Bharati Ahuja

Click Asia Summit 2012 ( Day 3 #CAS12 ) Master Classes By Mahesh Murthy And Gillian Muessig

Day 3 of the Click Asia Summit was all about the master classes on social and search.One could attend 2 workshops that day . One was before lunch and the other one was after lunch. My work essentially revolves around SEO campaigns and I usually opt for SEO focused sessions but this time I decided to attend Mr. Mahesh Murthy’s workshop on “Creating great multi-media campaigns in an integrated world” just to acquaint myself about how other marketing companies approach a given multi media campaign.

Participants were broken up into teams, and a digital marketing project was given to each team, at the end of the session each team had to present the digital marketing campaign worked out by each . These were graded and analyzed at the end.

Before the teams started working on the project, Mr. Murthy gave an overview and an idea about what an ideal digital marketing campaign should be approached.

He pointed out that for every digital marketing campaign one should list out the following:

· Priorities to achieve via the campaign

· Process to achieve the same

· Template to judge the campaign

He also pointed out with an example of 4 videos the importance of having a strategy and making it go viral and also highlighted the reason for a video or any content to get shared.

· The first and foremost the audience has a lot of choice today so content should be remark worthy

· People share content because they want to be popular among their friends

· If the info comes via a friend it has a high trust factor

Hence,

Strategy + Virality = Success

What media you choose depends on what message you want to convey. People are not averse to marketing but they are averse to marketing that bores them.

"Digital is not niche anymore. It is mainstream" - Mahesh Murthy

The four videos taken as case study were as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUD3E5-rfrc&feature=related > All strategy but no virality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jgGK4NJ8Hk&feature=related > No strategy but all virality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR12Z8f1Dh8&feature=fvsr > bad strategy but all virality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE&feature=relmfu > all stategy and all virality

Mr. Murthy gave the project of designing a digital campaign for a water purifier . All the teams came up with different ideas and I am sure everyone left the place with their dimag ki batti being jaloed (minds Ignited) and I am sure Mr. Murthy too got some ideas for the next water purifier digital campaign his team may have to work on.

After this we dispersed for lunch and I got back to a session on Analytics, Glorious Analytics! By Gillian Muessig from SEOmoz

The session was divided into the following 4 categories :

Session I - Follow the Money... Backwards!
Choosing KPIs for your business

Session II - Tracking Social Media Metrics
Tracking things that matter in social media campaigns and understanding ROI

Session III - Tracking Conversion Rate Optimization Metrics
Layout, A/B and multivariate testing, and measuring results

Session IV - A Few Reliable Tools
An overview of: Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and SEOmoz/OpenSiteExplorer.org

After the first 2 sessions , it became more of an open Q & A session where people started asking questions and Gillian answered patiently .

The questions were so varied and were SEO specific hence everyone got to learn something from what problems and issues they were facing on their sites.

The day ended with Gillian (or SEOmom as she is known as ) giving vouchers for a Spa to participants who had asked good questions and I personally got an SEOmoz souvenir which was a token of appreciation for all the help that I had offered. I am still wondering in what way I had helped out?? Infact it was the other way round for me and the pleasure was all mine.

The Key Takeaways From Click Asia Summit 2012 ( Day 1 and 2 #CAS12) …

Author : Bharati Ahuja

This is the second year consecutively that I have attended the Click Asia Summit Conference. It is sort of becoming a habit now and am already looking forward to the 2013 summit. Its not because of the gloss, glamour, delicious food or the happiness I experience every time I have to go to Mumbai (The city where I was born and spent 23 years of my life) but because of the sharing of knowledge related to the digital marketing world .

This interaction is the best way to start the year with confidence and set the right direction especially for entrepreneurs like me who work with very small teams and limited budgets. Conferences like these are an energy booster and help to plan for the coming year.

I have attended many conferences across the globe but when such an event takes place in India and especially in Mumbai , it gives me a sense of pride and pleasure.

#CAS12 the 3 day digital conference and networking started off on the 15th of Jan. 2012 with with an evening full of networking, conversations, and of course, laughter at The Comedy Store!

Day 2 post lunch had many options of sessions to select from but the day started with everyone attending the Keynotes by

Dr. Shashi Tharoor ( Member of Parliament, India) who spoke about “The Impact of digital media on politics and India in general”

Dr Tharoor highlighted the impact of social media on news , politics and India in general. He has been one of the early adopters of social media and has influenced celebrities to follow suit . He said that freedom of speech is the mortar that binds the bricks of our democracy together but free speech in Sweden isn't the same as free speech in Surat . He went ahead to say that Unlike a newspaper, social network sites are like postmen who take the news to your door. He also added that one cannot sue the phone companies for sending a defamatory or obscene SMS, similarly a person who puts up something defamatory on FB should be prosecuted not FB itself.

