This is post two in my series of Unofficial Think Vis Tips

SEO Mess - Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/atibens/4578260998/

This came about with my chat with Dave Naylor, SEO Specialist and industry legend. I am one of the few fortunate people that feel that they can go up to Dave and have a sneaky chat on any subject – and the man is highly approachable, and extremely intelligent. Dave, having had many years head start and much better skills than I, has worked with a number of big brands. As most people know, I love working for large Brands, working on their strategies and giving advice as part of what I do. Dave came up with an analogy that will probably stick with me for a very long time:

“It’s like your doctor being blamed for you getting Lung cancer by the friends and family.

As much as he shouts and screams that he told you not to smoke, you wouldn’t listen. Then when if you were to get the dreaded disease,  would it be your fault for not heeding the advice of your Medical Specialist, or would it be the Doctors fault? Obviously yours.

But in SEO, when you client refuses to listen to your careful advice, and doesn’t do things right, and when things get messed up, it’s instantly your fault. No one apart from you and the client know this, and everyone outside that deal starts pointing fingers. ”

I hope you followed the gist of the conversation. Why do we as SEO’s get blamed when our clients don’t follow our advice? We can’t actually come out in the open and say “We told them not to do it, but they did it anyway.”  In fact I have partially tweeted  / ranted about this fact, that sometimes you misjudge an SEO’s work based on what you see on the surface, not under the corporate hood, and Jaamit kindly gave life to those tweets.  

The take away?

Don’t let people outside the deal between you and your clients annoy you. Don’t respond, keep your professional cool. Secondly, make sure that your client is aware at every given point of the possible issues in any decisions that they make against your advice. Document them.

Keep a log – and maybe even put together a disaster recovery plan. Even if they don’t pay you to think about that – 9/10 times you may not need it, but the 10% time that you do, you will win the favour of your clients even more.

 Fact is this is and will remain the bane of any SEOs life as long as non SEO people are making decisions for the business. Keep trying to maintain them on the right track, but dont make it personal if they dont always follow your advice. They have other priorities. I have covered most of this in a presentation for Brighton SEO before (see below).

Actually Making SEO Happen

This is the Slideshare version of my presentation:

Alea Casino Leeds ThinkVis Venue

I love attending Think Vis. In my opinion it’s not only the best value conference, but has a brilliant speaker and attendee crowd.  However, although the talks are great, and there are usually some excellent takaways, I prefer what I refer to as the “Unofficial Think Vis Tips”. These are the water cooler conversations you have around a round of drinks, at the lunch breaks, over the coffee stand, or while having a quick and sneaky smoke.

There are many notes I have jotted mentally, and hopefully I will get these out in the next day or so. But here is a tip that will give you so that you too can get hold of these at your next conference:

ThinkVis Tip 1: Making The Most of All Speakers and Attendees!

1. Try and do some research before hand

• Who is attending?
• Who is speaking?
• What are your relationships with these people? Do you follow their blog? Comment on them? Talk to them on twitter? Elsewhere? Have friends in common?
• What do they like to speak about?

2. Decide the questions you really want answered, or discussions you really want to hear
3. Prime the people you want to speak to

• Tweet them – “hi I am so an so and am attending – would love to meet you in real life”
• Contact them via their site
• Let your mutual contacts arrange an introduction
• Offer to buy / drink coffee as a promise

4. Make it clear who you are and why you want to speak to them, when you get to the conference!
5. Approach the topic honestly – these people aren’t idiots – don’t try and make it sound as if the problem you want discussed is someone else’s!

The next tips are for people that you didn’t realize you would like to approach until you heard them speak.

Approaching New Interesting People

1. Don’t crowd them right after a talk – let them get a drink – speaking isn’t easy for everyone and they may be mentally exhausted!
2. Make sure you identify what you enjoyed about their talk – positive feedback is always an excellent starting point.
3. If time is limited (maybe there are only 10 mins to next talk etc) don’t hog their time – they may have their own catching up to do and will talk to you out of politeness, but may not be fully immersed in the conversation. Arrange to meet at THEIR convenience, or simply ask for contact details like a card or email address.
4. Finally – don’t make a nuisance of yourself. If they are speaking to someone, dont interupt, don’t butt in, and don’t assume that they have to answer every question you have!

The above are my personal brand of conference contact etiquette; however others may have better strategies…

Englash Program? (Photo Credit: http://www.engrish.com/2010/06/much-harder-than-spanash/)

Either Learn to Go Native or Speak Simple English

I find it amazing that people who move to a different country don’t always try to learn the language – they are happy in speaking to the local population in English at all times. It is important to understand the language, its idioms and nuances in the speech. Culturally that makes it a factor of success of integrating into any society. Failing that, one ought to at least speak a simplified version of English, leaving out your own idioms and cultural nuances – this doesn’t mean dumbing down the language as we often see tourists do, but just using words and meanings that have universal acceptance and understanding.

