We love Twitter, professionally and personally. It is a fun way to stay connected, an effective way to share good news and to connect with others, and it can be part of a cross-medium SEO and relationship-building strategy.

We have used Hootsuite to manage multiple-user access to shared or enterprise accounts for a while now, and we wrote in 2009 how TweetDeck and Hootsuite are better together. Well, here’s the reason we’re writing you, dear Hootsuite. In the body of that post, we of course shared our passion for TweetDeck and then in comments section of that post, we expressed a preference for a competitor, CoTweet. And, we’re sorry about that, we really are.

Hootsuite Logo

You see, when we flirted with TweetDeck it was because of its ability to create lists and segment the Twitter streams we’re following into thematic groups. You do that now. And when we expressed our admiration for CoTweet, it was because we needed to be able to manage multiple users on multiple accounts, and Hootsuite, we think you would admit this yourself, that wasn’t your strength at that point. Yet, in the time since, you’ve really grown, and you’ve made that part simple and added other features that make you the Twitter client we recommend to our clients.

The source of our Ardor: Google Analytics Parameter Presets

Beyond those “keep up with the Joneses” type updates, you’ve really set yourself apart with your Google Analytics integration. We also love Google Analytics, it helps us measure the work we do for our clients, and it gives us lots of web data to dive into and extract value for our clients. And it makes us so happy that you and Google Analytics get along so well!

Hootsuite Analytics Screenshot

We often recommend the Google Analytics URL builder to help clients tag URLs used in campaigns for tracking. Well, in the excitement of sharing or scheduling a tweet, it can be hard to remember to paste in all of those parameters at the end. And so, we were thrilled to see the ability to set the parameters as a campaign default when any URL is shortened within your dashboard.

Request – Multiple Presets Please..?!

So, assuming you accept our apology, dear Hootsuite, would you be willing to listen to one pretty-please request?

We love the custom URL parameters so much that we want to use them ALL THE TIME, so we have a request for an extension or tweak to this functionality. You see, we would like to get more specific with our campaign names, well, because we’re hyper about analytics parameters. So, ideally the analytics custom presets would to be configurable at the level of of the account rather than the level of the entire Hootsuite dashboard. You see, if we’re tweeting for ourselves, tweeting for a client, or tweeting personally, we want to be able to use different campaigns to comply with their or our best practices. And, we would prefer not have to remember to reset them every time. We love the “set and forget” pleasure of having the preset there in the first place.

Anyway, Hootsuite, thanks for listening. We sure do appreciate the wise and helpful owl you’re turning out to be.

Before I go much further, let’s define what I mean by “local search”. Local searches are those made in pursuit of something tied to a particular geography, often with the intent of taking some sort of action offline.  Really, you can think of these as the sort of queries one might have made (or still make) within printed yellow page directories. In response to the increasing use of search for local purposes, search engines evolved to serve up specialized results when they think the searcher is interested in a local result.  Because of Google’s 72% domination of the internet search market, I will almost exclusively addresses optimizing for visibility within Google’s answer to local search – Google Places, which are displayed via Google Maps search results.

Google Maps Search Results

Search results for "brew pub ann arbor", serving up Google Places listings.

Local search is, in a certain sense, the great equalizer of internet search marketing.  At times, traditional, purely concept-driven SEO might be seen as favoring the “big guys” – those who can afford substantial and wide-reaching SEO undertakings to establish their authority on a given topic and propel themselves to the top of the SERPs (content generation/syndication efforts, linkbuilding campaigns, sizeable online PR, etc.). Local search, on the other hand, favors, well… localness. And you don’t have to be big to be local.

This essential difference in the thrust of local search (compared to more general organic search) is driven by a distinct set of factors.  Those factors prioritize the local significance and legitimacy of a business just as much as its topical relevance. As I mentioned above, Google will return location-driven Google Maps results on the SERP when it’s fairly certain the searcher is performing a local search. Those search results are populated by listings within Google Places, so much of the focus of local search optimization (for Google, anyway) is placed on tuning up those listings.  Once you’ve tackled that, the key is making sure other aspects of your business’ online presence (local directory listings, customer review sites, your own landing page, etc.) are in proper alignment with your Google Places listing(s).

