I don’t read a lot of “…for Dummies” books. And I suspect that many of you don’t either. Which, as “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies” demonstrates, appears to be a really bad idea. Written by SEO legends Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza, you’re getting the very best advice from two of the very best SEO’s in the business.

SEO continues to provide one of the best, most cost-effective ways to grow your brand and your business. But, as many search engine optimization techniques remain cloaked in mystery and myth, companies often struggle to improve their site’s search rankings—and their business. Happily, Clay and Esparza shine light into the dark corners, unravel the mysteries and bust the myths to help you accomplish your goals.

More a desk reference than “read it end-to-end” kind of book, the book (really an anthology of multiple, shorter books), bristles with tips, tricks, and techniques you can use right away to improve your SEO efforts and your business results. Clay and Esparza make a key point early on, noting that those efforts,

“…can earn your site a higher ranking in search results pages. However, do not confuse the means with the end. Keep in mind your real goal—getting lots and lots of people to visit your site. [Emphasis mine]“

The authors refer back to this “real goal” repeatedly. They’re not focused on ways to “game” the search engines. Instead, they’re offering results-oriented advice that will help you in multiple aspects of your business. For instance, the section on “Discovering Your Site Theme” works both as an exercise in SEO and almost equally well for developing your overall positioning within the market.

The book provides excellent insights for the on-site, link-building and technical aspects of search engine optimization. So much so that I’d strongly recommend buying a copy for your technical, e-commerce and marketing teams—even if that’s just you. Clay and Esparza offer an intelligent, engaging and entertaining look at an important topic. Don’t let the title fool you. While it may say “…For Dummies” on the cover, grabbing a copy is one of the smartest things you can do.

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: book review, book reviews, books, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, SEO is dead, Bruce Clay, Susan Esparza, Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies book review, Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza

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Well, it’s that time of year again, where we recap the most popular posts here on the old blog. Since we looked at the most popular posts during the first half of the year, here’s the second half:

• One of the biggest stories in 2011 was the launch of Google+. And while recent events seem to suggest Google’s putting all its eggs into the Google+ basket, its early stumbles led me to ask “Is Google+ dead, or what?”
• Another very popular post was my list of the The 2011 E-commerce and Online Marketing All-Stars.
• Obviously, I’m a big fan of analytics. It seems you are, too. My post about “What Your Online Marketing Dashboard Should Look Like” was among the Top 3 posts of last year.
• While it came late in the year, loads of you liked my look at “Subdomains vs. Subdirectories For SEO”.
• Finally, the data suggests you’ll never go wrong blogging about Google. That’s probably why you all liked “Google Removes Marketers Access to Valuable Data but Doesn’t Protect Privacy: Have They Lost Their Mind?”

Thanks again for all your support in the last year, Big Thinkers. I’m looking forward to keeping the dialogue going here in 2012!

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Technorati Tags: analytics, blogging, blogs, E-commerce, E-commerce strategy, Google, google, Google Analytics, Google Plus, Google+, Google+ Pages, marketing, marketing best practices, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo

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Google is making lots of news this week and not all of it is for the right reasons. First, they introduced their Search, plus Your World enhancement (hereafter referred to as Search Plus because Danny Sullivan is a genius), incorporating social results more fully into the company’s search results pages. Twitter hates it, while Matt Cutts thinks it’s magical.

Me? I’m ambivalent. This has been a long time coming and, while I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon, I also think it’s incomplete, if for no other reason that so much of the social content that makes Search Plus attractive comes only from Google+. Maybe as Google+ use grows, Search Plus will become more valuable to consumers. But it’s way too soon to suggest how it’s going to affect business (though I plan to take a couple of guesses next week).

Speaking of the business impacts of Google+ growth, Matt McGee takes a long look at the growth of [Not Provided] as a referring keyword from Google. As I noted in the comments, the more folks log into G+, the bigger potential business impact.

What these two stories have in common is both present Google in a less-than-glowing light. In the first, Google appears to promote its social service ahead of alternatives such as Twitter and Facebook. In the second, Google offers its paid search customers benefits unavailable to those who don’t pay.

But are either of these “evil”?

You could easily argue that they’re not.

Now, before you get out the torches and pitchforks to storm my castle, hear me out for a second. If you made moves that benefited your bottom line and stuck it to your competitors, do those moves make you evil? Of course not.

So why isn’t that true for Google? Shouldn’t they get the same opportunity as you? (Ignoring for a moment any antitrust issues, of which I expect Google to face plenty pending the outcome of this year’s elections).

Actually, here’s the problem. Google’s stated mission is to “…organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” All the world’s information, universally accessible. Not just the information available on Google’s services and not just to people who pay them.

From that perspective it sure looks like they’re compromising their core mission some. That may not be evil. But if you sacrifice your values to boost profits, eventually you’ll end up with neither.

