ITZ Publishing

Pages With Too Many Ads "Above The Fold" Now Penalized By Google's "Page Layout" Algorithm

2012-01-19T19:42:44-08:00

This post was originally published on http://searchengineland.com. Visit the original here:

http://searchengineland.com/too-many-ads-above-the-fold-now-penalized-by-googles-page-layout-algo-108613

Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm

Jan 19, 2012 at 6:00pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages? Think again. Tired of doing a Google search and landing on these types of pages? Rejoice. Google has announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads.

Top Heavy With Ads? Look Out!

The change — called the “page layout algorithm” — takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads.

From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog today:

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.
So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Google also posted the same information to its Google Webmaster Central blog.

Sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlay ads are not impacted by this. It only applies to static ads in fixed positions on pages themselves, Google told me.

How Much Is Too Much?

How can you tell if you’ve got too many ads above-the-fold? When I talked with the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, he said that Google wasn’t going to provide any type of official tools similar to how it provides tools to tell if your site is too slow (site speed is another ranking signal).

Instead, Cutts told me that Google is encouraging people to make use of its Google Browser Size tool or similar tools to understand how much of a page’s content (as opposed to ads) is visible at first glance to visitors under various screen resolutions.

But how far down the page is too far? That’s left to the publisher to decide for themselves. However, the blog post stresses the change should only hit pages with an abnormally large number of ads above-the-fold, compared to the web as a whole:

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content.
This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.

This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

Impacts Less Than 1% Of Searches

Clearly, you’re in trouble if you have little-to-no content showing above the fold for commonly-used screen resolutions. You’ll know you’re in trouble shortly, because the change is now going into effect. If you suddenly see a drop in traffic today, and you’re heavy on the ads, chances are you’ve been hit by the new algorithm.

For those ready to panic, Cutts told me the change will impact less than 1% of Google’s searches globally, which today’s post also stresses.

Fixed Your Ads? Penalty Doesn’t Immediately Lift

What happens if you’re hit? Make changes, then wait a few weeks.

Similar to how last year’s Panda Update works, Google is examining sites it finds and effectively tagging them as being too ad-heavy or not. If you’re tagged that way, you get a ranking decrease attached to your entire site (not just particular pages) as part of today’s launch.

If you reduce ads above-the-fold, the penalty doesn’t instantly disappear. Instead, Google will make note of it when it next visits your site. But it can take several weeks until Google’s “push” or “update” until the new changes it has found are integrated into its overall ranking system, effectively removing penalties from sites that have changed and adding them to new ones that have been caught.

Google’s post explains this more:

If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes.
How long that takes will depend on several factors, including the number of pages on your site and how efficiently Googlebot can crawl the content.

On a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.

Our Why Google Panda Is More A Ranking Factor Than Algorithm Update article explains the situation with Panda, and how it took time between when publishers made changes to remove “thin” content to when they were restored to Google’s good graces. That process is just as applicable to today’s change, even though Panda itself now has much less flux.

Meanwhile, Google AdSense Pushes Ads

Ironically, on the same day that Google’s web search team announced this change, I received this message from Google’s AdSense team encouraging me to put more ads on my site:

This was in relation to my personal blog, Daggle. The image in the email suggests that Google thinks content pretty much should be surrounded by ads.

Of course, if you watch the video that Google refers me (and others) to in the email, it promotes careful placement, that user experience be considered and, at one point, shows a page top-heavy with ads as something that shouldn’t be done.

Still, it’s not hard to easily find sites using Google’s own AdSense ads that are definitely pushing content down as far down on their pages as they can or trying to hide it. Those pages, AdSense or not, are subject to the new rules, Cutts said.

Pages Ad-Heavy, But Not Top-Heavy With Ads, May Escape

As a searcher, I’m happy with the change. But it might not be perfect. For example, here’s something I tweeted about last year:

Yes, that’s my finger being used as an arrow. I was annoyed that to find the actual download link I was after was surrounded by AdSense-powered ads telling me to download other stuff.

This particular site was heavily used by kids who might easily click on an ad by mistake. That’s potentially bad ROI for those advertisers. Heck, as net-savvy adult, I found it a challenge.

But the problem here wasn’t that the content was pushed “below the fold” by ads. It was that the ratio of ads was so high in relation to the content (a single link), plus the misleading nature of the ads around the content.

Are Google’s Own Search Results Top Heavy?

Another issue is that ads on Google’s own search results pages push the “content” — the unpaid editorial listings — down toward the bottom of the page. For example, here’s exactly what’s visible on my MacBook Pro’s 1680×1050 screen:

(Side note, that yellow color around the ads in the screenshot? It’s much darker in the screenshot than what I see with my eyes. In reality, the color is so washed-out that it might as well be invisible. That’s something some have felt has been deliberately engineered by Google to make ads less noticeable as ads).