Big Businesses are no different to countries. Each has its own language, cultures, idioms and customs. And like my advice earlier, to succeed in that business the quicker you pick these up, the easier your job would become. And if you can’t, at least try and smoothen your language, especially in reporting, to match the level of understanding of your audience.

A perfect example from my own exerience – the use of “SERPs”.  If I present a report entitles “SERP Visibility” and don’t actually define the word, I am at risk of being misunderstood – often your seniors find it embarrassing to ask meanings of words, and we have the habit of using these phrases regularly, after all, the form art of our daily vocabulary. What ends up happening is that the parties involved in the presentation, or reading the report get hung up the elements they don’t understand, thus spending less time trying to understand what you are trying to tell them. Which is exaclty what happened once.

Checklists? Hell Yeah!

The few items below are a series of checklists that I built up after a number of years, which I use while preparing a report or presentation.

Assumptions of Knowledge

Scratching Head

• Have you met, reported to or presented to the people before? If so, what were your thoughts on their level of understanding SEO and its unique terminology? Reporting for a group that you have a regular rapport with is different to reporting for one that you speak to infrequently.
• Do you need to define your “unique to SEO” words? Typically I always keep a glossary at the end of any important report – this makes life a lot easier – and over time helps educate the audience as they have a reference guide.
• What is / are the role / roles of the individuals you are presenting to? The IT manager will have a difference set of needs and requirements than that of a board member – this is pretty much the same as the level of language used.

Learn the Reporting Language

• What business terminology does your audience use daily? ATV vs AOV – ATV is Average Transaction Value, while AOV is Average Order Value – both mean pretty much the same.
• What is the business definition of Margin, Sales, orders, targets and budgets? Some businesses I worked with used Target to specifically mean a pre VAT value of a sale, while others included it. For some, budget meant the revenue forecast, while for others it meant the spend forecast. Find out how they work out ROI, Margin and all other variables you are reporting on – I have often seen agencies using their own metrics to report on, and then later get questioned as the internal figures don’t match.

Type of Information

Charts - Need to Make Sense (Photo Credit: http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/)

• What are the business typical reports? It is important to understand and present the typical metrics that the business holds dear to heart. If the business focuses on Sales, then stop trying to justify ROI or vice versa.
• What was expected of the channel? Sales? Visibility? Keyword growth? Analyse your original brief – and the continuous conversations you have had with the business – and then make sure you cover the FARs – the Frequently Asked Results.
• Is the business innovative? If so, then try and always bring one unique or new initiative to the table for discussion – some businesses are easily impressed with “Out of the Box” thinking, especially if the idea is simple to understand. On the other hand if the company is more traditional in its view of business, keep new ideas as a separate initiative – and research this thoroughly before presenting.

Level of Information

• What position does your audience hold in the company? Senior people are less likely to take in huge verbose documents, or long winded presentations. Use bullets, images, example and charts to make points across. Simply and specifically.
• What does the report need to cover? Don’t add pointless information – most people outside SEO have little interest, and if they do, they will ask.
• Always add a summary, and a series of action points, clearly identifying responsibilities.

Taking Away From This Post

The above are very top line thoughts of getting SEO reporting right, especially if you are taking SEO to the boardroom. But learn to create your own, and at all times, try and use logic in setting up resentations and report – stop trying to dazzle by fancy tricks, try and impress with knowledge.  I have found using the checklist actually does one of three things:

• Speeds up the presentation as there are less interruption from questions around definitions, metrics, values
• Improves the absorption of the real data that you are trying to present
• Makes you look extremely clued up and interesting

Quote on Think Visibility 2010

DO I need to convince you to get to Think Visibility Sept 2010?

I have this thing about conferences lately – I don’t like them. Not to rag on any recent ones, but I kept feeling that isn’t much to learn from them if the content continues to remain pretty much basic. Although, I must admit, I hear the sessions are indeed getting better – but I still can’t help think that our American counterparts actually get meatier content at their conferences – and at nearly £1000 plus a conference, I can’t justify going to them. And let me be honest, I enjoy attending and heckling – as those who have had the misfortune to meet me at some can attest. I refuse to take the podium as a speaker, and prefer to be a back sit driver – and have pissed off a few people in the past…

However I attended my first ever think visibility March 2010 and it changed my opinion of conferences. The event is a meet of such diverse people that it absolutely blew my mind. Excellent speakers – most with entrepreneurial spirits – who spurred my move into various directions this year. I would be lying if I said that the conversations I had at this event didn’t change how I felt about what I want to do.