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Technorati Tags: Google, Google +1, Google Analytics, Google antitrust, Google Plus, Google+, Google+ Pages, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, social marketing, social media predictions, social search, social strategy

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Most of the businesses I talk to increasingly have shifted their media spend towards paid search. And given its growth, who could blame them?

But, between the growing importance of alternative information channels and the possibility of serious antitrust oversight, next year will challenge Google with the largest threats in its history.

How can you be sure that this doesn’t turn into the worst possible time to start search marketing for your business? My latest post on Mike Moran’s Biznology blog, “2 Huge Search Marketing Risks in 2012—And What To Do About Them” seeks to answer just that question.

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Technorati Tags: Google, google, Google +1, google adwords, Google antitrust, Google+, Google+ Pages, marketing best practices, marketing predictions, mike moran, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, strategy, success, 2012 predictions

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Yesterday, we took a long, long, long, long… (you get the idea), look at the pros and cons of subdomains and subdirectories for SEO. But, I glossed over the benefits and disadvantages to brands of the different options. Let’s take a look, shall we?

SEO, Branding and URL Choices

Branding is a funny thing, in some ways more art than science (though, you can easily argue the same about SEO, too). While there are more formal definitions, I usually think about brands as representing the sum of every interaction your customers have with you:

So, by definition, SEO plays a role in branding. If a customer looks for you on a search engine and can’t find you, that hurts both your business today (transactions) and your business tomorrow (brand). Ever hear someone say, “I looked for them on Google but couldn’t find them”? Experiences like that subtract from the overall experience customers have with you and diminish your brand.

Of course, your customers have to search for you in the first place before that experience can contribute to—or detract from—their brand experience. Yesterday, we listed the various types of URLs you can use for your business’s blog. In the interest of your time (and sanity), I’m not going to recap the differences (see the original post for more details), but list the types for your reference:

1. www.YourBrand.com/YourBlog
2. YourBlog.YourBrand.com
3. YourBlog.SomeoneElsesBrand.com
4. www.YourBLOG.com

I particularly like #1 from an SEO and ease of management perspective. As it happens, I also think it’s the right one from a branding perspective in most cases. Here’s why.

In the excellent book “Kellog on Branding,” the authors list three challenges anyone building a brand faces:

1. Cash
2. Consistency
3. Clutter

In other words, do you have the cash to get your message in front of every customer you want? …employees and partners who convey your message the same way every time? …a special way to be heard among the mess of messages in the marketplace?

So, ignoring SEO considerations for a moment, which of the four URL choices above works best from a cash, consistency, and clutter perspective?

Usually, it’s #1.

You’re already working to build your company’s brand. Your existing customers already know how to find you online. You’ve probably got the URL on every piece of collateral material (and if you don’t, just tell me you do for now, then go fix that). What benefit is there in giving your customers yet another place to try and find you?

That’s not to say I’ve never built a specific campaign using URL’s like those in #2, #3, and #4. It’s that when I’ve done it, it’s been with a very specific understanding of how to address the cash, consistency and clutter challenges. Since I believe that URLs should live forever, these usually aren’t short-term decisions. #1 isn’t a perfect choice for every single instance. But it’s rarely a bad choice for most situations. If you’re leaning towards one of the other options, just be sure and think through the implications of your choice for the long term. Which, really, is what brand building is all about.

Also, remember that you can use multiple domains (and domain types) to point to the same content, either as a tracking mechanism or to target specific customer segments so long as you use a 301 redirect. For example, I do this with the blog, using both timpeter.com/blog and thinksblog.com to direct traffic here.

Conclusion

As important as choosing the right URL is from an SEO and branding standpoint, none of these choices will provide you significant benefit if you lack quality content and your fair share of inbound links. Domains are only one (important) part of your SEO and branding picture.

But they’re not the whole picture.

When in doubt, pick the one that you can support most readily (cash and consistency) and that doesn’t confuse your customer (clutter). Then put your focus on building quality content and driving links to it. That will do at least as much in improving your SEO and improving your customer’s experience. When it all comes together, that’s what builds your brand.

URL Selection Note: Some services—usually social sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, and Slideshare—can help you build your brand and require using their URL with your brand and/or a generic identifier appended to it. Obviously, if the service helps you meet the needs of your customers and doesn’t offer you a better URL option, then go with their URL scheme. My rule of thumb is always optimize for customers first, search engines second. There’s also an argument that having your brand appear on multiple sites as either a subdomain or subdirectory can help you dominate the search results page for your brand. It’s a great idea and worth exploring if you’ve got the bandwidth to support it. But put the focus first on what helps your customers.