The blue box surrounds the content, the search listings that lead you to actual merchants selling trash cans, in this example. Some may argue that the Google shopping results box is further pushing down the “real content” of listings that lead out of Google. But the shopping results themselves do lead you to external merchants, so I consider them to be content.

The example above is pretty extreme, showing the maximum of three ads that Google will ever show above its search results (with a key exception, below). Even then, there’s content visible, with it making up around half the page or more, if you include the Related Searches area as content.

My laptop’s screen resolution is pretty high, of course. Others would see less (Google’s Browser Size tool doesn’t work to measure its own search results pages). But you can expect Google will take “do as I say, not as I do” criticism on this issue.

Indeed, I shared this story initially with the main details, then started working on this section. After that was done, I could see this type of criticism already happening, both in the comments or over on my Google+ post and Facebook post about the change.

Here’s a screenshot that Daniel Weadley shared in my Google+ post about what he sees on his netbook:

In this example, Google’s doing a rare display of four ads. That’s because it’s showing the maximum of three regular ads it will show with a special Comparison Ads unit on top of those. And that will just add fuel to criticisms that if Google is taking aim at pages top-heavy with ads, it might need to also look closer to home.

NOTE: About three hours after I wrote this, Google clearly saw the criticisms about ads on its own search results pages and sent this statement:

This is a site-based algorithm that looks at all the pages across an entire site in aggregate. Although it’s possible to find a few searches on Google that trigger many ads, it’s vastly more common to have no ads or few ads on a page.
Again, this algorithm change is designed to demote sites that make it difficult for a user to get to the content and offer a bad user experience.

Having an ad above-the-fold doesn’t imply that you’re affected by this change. It’s that excessive behavior that we’re working to avoid for our users.

Algorithms? Signals?

Does all this talk about ranking signals and algorithms have you confused? Our video below explains briefly how a search engine’s algorithm works to rank web pages:

Also see our Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors, which explains some of the other ranking signals that Google uses in its algorithm:

Name The Update & More Info

Today’s change is a new, significant ranking factor for our table, one we’ll add in a future update, probably as Va, for “Violation, Ad-Heavy site.”

Often when Google rolls out new algorithms, it gives them names. Last year’s Panda Update was a classic example of this. But Google’s not given one to this update (I did ask). It’s just being called the “page layout algorithm.”

Boring. Unhelpful for easy reference. If you’d like to brainstorm a name, visit our posts on Google+ and on Facebook, where we’re asking for ideas.

Now for the self-interested closing. You can bet this will be a big topic of discussion at our upcoming SMX West search marketing conference at the end of next month, especially on the Ask The Search Engines panel. So check out our full agenda and consider attending.

Related Topics: Google: SEO | Top News

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions

2012-01-12T18:30:55-08:00

This first appeared on the excellent blog of Brian Solis. Please visit here to read the original post:

http://www.briansolis.com/2011/12/2012-social-marketing-new-media-predictions/

After reading Brian's piece, click here for the report he references from Awareness Networks:

http://info.awarenessnetworks.com/rs/awarenessnetworks/images/2012_Predictions.pdf

2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions

By Brian Solis

December 27, 2011

Awareness Networks released insights and prognosis from 34 business and marketing leaders as part of its2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions report. It’s written for marketing strategists, brand marketers and consults and those working in agencies. I think you’ll find it interesting to say the least and perhaps even prescriptive.

Here are a few of my thoughts…

On the evolution of social business:

Companies of all sizes will need to transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics. Businesses will have to embrace all of the disruptive elements, such as mobile and social technology, in a new, cohesive organization that is focused outward and inward.

On the subject of Big Data:

No organization, no matter how large or small, is ready for big data from a process, collaboration and innovation perspective. Business Intelligence (BI) is still siloed. In marketing, insights usually are still driven by community managers. Companies will need to centralize BI to feed every aspect of the business – marketing, product, innovation and customer service. Only then will BI help companies transform themselves into true social businesses.

On the migration from monitoring to intelligence:

Capturing information and transforming that information into actionable, measurable insight… This type of insight will not be marketing-driven but market- driven.

On the importance of mobile marketing:

Businesses need to understand if and how their customers use mobile devices, then provide a holistic experience that does not change for users as they navigate websites and mobile applications.

On the challenges facing marketers in 2012:

Recognizing that they are part of the problem. Today, much of what we see is still traditional marketing disguised as social media. It’s still 1-to-many. And, by default, they have created a marketing silo in their organizations. Marketers need to connect the entire organization and put everyone to work for marketing. We need to move to an era of 1-to-1-to-many.