A Mix of Individuals I Dont See At “Industry Conferences”

From Affiliates to Domainers, and from SEO’s to Conversion experts – a well rounded group of speakers – and even better rounded attendees. The attendees themselves were an awesome group of people, many whom I recognised from my online interactions – safe to say, there were few n00bs at this conference. I went home with stacks of notes, plans and ideas. And some excellent contacts.

Oh by the way, it is in a CASINO. Yep – a freaking casino. And the nights ought? Well lets say I am under several NDAs from the last one…

So without waxing lyrical – see the links below – don’t just take my word for it!

Summary

Why Wait? Book Now!

Cost of the Conference: £119 (WTF!!!!! I think Dom needs to rethink that price it is TOO low)

Cost of the Hotel: (City Inn Leeds – bloody Ace. Had iMacs in the rooms with free broadband!) £50 a night.

Contacts Made? Freaking Priceless. Go Book. Now. Seriously.

Last Years Opinions and Follow Ups

• Top 7 Things I learnt at Think Visibility 3 (Dan Harrison)
• Five Reasons Why Think Visibility Rocked (Carla Marshall)
• Think Visibility – From the Other Side of a Hang Over (Paul Carpenter)
• My First Conference Speaking Appearance (Patrick Moogan)
• My Google Local Presentation From Think Visibility (Tom Critchlow)
• Think Visibility – Live Blogging (David Towers)
• Out sourcing Automation (Al Carlton)
• What We Learnt at Think Visibility (Karyn)
• Think Visibility was Ace! (Kung Fu Digital)
• My Thoughts on Think Visibility 2010 (Mark Mayne)

Previous Conferences

• Patrick Altoft Presentation
• Think Visibility Stripped Bare (Befuddled – Ray Theakston)
• Think Visibility was Awewome (David Lindop)
• Andrew Burnett – Overview
• Think Visibility 2 Was a Blast (Joost de Valk)

I have covered the Boston Consulting Matrix as a tool over at SEOmoz a while back (2008 actually!). I find it very useful in evaluating the need for improvement based on priority. Often the time and resources are limited, but the amount of work we have that we can do limitless. I use BCG to evaluate my own sites which lead me to be able to work on profitable sites, and make decisions on where to allocate resources such as time, energy and budget. It can be argued that you don’t need advance tools or frameworks to do this, but often the visual demonstration is a much better motivator.

I wanted to refresh the technique with a real life example from my own sites and visually demonstrate the potential for Advance Marketing Strategy to be used in Online Marketing.

For the sake of those who haven’t heard of it before or those who want a quick refresher:

Although popularly known as the Boston Consulting Group Matrix, the actual name of this well-known marketing theory is the Growth Share Matrix or the Product Portfolio.

For those who don’t know of the BCGM, here’s a VERY simple version:

The BCGM is used for those businesses that have more than one product in their portfolio. It is used to determine what priorities should be given to products. The theory stipulates that to maintain long-term value, a product portfolio should include base level products that are entering the market and need support, and established products that are profitable earners.

It analyses two dimensions: market share versus market growth. The bigger the market share or the faster the market growth, the better it is.

The BCG Matrix places products into four distinct categories:

• Stars – high growth rate and high market share
• Cash Cows – low growth rate and high market share
• Question Marks – high growth rate but low market share
• Dogs – low growth rate and low market share

I have selected a sample of 13 sites of various ages and level of effort put into them – and recorded Visits and Revenue over the same period of time. None of these sites bring in award winning incomes, but together make a decent disposable cash for the level of effort I have put into them (i.e next to nothing). Some are newer than others, and some are in less competitive niches – most of these considerations should ideally come after the BCG Matrix analysis.

As the BCG Matrix actually uses Growth vs Market share as metrics, which really cant be used as they stand for this analysis, I have swapped them with visits (growth) and revenue (share). The symbols represent:

• C=Clicks
• V=Visits
• £=Revenue

I included clicks as an indicator – and an extra visual – after all it’s those clicks that make me the money!

As you can see from the chart below (I worked as a linear chart to make the differences visible – this may not be the ideal way to present that – I do have my quirks!) the various sites have varying level of success (or failure).

Charting Visits over Revenue

Other Metrics e.g Break Even Point

I would immediately be tempted to start improving the ones that are making me the most revenue, or maybe spending all my time on the ones that don’t bring me any revenue. In order to place the earnings in context, I added the Break Even Point (Orange strike through) to the chart to show me those that were below profit margin. I add loads of other data to visually guide me – in this instance I have done that before the BCG Analysis – I normally add additional metrics after I have categorised the sites into the different points of the BCG and then bunch them together on one chart. These quick view metrics are additional pointers in the decision making cycle.

