“The “give to get” model really seems to bring power to an online store, just as long as that store is more than a thin vending machine.  Direct conversions?  Not always.  But it’s not that easy anymore.  There is still a long term reward, from branding to optimizing your other marketing channels, that helps websites survive this online climate.  It’s old school marketing, really.”

The Swim Coach

Klout jumped into the social media pool in 2007, and was started by Joe Fernandez and Binh Tran in San Francisco. While Joe was recovering from jaw surgery and was sending recovery updates to friends and family via social media outlets, he had somewhat of an epiphany. The possibilities of gaining influence through social media became an “obsession” for Joe, and Klout came into being.

Swimming in a social media pool with big players like Facebook and Twitter, Klout has certainly attempted to differentiate itself. Klout positions itself as “the standard for influence,” and touts the mission to “help every individual understand and leverage their [online/social] influence.” The K team defines influence as “the ability to drive people to action,” and they’re currently just focusing on Facebook and Twitter. “Actions” are considered to be a:

• Reply
• Retweet
• Comment
• Click

To me, Klout seems kind of like a swim coach in the pool of social media, rooting on users (or swimmers) to be the best in the pool and giving them the tools to do so. How does Klout do this? Through the Klout Score.

The Klout Score

To discover your Klout Score, head to the Klout homepage where you’ll need to register via your Facebook or Twitter account. Once you create your profile, your score will be calculated, and you should also be able to see scores of top influencers. For instance, I can see that Bieber is beating Charlie Sheen, with scores of 100 (the highest possible score) and 83, respectively. Here’s a brief overview of how the score is determined:

The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to      100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on  Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.

Klout defines the three categories of score criteria – True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score – as follows:

*True Reach: the size of your engaged audience (inactive and spam accounts are eliminated)

*Amplification Probability: the likelihood that your content will be acted upon (can you create content that causes others to respond? Can your content spread into networks outside your own?)

*Network Influence: the influence level of your engaged audience (if you’re attracting influential people, then you must have great content!)

Specific factors within these three categories are measured to produce the Klout Score, laid out in the graphic below (click to enlarge):

The New Guy

On June 1, 2011, Klout introduced the new +K feature (think Facebook ‘like’ or Google’s +1 button). Klout recognized that not all of one’s influence was being captured in their data analysis that produced the Klout Score, so the +K feature is a way for users to give feedback, thereby improving the Klout Score analysis.

After you’ve created a Klout account, if you click on “Profile” in the top navigation bar, you’ll see a drop-down menu on the left with a link called “Topics.” The topics shown for each user are currently generated by Klout’s algorithms. This is where the +K feature comes in. According to Klout, with +K you can now:

• Give +K on topics for users who have recently influenced you on a particular topic. NOTE: you can only give out 5 +K’s per day and you can only give +K to the same user on a certain topic once every 7 days.
• More topics are now available and are also more accurate; up to 10 topics now surface per user
• You can now hide topics from public display.

Why does this matter? Because, the more +K’s you receive, the more influence you carry on a particular topic and, ultimately, the higher your Klout Score will be.

SEO Benefits

So, we know that Social Media is becoming increasingly important in SEO efforts. To me, utilizing Klout to help measure your online/social influence seems like a good idea. I’m not saying the topics produced are always going to be 100% reflective of you and your “expertise,” nor am I saying that the Klout Score is a 100% accurate representation of your online influence, but I think Klout can still help in Social Media efforts.

Let’s say you run a children’s bedding website. You’ve worked with the client to create engaging content within your Facebook & Twitter accounts: mentioning promotions, giving advice on topics related to children’s bedding like creating bedroom themes at an affordable price, running contests and giveaways, responding to friends’ comments on your Facebook page and retweeting followers’ tweets, etc. Well, you may think that you’ve reached a good-size audience, but wouldn’t you like to have a more defined idea as to how influential you are? (Not to mention, there are Klout Perks for high influencers, like early movie screenings and invitations to exclusive cocktail receptions!) Not only does Klout provide you with a score that helps you gauge your level of influence, but you can also access your score analysis under the “Profile” link in the top navigation bar. This shows a breakdown of your influence within the three main score prongs – True Reach, Amplification Probability & Network Influence – so you know where you need to improve.

