Ben Acheson

5 Ways SEO Agencies Use Google Alerts

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 16:07:00 +0000

Google Alerts offer a powerful way to stay up to date with whatever interests you on the web - but they can also be used to uncover valuable SEO opportunities.

Here are the 5 main ways that SEO agencies use Google Alerts to support campaigns and build better client relationships.

1. Link opportunities

New brand mentions can potentially be turned into links.

If somebody mentions a brand or a product then they might be helping their readers by linking to a relevant page. Open a dialogue with the author or publisher and find out what it will take to turn the brand mention into a link.

Mentions of your client's brand name may also reveal newsworthy events or information that could be used for PR purposes to gain additional coverage or to fuel publicity campaigns, generating additional brand mentions to leverage for SEO.

Competitor brand mentions can be used to further expand the pool of potential link opportunities. If a site mentions a competitor then they might also mention your client - and those mentions might be turned into links too.

2. Talking points

By monitoring the web for the latest news about your clients and their competitors, you ensure a steady supply of opportunities to open conversations. Build your client relationships by opening meaningful conversations more regularly. Google Alerts provide a useful reminder service - continually prompting you to get in touch, as well as providing valuable and timely material for discussion.

3. Knowledge

If you know the latest industry news, possibly even before the client knows, then you create opportunities to enhance your knowledge. You can demonstrate your knowledge and interest to the client by opening a discussion about what is relevant to their business right now. Sometimes busy clients forget to tell their agency about something important or newsworthy - and Google Alerts can help you to stay in the loop.

4. Ideas

If competitors are doing something that generates brand mentions then they are probably doing something that could generate links too. Borrow their ideas for publicity stunts, events, sponsorships and other activities that generate brand mentions.

5. Search Operators

Google search operators can be used to create incredibly powerful and targeted alerts that will notify you in specific circumstances - for example, when a brand is mentioned within a particular context, or on a specific domain.

The "link:" operator can even be used to identify new competitor links, in real time.

Understanding how, why and where brand mentions are emerging can generate a wealth of actionable intelligence for SEO campaigns. More than just ripples of text on the surface of the web, brand mentions are often evidence of something interesting that is happening offline.

By their very nature, Google Alerts provide the latest information available on the web. As such they provide opportunities to be the first to know.

Knowledge is power and first-mover advantage can provide a genuine source of competitive advantage. Not just on the web but out in the real world.

4 Reasons Why Google and Facebook Are Dying

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:51:00 +0000

Given Google and Facebook's popularity it may be hard to believe that they will one day become obsolete and forgotten. But nothing lasts forever - and the digital world changes particularly fast.

It's clear to me that Facebook is already peaking and may already be in decline mostly due to simple loss of interest. Google now appears to be approaching to its peak too. After they peak, the demise of both businesses is inevitable - and there are compelling signs that we are already seeing the beginning of the end for both internet giants.

These are four of the main reasons why Google and Facebook are sure die out over the coming years:

1. Consumers abandoning Google and Facebook.

Instead of Googling for answers and products, we're increasingly sourcing them from trusted apps on our mobile devices so that Google is cut out of the picture.

People are already searching for images using Pinterest, rather than Google images and buying on Pinterest will soon be mainstream. That's just one example of major digital players from whom we will buy without using a search engine, let alone Facebook.

Buying on Facebook never really took off and that's surprising because it could have saved Facebook if they had pushed to get it right. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sold of $2.3 billion worth of Facebook shares way back at the end of 2013 which is a strong indicator that the man who knows the most about Facebook may have had his own doubts about its financial future.

Huge numbers of people already begin their buying process on established marketplaces, notably Amazon and eBay. (We've already seen Google take action against eBay and I wouldn't rule out some hostility towards Amazon in the difficult years ahead).

Online shopping will continue to grow. But small, local specialist shops are making a comeback as people seek high service levels as well as bespoke and artisan products and services closer to home.

2. The next generation

Young people don't want to be on Facebook - it's not cool. It's where parents hang out and talk. The next generation of social networkers are opting for newer networks like Instagram.

Meanwhile, new social networks continue to emerge, as new generations of people familiar with social networking become a new wave of social network creators.

It seems certain that we will see an ever-increasing number of social networking platforms, increasing competition for established players like Facebook. In the world of social media all things quickly become boring and are soon forgotten.

As for Google in the social networking scene? Google Plus? Nobody cares. Nobody ever really cared and Google has repeatedly tried and failed to launch a successful social network. They're falling further and further behind in terms of product innovation as far as search and social are concerned.

We're sure to see more search engines in the future too. As yet, Google has not had any serious competition but they are failing to innovate. The basis of Google's search algorithm has barely changed since the search engine was launched. It's still all about links and that's not likely to change for another decade. By then, I predict that it will be too late for Google. A more interesting search solution will have emerged and taken over.

3. Ads

Google have not only failed to innovate radically in their algorithm. They're also failing to innovate as a business, at least in their advertising business, where it really matters.

Nobody wants to see ads everywhere. Especially boring ads. We don't actually need them in search engine results and we certainly don't want to see them interrupting our social conversations. Google's whole purpose is to take other people's content and slap ads on it to make money from the work of others.

Unfortunately, both Google's and Facebook's business models are completely reliant on adverts - and not just adverts but extremely boring adverts because neither Google or Facebook has bothered innovating to produce more compelling advertising solutions. As a business model, plastering ads where people happen to be looking could not be much further from innovation.

In content marketing and even native advertising we're seeing marketing content that people don't mind consuming - because it's compelling, useful or entertaining. Many of the corporate success stories of the 21st century will be the businesses that follow the trend away from advertising and towards content.

(Speaking of native ads, I would not be surprised to see Google penalising those in the future, along with other forms of content that are far superior to what Google offers to brands in its advertising solutions. We've already seen Google talking about devaluing links for infographics - which everybody likes - even though Google always says that producing great content is the right thing to do. Google are hypocrites and the reasons for their hypocrisy are clear. It's not just greed, they're scared. They look ahead and they see the end of the road for their business. Instead of innovating their way out, they lash out. Not just at the competition but at their customers. Businesses. In the form of Google penalties. Nobody ever created long-term success by battling with their customers. Google has got it wrong.

Both Google and Facebook are both still intent upon spamming us with image terrible ads, even plain text ads. In the modern, content-driven era that is simply incredible and inexcusable. It's like a hangover from the web as it was in the 1990s.

Seriously, Google and Facebook, is that really the best you can do? We don't want your boring ads. Nobody does. You've both had the time and resources to come up with something better. You have the best talent but you just haven't bothered to innovate in fundamental ways - because you can make easy money taking people's content and blasting us with boring ads. It's not cool - and it's certainly not nearly as clever or innovative as you both like to appear.

4. Replacements

While Google and Facebook fail to innovate, we're seeing plenty of innovation from emerging rivals. Google's search engine advertising business is being eroded by a range of other research options and Facebook was never viable as a search engine. Now Facebook is being rapidly replaced as a social network too.

A whole raft of apps, including WhatsApp, Snapchat, Pinterest Instagram and others are becoming the social networks of choice for younger users. (It is interesting to note how much digital activity is now focussed around image sharing).

Not too long ago, Myspace was the dominant social network and Yahoo was the dominant search engine. One thing you can be sure of in this industry is change. It's the nature of technology to constantly evolve and online innovation has never been easier.

What will happen?

Google missed its profit estimates in 2014 due to slower than expected growth in advertising. I see that as the beginning of a downward trend in profit growth that will inevitably lead to a decline in profits. It's also interesting and important to note that Google's CPCs are falling. (CPCs are Google's cost per click - the amount of money they make each time somebody clicks on a Google ad. That's the main source of revenue for Google.

But Google will remain dominant until it is replaced by a more interesting solution or a range of alternatives. The Google-killers may already be in the design stage.

While I'm at it, it's also clear to me that Apple's days are numbered. They just sell phones and there are plenty of better smartphones available.

Twitter user numbers are also in decline, for similar reasons. But Twitter its sheer simplicity and usefulness may help insulate it from total disaster. Twitter has also been much less aggressive in its push away from organic business content and towards advertising. That could provide a big advantage. Because Twitter has not yet taken advertising to the extent where it alienates both users and brands. Ad overkill may prove to be the greatest of Facebooks mistakes.

In time, of course (and perhaps more swiftly than we think) all of today's major web giants, including Google and Facebook, will be marginalised and forgotten, as bigger, better and more trendy services chart their own journey to greatness. In time, and in their turn, those newcomers will also begin to fade.

But users won't be adversely affected. There will inevitably be other and better search engines and social networks. Over the course of this century we will see services that we cannot yet imagine.

I find that very exciting.