Adding the Break Even Point

Over Laying the BCG Matrix

Jsut keeping the points, I overlaid the data over my Boston Consulting Affiliate Matrix to see visually how each site fell into the different categories (I should have really labelled those bubbles, call me lazy!):

Boston Consulting Matrix for Affiliate Portfolio

As you can see, the BCG Matrix confirms the data and conclusions from the charts – that the sites that make me the least money are in effect dogs, that the sites with high visits and high revenue are stars. Interesting to note that I have one Cash Cow- which is defined by low visits, but high revenue – an immediate indicator that I can do one of two things:

• Improve the traffic to that site and get much higher revenue – which may involve a lot of work.
• Create more sites that sit in that particular niche as the return is much higher (which is easier potentially than the former solution).

Isn’t the BCG Too Much Work ?

Now looking at the charts you may feel that the extra step of creating the BCG is superfluous – with only 13 sites it is indeed. But my portfolio is over 100 sites, with plenty of plans to grow. With that many sites the original charts would have too much data for me to decipher visually. If I was only analysing 13 sites, then I would probably intuitively mark my chart without the need for the BCG:

Noting the Stars and Cows

The BCG gives me a one glance view as to what I should analyse further.With this visual aid, I can identify profitable niches, high traffic niches, and cut out the excess fat after all if all these sites are of the same age, have the same amount of effort put into them, then aren’t I better of concentrating on the money sites? Of course you need to check these additional metrics against the category “Dogs” to make sure you don’t ignore a brand new site, or get rid of it. At the same time the “Question Marks” are interesting sites – they get the visits, but not the revenue – which means that the monetisation model may be wrong with all other things held equal.

It is at this point I would bunch say, all the dogs, and then add in other data on this chart, such as age of domain, back links, profit etc – this will help mee hone down on “real dogs” to shell.

I hope the model comes to use for at least some of you. I cant say that this may the best use of the BCG Matrix, nor can I say I adapted it well – all I can say that the way I use it works for me.

Protip: You can also use this method to evaluate pots of keywords and make almost similar deductions and improve focuses.

Change Your Mindset (Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyc/95247784/)

Sometimes as an SEOs its feels that we suffer from ADD. Often our strategies are all over the place, in the ever continuous pursuit of great rankings. We carry out site audits, write content, link build and seem to focus just on those top level keywords that we or our clients aspire to. We sit bogged down in reporting, analysing and processing huge volumes of data. Some individuals are better at planning this process than others – I for one am not really that great at planning a day to day work flow. I tend to work on whatever either interest me today, or whatever is required tomorrow.

Part of the reason I feel is a lack of universally accepted methodologies or frameworks in SEO. The other part of the blame I allocate to the liquid nature of the way SEO works. As we get cleverer at manipulating improving and refining search results, search engines try to get cleverer about dampening those efforts. Due to those ever moving goal posts we may find it hard to create a meaningful discipline.

Should we find it hard to do so?

We mustn’t forget that SEO is a MARKETING discipline – it is an increasingly important strategy that is both quantifiable and accountable to businesses. Yet it is only part of a mix of strategies that are available to businesses.  As a result, it needs to start presenting itself as a real mix in the business, as opposed to a blind scramble towards SERPs that only the board cares about. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as search geeks and data junkies and start fashioning ourselves as real marketers. That is normally the first step towards giving our profession the badge of authenticity it so rightly deserves in any organisation.

We need to craft frameworks that can be used in meaningful deployment of our strategies which can be presented at board level in intelligible ways. This is how we can sequester those big budgets that other marketing departments seem to so easily acquire.

Working with large brands has taught me that there are two fundamental problems with getting SEO the respect that it deserves in business:

• Ignorance
• Involvement

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.  Peter F Drucker

Ignorance

I don’t mean ignorance in a negative way – I mean people genuinely don’t understand the work involved behind SEO – especially at the top level of any organisation. Most people use search engines – but most assume their existence and the results pages as part of life. They don’t take a moment out to wonder how hard it is often to rank for certain keywords – nor do they consider these results as a “Sales Channel”. So while the sales people get massive bonuses for delivering a large order – often the SEO team are given a pat on the back – for actually massive increase in sales across the whole year by the work they have done.

People make incorrect assumptions about the role and capabilities of SEO. They aren’t ready to accept the real, far reaching capabilities of search manipulation that can impact the whole business.