For businesses, the potential for increasing brand awareness, building relationships with existing and potential clients, gaining trust and authority on topics, and increasing reach and revenue with Social Media I believe is still somewhat unrealized. Having a Facebook and Twitter account for your business is great, but what if you’re only reaching a fraction of the people you could be reaching? Take it to the next level by enlisting Klout to help you gain more influence within your industry.

Additional Resources:

http://www.seoboy.com/?s=social+media&x=0&y=0

http://www.seoboy.com/dos-and-donts-for-handling-a-social-media-backlash/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/2011-seo-and-social-media-checklist/26172/

http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2011/06/08/how-to-seo-your-facebook-page/

Get a Facebook Like or you're doing it wrong.

Integrating a “like” button into your website is integral to SEO success, since Facebook is now entering the search market with its Open Graph Protocol, and some are considering Facebook to be the only competitor to Google in terms of search marketing. So, in order to tap into this potential stream of traffic from Facebook, you need to integrate Open Graph Protocol into your site. In the following paragraphs, there will be a brief description of Open Graph Protocol, as well as a brief mention of potential strategies to employ in order to utilize your Facebook page.

To start, Facebook is moving in the direction of a social search engine. Suffice to say, without me throwing out glaring statistics at you, that Facebook is no fad. It is here to stay, and it is only going to get larger. And it is innovating, especially in the realm of search engines. Many sites now, such as the ones listed in the introduction (I don’t want you to click on Jersey Shore more than you have to), are listed on Facebook and have the ability to be “liked.” And it works the other way as well—websites frequently have “like” buttons attached to them, linking you to their Facebook profile. This is all old news, I know, but its necessary to know the stakes—Facebook is a new market for SEO marketers, and here is how to do it.

In order to optimize your page for Facebook, you have to enable Open Graph Protocol in your coding. The Open Graph Protocol then allows you to define four properties in your meta tags—title, type, image, and canonical URL. In addition, there are also other entries that aren’t required, but highly recommended, such as location, contact info, object types, and content descriptions. For instance, from here is what an entry for the movie “The Rock” would look like, via IMDB, in its meta tags:

As you can see, the movie has identified itself as “movie,” given a title, supplied an image to go with the title, and at the bottom has given the option content description. Additionally, you can add as many og: tagged properties as you want to tailor your Facebook page, which is recommended but may be more time consuming. All you need to start this process is access to your html code, or your clients coding, and voila, you have a Facebook page. In order to add the “Like” button to your website off of Facebook, it once again is simple after the meta tags have been changed like above. According to the Open Graph page, all you have to do is add a Like button with either an iframe, a JavaScript SDK fb:like XFBML tag, like so:

Now, moving on past the technical side, the major advantage of this “Like” button is that it is in some degree replacing the Link, in terms of SEO jargon. The more people that “like” your page on Facebook, the more relevant your Facebook page will be to particular searches in the Facebook platform. Basically, imagine Facebook as another search engine to optimize for, with its own strategies and tactics, since in many senses it is very different from the major search engines. So how do you get “Likes?” It isn’t easy, but with these strategies you can see results.

First, and most obvious, you have to offer something in exchange for a “Like.” For instance, a short time ago Chipotle offered a buy one get one free deal on a burrito for anyone who liked their fan page, linked to their external page. And consequently, many more people began to “Like” Chipotle on Facebook, thereby generating much more traffic to their external page. Find what you can offer via your page, whether it be a giveaway or a discount, more “Likes” means more Facebook interaction, and more interaction with your external site.