6 Ways Google Robs SEO to Pay PPC

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:59:00 +0000

If marketing budgets were diverted from SEO to PPC campaigns then Google would make more money - so could that be a secret objective of theirs? Some disturbing signs hint that it may be - and that Google might be using shady tactics to harm SEO campaigns - and ultimately the whole SEO industry - in order to make more money from Adwords.

Google’s advertising business is showing signs of slowing as CPCs decline and market share is lost. Meanwhile, Facebook continues to forge ever-closer ties with Bing - and the combined power and reach of those two online giants poses a serious and growing threat to Google’s dominance of the search market.

That's the motive explained. Here's the means by which Google appears to be assaulting the SEO industry - and the opportunities it may be exploiting in order to do so.

1. Not Provided Keywords

The SEO industry has seen a dramatic rise in traffic from "Not Provided" keywords - a trend that shows no signs of slowing as Google encrypts ever more search queries. If you work in SEO then you'll find this chart all too familiar.

Google claims they encrypt keywords to protect user privacy - but that's just nonsense because they still provide full keyword data via Google Webmaster Tools! The only real difference is that you can't use that data to measure revenue from SEO. That's a very important difference to Google - because they don't make a penny from SEO, only from their paid ads.

Marketers aren't asking for user data - just clean search query data, the same data seen in Webmaster Tools, just linked to transactions and revenue. So what's the problem? Clearly there is no genuine problem - except that Google may not want people to measure the revenue generated by SEO - as opposed to Google Adwords campaigns.

To make matters worse, search share from tablets and smartphones is growing - and Google compells new users of its Android mobile operating system to log in or register. After which, of course, searches are encrypted and hidden from Google Analytics. The next version of Google's web browser, Chrome 25, will encrypt searches by default. Google may be using its growing strength in the mobile and tablet markets to encrypt even more searches.

2. Fewer organic search results

There have been signs that Google also intends to literally reduce the number of organic search results - so that the balance of visible results would shift in favour of Adwords results. This issue has been covered extensively - notably in this article on SEOmoz.

3. Withdrawing Google data from SEO tools

Google has been systematically investigating providers of SEO ranking software - and forcing them to either stop using Google Adwords data or stop tracking rankings. Some, like Raven Tools, were forced to abandon their rank-tracking facilities - and just offer Adwords data instead. So they have changed from SEO tools to Google Adwords tools. Marketers need both sets of information together in order to track SEO campaigns effectively, but Google doesn't seem to want us to track SEO campaigns effectively. only PPC campaigns. This seemingly sinister activity by Google could put some software companies out of business. Not nice.

4. Larger paid results

Adwords ad extensions and experiments are increasingly crowding out the organic results below them. From sitelinks to phone numbers, map links, images, product lists, star ratings and even lead generation forms, these extensions take up more and more space. For some competitive searches only two or three organic results can be seen below the enormous, screen-hogging Adwords ads.

5. Google Shopping has gone - to Adwords

Just to squeeze a little more activity through Adwords, after many years of offering Google Shopping listings for free the platform was shut down - at least for free/organic search results. Effectively Google Shopping has become an extension of Adwords. Anybody sensing desperation here, on the part of Google? It gets worse.

6. More eye-catching Ads

Google further emphasises its bias towards Adwords results by making paid results far more eye-catching than organic results - and not to improve the overall user experience. Just the Adwords user experience.

Google Shopping images are only shown in Adwords results
Star ratings are only shown in Adwords

Google is perfectly capable of displaying product images and star ratings in organic results - indeed, as we have seen, they used to provide free product image ads through Google Shopping, as a separate platform to Adwords. I used to love that about Google. But now those eye-catching, click-through-rate-boosting images are reserved for Google's paying customers. Star ratings have only ever been available in paid ads. That only helps Adwords advertisers - not customers and not Google's users (unless they want to click on a paid ad).

These changes may help Google protect its enormous revenues from paid search - and Google may appear to be in control here. But make no mistake: the brands are in control of the Adwords revenue and they can take it away.

More important, though, is the fact that we the people are in charge of the internet. We decide what succeeds and what fails by making our choice. In the long-term, in my view, these changes will alienate brands and customers alike, leaving Google isolated.

The original Google concept was to give people the best possible search results. That's what people want, not the highest bidder, not intrusive ads. There's the inevitable tension between commercial interests and people. But if history reveals one thing it is that, in the end, the people always win.

Search results dominated by expensive, eye-catching paid results from the biggest brands may crowd out small sellers and prevent new businesses from entering the market. That will only harm the market.

Google is doing things that are bad for most businesses who can't compete with brands. It is doing things that are bad for users, which can only lead to a decline in Google's popularity.

Google knows that competitors like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple are poised to exploit Google's weaknesses over the next few years. Google may look unbeatable right now - but if there's one thing that characterises technology, business and the web, it is constant change.

I smell change in the wind. Change for Google. Change for the search market. And change for the web.

Change for the better perhaps.

How I became a dmoz.org editor and got a site listed

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:21:00 +0000

Becoming an editor of the Open Directory at dmoz.org

I was recently accepted as an editor of the ODP (Open Directory Project) at dmoz.org. Given the significance of the directory, its historical connection with Google, and its prominence in SEO discussion, I want to share my experience to help others understand the project better. I don't speak for the ODP. This is very much a personal article about my own experiences.

First, I must warn that if you're looking for a way to trick the ODP into admitting you as an editor in order for you to disadvantage competitors, or to list spammy websites, then you're wasting your time. The editor of a given category does not have the final say over what is listed there, or the manner in which each site is listed. There are strict rules and the editing history of the directory is scrutinised by a huge network of editors whose powers increase up the hierarchy. They are a very active and very experienced body of people and they do not tolerate abuse. The directory is under constant, human review. That's what makes it so special.

If you take anything away from reading about my experience then it should be these points:

If you have expertise in a particular niche and are prepared to help the ODP establish a definitive, high quality category in that niche then there might just be a place for you as an editor.

If you have a good site in that niche then you may even be able to get it listed very quickly - by approving it yourself as an editor of the category.

If your only interest in dmoz.org is to get sites listed for you or your clients, or to try to disadvantage your competitors, then you will fail because other editors will undo your work. Don't waste your time.

Having been in digital marketing for many years, for me becoming a small part of dmoz was like being admitted into the mysterious inner sanctum of the internet. I had never tried applying before - I thought there was no point: surely they wouldn't accept me, because I'm a digital marketer with possible vested interests. (Even if they did accept me they surely wouldn't let me submit a site I had any affiliation with. Wouldn't that be some sort of conflict of interest?)

But over time my attitude towards dmoz was transformed and I think it was that transformation that helped me succeed in becoming an editor. Having spent a lot of time exploring certain categories in the Open Directory, it became clear to me that it was by no means definitive. Dmoz.org was not perfect. Some of the sites in the categories I'm interested in no longer existed on the internet. At the same time, some of the latest, most relevant and useful sites weren't yet included.

Something was missing. The ODP needed help. They needed somebody who knew what made a good website in those categories. They needed somebody who cared about the quality of websites about those subjects. They needed me!

I applied to become a category editor, disclosing my affiliation to a website in that category. Within a few days I was accepted as an editor and the site I disclosed and submitted was there waiting for me to list it in the directory. I call that a good user experience provided by dmoz.org - but particularly so when compared to the experience of people with more selfish motives, whose subconscious line of thought probably goes something like this:

I want this site listed. I haven't bothered to try to make it useful for people - in fact it's just a mirror site stuffed with ads. But here's the site - along with a spammy, keyword-stuffed title and description. I haven't bothered to look at what makes a good listing either. Just list it.

"Become an Editor"? Why would I do that - except to get this site listed? I don't care what's in the directory - just list this site now. If it's not listed by tomorrow I'll probably try submitting it another few times.

This is hardly quid pro quo. There's no give and take in that approach and so it's less likely to benefit anybody.

Getting your site listed on dmoz.org

Most people have a topic they're passionate about and that they have some expertise in. Whatever yours is, you're no doubt eminently familiar with the best websites on your subject. In fact you probably operate or are affiliated with at least one of those sites in some way. As an enthusiast, like me you care about the information and resources that are available to other enthusiasts. You would not recommend a bad, spammy website about your passionate interests to another enthusiast. So hopefully you wouldn't want to try to use the ODP to unfairly favour a pointless site in search results - right?

Blogs and forums are awash with complaints about how long it takes to get a site listed on dmoz. But the reason it sometimes takes so long to get a site listed may be largely due to volume. There are a huge queue of worthwhile sites waiting to get listed. The queue of poor sites submitted by spammers is at least as large. Somebody has to go through all those sites. That's a big job and the ODP needs help from people who can recognise a good site in the context of its niche.

At the bottom of most categories there is a link that says, "Become an editor". That's because the ODP needs more editors. If you have an area of expertise and an interest in building a really good directory then that could mean you.