The report also features predictions and observations by some of the industry’s most progressive thinkers and doers:

Errol Apostolopoulos (@errol33), Jay Baer (@jaybaer), David Berkowitz (@dberkowitz), c.c. chapman (@cc_chapman), Robert Collins (@RobertCollins), Stacy Debroff (@MomCentral), Jason Falls (@JasonFalls), Laura Fitton (@Pistachio), Paul Gillin (@PGillin), Neil Glassman (@neilglassman), Matthew T. Grant (@MattTGrant), Doug Haslam (@DougH), Tim Hayden (@TheTimHayden), Bill Ives (@BillIves), Taulbee Jackson (@taulbee), Pamela Johnston (@PamJohnston), Debi Kleiman (@drkleiman), Lora Kratchounova (@ScratchMM), Mark Lazen (@marklazen), Mike Lewis (@bostonmike), Marc Meyer (@Marc_Meyer), Steve Murphy (@SBCMarketing), Jonas Klit Nielsen (@Klit_Nielsen), Michael Pace (@mpace101), Andrew Patterson, Dave Peck (@davepeck), Erik Qualman (@equalman), Steve Rubel (@steverubel), David Meerman Scott (@dmscott), Samuel J. Scott (@samueljscott), Jim Storer (@jimstorer), Michael Troiano (@miketrap), Ekaterina Walter (@Ekaterina)

About the Author

Brian Solis is principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm. Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture. His current book, Engage, is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web.

ROI, or the art of counting monsters -

2012-01-12T18:23:34-08:00

Originally posted on BlockbyBlock. Read the original post here:

http://www.blockbyblock.us/2012/01/09/roi-or-the-art-of-counting-monsters/#

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Sally Duros

Next time you’re puzzling over the return on investment, ROI, of advertising for a neighborhood business, first consider the monsters.

“If you look at Facebook as the little monster in the corner you have to feed every day. And Twitter is another one. And the business’ website is another one. And email is another one,” says Greg Swanson, CEO of Itz Publishing, a strategic consulting partner for online media, “the neighborhood business now has 15 monsters in the room.”

“The question is not what is the ROI on each one, it is how the heck do I feed 15 monsters?!”, he says.

A history lesson on small business marketing will clarify why this is relevant to advertising.

In 1990, if you were a small business looking to win customers in your local market, you spent 70% of your total marketing budget buying ads with legacy media — radio, TV and newspapers. That means you spent the bulk of your money — $7 out of $10 — buying the audience from someone else who had one – i.e. buying ads on radio, TV or in newspapers.

“You were basically renting an audience,“ Swanson says.

The small business spent the other 30% of its marketing budget reaching the audience it had built itself. It used marketing tools that included signage, posters, direct mail, discounts and a few other bells and whistles.

But now it’s 2012, and those numbers have reversed, Sawnson says. Today small businesses are spending only 30% of their total marketing dollars buying ads with a publisher, i.e. renting an audience — including your website audience. And they are spending 70% of their dollars reaching the audience that they have built themselves.

“70-30. Which means that all media companies — whether you are talking about indy online media or legacy media — are fighting over an ever-shrinking part of the pie,” Swanson says.

The advertising/rental pie is very small.

This has been a 30-to-40 year movement on the part of small business owners, Swanson says.

That’s why Swanson thinks it’s time for local media to find a way to participate with small business owners and help them focus their 70% of self-built marketing dollars.

Today, the flavor-of-the-day for much of that self-built audience includes Facebook, websites, Yelp, Twitter, Groupon and other social sites that small businesses are compelled to participate in.

Using each of these tools poses a slew of questions. For instance, if a small business works with Groupon, it has bought 1,500 new email addresses. It’s got a new audience to market to as well as a lot of questions. How often should I talk with my audience? What should I say?

In addition, every tool is measured by a different metric, Swanson says. Social sites count likes, and clicks and views and opens and none of them compare well with each other. Social media marketing consultant Brian Solis has written extensively about this problem and has developed a rough system of measurement.

“The small business owner doesn’t have a clue how to manage this,” Swanson says. “A company like AT&T has highly sophisticated tools for managing social, but if you are the local advertiser, you are blindfolded in a dark room with a dart in your hand throwing it against the wall hoping the dart board is on the wall.”

In short, the small business owner faces more things to do with no greater budget, expertise or time.

That’s why to Swanson’s way of thinking, for the local indy publisher the sweet spot might be to ease the pain for the small business rather than trying to sell on a traditional ROI model.

The indy publisher could say “Let us provide you with a service where you can enter your information once and we will distribute it. And one of the distribution streams will be an ad on our news site.”

And so the ROI quickly morphs.