Technorati Tags: brand building, branding, domain hosting, domain selection, hosting, hosting solutions, online brand building, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, strategy, URL

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One of the reasons the Internet is so powerful, both as a way to put your story in front of customers and as a way to drive action, is its increasing ubiquity. The Internet isn’t a place anymore. You don’t “go online.” You are online, all the time.

Consider this:

• Google projects that 15% of all searches conducted this coming Black Friday will come from mobile devices.
• 40% of all mobile owners use the internet on their devices.
• 70% of smartphone users—some 63 million people—use their device while shopping in a store.

So, why is it that only 1 in 3 companies advertising on the web have a mobile optimized website?

Mobile isn’t as hard as it seems. You just have to have a plan.

1. Ask yourself: “Is my site mobile enough?“
2. Look at whether apps make sense for your business.
3. Learn from what others are doing.

But, whatever you do, don’t sit on the sidelines. As I’ve said before, we’re not talking about the mobile web anymore; we’re talking about the web, period. The question is, are you talking about it at all?

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Technorati Tags: android, E-commerce, E-commerce strategy, mobile

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A few months ago, I confidently asserted that no way, no how, does Google+ kill SEO. Now, while I’m not backpedaling, I am curious about what the introduction of Google+ Pages means for SEO practices.

For instance, Google offers this “shiny, happy people” video, showing that business (and social, really), is all about people:

But, they’ve also got this one, showing how you can connect directly to a brand’s Google+ Page from Google Search:

Notice here, when I search for Amazon using the query “+Amazon”:

Now, I’m not clear how many customers will use this new approach—I suspect not many for the foreseeable future. But, this is a fairly major change to Google’s search behavior and one—much like Place Pages—that leads the customer to Google, not to your own site. SEO experts work hard to ensure that the right pages show up first. Will Google bypass this and just have the Google+ Page return first, instead?

In any case, I recommend getting yourself a Google+ Place page both as an additional part of your web presence and, as I expect we’ll find out, an important part of your SEO strategy, too. This may not mean war on the SEO community. But it might be an opening shot.

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: E-commerce, E-commerce strategy, Google, Google +1, Google Place Page, Google Plus, Google+, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, SEO is dead, social, social commerce, social marketing, social media, social media predictions, social search, social strategy, strategy, Google+ Pages

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Ugh. Google announced today that they’re going to make search data more secure by hiding search query and referrer data. Except for when they don’t.

Huh?

It seems Google is going to hide the query and the referrer on searches for anyone logged into Google. While this will only affect, according to Google’s Matt Cutts, “single-digit” numbers of searchers, anything that makes it harder for marketers and e-commerce types to segment their customers, well, sucks.

Now this wouldn’t be so bad if it applied to all logged-in customers for all types of searches. At least then Google could fully claim they’re protecting privacy. But, Google isn’t doing that. The data from paid clicks (i.e., the type Google makes money from), continues getting passed to your analytics tool. Not sure how that’s protecting privacy. Google’s got enough trouble with potential regulators right now. I’m not sure this approach helps them there.

And, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Google protecting users’ privacy. I have argued repeatedly that protecting privacy is in marketers’ long-term best interest. I’m just not sure this accomplishes much in that regard.

Google’s announcement came earlier today, so many details are still up in the air. But the best analysis so far comes from Danny Sullivan:

“Not only does the policy discriminate against the SEO side of the search marketing family, it also sends a terrible signal to consumers. It says that referrer data is important enough to protect — but not important enough when advertiser interests are at stake.

To be fair, Google is concerned that people are more likely to do sensitive searches that somehow reveal private information in referrer data through clicks on its free listings. But this could still happen in relation to ads, as well.

I appreciate that Google’s trying to get the balance right, something Cutts said to me repeatedly, as well as all this being a a first step that will likely evolve. I also appreciate what he said about even this already improving things: “What you’re getting today is better than what you were getting yesterday.”

But still, it would seem better if all referrers were blocked. As a marketer, I hate saying that. But as a consumer, it does provide more protection. And for Google, blocking them all doesn’t create this mixed message that might backfire on them with privacy advocates.”

Admittedly, his analysis and mine align pretty heavily. But stay tuned for more. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot about this in the coming days.

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Technorati Tags: advertising, adwords, analytics, attribution, attribution modeling, behavioral targeting, conversion, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, E-commerce, e-commerce, E-commerce strategy, Google, google, google adwords, Google Analytics, Google antitrust, Google Buzz privacy, internet business, internet marketing, landing page optimization, measurement, metrics, online brand building, online marketing, ppc, ppc marketing, privacy, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, SEO is dead, what would google do

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According to Google’s “Ten things we know to be true”, Google strives to “Focus on the user…” knowing, “…all else will follow.” Google became the dominant search engine by offering a simple, usable interface on top of great search technology. It just works.