Which category should you edit?

The most important consideration is which category you have the most expertise in. But you won't get accepted as an editor of a huge, high level category right away. First you need to prove your expertise and good intent by editing some of the smallest categories in the directory. So rather than editing Regional : UK you should be looking to start with something like Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: England: Hertfordshire: Arts and Entertainment.

Dmoz editors are actively looking for good websites about their subject category. I've seen several websites get listed on dmoz without anybody even submitting them. The editor knew their category and found the site themselves.

So the first and most important thing you can do to get your site into dmoz.org - and keep it there - is to aim to build one of the best websites in your niche, with unique content and resources that are of value to people interested in the topic. (Follow that up by promoting it in all the usual ways).

If the "build quality content" approach sounds familiar perhaps that's because the pursuit of quality, relevant, original content is also the only sustainable approach to search engine optimisation and other digital marketing campaigns. The bottom line is that quality content makes it easier for you to get links - including a link from dmoz.org.

How important is a listing on dmoz.org?

Maybe not as important as you think and not as important as it used to be. Not every dmoz listing has value and some are more beneficial than others. But obtaining a listing is potentially very important. In many cases it is the most important link you can get. Your competirors may have a link there already, constituting a potential advantage to them. And if they haven't got a link there yet, you need to assume they will do. So it must be your goal to build a site worthy of a listing on dmoz.org, and to get it submitted or noticed by an editor and listed. (A dmoz.org listing may be particularly beneficial to young websites that have yet to attract other good inbound links.)

Here are two good reasons why a link on dmoz.org is likely to be a good link:
1. A listing on dmoz.org means a link from a page on that domain and dmoz.org has enormous authority in its own right. The dmoz.org index page has a page authority of 94 out of 100. That's like saying it has a Google PageRank of around 9 or 10. Domain authority is also 94/100. There are almost 50,000 domains linking to dmoz.org - with more than 1.5 million links.

2. As mentioned above, ODP listings include anchor text - potentially including relevant keywords (usually the real title of the site). The site description also helps search engines determine the keywords that are relevant to your site, although to a lesser extent.

The Open Directory Project draws a lot of negative comments. But before you evaluate what dmoz.org has done for you, ask yourself what you have done for dmoz.org. Have you submitted only the best websites and taken care to find the most relevant category? If you're so unhappy with the directory then why don't you make a genuine attempt to make it a better place by applying to become an editor - working in the interests of the directory and users of the internet, rather than just your own interests?

If you can contribute positively to the ODP in the spirit of quality, pride and teamwork, then you might just get more back than just having your site listed. You could take pride in helping to build the world's largest and arguably most important online directory. And you get to help other people who care about your interests to find the best websites when they search using Google and other search engines. Because - rightly - the Open Directory can have a significant impact on search results.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

A Royal Twitter Marketing Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:13:00 +0000

Amid the buzz surrounding the royal wedding on 29th April, marketers at one brand - Slim-Fast - saw a huge opportunity. They sponsored the #RoyalWedding hashtag on Twitter, hoping to ride on the wave of interest generated by an event watched by billions around the world.

Twitter was awash with hype. The expected web traffic rush threatened to crash Twitter - perhaps even the whole internet.

No doubt the royal wedding hashtag received many millions of views, from people all over the world. In addition to targeting royal wedding watchers, the hashtag trended worldwide on Twitter and was thus potentially visible to all of Twitter's vast user-base.

At face-value this may seem like marketing genius. It is certainly an ingenious example of marketing opportunism.

But exposure does not equal engagement, or increased brand awareness - let alone increased revenues.

A major objective of sponsoring #RoyalWedding must have been to increase the brand's followers substantially. It failed. By 3rd May, including the whole extended holiday weekend, Slimfast won only 336 new followers - out of all the millions of people who must have been exposed to the campaign. This is an extremely poor result and no doubt represents extremely poor return on investment compared to more effective use of Twitter or other digital channels.

Digital medium. Ancient marketing model

So this bad marketing. But in particular, it represents a good case study in bad digital marketing tactics. social media channels enable precision-targeting. They enable marketers to reach out to customers with totally relevant messages, designed to appeal precisely to them, at exactly the moment when they might be interested in hearing them. Effective digital campaigns target tightly-defined market segments, usually with very measurable ROI. (In the case of Slim-fast, the market would no doubt be people who want to lose weight with minimum effort.)

Mass-marketing: not precision-targeting

Twitter in particular enables marketers to connect with customers in exactly this way - with precision. And engagement. Because, even more powerfully, it is an open channel for customers to reach out to brands. On the customer's terms. Social media marketing should put people back at the heart of marketing.

Slim-fast's ploy ignores all the new human-to-human power at marketers' fingertips. Sponsoring a busy Twitter hashtag is the digital marketing equivalent of placing a billboard at a busy road junction. It's mass-marketing, not digital marketing. It's random, not targeted, and it's not welcomed by the vast majority of recipients.

No doubt, in reaching millions of Twitter users, this brand also chanced to reach many thousands of people who might potentially be interested in their product. But they missed whole point of digital marketing!

More BOOM for your buck

To use a military analogy, Slim-fast's mass-marketing broadcast approach to social media is the digital marketing equivalent of using a nuclear missile to sink just one ship.

Sure, you'll sink the ship. But you'll also waste a lot of energy flattening the rest of the fleet! Why not use all the power, all the potential of social media channels, to do what smart digital marketers are doing: engaging effectively with their target audience.

Just as a nuclear power station harnesses enormous power of the atom to supply millions of homes and businesses with energy, marketers can harness digital marketing to engage with millions of interested customers.

Don't just blast people with broadcast marketing over social media. You can still waste your budget doing that with traditional channels.

Social media is supposed to be friendly. Personal... social. It's not a marketing mouthpiece and traditional marketing activity is not usually welcomed in the social space.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Four Reasons to Build "Nofollow" Links

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Are you passing up powerful link-building opportunities? Do you get that sinking feeling when you see rel="nofollow" in the HTML of pages you invested valuable time into identifying? Do you think "nofollow" links have no SEO value? If so, think again. Nofollow links absolutely do have value. And not just SEO value. Effective link building campaigns should integrate with other elements of your digital and traditional marketing strategy. Here are four good reasons why...

1. Users follow links too

You should always build links for people - not search engines. Search engines just try to determine what is best for people. So everything you do should be aimed at people too. Ranking algorithms change, but the fundamental principle of "what's best for the user" will always endure. Search engines will get better at determining what's best for users. So if your link-building campaign is only good for SEO then it is not effective now and it is likely to become less effective as search engines evolve. Any opportunity to share your link with an interested person is good news. If your link building strategy is properly formulated then your links will naturally end up in front of real people who are interested in the topic of your website's content.

2. Social linksThis is my favourite use for nofollow links, and it is potentially worth more than any SEO value that might be gained from a followed link. If you find a great place to build a link but it turns out to be "nofollow", why not link to a good piece of social media real estate, such as your Twitter feed, instead? Social media is shareable and has viral potential. Tap into the networks of all the real people who your link building campaign should be targeting. A social link can prove many times more effective at achieving your business objectives than a followed link. What's more, search engines are increasingly looking to social signals to replace links as the primary ranking signals. In the meantime, if your tweets or social content are shared by a large number of users, it is highly likely that there will be a significant impact on search. AsSEOmoz found, Social affects search.

Social link opportunities highlight the need for an integrated digital marketing strategy. No digital or traditional marketing discipline should work in isolation: each strategy can and should support and feed the others and this is particularly true online. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how everything about your strategy should be natural, organic, human and connected. That leads us neatly into the next reason:

3. Natural is best
Search engines look for a natural balance of links. If your links are all followed then that looks odd - and potentially suspicious. A healthy link portfolio should include nofollow links. (It could be argued that as good, followed links become harder to get, new websites should have a greater proportion of nofollow links).

4. Some "nofollow" links are followed
In some circumstances "nofollow" links can actually yield direct SEO link equity - passing authority and indicating keyword context, just like a followed link. Google tries to downplay this, but there are many cases of nofollow links yielding SEO value.

So there is no good reason to avoid nofollow links. They are a natural, beneficial part of your online environment and should play a considered role in your comprehensive, cross-discipline marketing strategy.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Ten Top Tips for Twitter Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:43:00 +0000

1. Engage: Follow relevant influencers, and foster the influencers of the future. Don't just follow or engage with people because they have a lot of followers. Follow those whose tweets are compelling to you - and to other like minded people. A high number of followers may indicate a source of tweets that are compelling to others. The higher the number of people they are following, the less this is true. If somebody follows 10,000 and is followed by 10,000 that doesn't really mean anything.) Engage honestly. If you like a tweet, retweet it. But also follow less influential people. Learn from them and help them to grow.