Involvement

Involvement is actually an issue that many SEO’s create for themselves. We don’t often take the time to get the key stakeholders to buy into the processes, understand the objectives, and get involved in the strategic direction.  We need to become better political animals if we are to take our business to the Jet setters.  All businesses have a level of hierarchy – whether implicit or explicit. If all the levels of authority do not buy into our processes, real SEO cannot be properly deployed. This especially includes your parallels, such as the PR, Branding and Offline Marketing departments.

For example, if you are selling widgets – and are well known for widgets, but do not, say rank for “cheap widgets” should you target that term? Probably based on sales potential, yes would be the answer. But what if the Brand Police do not want the keyword “cheap” associated with the brand? This may mean that you may not be able to use the phrase “Cheap widgets” for onsite elements. This makes it harder to optimise for.

Often such battles can only be fought on paper, with strong arguments for various tactics and strategies. And these can only be adjudicated by people that exceed authority of both, the SEO, and the internal persecutor. And if you failed to enlighten them about SEO, the reach and the impact on the business in the long run, then you have already begun to fail.

Solution?

I don’t think I have a complete solution, but over the next few months, I will definitely post more about how I tackle various issues at a more senior level. I am also going to revisit my marketing background, and try and bring some structure into the various marketing techniques and processes that have helped me in the past and hopefully share these too. It may be worth checking out my rant a little while back on Big Brands and Corporate Strategy which Jaamit kindly put together.

Google Credit Card Comparison

Unless you have been out of the news over the last day or so, you probably have heard that Google has released a credit card comparison service.

Comparison Ads improves the ad experience on Google by letting users specify exactly what they’re looking for and helping them quickly compare relevant offers side by side. There are no long forms for users to fill in, and Comparison Ads will not send advertisers any personally identifiable user information (in fact, we don’t send any user information at all unless the user explicitly applies for an advertiser’s offer).

Basically run Credit Card related search queries and the chances are you will be served up the google service. Although not everyone could see them:

@patrickaltoft – @rishil Have you seen it? I haven’t

While others so the results for decent generic keyphrases:

@erikau –  @patrickaltoft (@rishil) I get it showing for “compare credit cards”

What Do You Think?

Google Loan Comparision (ranking on G via Twitter )

Typically, I asked people what they thought on twitter…

The best response I had was via email from Stephen Murphy, who I assure you plays in this market quite heavily:

Google will be spying the credit card market as an opportunity to earn pay per lead revenue. For the past 12 months I have had Google account managers sending me information on how advertisers have pulled out of the space.

Client reaction has been that this is because of higher delinquency (missing payments for 2 consecutive months) and general concern about a lack of valuable customers within the market. Aggregators such as Moneysupermarket have really suffered because of this – with revenues impacted.

Stephen attributes the drop in profitability because of two types of credit card customers:

• Customers such as transactors – people who buy their shopping on a credit card – but then pay it off immediately. These people continue to use their cards – but make little money for providers.
• Customers such as revolving balance holders – make their minimum payments each month and maybe a little more. These customers are in the decline, because lending criteria for acceptance has tightened.

Stephen has promised to write a more detailed post, which I will link to from here in the next couple of days.

Affiliate Marketing Isnt Dead, But May Be Killed Off

Other interesting replies were based around thoughts that we should all be having – where is it going to stop?

@LeoFogarty – @rishil just wondering if there are going be doing other comparisons outside financial products, I’m thinking more of the travel sector like carhire, flights etc

@jonoalderson – @rishil Another step into their own affiliate network – property, power, mortgages, credit, mp3s. What’s next? Travel, maybe?

(By the way, Google has its OWN affiliate network, in case you didnt know).

Others took it to the hilarious extreme…

@rohanarora536 – @rishil google will start selling vegetables, fruits, grocery, shoes everything. Visit google store 1 destination for all your daily needs

Google Product Search

The more popular the different sources Google creates, the less sites traditionally supporting these services will perform. Which means people relying on them for core income streams need to think again.  For example, I no longer visit third party sites to get movie details – its all there in core search results – great for me, because it solve my problem without incurring an extra step, but bad for the guys who targeted that niche for ad revenue – because I am no longer an impression on their site to rely on.

Google is attacking content creators and affiliates from all fronts – ever come across Product Search? How soon will that become a complete product comparison engine? Its not exactly hard, considering that hundreds of affiliates rely on niche comparison sites for income. Google could wipe them all out with one blow (well maybe).

Time to Find a New Horse to Flog

The only advice I can give you, is to add on Rand Fishkin’s advice:

If Google sends 90% of your traffic, your business has real danger associated with it.