In addition to giveaways, keep supplying content. Keep your Facebook site fresh, with new ads, new commercials, and new content. Keep your fans interested in you, and give them something to tell their friends about. That’s one of the best things about Facebook—it is very easy for word-of-mouth advertising to take hold, as all one has to do to share a link with a friend is type in another friends name, or update their status. The effort barrier is much easier to get past. Also, depending on what you or your client does in terms of business, you can offer sneak peeks of upcoming products to fans who “Like” your page. I for one have been caught by this nifty bit of link bait (now “Like Bait”) by several movies and other products. If you have a cool new product about to be introduced and need a Facebook “Like” spark, use curiosity against your potential fans!

And finally, keep interacting with your fans. The better the connection that people feel with the product, the more likely they will keep “Liking” your page.  And the more likely they will tell their friends, leading to more traffic and conversions to both your Facebook page and your external page.

So, if you haven’t both created a Facebook page and incorporated a “Like” button onto your external page, you are missing out on a lot of potential traffic and conversions. To utilize both features is fairly simple, and you can see an immediate increase in traffic.  So don’t skip on optimizing for SEO for Facebook, because Facebook will only get bigger—don’t miss out!

When your office is located in the same town as a five-time NCAA championship basketball team it is impossible not to get swept up in the frenzy of March Madness. But as much as Hoosiers love basketball, we at PPC Hero love the Internet even more. To celebrate the great blogs in the Search Marketing industry, PPC Hero is excited to announce our first annual Search Marketing Madness tournament!

How It Works

Sixty-four Search Marketing blogs will compete in one of four “regions” of expertise: PPC, SEO, Social Media, and Blogging. The 16 teams in each region will battle it out for a spot in the Final Four and eventually one will be named the overall Search Marketing Madness champion!

Voting will take place in 7 rounds, right on the PPC Hero website. Your votes will determine which blogs make it to the next round until we have arrived at one, ultimate Search Marketing blog as chosen by our readers. The winner will receive the new Kindle 3G to keep up with all the latest SEM news.

Round Break Down

Round 1 (March 15th-16th) - This year the NCAA has expanded the tournament to 68 teams. In the first round, 8 teams will compete in “First Four” games to determine who gets the 16th slot in each region. To go along with this change, PPC Hero has scoured the Internet for 60 sites to compete in Search Marketing Madness, but YOU get the chance nominate a site to fill the four remaining slots.

To nominate a SEM blog send a tweet with the name of the site to @PPCHero or @SEOBoy. All submission must be received by EOD on March 16th.

Round 2 (March 17th-20th) - Vote for your top 8 blogs in each four regions on PPCHero.com. The 8 sites with the most votes will move on to round 3.

Round 3 (March 21st-23rd) - Vote for your top 4 blogs in each region. The 4 sites with the most votes will move forward to The Sweet 16.

Round 4 (March 24th-27th) - Vote for your favorite 2 blogs in each region. The top 2 sites will move forward to the Elite 8.

Round 5 (March 28th-30th) - Vote for your favorite blogs to become regional champs! The top blogs will move on to compete in the Final Four.

Round 6 (March 31st-April 3rd) - Vote for your top 2 blogs to go head to head in the final championship round of competition.

Round 7 (April 4th-6th) - The two greatest SEM blogs as determined by you will compete for the title of Search Marketing Madness Champion and receive a free Kindle 3G.

If you have any questions on how the tournament will work please post below. Be sure to check PPCHero.com tomorrow to see the top 60 blogs and nominate to add your favorites to the competition. Spread the word, have fun, and may the best blog win!

Successful copywriting is an art form and a skillful copywriter conveys a brand or product message with wit, creativity, and unequivocal purpose. The task, which seems effortless when conducted by the most talented writers, requires not only a strong understanding of English language mechanics and techniques, but also a foundational background in persuasive marketing communication. The copywriters themselves agonize over proper word use and placement (both within the sentence and aesthetically on the page). Thus, a talented copywriter is an incredible team member, and to elaborate on my earlier assertion, successful copywriting is an art form, which is not to be interfered with…

Enter the Search Engine Optimization Specialist.

Just as every company needs a confident and capable copywriter, the organization could use an equally confident and capable SEO specialist. Unfortunately, while a copywriter considers the form, mechanics, and design of text, an employee trained for proper and efficient SEO is concerned with keywords, relevancy, and page rank. Thus, there is a high potential for miscommunication between these two marketing tacticians.