2. Quality, not quantity of followees and followers. Don't seek large numbers of poor quality, irrelevant followers. Only follow people you're proud to follow. Be patient: you can easily get thousands of poor quality, disinterested followers in a short space of time, but you will achieve nothing.

3. Don't tweet too much. Or too often. That might sound counter-intuitive - you do need to tweet frequent, compelling content in order to build a high quality following. But as is true in life generally, if you haven't got something worthwhile, then say nothing. Don't tweet more than three times within the space of 30 seconds, or you'll clog up your followers' feeds and that's annoying. If every other tweet in their feed is yours, because you tweet so often, that also alienates followers - and do you really have that many interesting things to say? These are among the most common reasons people stop following you. But this is another commandment that applies less to very popular people such as celebrities. If people really do hunger for every word then tweet as much as you like about anything.

4. Tweet with the aim of exciting, inspiring and entertaining like minded people. If most of your followers know you, or are a fan of yours, it's just possible they'll find even your most trivial updates worth reading. If not, then don't bore the majority of them with what you had for breakfast.

5. Don't follow just to get followed back. It's unreliable, unsustainable, and selfish. In Twitter, as in life, you generally get back as much as you put in, and reap what you sow. No more, no less.

6. If you wish to honour the author, "Retweet" using the Retweet button.

7. Use "RT @" to build your own Twitter greatness - stand upon the shoulders of giants. But sometimes its nice to honour the original author. Hence you should use number the Retweet button generously.

8. Only retweet what you find compelling. Don't Retweet or "RT" trivia just to flatter the influencer who tweeted it - you'll only bore your own followers.

9. Check Top Tweets and retweet compelling content. The masses have spoken.

10. Be relevant. Focus on your subject - especially if your aim is to build your authority in one particular specialism. Don't use #tags for promotional purposes - use them only to share information with people interested in a topic. Don't dilute your Twitter stream with too much distraction and irrelevance: if you want to tweet on a wide range of unrelated subjects - such as social media and sport - set up two topical profiles. Most Sport fans don't care about social media marketing. Your Twitter feed should be part of your personal marketing campaign. It should be targeted.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

7 Social Media Strategy Questions Answered

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:38:00 +0000

Answers to the top seven social media strategy questions

(Read my interview with Viewsline.)

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson http://blog.benacheson.com

Digital Marketing in the Public Sector and Military

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:39:00 +0000

Digital marketing is firmly established as a powerful toolkit for communication and engagement - helping business organisations and charities to increase profits or raise funds faster, more efficiently and more effectively. But what of digital marketing benefits to front-line, publicly funded organisations - such as law enforcement, the emergency services, local government, or even the military?

The commercial benefits of digital marketing are well documented. Smart businesses and charities are already using search engine optimisation and search marketing to reach buyers and donors at the instant in which the buyer seeks what the organisation has to offer. The trend towards digital is delivering significantly increased return on investment in marketing, as costs are reduced while conversion rates are increased.

But some front-line public organisations have only recently begun to experiment with digital marketing tactics - although their efforts have been extremely successful.

Examples
Greater Manchester Police launched a Twitter micro-blog feed: @gmpolice. Their tweets raise the profile of their work, whilst helping them to engage with the people they serve. Twitter also enables them to highlight the trivial incidents people report, potentially reducing time wasted in logging and responding to them. And faced with a major incident GM Police could potentially use Twitter to deliver vital information to people who need it.

@gmpolice has more than 18,000 followers - with a followers-to-following ratio of around 100:1.

The celebrity-publicised #SerenaBeakhurst Twitter campaign to find the missing London teenager received an overwhelming response - and found her!

A police Facebook campaign to find the killer of Joanna Yates received more than 63,000 views and generated many new leads, while on Twitter the topic #JoannaYeates received a similar number of tweets within the first day. CCTV footage on YouTube received over 70,000 views.

(Even the much maligned police force of China's usually insular regime is embracing social media engagement!)
What next?

The UK stories, at least, tell of highly successful digital marketing campaigns by any standards. Such dramatic social media success begs the question: what next? Where do they go from here?

More specifically, should they be thinking in terms of broader digital marketing strategy? Could there be a role for other digital marketing tactics in the front-line public sector? Might digital channels and social media even have a place within the military? I really think so. (Social media could be used to counter disinformation deploy propaganda for example, or even to raise a groundswell of support for a revolution or coup d'état to depose a genuinely dangerous regime with minimum bloodshed.)

At this point we are mainly seeing isolated tactical campaigns. The next logical iteration is for front-line public organisations to adopt a strategic approach to digital marketing - to develop integrated marketing and communication strategies with a digital backbone. Given the proven power and cost-effectiveness of digital media campaigns, this progression seems inevitable. And in difficult economic times, when budgets are under pressure, digital marketing in general - and social media in particular - has the potential to cut costs dramatically - enabling officials with an important message to reach out to huge numbers of people - for free.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Social Media: Building a Better World with CSR

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:48:00 +0000

CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is the idea of organisations taking responsibility for their social and environmental impacts. If taken seriously and implemented properly into corporate strategy, that has to be a good thing for everybody.

But to many organisations taking responsibility appears to be merely a PR exercise, an empty and cynical attempt to attract media coverage, reassure investors, and win business. according to Corporatewatch.org, "CSR is a strategy for avoiding regulation... [and] is a corporate reaction to public mistrust..."

But what if organisations were completely transparent, whether they liked it or not? What if corporate whistle blowers were able to report malpractice to the world in seconds? What if brands were completely at the mercy of all their stakeholders, who were free to criticise the organisation or find out what it was really up to?
Welcome to the world of Social Media - the age of social media transparency is already here. Organisations beware.

It seems inevitable that organisations will grow increasingly conscious of their negative social media profile, and how little control they have over it (as Nestlé discovered to their cost!) Social media awareness increasing within the business world. The use of social media monitoring is increasing, as is CRM platform integration.

Social media activity is increasingly visible to executives and many are likely to be horrified at seeing their brands debated and criticised online, not just within their web and social media assets, but in blogs, forums and social networking sites all over the internet.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

QR Codes: Marketing, Communication and Business uses

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:35:00 +0000

The black and white patterned image on the right is a QR code - this one is made with the URL of my website benacheson.com.

If you have a phone or other enabled device, you can scan or photograph this image from your computer screen to your device. It will take you to my website.

QR codes (Quick Response codes) are like bar-codes for the web: they can be read instantly by devices including mobile phones with an in-built camera or bar-code scanner (so-called "mobile tagging").

Rather than product data, QR codes deliver text-based messages - which can include an active URL or hyperlink. That means users can choose to receive your message, in seconds, wherever they are. You can take them to your website, or even a specific page on your website or elsewhere on the web.

That's very powerful. It means you can deliver almost unlimited amounts of information to users on demand. That has some interesting implications for marketing and communication in business.

You can generate your own QR codes in seconds too. There are plenty of websites with free QR code generators.

Because QR codes are still novel, it is quite easy to get users to play with them. They're curiousities. They're almost like a secret symbol. The less information you give about the information on offer the better in many cases. Make people hungry for more and they will scan and have your messages delivered to them.

Examples of business and marketing uses for QR codes

Marketing

Direct mail: why not send direct mail using QR codes? Rather than reading and typing in your URL manually, or searching for your product or information, customers can use your QR code like a real-world hyperlink. Just as they might click a link on your email or web page, they can scan the QR code to access your information.

Interactive outdoor advertising: imagine a huge traditional billboard poster in a busy public place. It is designed to draw people closer. Perhaps it's just your logo, with a gigantic arrow pointing to the bottom corner and perhaps a brief message inviting users to scan a small QR code at an accessible height. You could even display a row of them, one for each persona, product, market segment or industry.

Charities: you could use QR codes instead of collection buckets, to take donors to information about their work - and even a payment page. Rather than have pushy salespeople stopping commuters in the street, why not send out teams of people with QR-code printed t-shirts and baseball caps, asking people to, "scan me!" Let users opt in and donate or buy privately on their smartphone. This sort of new and still radical approach could work equally well for product marketers.

Product information
A store, even a market stall, could use QR codes on its products, to take users straight to a page on a website, with detailed product information - far more than could ever be displayed on the packaging or even in the store environment of most products, such as:

Text information about the product
Photos
Video/audio (for example how to use the product)
ingredients
Health and safety information
Environmental information
User generated content including reviews and ratings.
(Can you think of anything else?)
This could mean product packaging might be produced more cheaply, with less text and images. It certainly means that much more information is available to the customer at the point of sale. (Sellers might even consider providing readers to their customers).

Business information and internal communication
Why not leave QR codes around the office at points where people might want information?

Here's how to use the photocopier.
Welcome to reception - scan here to find out more about our company.
Scan the QR code on sombody's desk to find out their name, role, interests, social and professional networking pages.