If your thin affiliate sites, comparision models and simple affiliate sites ranking because of SEO are your only income, you need to start planning to diversify or enhance your offerings. Most good affiliates I know are way ahead of the curve, but those newly stepping into the game, don’t come unprepared, because you, my friend are on googles hitlist.

Hey nothing is impossible, after all, google now has the go ahead to Buy or Sell energy!

Resources

• Paul Carpenter does a comprison (excuse the pun, couldnt help it) with Moneysupermarket over at Dave Naylors blog.
• Check out the Credit Card Comparison service from google yourself.

*Update* The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to become law within the next 6 weeks. It introduces orphan works usage rights, which – unless amended, which HMG says it will not – will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified through a suitably negligent search. That is potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet. Via Copyright Action.

With the explosion of social media and User generated Content, bloggers, reporters and businesses have access to a vast inventory of content for their production efforts. Take my site for example, most of the images are sourced free from Flickr – and I am not the only one using these. A large portion of the blogging community uses images from photo sharing websites such as Flickr and Picassa to spice up their posts.  But professional news media also make use of this content – last year during the #uksnow hash tag trending period, a bunch of us uploaded Snow pics to flickr. In fact, if you google UK Snow Photos, most News sites have a collection of user submitted UK Snow photos.  Pretty cool I think.

Problem? One of Copyright and Attribution

On the 5 – 6 January 2010 they (Independent) used the Flickr API to search for and display images of snow scenes in the UK – amongst those images displayed was one of mine which is clearly marked on Flickr as “all rights reserved”. They did not seek my permission for the use of my image. I am assuming they used the API without applying a filter on the licence type, this also means that other UK photographers may have had their copyrighted work used without permission; might be worth checking if you had any refers from the Independent on those days.

This was from a photographer who was annoyed at the use. The comments thread is over 250 long, and worth checking out. In the end, the Independednt ended paying out, for something that was a simple misunderstanding of the correct use of Socially Created content. Not only did they possibly alienate some of the UK Photographic Community, but created some negative press.

What Else Can Go Wrong?

Virgin Mobile Flickr Campaign

Photo Credit: Ian Wilson

In 2007, Virgin created a really good campaign, “Are you With Us or What?“.  The campaign used Creative Commons photos from flickr to create a number of offline adverts as well as a full blown website (no longer operational). However, using flickr photos in a negative context can upset people, no matter what the license.  There are also other considerations such as model releases and age of the models to be considered, regardless of the copyright notices issued, as Virgin in Australia found out.

Am I Being Insulted?

The above is a reaction by one of the models (underage) who realised that she was on one of the campaign boards. A massive Flickr conversation arose out of that one comment. Model release is not the responsibility of the photographer, but the user according to Dan Heller.

You photographed firemen from a street saving a baby’s life from a blazing fire, and sell it to the local newspaper for front-page coverage. Later, someone at the paper decides to use it in an ad to promote itself, and someone in the photograph objects to this, then you cannot be held responsible.

If you licensed an unreleased photograph of a person in a public place to a client that said they were going to use it in a school text book, but they use the image as part of their ad campaign for the company, then you are not responsible.

Dan keeps a very detailed section of his website on Model Release, usage and the Law.

Other Social Media Outlets

Social Voting sites such as reddit are full of breaking stories and interesting ideas / opinions coming to light daily. These only add to the plethora of fresh information available to the news researcher on a deadline or for a blogger with a writer’s block.

Redditor on CNN

(via http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/axe78/i_was_quoted_on_cnn/ )

Similarly, Twitter is another great place for journalists and bloggers to troll to find interesting quotes on the latest trending topics.  In fact, the BBC have taken a hardline, and told journalists that not using social media is not just an option for research. Interestingly, the 2009 BBC editorial guidelines do make a note of copyright:

Material from Social Media
7.4.8 Although material, especially pictures and videos, on third party social media and other websites where the public have ready access may be considered to have been placed in the public domain, re-use by the BBC will usually bring it to a much wider audience. We should consider the impact of our re-use, particularly when in connection with tragic or distressing events. There are also copyright considerations.

What these considerations are, arent mentioned. (side note, Econsultancy has a pretty good opinion piece on the whole BBC  / social media / reporting approach). I would like to really know what policies news media has in place for attribution for socially created content. Is it right to just rip it off just for reporting purposes? Maybe. I dont know. Am I happy for a tweet that was meant for just my followers to find its way into the press and then seen by millions? As a marketer probably. As an individual, I dont know. My tweets have been quoted by bloggers in the past, but I have always receive some sort of attribution, so I have never had a cause for concern.