Therefore, it is important to recognize where on a webpage the skills of a copywriter or the skills of an SEO expert should take priority. Below is a guide on how to best optimize a webpage so both machine and customer are able to read and process the page contents.

Research – Pick a Partner and Stay Together

Both team members (the copywriter and SEO specialist) will conduct intensive research phases before producing any content for the webpage. The copywriter will research the company’s internal marketing materials, both online and offline, as well as the messages of competing brands and products. The SEO specialist will carry out keyword research and build a primary and secondary target keyword list. It is important for both of the experts to keep aware of the other’s research, as it will significantly help in the content creation process.

For example, a thorough understanding of the company’s products along with a quick review of offline marketing materials will aid the SEO specialist in the keyword brainstorming and review session. On the other hand, having keywords in mind before the copywriter’s first draft is a great way to start the SEO process early during content creation.

Content Creation – Give a little, Get a little

The Headline

Lead: SEO Specialist

Teamwork is key, but when writing the headline of the page it is absolutely vital to insert a primary keyword.  Thus, if it comes down to it, a copywriter must sacrifice a clever, eye-catching headline for a strong keyword. While integrating a keyword into a great attention grabbing headline is a plus, I’ll warn copywriters to not fight this battle with the SEO specialist.

Extra Notes:  Use the HTML <H1> tag. While form is important, the <H1> tag is a key indicator for relevance when a search engine crawls your Web page. Also, match the title tag keyword with the H1 tag keyword.

The Content

Lead: Copywriter

For the crawler, keywords are important, but for the human visitor, the page’s message is king. If you haven’t captivated the visitors with a catchy headline, it is essential to get to work early in your page copy. Thus, don’t start pushing keywords if you cannot fit the terms (or phrases) naturally within the page text.

Extra Notes: Incorporating both primary and secondary keywords (maximum of 2-3 terms per page) within page copy is of high importance, especially within the first 100 words. While you do not want to force the terms into the text, do write with keywords in mind. Try using keywords early in sentences and passages to aid in delivering the message.

The Form

Lead: Copywriter

Sentence form implies sentence length and structure in addition to text format (e.g. bold, italics, etc.). For sentence structure, keep your text grammatically sound. In the past, I have found concise sentence structure to provide the best results for two reasons.

1)    Better control of the page message and overall reduction in grammar mistakes.

2)    Easier to insert SEO target keywords at the front of a sentence rather than integrating in the middle or end.

Extra Notes: For search engine optimization purposes, bolding and italicizing keywords does carry a little weight with the search engine crawlers. However, the influence is no where near what it needs to be to forcefully incorporate it to your page copy. It is easy to use this strategy ineffectively, and this method can really make sentences look (and read) awkward for page visitors.

The Page Design

Lead: SEO Specialist

Obviously, a graphic or Web designer should be involved in this process, but beware the pitfalls of beautiful web design. Copywriters and designers produce gorgeous templates for company webpages, but considering SEO is too often an afterthought. Keep SEO in mind through the entire process and I suggest always leading with your page headline and content.

Extra Notes: Be weary of Flash designs and other applications on pages. Never hide an important product or brand message under an image, especially a flash image. While regular, non-flash images contribute to overall page optimizations, page content will deliver the most influence on a search engine results page.

Consider the Rest – Bits to leave you with

- External Copy – While this post has only discussed online page content, it is good practice to make keyword insertion a uniform procedure across all marketing materials (e.g. print materials, social media, etc). Therefore, if an offline, print catalogue should ever need to be reproduced on the company website, much of the content will already be optimized for page rank.

- Localize – If you run a small, local business, use the name of your city often in your SEO keywords and website ad text. Not only will this aid in your page rank, but also the incoming SEO traffic will be significantly more targeted and relevant.

- Update your copy – Today’s Internet is personalized, instant, and fresh. Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook are leading the way for instant communication, and this new way to process information isn’t lost on the major search engines. Fresh, relevant content is king!