These are just a few examples. Creative marketers and communicators will no doubt dream up plenty of other and better applications for QR codes.
I recommend applying them to your marketing campaigns as early as possible - before the novelty wears off. When that happens, they will still have their uses, but without the initial novelty and mistique the response to QR code marketing will be much weaker. As with all marketing trends, businesses should aim to lead the way and move away from the latest fad before it becomes passé.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Digital marketing with pin-point precision

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:23:00 +0000

Digital marketers at Starbucks are pin-pointing mobile phone customers with highly targeted, highly relevant and compelling marketing messages, to which the user can respond and buy with almost no effort at all:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/brandrepublicnewsbulletin/article/1035146/starbucks-trials-new-o2-location-based-mobile-marketing-service/

This is a good example of how technology enables digital marketers to target customers with pin-point accuracy and relevance, delivering precisely the right message to precisely the right people, at precisely the right time.

Traditional marketing campaigns waste effort and can alienate people, especially if they target people who have not opted in. In this example not only has the customer opted in, but they're actually walking past Starbucks or even inside the venue, and can get a discounted coffee by taking a couple of steps out of their way.

Everybody wins when digital marketing campaign is properly planned and deployed, with the user at its heart. Online campaigns can be even more user-tailored, and even more powerful.

Welcome to the future of marketing. Are you part of it? Or are you still spamming random people with unwanted messages, intruding on their private lives and repeating dull messages to them everywhere they go? Tomorrow's outdoor advertising posters will display exactly what the viewer was already looking for, when they were looking for it, in a place they can get it. (And give them a discount).

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

The best viral ad yet? Tipp-Ex

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:49:00 +0000

Take a look at this viral video advert from Tipp-Ex:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience

Enter a word of your choice. Then try another.

It's more fun if you try to think of a word yourself.

But if you can't think of any more words, there are some examples below...
tipp-ex
eats
drinks
football
laugh
rescue
cook
wrestle
fishing
smokes
dances
asses
plays
jumps
love
tickles
feeds
drunk
prays
marries
buys
becomes
photographs
sings
hugs
strikes
404
cuts
cares
brushes
hangs
listens
listens to
sleeps
shakes hands
high fives
watches tv
bitten by
paints
funk
circus
burps
phones
music
games
riding
shopping
house
kisses
cleans
hates
drives
finds
michael jackson

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Ad for TV ads backfires - showcasing internet ads

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 06:18:00 +0000

The UK's official TV advertising body Thinkbox has made a big mistake, showcasing how viral internet marketing is far more effective than TV advertising.

That's partly because it has the potential to reach unlimited numbers of people and distribution can continue long after the investment is made.

Unfortunately for the TV advertising industry, internet advertising is much cheaper than TV advertising too.

As a result, TV and other traditional forms of marketing are losing business to the vibrant, emerging digital marketing industry. I suspect this is why the TV advertising industry - represented by Thinkbox - is investing in advertising itself.

(Interestingly, Thinkbox is also investing in a digital marketing campaign, complete with social media (Twitter) and a blog.)

Thinkbox's mistake was to run a TV ad about a rescue dog called Harvey, who uses TV advertising to secure new owners:
http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1339

But the video went viral, reaching far more people than the TV campaign ever could. Many internet users uploaded the video to YouTube, where it has been viewed millions of times (and counting):

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvey+dog+thinkbox

One upload alone had received around 350,000 views by the date of this post, 22nd September 2010, only a few days after the video was first published.
The mainstream media also picked up the story. It was covered in one of the UK's leading newspapers the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2010/sep/08/dog-sells-tv-advertising
The Guardian story further promotes the video and comes complete with a valuable link to the Thinkbox website. This is another example of the importance of using SEO in traditional media campaigns. The Guardian story was shared via Twitter and Facebook many times, using the social media widget on the story's web page.

So the advert was a great success. But its success was viral, highlighting the fact that the product being advertised - TV advertising - is much less effective than internet advertising - which is also a far less costly medium.
No doubt the advert's viral success was helped by the TV campaign. But many other internet-only viral successes have shown that you don't need an expensive TV ad campaign in order to go viral.

Not long ago I blogged about the nonsensical claim, in the Chartered Institute of Marketing's magazine The Marketer, that viral advertising is "over" as an effective marketing medium.

Now Thinkbox is "the television marketing body for the main UK commercial broadcasters - Channel 4, Five, GMTV, ITV, Sky Media, Turner Media Innovations..." and others. Thinkbox has shown that digital marketing is much more effective than traditional marketing.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Why Don't SEOs' Websites Rank 1st in Google?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:16:00 +0000

Why Don't SEOs' Websites Rank 1st in Google?

Shouldn't every SEO website have Toolbar PR9 and rank 1st for the word 'SEO'?

After watching this video on SEOmoz It occurred to me that I don't bother much with SEO for my own website - mainly because my name, Ben Acheson, is quite unusual. It's actually quite easy for me to rank for my own name. So what about other, better known SEOs?

I think the best SEOs in the world - and certainly the best known - are Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz) and Aaron Wall (SEObook). So I had a look at the search engine optimisation o their personal websites.

I was really quite surprised to note that Rand's own website randz.net is PR4 in Google's toolbar pagerank. He's the best in the world, right?

Aaron Wall's website aaronwall.com is the same. Toolbar PageRank 4.

Neither website ranks #1 in Google even for their own names, in spite of the name keyword elements being in the domains.

In my opinion these are the best two SEOs in the world. So why aren't they drowning in link juice and ranking #1 for "SEO", let alone their own names?!

I think in the case of Rand and Aaron it must be partly because their efforts go into SEO for their business websites, SEOmoz and SEObook. This hypothesis is supported by the business websites outranking them for their own names.

Another explanation is that busy, world-leading SEOs are naturally much more interested in working on behalf of their top clients, rather than for themselves personally.

But I think it is likely that like me many SEOs just don't bother investing a lot of time into optimising their own personal web presence. Why would they? Where is ROI?

Of course PR4 is really good for any website. And I suspect that both Rand and Aaron have achieved their good PageRank values organically - because I suspect that they have not actively pursued SEO campaigns for those domains.

So perhaps these websites could be held up as examples of really healthy, organically optimised websites. I think this is an interesting thought.

I would be very interested to hear anybody's thoughts - especially any SEOs - and most of all I would really welcome Rand or Aaron's thoughts on this.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

The best websites about Digital Marketing and SEO.

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:39:00 +0000

I wanted to share a list of my favourite websites and tools related to digital marketing and SEO. I hope you like these - let me know...

SEO tools

Google traffic estimator
https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox

Google keyword tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Open Site Explorer from SEOmoz.org
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

HTML markup validator from W3C
http://validator.w3.org/

LDA keyword tool from SEOmoz
http://www.seomoz.org/labs/lda

Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends

Google ad planner
https://www.google.com/adplanner

Backlink anchor text analysis tool
http://webconfs.com/anchor-text-analysis.php

Bad neighbourhood link analysis tool
http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm

Trustrank checker
http://checktrustrank.com/

Link analysis tool
http://seo-forensics.com/cgi-bin/bl.pl

Keyword difficulty tool
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/

Yahoo site explorer
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Google website optimiser (A/B multi-variant testing)
http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Google penalty checker
http://tools.seomoves.org/penaltychecker/

Other tools from SEOmoves.org
http://tools.seomoves.org/

SEO news and informationSEOmoz blog
http://www.seomoz.org/blog

New Media Age
http://www.nma.co.uk/channels/search/

Helium.com
http://www.helium.com/channels/317-Website-Marketing-SEO

Visibility Magazine
http://www.visibilitymagazine.com/

Digital marketing news and informationBrand Republic
http://www.brandrepublic.com/go/digital_marketing/

New Media Age
http://www.nma.co.uk/channels/social-media/

What are your favourite digital marketing and SEO websites? Do you know of any more? Please let me know?

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

SEO is key to PR and all corporate communications

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:07:00 +0000

PR can have a significant impact on digital marketing and SEO. Indeed the marketing and SEO benefits of a press release can far outweigh and outlast the immediate PR benefits.

The digital marketing and SEO effects can reach an unlimited number of target customers. They can last for months and years after publication - indeed the benefits can increase over time, as inbound links to the article accumulate, building link equity. This link equity can benefit relevant web pages that are linked to by an article.

Corporate communications and PR can benefit digital marketing in three main ways...

The three principles of SEO in corporate communications:

1) Favouring publishers who are more likely to link

2) Using important SEO key words and phases in all communication

3) Providing helpful, relevant links for inclusion

Virtually all press releases end up online, on media websites and blogs, if they are carried at all. And many PR-driven stories and blog posts are accompanied by a link to the company's website. Those links can be are good for SEO because they help users and search engines find relevant content on your website.