Twitter Copyright

The whole “are tweets copy protected” debate is maybe a pointelss one, but it’s content I work hard to create. (well sort of ) Is anyone allowed to come and rip it off? Some interesting questions and thoughts at canyoucopyrightatweet.com.  There is actually a way to issue a tweet license, as you can see from the image above – how legally binding that is, I dont know. See my Tweet Licence.

Of course the whole thing works the other way as well, with plenty of bloggers being sued left and right by big corporations for copyright violations. With respect to that, you may want to check out the EFF’s Blogger Rights page.

The Licences: Learn Them, Share Them

Creative Commons Licensing

…each of the six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license. We have listed them starting with the most accommodating license type you can choose and ending with the most restrictive license type you can choose. Source: Creative Commons Licenses

Side Issues

If you are aware of the whole Autogenerated content and Black Hat industry, you will probably have come across blogs littered with youtube videos and flickr images.

Ideally, a CC license is supposed to be symbiotic. The licensor gives up certain rights to their work and the licensee, in exchange for use of the work, makes certain the original author gets due credit and is rewarded for his or her effort. Spam bloggers, however, approach the CC license in bad faith, taking as much as they can while giving as little as possible back. Source: Plagiarism Today

However, what most scrapers dont realise, is that there are / may be creative commons licenses embedded in RSS feeds, and not adhering to those could land you up in court.

Domaining gets a pretty bad reputation. And I can understand why – you dont need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how dodgy some domainers are. But  on the other hand, buying and selling domains, speculating or testing keyword rich domains are part and parcel of the web.

If you are into Black Hat SEO, or into Affiliate Marketing, domain purchasing is potentially a daily business. I am not going to go into the merits or issues with buying keyword rich domains for either SEO or black hat purposes, nor will I discuss why affiliates need these tools.  Any smart SEO will own at least a few gems in their life, either for profit or for fun. What I would like to share is two absolutely awesome Firefox powered tools that can really ease the domain discovery process.

Domain Lookup

Domain Lookup

Ever read a phrase online and think: “that would make a great domain name”? Domain Lookup is a Firefox extension that helps you discover desirable domain names while surfing the web.

Domain Lookup offers three ways to search for domains in your browser:

• Contextual Search
• ‘Server Not Found’ lookup
• Search Box lookup

Not only that, it also has over 60 domain registrars plugged in and ready to go. I think that one of the reviews of the extension pretty much covers it:

You just have to love this tool if you are a domainer – find a phrase, right click, buy! Does it get easier than that?

Take for example, I am reading a news story about an upcoming Disney Film, The Princess and The Frog, and my affiliate hat says “hmm there could be potential in an affiliate site for DVD’s, toys and stuff related to the film. Wonder if the domain is available? ” So all I do is select the text, and right click. Presto! A new tab appears with my chosen domain registrar, running the domain lookup.

The Princess and The Frog - Interesting Domain

The other really useful feature is being able to grab domains that may not exist, but have a link to. While you are running through your normal browsing behaviour and follow a link, what would be your response if you see a “server not found” message? If it’s from a really good website, I would probably be tempted to grab that domain if available. This happens more often than you think – when common misspells find themselves linked to, without a website available. With Domain Lookup, you have the option to check immediately if the domain is available.

Server Not Found - Lets Grab that Domain!

Domains By Volume

Although Domain Look up is pretty cool in its own right, its a tool intended for single domain research. Sometimes a guy just cant get enough and wants to grab loads of domains at one go. Or wants to know what the keyword volume potential is.

Domains By Volume

Domains By Volume is a Greasemonkey Script that was built to finally simplify the process of finding keyword based domain names. Built as an add-on to Google’s Keyword Tool that is used by so many to find relevant keywords and their associated search volume.

In essence, check for .com/.net/.org availability in real-time while on GKT, with the capability to register at either GoDaddy or NameCheap. Installation is pretty straight forward. Once you have, you should be able to see the Domain Look up options on the Google keyword tool:

Integration with Google Keyword Tool

I dont think I have to explain the benefits of the tool for a real domainer – this is keyword research domaining on steroids to be perfectly honest.  On the fly potential of a keyword rich domain saves me the extra step of jumping to my registrar to see if its available.

As you can see with the demo below, I managed to find a pretty interesting domain based on my parent query “Disney”.

Disney KW Research

"Disney Characters" = WIN

My Poor Wallet

The two tools have a few known issues, but both Quality Nonsense (Domain Lookup) and Oliver (Domains By Volume) are nice guys who I have spoken to, and have further plans to develop the tools with additional features. For example, Domains by volume will soon support more registrars and other popular TLDs. I think Oliver is also working on a fix for running searches for “Exact Match” which seems to be a bit buggy at the moment.