Apple introduced a new voice-activated personal assistant, called Siri, in its new iPhone 4S. I have one and it’s amazing. Ask it “Will it rain tomorrow?” and it responds with a quick look at the forecast. Tell it to send a text to your business partner, or your daughter, and it opens the messaging app and asks you what you’d like to say. Speak your message, tell it to send, and you’re done. Again, it just works.

I bring this up because there’s a raging debate right now on Google+ about whether Siri is just a re-heated version of Android’s Voice Actions, who got there first, and, near as I can figure, whose dad can beat up whose.

One commenter on the thread noted, “Everyone is spitting chips about [Siri's] useless ‘Natural speach (sic) recognition’ – Basically for idiots that cant (sic) remember 5 commands…”

Pity his spell checker doesn’t just work.

Ignoring the “idiots” part for a moment, the key here is “can’t remember 5 commands.” I’ve had an Android phone for the better part of three years. And I used Voice Actions maybe 5 times. Why? Because it didn’t “just work.” I had to learn how the tool wanted me to work. And, frankly, remembering those 5 commands wasn’t worth the time or benefit. With Siri, I don’t have to remember any commands. I just say what I want to say and, more often than not, it just works.

Now, this isn’t meant as a review of Apple’s iPhone or Google’s Android operating systems. I also don’t care whose dad can beat up whose.

More importantly, neither do your customers.

You see, the problem with Android Voice Actions is that it focuses on the technology, not the user. I don’t know if Apple is using superior technology than Google. Maybe they’re not. I don’t know if Siri is going to “win” the race forever. Maybe they won’t. But, as an “idiot user” (though I prefer “moron in a hurry”), I can tell you that Siri is much more useful than Voice Actions and that, at least over the last few days, I use it all the time.

Maybe the novelty will wear off. And, if Google focuses on its users’ needs with the next version of Voice Actions—as they’ve done with their search engine for years—maybe they’ll have the best tool on the marketplace. But, right now, there’s no question in my mind that Siri is the best user experience on the market for voice control. It just works.

If you think your customers consist of “idiots” who “can’t remember” what you want them to do, then that’s your problem, not theirs. Because they’re not idiots. Or “morons in a hurry.” What they care about is whether your product solves their problem—and whether or not it just works.

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: Apple, continuous improvement, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, customer satisfaction, customer service, Don’t Make Me Think, E-commerce, e-commerce, e-commerce satisfaction, E-commerce strategy, e-marketing, ecommerce, Google, google, Google+, integrated marketing, internet business, internet marketing, iphone, marketing best practices, page design, strategy, Product Management, Design

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Marketing on the Internet seems to get harder all the time, doesn’t it? Content marketing, paid search, natural search/SEO, display advertising, remarketing, and on and on and on. How can anyone expect to keep up?

Well, happily, here’s a secret: They’re all much more related than you might think. You build content to meet your customer’s needs. That’s a landing page. Make sure it’s got some appropriate keywords in it, get some folks to link to it, and you’re doing SEO (admittedly, a simplified version, but it’s better than nothing). The better its relevance, the less you pay for clicks if you point paid search or display ads to it. And so on.

Happily, loads of resources exist to help you tie your activities together. Here are just a handful of excellent posts to help you start:

• Google’s Agency Blog has a great look at using Audience insights to improve your ad campaigns. While Google’s presentation focuses on paid search and display media advertising, the tools offered can help you develop better content and understand your customers’ behaviors more readily, too. (I’ve added the full video below if you’ve got the time to watch it.)
• Rimm Kaufman Group’s RKGBlog (one of the Thinks 2011 All-Stars), explores paid search conversion by position. Very cool.
• What, you don’t do and paid search or display advertising? You might want to consider it. The Certified Knowledge blog shows how to use PPC to test SEO. Sweet. (And sorry about their “enroll” popup when you land there. The content’s still worth reading.)
• Social Media Explorer follows up this theme of “content meets search meets SEO” with this post that, well, explores the future of content in SEO. Very much worth the read.
• Now, in case you wonder why all of this is a good idea, check out Drew McLellan’s report on mixing media types. It seems customers exposed to the same message in multiple media channels (surprise, surprise) showed better recall than those seeing the message in only one. Offering the same message, in multiple channels, targeted to the right customer, goes a long way to achieving your best results.

Have a great weekend, folks. And remember, we’re here at Thinks every day helping you untangle the Web to improve your marketing and e-commerce activities. Why not subscribe via email and get these updates delivered to you?

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: brand building, branding, content marketing, content strategy, conversion rate optimization, E-commerce, e-commerce, E-commerce strategy, e-marketing, ecommerce, google, google adwords, internet business, internet marketing, landing page design, landing page optimization, marketing, marketing best practices, online brand building, online marketing, ppc, ppc marketing, Rimm-Kaufmann, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, strategy, integrated marketing

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