This is not limited to formal press releases. Even the spoken words of a spokesperson, whether at a press conference or in a telephone conversation to a journalist, blogger or other publisher, may be quoted in an article that links to their company's website. So all communications should employ the three principles above.

Let's not forget that links should be built for users, not search engines. SEO should be a natural by-product of your other activities. Your customers may well find articles about you using your chosen keywords - and follow links to your website from there. Search engines will too.

Examples of PR with links

Below is an example of a BBC article about HSBC. Notice that there is a link to HSBC's website at the bottom, for users and search engines to follow:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11174953

In this example, not only has this blog picked up on Vodafone's news from the Vodafone website: the blogger actually deep-links to a relevant page on Vodafone's online shop:

http://www.eurodroid.com/2010/09/vodafone-lists-the-samsung-galaxy-tab/

Here's an example of an executive's spoken words appearing in a news story - complete with link to Apple:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11152605

(The BBC led the way with relevant corporate links on news stories (PR-driven and otherwise). I see this becoming increasingly popular as mainstream media organisations rush to become more like bloggers in order to stay relevant, and indeed for their very survival.)

Here is CNET picking up an Apple press release - complete with a deep link to the press release itself on the Apple website;

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20015252-37.html

Here is a valuable deep link from a Sky News article directly to the product page on Samsung's website:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/IFA-Technology-Fair-In-Berlin-Samsung-Tablet-Rival-To-The-Apple-iPad-Unveiled/Article/201009115711392?lpos=Business_Second_Buisness_Article_Teaser_Region____3&lid=ARTICLE_15711392_IFA_Technology_Fair_In_Berlin%3A_Samsung_Tablet%2C_Rival_To_The_Apple_iPad%2C_Unveiled

And here there is a deep link to a relevant page on Illumitex.com right in the first paragraph:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2010/07/at_the_2010_lightfair_trade.html

This is what links are for! Relevant links are helpful to readers. If you help journalists and bloggers by providing relevant (and keyword-relevant) content then they may well link to that in their work. Almost any link - especially a keyword relevant link to a relevant page, is good news. But there are many things that can improve the quality of a link. So SEO and digital marketing strategy really needs to feed into PR and all corporate communications.

Relevant links are good news for:

1) Users, who get to follow those links to your relevant content.

2) Search engines, which are better able to judge the importance and keyword relevance of your content.
3) Your sales, conversions and goals. When your target audience follows links to your web pages - from search engines, blog posts and news articles - your digital marketing strategy is a success.

If target keywords get into articles with links, that can be beneficial. So providing helpful, relevant information to journalists and bloggers - and building good relationships with them - can increase the chances of getting quality links and preferred keywords into their work.

So I suggest it is extremely important that SEO is considered in all corporate communications. If your communications are not SEO-friendly then opportunities will be missed. If your competitors seize those opportunities then your organisation may fail to achieve its goals.

Mainstream media is becoming more like blog-like. Most news websites have blogs, which are increasingly integrated with their news content. And I see a growing trend towards linking. That is what the internet is all about.

Not all websites provide links to relevant company websites. So for SEO purposes I recommend giving priority to publishers that do. Favouring publishers that give you the best links is likely to encourage all publishers who want your news to link to you in their content.

If your organisation is very newsworthy, and as more organisations favour SEO-friendly publishers, the trend towards quality linking in news articles and blog posts will continue to accelerate.

I do not recommend paying for links in any form, because Google does not approve of that and it could harm your SEO campaign if you are caught. But building good relationships with journalists and bloggers and giving them helpful information to work with may increase the chance of getting a link, or increase the quality of the link. Helpful information can include keyword-rich quotes, and relevant links for publishers to include.

Users and search engines will want to be able to follow relevant links from web content to other web content. Sites that fail to cater for this internet fundamental do not support the browsing experience that the web is founded on. They will be made obsolete by more web-centric competitors.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

301 Redirects for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:01:00 +0000

301 Redirects for Search Engine Optimisation

A 301 redirect (permanent server redirect) is used to redirect visitors from one URL to another on a permanent basis. You are about to learn how to implement it. The 301 redirect is an important tool for SEO (search engine optimisation) and online marketing generally, for a number of reasons:

1) If there are valuable inbound links, the Pagerank, link value, link equity or link juice built up for the old page will be passed to the new page so it enjoys the same level of importance or authority in search engine results. (It can take a while for Pagerank to pass to the new page so plan ahead).

2) People following existing inbound links from other websites will automatically be redirected to the new page. People finding your page through a search engine will also be redirected to the new page.

3) Users may visit an old URL directly because they remember it, or because it is in their favourites or browsing history.

4) A 301 redirect can also be used to shorten all your URLs sitewide, from www.yourdomain.com to just yourdomain.com - this makes your URL quicker to read and easier to remember. It also means less characters are used when posting the URL in Twitter, or anywhere you only have a limited number of characters. If your domain starts with a relevant keyword, dropping the unnecessary and irrelevant 'www.' may be even more beneficial for SEO.

First, find out if your website is hosted on Microsoft or Apache server. enter your domain name (e.g. 'yourdomain.com') into this free lookup tool:
http://www.hscripts.com/tools/HVLT/apa-version.php

The response for 'Server' will start with 'Apache' or 'Microsoft' (and then some more information about the system which you don't need).

Apache server 301 redirect using .htaccess file

If your website is hosted on an Apache server then 301 redirects are very easy to implement using a .htaccess file. Download a sample .htaccess file here. (It is important that your file name starts with a '.' and does not have a hidden file extension such as '.txt', so it's easier just to download this example).

Edit the .htaccess file (right-click, open with, notepad...) then save it and upload it to the root directory of your website. This is the place where your index page (index.html for example) is stored. It may be a folder called 'public_html' within your FTP site and is the highest level where files can be accessed online.

Apache .htaccess 301 redirect old page to new page:

Paste the following text into your .htaccess and amend it for your domain, old page and new page URLs. Then upload it into your website's root directory.

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html

Apache .htaccess 301 redirect your entire website:

Redirect 301 / http://www.newsite.com/

Apache .htaccess 301 redirect your entire website from www to non-www URL:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Apache .htaccess 301 redirect your entire website (domain and all pages) from non-www to www URL:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^benacheson.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.benacheson.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Microsoft Windows hosted / ASP websites

A 301 redirect on Microsoft is much more complex. The easiest solution - especially if you need to redirect a lot of pages - is to install Isapi Rewrite on your server: http://www.isapirewrite.com/

You can then set up an ISAPI Rewrite filter with a few lines in your httpd.ini file:
http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/isapi/301/

Microsoft Windows Server IIS tweak:

Alternatively you could ask your hosting provider to set up a 301 redirect by modifying IIS:
http://www.mcanerin.com/en/articles/301-redirect-iis.asp

Other 301 redirect methods:

1) ASP.net code 301 redirect on each page

Add the following code to all the ASP pages on your website:

<%
Domain_Name = lcase(request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST"))
if domain_name <> "www.example.com" Then
HTTP_PATH = request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO")
QUERY_STRING = request.ServerVariables("QUERY_STRING")
theURL = "http://www.example.com" & HTTP_PATH
if len(QUERY_STRING) > 0 Then
theURL = theURL & "?" & QUERY_STRING
end if
Response.Clear
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", theURL
Response.Flush
Response.End
end if
%>

Better still, save this code in a file named '301redirect.asp' and then add the following snippet at the top of each file on your site:


2) VB script 301 redirect on each page:
<%@ Language=VBScript %>

3) ASP.net 301 redirect using code on each page:
<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com");
}
</script>

4) Ruby on Rails 301 redirect using RoR code on each page:
def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/"
end

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Effective leadership and team-working in extreme adversity

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:57:00 +0000

On 5th August 2010 a cave-in at a Northern Chilean copper mine sealed 34 miners some 700m (2,300ft) below the surface, far from daylight and their families, confined in an underground tomb. We can only imagine the sense of isolation the team must have felt as the search for a sign of life took place high above. For 17 days nobody knew if there was a single survivor. But after sending a probe deep below the ground rescuers heard hammering. When the probe was retrieved they found a note tied to it saying, "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11054376

Fine? After 17 days of darkness and silence the team could have been forgiven for writing something much less calm and positive, like, "Help! Please don't leave us to die down here!". The word "fine" showed that, against all the odds, morale was good. After all those dark interminable days and nights, rather than using the opportunity for a plea or request, the trapped team used it to reassure those who stood safely far above in the daylight and fresh air.

I found that rather inspirational and thought that there must be a good leader down there. During times of change or extreme adversity new leaders often emerge simply because they are best able to cope and lead under the circumstances.

This is the best example of successful leadership and teamwork in extreme adversity that I have ever heard of outside the military.