In my next post on this subject, I’ll go over ways specific ways one can demonstrate the legitimacy, topical relevance and overall significance of your local business to Google, resulting in improved visibility in local search results.

But honestly, well-maintained sites typically are tied to commercial sources in one way or another, reflecting the kind of content you’d expect from a commercial source, making the distinction trivial. That, coupled with Google CEO’s contempt for unbranded sites, makes it seem unlikely that Google is trying to do anything but list highly commercial sources. (Nevermind that large brands are often the largest source of disinformation – the entire thing can only be considered a political decision by Google.) Is Google shooting itself in the foot? There’s good reason to think no. From what I’ve seen, listing companies in organic results can actually increase revenue from pay per click. How does that work?

I’ve seen sites that rank well in organic results also display ads for the same or similar terms in AdWords. The idea is they don’t want to lose market share, and the more ads on a search result page, the better. In this struggle to compete on pages where competitors are also ranked well, revenue from organic listings gets pooled into revenue from pay per click listings when they’re figuring how high they want to bid. Maybe not always in a strict mathematical formula, but generally in a sense that the overall profitability is good for a site, partially from organic listings, and they want traffic and sales to continue to go up, so bids are set higher in AdWords, at a loss. So for Google, listing the same companies on an organic search engine result, increasing the overall search revenue for those companies, might help drive bids higher in the pay per click auction. It very well could be that by listing commercial sources in organic listings,  Google can increase their pay per click revenue. The opposite of what is typically argued.

This is important if your site is going up against other sites that are both ranked well in organic listings and are active in AdWords. It’s possible that you’d be at a disadvantage if your company is not ranked organically but you would like to start promoting your site with AdWords. These other sites could be bidding higher than what you’d afford if you want your website as a whole to be profitable.

Google’s answer to all this is that they look at “relevance.” Be more “relevant.” Lower your costs by optimizing, and you’ll be able to compete. The first thing to clarify here is that Google doesn’t really factor in the relevance of your site much. Google looks at ad text mostly when calculating quality for ad auctions – clickthrough rates (CTR) and how well your ad text matches the keywords you’re bidding on. After all, clickthroughs are what increases Google’s revenue. Search engines don’t really understand relevance well – generally, that’d imply that they are keenly familiar with your interests and can understand text on a page. They don’t. They can try studying search engine user behavior to derive something that might closely average out to interests, but that’s something totally different. Unless Google is doing a lot more than what they tell people they do when calculating ad quality in AdWords, it’s not relevant to paid search. I mention this because back when I used to browse Google Groups, I’d see a lot of people complaining about how their site is more relevant but they can’t compete. Some of these people might have been affiliate advertisers, but I think there were some legitimate complaints there. So if you’re going to enter an ad auction and you’re worried about competing – forget all this stuff about relevance and start looking at ad text. Do you think you could get search engine users to click on your ad at a significantly higher rate than your competitor’s ads? Reminder: people are skimming ads very quickly and their eye catches mostly the top of the page and bolded keywords. Use the ad preview tool to view competing ads.

Another thing to consider is quality scores are mostly non-exact calculations. Individual keywords typically don’t get enough data to be statistically significant, then there is variation by position, then there is variation by broad matched queries – it’s all non-exacting. Although Google somehow manages to derive exact numbers – unreviewable by advertisers, though, partially because you’d need to know competitor scores for it to be meaningful. It’s a frustrating system sometimes, and that’s why Google is always promoting new features with the word “transparency.”

When gauging competition for ad auctions, don’t forget to look at competitors ads. And consider also their organic listings. These may be important considerations for seeing what you might have to do to make a campaign that drives sales volume and how high, relatively speaking, your costs may be.