-   What’s Next? – This is never a question a webpage visitor should be asking. Thus, when writing copy or worrying about SEO, always force another action from your visitor. Moreover, make that action valuable for both the visitor and for your business.

Hopefully, this guide will help to balance our practical SEO mindsets with our appetites for creativity. Do you have any web copy best practices I didn’t mention? Let me know in the comments.

…beatbox outro…

Google Boost

The first change was the introduction to Google Boost, a fusion of Google Places and AdWords. Google Boost allows businesses to run a sponsored map icon in Google Maps. The icon appears Blue – like in Google Places. What makes Boost so appealing is that it allows local and small businesses a PPC solution. The vertical is especially important for new businesses whose SEO is still maturing.

The other great feature is that you can run the same link to your Google Places page within a PPC ad. The option allows searchers to know only visit your page, but see where you are located.

A great, exciting change that only users in Chicago, Houston and San Francisco can use for now. And they put tight borders on them. Those in the suburbs don’t get to try it out yet. But if successful, it should be rolled out to the masses soon enough.

Place Search

The other major change Google made was in the way they will present local SERPs on Google query pages. Up til now, if a search was considered local, a map would be inserted towards the top three listings. Typically, 7-10 results would be displayed on the map with Google Maps snippets for each location on the left. But once the change is made, the Google local listings will be on the right column.

For people who love relevant SERPs, this means the space is freed back up to have more listings above the fold. But for those who do PPC marketing, much prime real estate is lost.

For PPC people those spaces typically represent the 4-6 listing. Now, yes, the 4th listing to appear will still be the forth listing, but anyone who’s seen research knows the value of having those listings in spaces where that map now resides. And pending on the results, only people who bid in the top three places will have their bids displayed.

Now my guess will be that Google will say that using Boost will help PPC marketers make up for the space lost in the listings, anbut I’m not going to be the one to tell that community.

Do you run PPC marketing? How do you feel about losing the PPC listing spaces?

Who keeps track of it? Anyone? Who will? Who should?

Well, you have at least 5 options!

Option 1: The IT Guy?

If your company has an IT person/system administrator or IT department, it’s easy to lump the idea of website updates and Internet computery stuff to them. This is completely understandable. However, IT primarily has a role to keep the network running and improving the systems.
Pros: Computer Savvy
Cons: Not up to the latest SEO trends or concepts

Option 2: The Graphic Artist?

The graphic artist can quickly update your CMS, CSS and PHP to get the messages and feel on your site uploaded quickly. However, Graphic Artists have a primary role to communicate a message through the colors and designs. They are about the experience when people arrive, not how to get people there.
Pros: Familiar with your website setup
Cons: Best SEO practices might conflict with their designs

Option 3: The Marketing Department

SEO is essentially marketing. It’s harvesting warm leads from the largest warm lead provider ever! The Internet! It fits in theory, how could it fail? There are pitfalls when your marketing department is traditional. Billboards, TV, Radio, Magazine/Newspaper ads.. if your department is willing to branch out, this is a good place to start.
Pros:Set for acquiring leads
Cons: Not up to the latest SEO trends or concepts

Option 4: Outside Experts?

Looking outside for help is a perfectly viable solution. Bringing in the experts to achieve what to you seems to be the achievable. You are looking for a skill-set that the applicants can’t seem to provide. However, communication needs to be a priority with the agency you hire.
Pros:Knowledge of latest SEO trends and plans to execute
Cons: Assumption of Accountability in place of communicating.

Besides hiring an SEO person full time on your staff which most companies can’t afford, the option to use existing staff or an outside firm seem plausible but who is the liaison? Who will not be “snowed” by techno-babble, look for red flags, know the right questions to ask? These are things to consider. There is no perfect answer, but there are viable solutions. Until more people are trained to become Marketing Technologists, analyzing the skill-sets of those who you are wanting to manage your SEO is a first step to bringing in those who are looking for the services you provide.