Though an unproven and controversial idea, Allen D. Mutter, who writes Newsasaur came out in support of the idea of publishers serving as social media managment boutiques in December, citing Forrester Rsearch.

A recent survey by Forrester Research, the market research company, found that 77% of the mangers of small and medium businesses are concerned about building their social-marketing presence. But nearly all of them say they are so bewildered about what to do and so overwhelmed with the ordinary chores of running their businesses that they want someone to help.

Swanson says that online publishers have an added quandary in that they often choose to sell banner ads – which are outmoded as an advertising model — coupled with selling to a news organization’s demographics. In Swanson’s opinion, neither takes advantage of the true capacity of the Internet to match buyers and sellers, but that’s another tributary we won’t go down just yet.

So as to ROI, how does this add up?

If you are a local publisher trying to sell ads to small business, and this small business conundrum jibes with your experience, you might try to understand the small business marketing mix of “rental” vs. self-build and see how you can work with the business to help maximize its channels, with your news site serving as an included channel.

Some might find following the small business money and easing the pain a more fruitful route than the more traditional path.

Let us know what your experience has been.

26 Promising Social Media Stats for Small Businesses

2011-12-27T16:26:43-08:00

Originally posted on www.socialmediaexaminer.com- click here to read the original posting.

By Phil Mershon
Published November 8, 2011

Is your small business “all in” with social media? New research shows incredible opportunity for small businesses.

Keep reading to discover why social media is changing small business for the better.

Six months ago, I highlighted many benefits of social media for small business, but several new research articles add urgency to this message.

Swiftly Changing Landscape

Social media marketing is a rapidly changing environment, as we all know. But the good news is that your customers are embracing social media as a normal part of their lives. Even the over-50 population is adapting at staggering rates.

The following 26 stats should impress upon you the importance of developing a social media strategy for your business.

#1: There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users, with over 200 million added in 2011. Notice the growth trend traced by Ben Foster.

Facebook is growing rapidly. Which side of the wave are you on?

Nielsen found the following in their 3Q 2011 Social Media Report:

#2: Over 80% of all Americans use a social network.

#3: Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S.website.

#4: Approximately 40% of social media users access their accounts through mobile devices.

#5: Nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks.

#6: Facebook is the top destination among social networks and blogs:

Nielsen found U.S.users spend nearly 10x more time on Facebook than Twitter or LinkedIn.

#7: Social media users are more active and influential offline:

Social media users are more active offline and have greater influence than their peers (Nielsen).

Key Takeaways:

Be sure you empower your online fans to be offline advocates;
Given the growing number of mobile social media users, consider how to best engage your mobile customers when you craft your posts for Facebook and LinkedIn (e.g., requiring shorter responses will get higher engagement).

What Does Facebook Say About its Users?

At Facebook’s recent F8 Developer Conference, Facebook shared the following statistics:

#8: More than half of Facebook users log in every day – that’s more than 400 million people.

#9: The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.

#10: There are 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, etc…).

#11: Facebook hosts over 7 million apps, and over 20 million apps are downloaded each day.

#12: Around 75% of Facebook users are outside of North America with accounts available in 70 languages.

Key Takeaway:

The previous five statistics show the strong competition for eyeballs. A critical success factor for getting seen is consistency. There is a cumulative effect to your social efforts. The next stat highlights this.

#13: Comscore released a study earlier this year that showed how business brands that post at least once every day will reach 22% of their fans in a given week.

Comscore shows the impact of consistently posting to Facebook.

How Are People Using Social Media?

Experian recently released their 2011 Social Media Consumer Report. The following trends help paint a picture of how people are using social media.

#14: Experian estimates that 91% of online American adults (approx. 129 million) access some form of social media each month.

#15: And get this: 98% of 18- to 24-year-olds access social accounts monthly.

#16: This confirms their stat that college towns log on to Facebook the most.

#17: The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes on his or her account during each visit.

Note that Facebook users spend nearly twice as much time on the platform as Twitter users. The jury is still out on Google+, as data hasn't been accumulated to show the effect of the public release.

#18: A majority of Facebook users log in 3-4 times per week.

Notice that Twitter users are nearly as likely to login once per week as they are three to four times per week.

#19: One out of 5 social network users is likely to visit another social site after leaving one.

After visiting a social network, 45% of users will visit another social site, a multimedia site like YouTube or use a search engine.

Key Takeaways:

If college students are part of your target market, be sure to find them on Facebook;
Because many customers show a tendency to stay on social media sites, find ways to keep them engaged.

Small Businesses Moving Toward Social Media

So what are business leaders doing in light of the obvious shift toward social media in online behavior?

Zoomerang interviewed 1,180 small- to mid-sized business (SMB) decision-makers and 500 consumers in September to release this study in an attempt to answer that question.