With a strong backbone for business analysis this individual will be able to map client’s business goals to an Internet marketing strategy that turns the clients site into an online sales engine. Speaking fluently in margins, profit, and ROI this analyst will tell stories that clients understand. This team member will have the ability to see the big picture while developing, launching, managing and optimizing paid search, organic visibility, and social media campaigns for clients across multiple search engines. This position has a high level of client exposure ranging from providing timely and insightful analysis and reporting of online activities to conducting coaching sessions and training classes with clients.

Follow this link for more details on the open Internet Search Analyst position.

Interested individuals should submit their resume and cover letter by July 16, 2010 to jobs@purevisibility.com.

Google Jazz Interface

Will it work? I doubt that we’ll ever know for sure. At best, we’ll either see it quietly disappear or, more likely, slowly evolve. I think that adoption will be slow. There will be users that see the items in the left column as noise (and will therefore ignore it), and others that see it but not understand how those search options affect their search results. In both cases, it reflects the fact that users don’t go to Google to play around with the interface. They go there to leave as quickly as possible – to find a promising search result and go to it.

This is just the reality of SEM: it is measurable, depends on complex interactions of systems, and often involves ideas that are relatively new. But you don’t have to give up on reporting. In fact, you can spend less time actually messing with powerpoint, more time talking to the clients and your co-workers, deliver much better reporting, and have fun in the process.

It’s simple! Any SEM who wants to successfully report to a client must be ready to do three things:

• Educate
• Simplify
• Adapt

Educate your Client. Even the most Bottom Line “just the facts” client will have questions about the data that you regularly present. This is particularly true once the Key Performance Indicators are developed and agreed upon. The key with education for a client is two-fold: First, the best opportunities for education come when you anticipate a question. The way that we do this at Pure Visibility is that we spend less time making reports “pretty” and use that found time talking about how the presentation will probably go with the client. When we hit particular discussion points, we quiz each other to determine if we know how to explain what is going on.

The second key point about education is that it should be part of the discussion and supplemental handouts, but not an explicit part of the report. Why? Education should be seen as a way to improve the way that you and your client communicate, but adding it to your monthly executive summary means the client will have to wade through all your brilliant prose to get to the key bottom line numbers she needs to make her boss happy. Put the materials on the side, in a separate file, if need be, and just talk about it in the meeting.

Take the time to simplify your reporting. Ever write a long letter because you didn’t have time to write a short one? Reporting is like that, too. Instead of dazzling your client with endless lists of data, charts, and graphs, ask yourself what the key messages are that you would like to deliver, and challenge yourself to put that information into one or, at most, two charts or graphs, along with one page of supporting narrative. Does that make you feel nervous, unprotected by your legion of spreadsheets? Well, try processing all that data without a tour guide. It’s basically like doing your taxes. EVERY MONTH. Why would you want to do that to someone who is paying you?

Adapt to the client’s needs. Your clients will love this approach, if they are getting simple data and enjoying the benefits of your knowledge as part of their marketing education, well, they GET IDEAS. During the beginning of an engagement, we find that clients who are really looking at the information and asking question tend to evolve in their understanding of what they want and need. As a result, we usually expect our reports to change three to five times in the early part of project. Sometimes this happens very rapidly (monthly or every other month), sometimes more slowly over the course of a year.

But here’s the key point: change is good! It means your client is starting to learn about her own business, and wants to get reports that more closely reflect that business as it is projected online.

Take less time worrying about fonts and your bookmarking feature, and more time thinking about how your client sees your data. It is endless fun, and will create conversations with your clients that you never dreamed you’d have!

Amazon Bestsellers June 7, 2010

Disclosure: I’ve long been a fan of Zappos. I have hard-to-fit feet, and I very much appreciate the selection and the easy returns they offer. I’ve also long admired their openness and their zest for fun. I was one of the bloggers who received free advance copies of Delivering Happiness. I wrote my (positive) review of the book on my personal blog.

What I wanted to discuss in this space was the multifaceted, organic social media hoopla surrounding the book launch.