Keyword research is not the most glamorous part of Search Engine Optimization, but it is the necessary first step of any effective search marketing strategy. It is also a task that can quickly take on a life of its own where after hours of diligent research you now have a list of thousands of keywords to choose from. So how do you know where to start? This post will give you guidance on how to efficiently uncover the top keywords you want to target.

Step 1: Keyword Discovery

Identify Your Audience

You cannot effectively build a list of keywords until you figure out who you are marketing too. You have to think of what words your customers would be searching for and these may be different than the words you use internally. For example, a client may have a product titled “toss pillow” while customers may be searching for the term “throw pillow.” Think about how you would describe your business to a customer in order to begin creating your keyword list. This is often times different than your industry “intuition” so for a creative twist try asking friends and family how they would find your site while searching, and take what they say to heart. After all, they have the valuable outside view that your knowledge will block you from having.

Review Company Material

Once you’ve brainstormed on your own, the next place to research keywords is in your company’s current materials. Go to your website and look at the titles used on each page and the descriptions of products to identify words you are already focused on. You can also read through print material, such as brochures and sales letters, and highlight any keywords you find. Your marketing team has worked hard on these documents, so take advantage of what’s already there!

Keyword Research Tools & Analytics

Now that you’ve brainstormed a list of keywords it’s time to figure out what terms consumers are using. There are a number of tools, both free and paid, that can be used for keyword research.

Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool – This is a free tool you can use to enter your URL and see what searches your site will show for.

This tool also provides you with search numbers as well as the amount of competition associated with each keyword. This information will be important in determining which terms to focus on later.

SEOmoz Term Extractor – This is a tool we subscribe to which analyzes the content of the site you enter and extracts the terms it appears to be targeting.

These are the two tools I use most frequently, but there is no one tool that works best and we try to use many different ones to generate a range of words. Remember more research up front is better, and the more tools you use the larger the list you will be able to produce, which will help ensure that you don’t miss a “golden nugget” of a term. Below is a list of other common keyword research tools:

• Wordtracker
• Keyword Discovery
• Compete.com
• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion

Competitive Analysis

After you’ve analyzed your site, the next step is to take a look at the competition.  Go right to their websites and scan their web pages to see which words they are targeting. This is also a good way to see how you can set yourself apart from the competition. You can utilize the tools above in the same manner to see how people are searching for the competition.

Step 2: Create Content Silos of Keywords

Now that you’ve compiled an undoubtedly long list of potential keywords the next step is to sort the keywords into content silos. Unlike PPC, a good SEO marketing strategy isn’t built around thousands of keywords, but rather targets specific, unique terms. I love using excel for keyword organization and give each silo its own tab. I then pull the best words from my list and sort the terms into the different silos.  Remember each silo must be narrowly focused to optimize results, and you should be able to find two or three terms that a single page could be optimized for. Make sure keywords are closely related and include any variations of terms so you can be sure that you have identified the most rankable terms.

Step 3: Keyword Evaluation

You now have a complete, organized list of potential keywords but which ones should you focus on?  If you choose very popular and competitive terms you will end up targeting terms which thousands if not millions of other pages are targeting and will never get a top ranking. What’s the point in that?! However, on the other hand, if you choose too narrow a keyword your terms may be so specific that users never actually search for them.

A good measurement to use is the Keyword Rankability Score. For each keyword you generated you can apply this formula to calculate the opportunity for ranking, which in the end is the most important:

Search Volume / Number of Competing Pages = Rankability Score %

The higher the percentage, the more potential you have of ranking for that term. This is just a guide to help in your decision-making and should not determine the final decision.

The best SEO keywords have the following qualities:

• High Search Volume – people are actually searching for the keyword.
• Low Competition – every site is not also targeting this keyword – try to target it!
• Relevant – only target keywords for which you have supporting content on your site. Keywords should be used in your titles and H1 tags a well as throughout your descriptions.
• High Rankability Score

A good rule to follow is to have no more than 3 or 4 keywords per content silo. Once you’ve chosen the keywords you want to target you are ready to start optimizing your website!