#20: The 3 most important reasons small businesses leverage social media are:

Connecting with customers
Visibility
Self-promotion

81% of small business leaders use social media to get in front of customers and find new customers.

#21: 44% of SMB decision-makers use social media.

This graphic highlights how important it is to integrate social media with your website, email and direct mail efforts.

#22: Of those SMB decision-makers who use social media, 86% use Facebook vs. 41% LinkedIn and 33% Twitter:

Small- and medium-sized businesses are investing the most effort in Facebook.

Takeaway:

Be sure to integrate your social media efforts with your website and mail efforts (online and offline).

Small Businesses Getting Results Without Spending Much

Social media is good for business, not just relationships. Mediabistro published an infographic produced by Crowdspring that reveals the following findings:

#23: 50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media – most notably through Facebook and LinkedIn.

#24: 51% of Facebook users and 64% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.

Twitter fans are more likely to buy from a brand they follow (Crowdspring).

#25: Small businesses don’t have to spend much to get results: Zoomerang found that nearly 60% of all small business decision-makers spend less than $100 on social media and 74% of businesses don’t employ anyone to manage their social media marketing.

Small business owners can get results without spending a lot of cash.

More Good News for Small Businesses

#26: Ning has found it only takes 20 people to create meaningful many-to-many interactions and bring an online community to a significant level of activity. That’s something almost any business can achieve.

Key Takeaway:

Don’t use the excuses of having a limited budget or a small fan base to prevent you from broadening and deepening your social efforts.

How to Bring It All Together

There are numerous conclusions to draw from these statistics. Clearly, small businesses are increasingly leaning on social media to grow their businesses. Many of your customers are using social media almost every day. The opportunities to connect directly with your customers are unprecedented, but so is the competition.

About the Author, Phil Mershon

Phil Mershon is director of events for Social Media Examiner. He is also strategic marketing consultant specializing in customized events, mission-driven campaigns and creative communication strategies

12 Google+ Marketing Tips From the Pros

2011-12-26T11:54:47-08:00

Originally published at www.socialmediaexaminer.com. Here is the link...

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/12-google-marketing-tips-from-the-pros/#

By Cindy King
Published December 26, 2011

Are you struggling to figure out how to market your business with Google+? Looking for some tips and ideas? You’ve come to the right place.

We asked 12 experienced social media professionals to share their best tips on Google+ for business with you.

Here are 12 ways you can use Google+ to promote and market your business.

#1: Personalize your page URL

Ben Pickering @bpicks

Carly Simon’s 70′s hit “You’re So Vain” gave vanity a bad name. But using a so-called “vanity URL” can be a smart move when it comes to your online presence.

While Facebook allows page owners to create vanity URLs of the structure facebook.com/YourName, Google does not currently do the same.

By default, Google+ page URLs look like this: https://plus.google.com/103145815507039304597/posts. It seems likely that at some point Google will allow for personalized page URLs, but until they do, there is a service that can help.

At http://www.gplus.to/, you can create a custom URL like http://www.gplus.to/strutta, which will redirect a user to your page. This link is more user-friendly and branded for your business or organization. When it comes to branding yourself on social channels, a little vanity is OK!

Create your vanity URL for your Google+ page.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

#2: Craft an eye-catching mini-bio for your hovercard

Mari Smith @marismith

Get creative with your “Employer” field and use that to craft an eye-catching “mini-bio.” This then shows in your hovercard, which is often the only information someone on Google+ has in front of them to decide whether to circle (follow) you or not.

Make it really easy for more people to circle you by having a bio somewhat similar to what you may have on Twitter.

The field is not obvious at first, but it’s under the “Employment” section and has to be your current employer. You have plenty of characters to write what you wish there. I would caution against writing something like “self-employed,” as shown in the screenshot below—that doesn’t really tell anyone anything about you.

I’ve written a bio similar to the one I have on Twitter and included a link—though it’s not clickable.

Don't do this.

Do provide an interesting mini-bio to appear on your hovercard.

Mari Smith, a widely-recognized social media speaker and trainer, author of The New Relationship Marketing, and coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day.

#3: Create a great first impression

Kristi Hines @kikolani

I think one of the most important things that businesses need to do with both their personal profiles and Google+ pages is fill out all of the details. Don’t think of Google+ as just another social profile. Think about it as your first contact point with a new client.

With that in mind, make sure you have a great description in your introduction, all of your contact details, and links to your most important online properties including your website, top pages on your website (products or services), blog and main social profiles (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn). Also be sure to use the photostrip underneath your headline to display the photos that best represent you and your brand.

Add a compelling description and all useful contact information.

Kristi Hines, author of the popular blog, Kikolani.