One of Zappos core values is to Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication. And, this book launch is an illustration of that approach. And, it is a huge signal of the amount of trust Zappos has in its book and its brand to release many books to many bloggers and request honest feedback from across the blogosphere.

Aspects of the campaign

Inviting honest reviews

Ahead of the book launch, the website offered free advance copies to bloggers and provided us clear instructions for an honest review and where to link on the book’s website and Amazon. The Delivering Happiness Book website reader reviews page tallies reviews (though at the time of this writing the last update to that page was June 2, before the requested date to publish blog reviews). Perhaps more telling is that Yahoo Site Explorer sees 6,209 inlinks to the Delivering Happiness Book website as of today at 1:42. Click this link to see Yahoo Site Explorer has found more.

Delivering Happiness inlinks via Yahoo! Site Explorer

Strong Schedule Planning

1. Reviewers got clear instructions on when to publish their posts – we could have posted anytime, but were encouraged to post this week, today if possible, around the launch.
2. They’ve had happy hours each Friday leading up to the launch.
3. They’ve encouraged Meetup groups to form around the book launch week.
4. And they’re livestreaming the launch party from New York City.

Clear Calls to Action

1. Get connected – become a fan on facebook, follow them on twitter
2. Start a movement – take the pledge to act in ways to increase others’ happiness, instigate/attend a meetup to discuss the book (see above)
3. See encouraged links from reviews “inviting links”.

Now, these links are on the Delivering happiness book website. Why I believe it is valuable to reproduce them here is to illustrate how comprehensive the list is of ways to engage. Their strategy is open: it’s completely visibile and they’ve released their idea out to a larger community, to largely positive results.

Their strategy is also canny, because here on day one of the launch, they’ve had many reviews in blogs, on goodreads, and on Amazon itself, they’ve garnered many  many mentions, building excitement. And, they’re doing it with clear calls to action. And, given the sales they’re seeing (#1 on Amazon.com), I would anticipate their advance planning is paying off in selling books and spreading their message.

On Entrepreneurship
MASTERING THE ROCKEFELLER HABITS: This book is our handbook for being – we follow the one page plan, hold quarterly meetings, daily standups, etc. This is the closest thing to a how-to manual for business we’ve seen.

SMALL GIANTS: If you believe that business has a higher purpose than just making money, this book is for you. Bo does a great job of presenting his research on really neat companies and the common threads that make them Small Giants.

THE KNACK: I wish I’d had this book starting out in business. You, too, can have the knack and Bo and Norm are great teachers to learn it from!

THE E-MYTH: Perhaps “the” classic for any new entrepreneur growing from a team of 1 to 1+. This book created the mantra “Work ON the business, not just IN the business.”

GOOD TO GREAT: Jim Collins has done an amazing amount of research on successful businesses (publicly held ones, because there’s more data accessible to analyze) and found some incredible similarities. You’ll hear the phrases he’s coined in Rockefeller Habits and elsewhere such as the “Hedgehog concept” and “Get the right people on the bus”.

Corporate Culture
STRENGTHS FINDER: Way more than a book, this includes an online survey that provides an assessment of strengths. Once you’ve completed the survey you’ll get tips for supporting those strengths personally, as teammates, and as leaders. Buy this for your whole team. (We did!)

DELIVERING HAPPINESS: This book by Zappo’s CEO makes a nice complement to Small Giants, focusing on how creating a happy corporate culture leads to happy clients and a happy bottom line.

REWORK: The focus of the founders of 37Signals on keeping things simple is refreshing. Even the book is simple – you can polish it off in an afternoon. (We also love their project management tool, Basecamp.)

GUIDE TO GIVING GREAT SERVICE: Zingerman’s wrote the book on great service – both figuratively and literally. Personally, I’d recommend checking out their service (and the food) first hand. And while you’re in Ann Arbor, stop by and say hi!

DRIVE: Daniel Pink’s research flies in the face of conventional wisdom about carrots and sticks, making this a must read. (And if you’ve got a teenager at home, this book will prove to be priceless.)