Between the two scripts, it’s pretty easy to identify domains that are available while you are web browsing or researching keywords. I think by already deflated wallet is going to painfully decline further while accelerating my ever growing inventory of domains…

If you are interested in Domaining news, ideas and potentials, I think Domaining MindMap is a pretty useful site.

You ought to checkout Awesome SEO Tools for  other useful SEO/Affiliate Tool reviews.

All this Talk Of The iPad Is Driving Me Insane!

HTML 5 Coming To A Neck Near You Soon! Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniello/422213306/

So what’s the big news of last week? Okay, I promise not to mention the iPad. Oops. Sorry. To be perfectly honest, I am looking forward to seeing the proposed product in practice, but may not actually buy one.  The huge reason for this is the lack of Flash support. Now, don’t flog me – I don’t like flash for the web in general, however a huge portion of video and game sites rely on it. Steve Jobs seems to like it even less than I do:

He called Adobe “lazy” and confirmed that ipad’s would not feature flash – ever “so there. Source FreshEgg Blog

What does that mean? Well the screenshot below kind of summarizes quite succinctly:

iPad Equals No Pr0n - Highest Rated Comment on recent Engadget Post (click to follow through to engadget post)

OK, So What?

To me, the real story is that major media owners may start taking HTML 5 more seriously, if only to ensure that they do not lose traffic opportunities because of lack of iPad support. On the other hand, it prompted me to pull out my bookmarks on HTML 5 and start reading – I am not technically adept, and need to continuously read up on stuff. The stuff below is a result of me going through those bookmarks..

HTML – Affecting SEO?

Any markup changes can and will have effect on SEO; from lowering / increasing load times by reducing code bloat, to identifying key elements of a page.

Not only that, but as an SEO it is important to know how your on page link placement should be carried out, and how search engines will change their view on certain links if the site is coded in HTML 5. Will there be a wider use of the Rel attributes of links so as to establish relationships? How will those attributes play a role in Search Optimisation?

What about the rest of the On Page Links? For example, will links in the Footer element be heavily discounted? We know that search engines already segment the common links on the page, and have potential signals they use to identify those common elements. Should we make their work easier by actively identifying that content? Some SEOs I know actively refuse to use indicators such as <div id=”footer”>, and switch them to non identifiable div ID’s  so as to dampen the signals given out.

Currently, most content is wrapped in < div > or < span > tags regardless of what it is. There are new tags being introduced by HTML 5 with semantic meaning, such as < article > (for an independent piece of content eg. blog post or news article), < nav > (for navigation), < footer >,< header >, < audio >, < video > and even a < dialogue > element. < aside > can be used to indicate a piece of content removed slightly from the rest of the page in terms of relevance.  Source: Big Mouth Media

At the moment most of us will be speculating on what these changes mean, but most of us have caught onto certain common changes that we all think will impact on-site SEO.

HTML 5 will introduce new features that help us (and search engines) better dissect a webpage. In the past, <div> elements have been used everywhere where, in HTML 5 an array of elements will be available to describe navigation, text sections, articles and headers. The improved sectioning could quite easily assist a search engine in understanding the layout of a page. Source: SEOGadget

At this point in time, I cant really advise on HTML 5 and its effects on SEO, but I can say that whatever it will be, it is sure to be some sort of shift worth keeping an eye on. Definitely Video Optimisation for SERPs will be impacted.

The fact is search engines are making more an effort to semantically index and analyse data is demonstrated by their continued support of microformats.

A maybe less highlighted tid bit is that the HTML5 editors are Ian Hickson of Google, and David Hyatt of Apple. (take that info as you may…)

Cheat Sheet

HTML 5 Cheet Sheet (PDF - Via Woorkup.com - click image to download)

Thanks to the people at woorkup.com for putting together the cheat sheet above .

Resources

Although you should read the content I have linked to in the body of the post, here are a few additional links worth looking at.

• Edward Lewis (@pageoneresults) always does a thorough job of identifying elements. I read his SEO and html 4 elements piece with great interest, and am looking forward to his take on html 5.
• Dive into HTML is an ongoing manuscript for a book to be published by O’Reilly.
• The Bruce Clay Blog does a decent overview on what HTML 5 means for SEO and Video Optimisation.
• Hobo Web does a simple code example on how common elements on a page would look if coded on html 5.
• HTML 5 and Web Applications.
• Rich Snippets Testing Tool (via SEL).
• Rich Snippets and SEO By Pete Young
• Google Bets Big on HTML 5 post by Tim O’Reilly.
• Youtube HTML5 Video Beta.
• Google Takes some shortcuts when it comes to its own home page code.