#4: Promote your Google+ page

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

It’s important to remember to promote your Google+ page from your website and other online presences. A recent BrightEdge study found that of the world’s top 100 brands that had scurried to create a Google+ business page, 61 of them had not displayed a link from their website to their new Google+ page.

Businesses should tap into features such as Google Badges. To do this, you need to sign up at the Google+ Platform Preview and then create and customize your badge at the Google+ configuration tool page. The page will generate a script that you’ll code into your website to enable and display the badge.

Check out Social Media Examiner's Google+ badge in the sidebar to the right.

I’d also suggest adding the +1 button to your company’s website or blog, which allows visitors to recommend it with a single click. HubSpot reported that websites that use Google’s +1 button generated 3.5 times more traffic from Google+ than websites that don’t have the button installed.

You can read more about my tips in my post, “The Marketer’s Field Guide to Google Plus Business Pages.”

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant and blogger.

#5: Create a suggested circles list

Jeff Korhan @jeffkorhan

My favorite Google+ marketing tip is to create a prioritized list of suggested circles you should be placed in at the top of the About tab of your profile page, both for your business and personal profiles.

Visitors can then quickly and easily determine your business focus, which will encourage further exploration of your descriptive bio or company introduction, and lead to more connections.

Jeff gives his audience suggestions on where to place him.

Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing.

#6: Leverage photos to connect with your audience

Jamie Turner @AskJamieTurner

If you’re like a lot of people, you’re using Google+ as a tool to build awareness for you or your business. If that’s the case, you may want to update your Google+ profile to include photos that provide helpful facts and figures about your industry.

In my case, I wanted to provide my Google+ followers information about social, mobile and digital media. I did this by creating graphics that were 720 x 720 pixels and uploading them to a scrapbook on my Google+ profile.

Check out how Jamie used the Google+ photo feature.

The result is that visitors to my profile are greeted by 5 short factoids about marketing. This is helpful to my followers and also positions me as a thought leader in the industry.

Jamie Turner, co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media and Founder of the 60 Second Marketer.

#7: Establish your presence and wait for your audience

Nichole Kelly @Nichole_Kelly

Depending on what business you’re in, it’s quite possible that your audience isn’t actively using Google+ yet. This represents both a challenge and an opportunity.

The challenge is to find time to be engaging and relevant on yet another social network. The opportunity is for you to establish yourself as a thought leader in a space where your competition may not be actively participating.

To balance resource constraints with opportunity, I recommend that businesses establish their presence and listen for openings to engage. When you start seeing your audience adopting Google+, take the time to recognize what they like about the platform that they aren’t getting on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Rather than trying to figure out how to do everything on Google+ that you’re doing on other social networks, look for how Google+ can help your business fill a unique need for your audience and build a strategy around that.

Nichole Kelly, publisher of FullFrontalROI.com.

#8: Get to know your audience on Google+

Stephanie Gehman @airport_girl

When considering your content for the Google+ platform, remember that although there may be some overlap with other social media, this is a new and different platform and potentially an entirely new and different audience.

Get to know them by asking questions, polling, sharing content and interacting. Do not presume that what works for your business on more established social channels such as Twitter and Facebook will have a cookie-cutter fit with your Google+ audience. Tailor your message and content to their needs.

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

#9: Use brand micro-circles for repeat business

Carla Dewing @CarlaDewing

To get the most out of Google+, concentrate on creating circles on a micro level. Work on a business-by-business basis, adding names to client businesses and brands, each of which has their own circle. You can also add names to “influencer” circles, which will help you connect with people in your field whom you want to meet online.

Using Google+ as a business knowledge base improves communication with your clients and your project management ability as you chat, video-conference and connect with new people through these micro circles.

Segmentation and attention are often vital when you’re shooting for repeat business. Google+ has handed you a way to do this neatly and efficiently, without having to use multiple platforms or media!

Carla Dewing, content marketing expert and part-owner of Contrast Media.

#10: Capitalize on Google+ search to show you’re there

Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA

Search Google+ for mentions of your brand and industry-related keywords. Save your searches and they will appear on your left sidebar for quick reference. Monitor your saved searches daily and respond to mentions, comment on threads and reshare people’s posts.

Use the Google+ search feature and save your searches.

Even if you have nothing to say, a +1 lets them know that you’re paying attention, as a great social brand should be.

Jason Miller, Programs Manager, Social Media & Content at Marketo.

#11: Use Google+ hangouts to communicate with customers

Tom Martin @TomMartin

Brands should be looking forward to hanging out on Google+.That’s right. No key benefit required, just communication. The power of the hangout is truly (for me at least) THE big differentiator of Google+ over other social platforms.

Need some insight into how consumers are thinking? Ship a bunch of them a bag of M&M’s and a calendar appointment for your next focus group.