Selling Online
TRUST AGENTS: Chris’s book is the most comprehensive primer I’ve seen on what makes online marketing “tick”. The focus is largely on social media, but it’ll get you on the right track.

PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: This book wasn’t written to be about selling online, but the message couldn’t be more relevant. Understanding buying behavior is critical to selling online. As someone once explained to me, if consumers strictly chose rationally, no one would carry American Express (higher fees, used in fewer places, etc.) This book puts research you can use behind why we make those choices.

Getting Visible
SEARCH ENGINE INC: To sell anything online, you’ve first got to get in front of the right people. This 400 page book is the most comprehensive reference to the mechanics of search engine marketing you’ll find.

SEARCH ENGINE VISIBILITY: Back in the day when we were answering questions at networking meetings like “What’s a Google”? Shari wrote what must have been one of the first books on search engine marketing. This 2nd edition of her original is still a good primer on visibility.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION: This book bridges a lot of categories, with about half of it dedicated to making your site visible. We’re a bit biased about the quality of this book, given that we contributed the two chapters on paid search. That said, if you’re just getting started we’d recommend the books above first – this is definitely a technical read.

Websites That Work
DON’T MAKE ME THINK: This classic came out when I was designing my first websites, and the general principles in it remain just as true today. Generally speaking, the simpler it is to make a transaction on your site (e-commerce or otherwise) the more results you’ll generate from your site.

WEB ANALYTICS 2.0: If Avinash writes it – read it. He believes passionately in the power of data to transform marketing – as we do! The bulk of our work these days is collecting data and making the case for site changes that ultimately help users and drive bottom line results. It’s a big, huge deal and most of your competitors aren’t paying attention to these kinds of details. THIS is how you create competitive advantage in today’s online world.

And that’s the perfect book to close out this initial list with, given that it captures the essence of what we love about online marketing!

P.S. In full disclosure: If you purchase any of these books through our store, the bookworms among us thank you – you’ll be fueling our reading and book sharing fund. Thanks!

The book reflects their clean design sensibility, with pages of drawings interspersed with quick blog-post-like narrative snippets. It is a quick read, but worth contemplating. I’ll summarize the book by sharing some of the subtopics titles within a few key chapters.

Given my day job as a project manager, I particularly value their approach to creative productivity. They’re minimalists. They advocate reducing interruptions “interruption is the enemy of productivity” and reducing time in meetings “meetings are toxic”. Why? Because “inspiration is perishable.” So you have to get the dross out of the way to be able to act.

Other recommendations they emphasize quick iterations “good enough is fine”, “quick wins”, and “make tiny decisions”, and being realistic about your human-ness “go to sleep”, “long lists don’t get done”, and “don’t be a hero”.

Want some quick inspiration? Go get Rework!

I’m a relationship manager, so my day tends to be spent in smaller chunks on more items than other folks on the team. I might have 10-20 time entries to make in a single day. The analysts work longer on fewer things in a day, but over a month, they work on many client and internal projects, so their time entry is similarly complex.

Well, Basecamp requires you to enter time (by clicking into individual projects and recording time) is really sub-optimal when you’re moving between several internal projects and several client projects in a day.

Harvest daily time entry page screenshot - notice the all important timers

We had been pining for a way to enter time more easily (without several clicks per entry – go to the project, go to the todos tab, click on the clock, enter the time and any comments, go to the next project, etc.). Jennifer, the relationship manager we hired in early 2010, agitated for a system change to make this part of our work simpler. She investigated several systems, and we chose Harvest because it integrated with Basecamp and had an exceptionally straightforward interface. Oh, and it has task timers, which certain members of our team really craved.

We switched to Harvest in April, and our first month garnered lots of positive comments from the team. It is hard to tell if time spent tracking time has actually decreased, because we changed our time recording definitions at the transition. This is anecdotal, but the amount of my time to extract summarized data from Harvest has decreased. And, because we’re getting time entered in a more timely manner, and listening to fewer to no complaints about our time tracking system, we feel this is an upgrade.

For more information on Harvest time tracking, see the Harvest website.