In business teams the mantle of leadership often falls upon those best able to bear it rather than those put in charge. And sometimes those put in charge are not available. Take a business team facing a challenge, or a new situation, in the absence of formal hierarchical leaders. Have you ever found yourself in that situation? I know I have. In new enterprises, or periods of change, taking the reigns in this way can establish you as the de facto leader in the fluid team structure. When things settle down your role is likely to solidify there, giving you a key position, especially if nobody else steps up to take responsibility.

The key to succeeding and excelling in these situations is to take responsibility, to organise, to become the hub, distributing useful information - and, in a word, to lead. I have identified a number of factors that will make it easier for you to do this if you already had them:

1) Trust
2) Involvement (active engagement with key people and projects)
3) Familiarity (with the organisation, people, systems, processes)
4) Knowledge and information (about organisation, people systems, processes).

The miners faced months trapped down there. But spirits were high - in my opinion due to effective leadership and teamwork.

In a video taken of the team trapped underground, one team member 'can be seen proudly explaining how they run the shelter'... "We've organised everything really well down here,"... "We meet here every day. We plan, we pray. We have assemblies here every day so that all the decisions we make are based on the thoughts of all 33," the man says.' Does that sound like your team? I hope so.

The SAS is an elite British Special Forces regiment whose teams routinely have to work under extreme duress and achieve seemingly impossible goals. They use a similar leadership and decision-making approach, which they call a 'Chinese parliament'. Everybody faces danger and possible death. Everybody has something worthwhile to contribute. So everybody has a say. It is fair, it is informal. And it works. Extremely well.

It is another example of the sort of flat, open, collaborative and informal management structure that has driven organisations like Google and Netflix to the highest pinnacles of business success.

The video of the Chilean miners shows an inspirational motivational speech, in which a team member praises his colleagues, then they all applaud each other. I think the applause is well deserved and it must have been a moment of light in the darkness of the mine.

This is also an excellent study in the power of a positive attitude, especially in extreme situations. Indeed a positive attitude is essential in survival situations. Hypothermia victims in particular are measurably more likely to survive if they remain positive.

I think the message for teams and leaders of any kind is that engaging and involving team members is key. Treat them with trust and respect, and give them a stake in decisions. You need them to buy in to your enterprise, whatever it may be, and work actively together towards shared goals, with leader figures stepping up to organise tasks and distribute information, adding to their workload and reducing the workload of others when they are just as tired and stressed. I think that is what makes a great leader and a great team. That is how individual people come together to build skyscrapers, suspension bridges, and world-leading businesses.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

SEO Builds Communities

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:54:00 +0000

White-hat SEO link building is an essential component of SEO (search engine optimisation). Far from being unwanted spam, it can also add value to online communities if approached professionally and generously.

Due to the efforts of a huge number of black-hat link builders, who engage in flagrant spamming and link buying, link building has a bit of a bad reputation. So much so, in fact, that it has given rise to Google setting up a whole web spam team headed by Matt Cutts.

Google just wants its users to have the most helpful and relevant user experience possible. But its hard line against link spam has seen the emergence of a nofollow link culture. Given the scale of the web spam problem something had to be done to try to safeguard the quality of search results.

But I think nofollow is contrary to the whole spirit of the internet - which is based upon connection, communication, collaboration and community.

Those who engage in web spam without giving anything back to the online communities they blight are failing in their SEO missions and ultimately wasting their time. Link spam still does yield some SEO benefits in many cases. But this seems likely to change as detection methods grow more sophisticated and the field of web spam detection evolves.

As for buying links, there is no doubt that it still works. But as long as your paid links exist you risk being caught and your site penalised. Google is also getting better at detecting and penalising paid links.

Blatant web spam is obvious to community members, who will ignore or even report it. It is also obvious to community moderators, who will remove it. If a community is poorly moderated it will be riddled with spam. links from sites infested with web spam are at best worthless and at worst damaging for SEO. With its dedicated webspam team Google certainly has the funding and expertise to fight web spam with increasing accuracy. And the longer web spam remains in place the more likely it is to be detected. So web spam is a risky, short-term strategy.

An important part of any effective online marketing is active, constructive participation in relevant online communities. Modern marketers should be looking to connect directly with their target audiences there. Not just with potential customers, but also with bloggers and website owners who may link to websites which have value for their own users. (By value I mean unique content that is relevant, useful, or compelling to the target users).

Most online communities have no problem with a profile link, perhaps even a signature link - provided the user contributes actively and constructively to the community. I see a trend away from banning dofollow links towards a policy of permitting valued community members reasonable and constructive use of links. I hope this trend continues.

A comprehensive SEO strategy should include valid, active participation in relevant communities. A large campaign may even require dedicated industry specialists whose job is to contribute valid content to communities and find people within the target audiences with questions that they can answer with their expertise.

This adds value to online communities and their other members. It also creates UGC (user generated content) for them. That has SEO and marketing benefits for online communities too. Quality relevant content means link attraction and keyword relevance. It also brings users in directly - for example users searching for an answer to the same problem will be drawn to (and likely revisit) the communities that provide them with answers.

Digital marketing strategy - and in turn SEO and link building - should be built around three cornerstones:

1) Identifying and empathising with the target audience(s), their needs and problems

2) Building compelling content and solutions that are tailored and relevant to those audiences

3) Constructive participation in online communities frequented by target audiences

Professional, constructive, white-hat link building in relevant online communities is meeting two strategically important digital marketing objectives:

1) Link building for SEO

2) Reaching out to customers directly.

If responsibly implemented it can also bring solutions, answers, and even SEO benefits to online communities. Everybody wins.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Build links for people. Not for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:29:00 +0000

As with everything in online marketing, you should aim your efforts at helping users, not at improving search engine optimisation. If you adopt this approach then SEO will take place as well, without you having to think about it.

You can transform your SEO link-building strategy for the better by focusing on the user instead of the subtle complexities of search engine technology and policy. Smart SEOs and online marketers know that the quality of user experience is the over-arching goal that should shape everything they do.

Link building is one of the hardest, most complex elements of SEO. And it is currently the most important and powerful, since search engines primarily rank websites according to the quality and relevance of inbound links. A website's link profile needs to demonstrate that the site is regarded as trustworthy and relevant - that other trustworthy people in related communities are citing it or voting for it as helpful or important.

Search engines don't formulate their ranking policies to make life difficult for SEOs. Their aim is to improve the user experience. User experience is at the heart of search engine optimisation and digital marketing and this is too often forgotten as we focus on the data. Link building should not be about influencing search engines but about reaching and helping interested users.

First the obvious. Create relevant content that people will want to visit and link to. Create content that is easy to find and that your website's users will love. Broaden the site's relevant user-base. People who may not become your customers may still want to link to you on their relevant websites and blogs.

Online marketing is primarily about bringing users and linkers (webmasters, bloggers, social network users...) to the site, in addition to prospective customers. If you sell mobile phones only to businesses, then including content about mobile phones that is helpful to consumers will win you quality inbound links from consumers (who far outnumber businesses and are more likely to link to you). The most important goal in link building is creating quality content that people in relevant online communities will want to link to from their relevant websites and blogs because it is compelling or helpful.

It is not always obvious where best to seek links, or what sort of links to build for SEO.

So forget SEO.

Focus on the user experience and your healthy, organic link-building strategy will reveal itself. Instead of using PageRank to judge the link equity you might get from a link, use it to gauge the volume of people who may use the site. Those users, not the search engines, are who SEOs and web marketers should in fact target.

Online marketers understand the need to engage with users. Participating in relevant online communities engages prospective customers, creates valuable content and builds links in relevant places. If you sell surf boards then your customers are surfers. Find the most popular online surfing communities and engage. Become an active part of them. Become known in them and gain a reputation of trust, authority and knowledge - by helping people, answering questions and sharing ideas and information. For free. Where it is helpful, link to a relevant part of your website. This should ideally be content rather than a product, but you can funnel users into the purchase process from there - if they want to buy. And if they don't want to buy then if your content is good perhaps they will want to link to it on their surfing blog instead - which arguably has much more value. If you find something that would really help your website's users then link to it from your website to help those users.

It should be a natural, organic, community practice, building a natural, organic link profile, as well as building actual links that actual users will click on. If you sell tractors and excavators, and people are asking more questions about tractors, then you will naturally be building more links for the product that is most in demand right now. If you use anchor text, aim it at helping the user find what they want, not at influencing the perception of search engines. That will come naturally. Pay no attention to links being dofollow or nofollow. An organic-looking white hat link profile should contain both. Don't link for the search engines' sake.

When you build links, make sure they are links that your website's users and customers would find and click on in their browsing journeys. Find relevant places and engage in communities there. Help interested users find the information they need. Customers and linkers will follow those links to relevant places on your website. And so will search engines. But forget them. Like every aspect of internet marketing and SEO, your link building strategy should be all about the quality of user experience.

http://benacheson.com
http://blog.benacheson.com

Managing your work with email

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:22:00 +0000

Email is a ubiquitous tool for instant social and business communication. But you can also use email to help you manage your workload, your time and your projects.