Want to make your consumers feel special? Call them with an invitation to hang out with someone interesting: your CEO, a famous spokesperson or maybe the head of product development. No script, no questions. Just a chance to talk with someone they’d really like to meet.

Invite your customers to hang out with you and make it interesting.

Or best of all, be the campfire that your customers want to visit and teach your customer (who probably doesn’t have a clue about Google+, much less a hangout) how they can get on Google+ and join a hangout to meet with other like-minded folks and make new friends who share a common interest. The list can go on and on, but suffice it to say, the ability to create real-time, multi-user video chats is ripe for innovative marketing.

Tom Martin, founder of Converse Digital.

#12: Join others’ hangouts

Marc Pitman @marcapitman

If you’re really going to learn how to effectively use hangouts, you’ll need to participate in some (as a person, not really as a marketer). Taking the time to learn the norms of hangouts will make your first hangout as a business far more successful. If you use the Chrome browser, there’s a plugin called “Hangout Canopy” that allows you to see what live hangouts are happening at any given moment. (Go here for more on how to hold a hangout.)

Mark Pitman, author and speaker dedicated to making it ridiculously easy for people to get nonprofit fundraising training.

About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the Managing Editor of Social Media Examiner. She's tuned into business development through social media and cross-cultural marketing. Connect with Cindy on Twitter: @CindyKing.

Mobile Email Viewing Horns in on Webmail and Desktop

2011-12-20T12:00:29-08:00

From e-marketer. Read the original story at

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008743&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

DECEMBER 20, 2011

Weekends correlate with high mobile usage

With the growth of smartphones and other internet-connected mobile devices, mobile email usage is also experiencing a growth spurt. Due to the rise in mobile email viewership, both webmail and desktop email are experiencing declines in share.

Mobile is not expected to replace webmail or desktop email anytime soon, though. According to email certification and reputation monitoring company Return Path, webmail is still the most popular form of email use around the world, representing 44% of all message views, followed by desktop with 33%. Mobile comes in third, with 23% of all email views occurring on mobile devices.

Return Path’s report, which analyzed email data from April 2011 to September 2011, indicates mobile email views were up 34% from the last study the company conducted from October 2010 through March 2011. Meanwhile, webmail decreased 11% and desktop email decreased 9.5%. iPad usage is largely responsible for mobile email growth. Return Path data indicates that use of iPads rose 73% during the April–September time period.

Time of day and day of week have a strong influence on where consumers view their email. Desktop usage accounts for the majority of email views during weekdays, whereas mobile emailing spikes on weekends. According to Return Path, Monday is a particularly weak day for mobile usage.

Where email is viewed is also slightly dependent on vertical industry. Email users were quicker to read entertainment, social networking and publishing emails on mobile devices, while saving messages from software firms for desktop or webmail viewing.

Research from Litmus, a small software company based in Cambridge, Mass., indicates that email access via mobile device, for the most part, has climbed since July 2010. Despite dips in November 2010 and January 2011, mobile device email usage is expanding, while webmail is in slight decline. The spikes in mobile email correspond with summer months in which consumers may be checking in on email while vacationing or spending time out of the office.

Both Litmus and Return Path research suggest that users are accessing email wherever they happen to be. Email is likely to continue to grow on more platforms, as more and more consumers embrace connected devices.

Cox Media Group Plants $6 Million In Content Farm Skyword

2011-12-20T11:26:12-08:00

This is interesting. A fairly uncommon investment in content. Most media companies are making investments in marketing tools, or networks, or mobile platforms, not content creation.

Read the original post at

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-cox-media-group-plants-6-million-in-content-farm-skyword/

Here is the post...

Broadcasting, publishing and marketing group Cox Media Group is putting down some more roots in digital media investments: it has announced an investment of $6 million in Skyword, a content farm, to expand Skyword’s business.

Cox is the sole investor in the company.

It looks like the investment for Cox, which owns 15 TV and 85 radio affiliate stations in some 22 markets across the U.S., is a strategic one, as it looks to develop more interactive and rich content for its advertisers, particularly on digital platforms as advertising in more traditional media formats like those it operators continues to be face declines as newer forms of media take away the attention of viewers and advertisers. The company reported $1.8 billion in revenue last year.

An as-yet unnamed Cox executive will also join Skyword’s board of directors.

Skyword says it already produces thousands of pieces of content for a “search and social driven world,” which it generates and distributes through its own platform. Cox’s affiliates could potentially become alternative sources for distribution for those pieces of content.

Content farms like Skyword and its bigger competitor Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) have been accused of producing low-grade content for the lowest bidder—a charge they are trying to work off as they grow in prominence as businesses.

