebKit browsers (such as the iPhones, Android devices and Palm Pre) searched 62 percent more than they did in the previous three months.”

This definitely looks like another big win for Google. According to Gartner research, worldwide smartphone sales have leaped 49% over last year, and represent 17% of all phones sold. AdMob was one of the first companies to serve ads on the iPhone and Android platforms (close to 30% of  smartphone sales), and they will help Google bring more ads via interactive video ad units and expandable rich media ads to the market.

There’s no doubt mobile advertising will continue to grow as more consumers reach into their pockets to search for their needs instead of their desk, and with this acquisition Google has solidified its role as the advertising and search leader.