When writing an email always remember that you may need to find it later. Use a subject that means something to you, as well as the recipient.

Email yourself

If a task is really important, why not email it to yourself, in addition to putting it on your 'to do' list. This can be particularly useful if you are away from your desk. Mark it as unread until it is actioned or no longer relevant. In fact, why not email your whole To Do list to yourself each day, so so it's there each time you go to your inbox, for you to be reminded and perhaps even memorise, without even trying?

Remind yourself

If you've sent an email asking somebody to do something, copy yourself in, or copy it from your Sent folder to your Inbox or create an 'outstanding urgent issues' folder. If it's really urgent or important, mark it as unread until it's done - then delete it. You can easily keep track of all the things you're waiting for in this way. If there are a very large number of these 'outstanding' or 'reminder' emails, why not create a folder for those copies, called something like 'to do', urgent, 'outstanding', 'pending' or 'to chase asap'.

Keep up to date

If somebody has responded to an urgent or important request saying they have not yet actioned it, delete the copy of the original request from your inbox and keep their response as a more up-to-date reminder. You can instantly gain visibility of any given issue in your inbox. And because you return there often you are constantly reminded of outstanding issues. After a while, important outstanding issues become memorised.

Organise

Creating a folder for each of your current projects can be helpful. If you have a large number of projects, to keep your menu tidy you can put all the project folders in a folder called 'current projects'. If you send an email relating to a project, copy it from the sent folder to the project folder: make your important emails easier to find by having them in more than one place.

If you have a large number of emails, it can be particularly helpful to distribute these into folders labelled according to priority, such as 1, 2 and 3, or high, medium and low - or folders named according to the project, department or issue.

Tidy

Keep your inbox for things you really need to know about.

Keep your inbox tidy by deleting any emails that do not require further action - and do not contain information that may be needed later. If they contain important information, copy them to a relevant folder (or to more than one folder if more than one is relevant). If they require action, leave them there and mark them as unread if they're urgent.

Ben Acheson
http://blog.benacheson.com
@BenAcheson

Let your job role expand

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Role-creep. It's a good thing. Embrace it. Do you really want your power, influence and variety of work to be imprisoned within your official title?

Have you been asked to do something that isn't in your job description? Will it make a difference to the business? Or will it help somebody who is in a position of power within the organisation? If so then you should prioritise it and aim to exceed expectations.

As you should with any important task, promise to complete it in more time than you actually need need, then do a great job, achieve more than you were asked to achieve and complete well ahead of schedule (while performing your normal duties) to impress everybody involved.

If there is a new project get involved. If there something is needed and nobody knows much about it, become the expert. Take control of projects and focus your energy into becoming the hub of information and communication, planning documenting and distributing information at every stage.

Times of organisational change and upheaval are particularly ripe for gaining power, influence and responsibility. Step up and make your role what you want it to be, then wait for everything to settle and solidify into the formal status quo.

Then it's time to talk about your job title and salary.

Have you ever used opportunities to expand your job role in this way? Have you or a colleague used a the opportunity of a fluid organisation to change or expand your role? I'd love you to post about it here...

http://benacheson.com
http://blog.benacheson.com

Old School Marketers think Viral Ads are 'Over'!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Acheson) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:04:00 +0000

'Will virals be wiped out? They're over...'

This is the shocklingly ill-informed claim - made in bold red letters - on the front page of the July/August 2010 issue of The Chartered Institute of Marketing's magazine The Marketer:

http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/interviews/qa-interviews/will-king/

'Viral... wiped out? Over'?

No. I really don't think so. Viral marketing is not 'over'. The Old Spice viral ad received almost 5 million views - and it is not alone in its success:

http://www.nma.co.uk/resources/viral-brand-chart
http://www.visiblemeasures.com/adage

Viral is still an emerging phenomenon. New mediums will come and go and the web experience will be itself be transformed before viral is replaced by a more powerful way to spread a message.

Purist traditional marketers are riding the earthquake of digital change and it must be very frightening. But they should not fear. Digital marketers like me (Ben Acheson) are passionate and outspoken about the internet and keen to help others learn about their new paradigm.

Traditionalists would benefit from catching up with the digital marketing revolution that threatens to leave them behind and strip them of the last traces of relevance. To dismiss or deny the important changes reshaping the business landscape would be to bury our heads in the sand.

And these changes have barely begun. The pace of change will accelerate as new technologies and ideas combine and feed each other. The internet is still quite new to business. It is a different medium not dominated by the printed media and the PR industry elite. It does not require significant investment to achieve popularity or success. It requires a commitment to engaging users and giving them a positive, relevant experience.

In online markets (most markets are to some extent online) the customer is in control. Some traditional marketers do not like that. The fear relinquishing hard-won control over their brand and their message. But the truth is that they have no choice. Failing to acknowledge that your customers are in charge will alienate them. If you fail to engage with them or satisfy them they will either:

1) Say bad things about you online for all the world to see, or

2) Remain indifferent and ignore you.

There are brands blighted by thousands of negative comments all over the web and the social media. There are brands for whom the web is a cold wasteland of silence, with tumbleweeds of indifference blowing past. There are slowly collapsing remnants of business that were great at traditional marketing - but are failing to transform.

Shoving annoying banner ads at social networking users, as described in this article, is a typical example of traditional marketing imposing its outdated methods on a radically new medium and a radically different audience. It is a waste of effort and risks damage to brands.

Viral marketing really cannot be so easily dismissed when it is shaking and shaping the world of business in ways that are so blindingly clear to those with eyes to see. But let us not generalise - there are many kinds of viral campaign. Anybody can create an effective campaign relatively cheaply, or even for free, with a good understanding of their market and a little imagination. There is no need for professional seeding.

Traditional marketing as we know it is being transformed. It is the old marketing dogma that risks being 'wiped out' - not viral marketing. Viral is part of a digital communication and marketing revolution that has barely begun. Open your eyes and be part of this exciting transformation. Many of us are already here surfing the wave and waiting we're for you join our beach party.

http://benacheson.com
http://blog.benacheson.com

Domain	Linking domains	Overall Links	Description
Twitter.com	1,350,000	116,890,000	Microblogging platform and the world's second most popular social network. Many sites link to their Twitter feed
Google.com	872,000	47,620,000	Google's main homepage
Yahoo.com	452,000	23,280,000	Was the biggest search engine before Google's dominance. Now merging with Bing
Baidu.com	308,000	16,750,000	China's top search engine - China has the world's largest population (more than 4 times more people than USA)
Wordpress.com	211,000	14,340,000	The most popular blogging platform
Blogger.com	210,000	7,280,000	Google's blogging platform
Amazon.com	207,000	5,430,000	Online retailer that began life selling books
Youtube.com	204,000	5,960,000	The most popular video-sharing social network - owned by Google
Bing.com	150,000	3,190,000	Microsoft's search engine and rival to Google
Adobe.com	132,000	4,420,000	Provides Flash for online video and reader software for PDF documents - both are popular and frequently linked to.
Taobao.com	108,000	3,140,000	A leading consumer-to-consumer marketplace
Microsoft.com	102,000	1,679,000	Microsoft global homepage
sina.com.cn	97,081	3,580,000	China's leading web analytics provider
Linkedin.com	88,349	2,720,000	The leading professional networking website
Sohu.com	87,309	3,270,000	Chinese search engine
CNN.com	85,057	2,580,000	The leading global news provider (US-based)
Ebay.com	83,948	2,130,000	The world's most popular auction site (peer-to-peer)
PayPal.com	83,886	2,760,000	The world's most popular peer-to-peer payment system. Websites using PayPal often link to the site
163.com	81,974	3,340,000	Leading Chinese web portal
Apple.com	76,271	1,220,000	Apple homepage
Facebook.com	75,988	2,040,000	Homepage of one of the world's most popular social networking sites
Wikipedia.org	74,819	1,700,000	User-edited (wiki) encyclopedia
Yahoo.co.jp	74,434	2,750,000	Yahoo's Japan homepage
Tumblr.com	63,302	4,390,000	A leading blogging platform
Qq.com	62,995	2,280,000	China's biggest web portal
Google.co.jp	62,483	3,300,000	Google's Japan homepage
Msn.com	58,029	1,520,000	Microsoft Network homepage - used to be the default homepage for Windows computers
Google.de	53,443	1,120,000	Google Germany
BBC.co.uk	46,182	1,100,000	Leading provider of news, entertainment and information - ad free - to the UK and the world. Funded by UK TV owners
Imdb.com	45,887	1,320,000	Movie database