How mobile will affect the strategy of newspapers

2011-12-20T11:19:46-08:00

From the INMA blog.. read it here

http://www.inma.org/blogs/mobile-tablets/post.cfm/how-mobile-will-affect-the-strategy-of-newspapers

20 December 2011 · By Otto Sjöberg

I like bold statements. Bold statements make things happen.

It was a bold statement when CEO Eric Schmidt last year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced Google's completely new strategy: mobile-first.

“It's not a phone anymore,” he explained. “It's your alter ego, an extension of everything we do.”

In the year following that statement a lot of important things happened in the mobile industry:

Android grew to be the dominant operating system for mobile phones.

Smartphones outsold PCs in the last quarter of 2010 (although Eric Schmidt eight months earlier predicted the shift would come in 2013).

Apple became the fourth-largest producer of mobile phones.

Nokia fired its Finnish CEO and appointed the first foreigner, a Canadian from Microsoft.

Nokia and Microsoft joined hands to start fighting for a dominant position in the mobile ecosystem.

Microsoft acquired Skype for US$8.5 billion.

And Google acquired Motorola for US$12.5 billion.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard another bold statement, this time at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco. On stage was John Donahoe, CEO of eBay: “I believe there will be more change in how consumers shop and pay in the next three years than there has been in the last 20. Think about that.”

He was talking about the development of mobile commerce, or m-commerce.What has happened in the last 12 to 18 months has changed eBay's point of view of the future, he said.

The numbers are staggering:

From a standing start three years ago, nearly US$5 billion worth of commerce will close on mobile devices for eBay in 2011.

More than US$3.5 billion of payments will occur on mobile devices via PayPal in 2011.

Three transactions per second are now happening on mobile devices.

eBay sells 2,600 cars every week on mobile devices! Yeah, people buy cars on a mobile device.

Barclays predicts in the next five years m-commerce will grow by 55%. In comparison, online sales will grow by 8% and in-store sales 1.6%.

In a recent survey by ComScore, 13.5 million consumers in the five largest European markets accessed retail sites on mobile phones in the spring of 2011. Of these five markets, the UK saw the biggest growth: up 163% over the same period last year.

Jeffrey Grau, principal analyst at eMarketer, put it this way: “For years, the trend has been for consumers to research products online, and then go buy in-store. But as the industry improves its slate of mobile offerings, consumers are increasingly visiting stores to research products, and then (buying) something else on their mobile devices.”

Mobile devices are blurring the line between online and offline at a pace no one could have predicted. Consumers feel as though they have a vast mall in their pockets.

At the Open Mobile Summit, John Donahoe admitted: “If I would have stood here a year ago, I would have said eBay competes in the e-commerce space. It's a US$350 billion market, it's 4% of total retail and we think it's going to double or triple, and that's an enormous opportunity,” he said. “But what has happened over the last 12 to 18 months is the blurring of the line between online and offline. The 'e' is falling out of e-commerce, because retail and e-commerce are now becoming one.”

So mobile has dramatically affected the strategy of giants like Google and eBay. So how will it affect the strategy of newspapers? My bold statement, in all humility, would be: With the effect of m-commerce on retail, the nature of advertising will also change in ways we still cannot grasp. Factors such as personal preferences, location and getting in front of the customer at the right time will move measurements and expectations, (and how we're able to charge for advertising!), from eyeballs to feet.

What kind of engagement do you achieve?

Because the mobile device is so personal and individual, media's traditional broadcasting perspective becomes obsolete. One-to-many will morph into one-to-one-to-one-to-one-to-one because of contextual matters.

Still not convinced mobile will change your business again, as the Internet once did?

Well, let me quote this news that came out Monday from eMarketer: “Adults in the United States now spend more time with mobile than print magazines and newspapers combined.”

One hour and five minutes on mobile versus just 44 minutes for newspapers and magazines — combined!

That's a 10% share of people's media time for mobile. And yet, mobile gets less than 1% of the advertising dollars.

ITZ Publishing

Pages With Too Many Ads "Above The Fold" Now Penalized By Google's "Page Layout" Algorithm

Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm

Top Heavy With Ads? Look Out!

How Much Is Too Much?

Impacts Less Than 1% Of Searches

Fixed Your Ads? Penalty Doesn’t Immediately Lift

Meanwhile, Google AdSense Pushes Ads

Pages Ad-Heavy, But Not Top-Heavy With Ads, May Escape

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Mobile Email Viewing Horns in on Webmail and Desktop

From e-marketer. Read the original story at

Weekends correlate with high mobile usage

Cox Media Group Plants $6 Million In Content Farm Skyword

How mobile will affect the strategy of newspapers

From the INMA blog.. read it here

http://www.inma.org/blogs/mobile-tablets/post.cfm/how-mobile-will-affect-the-strategy-of-newspapers