He totally spoke pro social media and said that social media is inescapable and is here to stay. He also added that a message needs a medium it is the message which is important and not the medium.

Lucy McCabe from OgilvyOne Worldwide,Singapore spoke on “The Digital marketing 2.0: The big picture“

She spoke very effectively and highlighted the point that the people of the library era and the people of the Google era think differently. My vote for the best speaker for the day went to her because of the way this difference was presented in her presentation.

She said that the shift of the source of information from the traditional library has made Google the new norm.

For the people of the Google era digital is not about technology but it is just stuff which helps them with their homework and other day to day activities. In 5 years from now we will not be attending conferences on digital marketing because it will be just stuff. She then spoke about the social media impact and redefined the digital relationships between people and brands in a whole new way by saying that people did not come on FB to make friends with brands, 50% of people who use FB have never 'liked' a brand since that's not the reason they are on FB and digital is not about the clicks, its about the conversation. On this medium brands should ask "what can we give back" if they want time, money, advocacy and data as a digital exchange. Customers don't wake up and go "ooh, wonder what branded digital content I can interact with today"

Connect Me -> Be Useful -> Entertain Me. Three things people want from brands .

Finally she focused on the fact that The future of agency lies in solving problems with innovative ideas.

Cyriel Kortleven from New Shoes Today , Belgium spoke on “Get a creative boost... Break the curse of knowledge “

He started his keynote with wired 7 questions for triggering creativity . He said that our brains see something and make assumptions with almost everything we do . His digital marketing analogy with the human brain was quite interesting where he highlighted that the curse of knowledge is that we get stuck into thinking patterns and habits and we can break the borders of the box for thinking patterns and habits by not limiting our power with buts and ifs , but unleash the power of 'and' by asking and what else.

Post lunch the sessions were divided into 3 categories as follows:

TECHNOLOGY/MOBILITY TRACK
SOCIAL MEDIA TRACK
SEARCH & SOCIAL TRACK

My interest and inclination as usual is the social and search sessions hence I glued my attention to those sessions which were as follows.

The first session was by Mr. Sandeep Amar on Social media impact - An analytics overview .

For him social media meant only Facebook , the idea I just could not digest. He seemed to be pro FB and totally against Google which again was very annoying for me to sit through and listen to. The audience spoke more than him and he was unable to answer any questions satisfactorily.

He went ahead to say that Negative posts receive more comments and less Likes. This calls for marketers to delve into their Facebook Insights. The very thought of FB = Social Media which he put forward made me lose interest in the session.

Rajesh Sharma’s session was on “Beyond the initial hype – building sustainable and scalable digital businesses, the PE perspective ! “

He put forward the question – Will Ecommerce boom or burst in 2012?

As per his presentation the key points were:
There are more no. of enterprises coming up online
Technology is no longer a challenge anyone can get a website made but only the setting up of the ecommerce venture is easy sustaining it and making it grow is a challenge.
It is not necessary that the people who set up the business may be the right people to scale up the business . Hence we need experts for every specialized job.

For the success of the Ecommerce Business we need an EAT Model

E- Experiences
A – Aspirations
T – Transactions

The dotcom 2000 burst was because the T was missing then. Now people buy confidently online.

Mahesh Narayanan highlighted the urgency to go mobile ASAP and to Make sure to track and measure your reach,whether through your app or through your mobile site. He said that mCommerce will become big in the next couple of months in India and the consumers on the go should be focused.

Vivek Bhargava spoke on “How to use analytics and other technology tools to plan a content strategy for an Enterprise Business “

His mantra was to focus on the psychographics and the target audience and the most reliable strategy was to create videos and see that they go viral. He also highlighted that SEO is now all about web presence optimization and the content was the glue to conversations and If a user is engaged with your brand then the propensity to buy from that brand is much higher compared to others.

Manish Maheshwari spoke about Reaching internet-dark mobile users…in as less as 5 hours

This session was about how to use SMS to reach out to people who do not have internet access , what he spoke about was SMSing via http://textweb.com/ which has the internet on SMS .

He pointed out that :

SMS kills all others (Mobile web, apps) in terms of accessibility, reach
An average Indian Send 29 SMS a month
SMS, as advertising medium has 5% interaction rate
SMS is most used app on mobile phones, even on smartphones.

Chris George - Search and social : Digital marketing in the SME sector in India

He shared that:

76% of people think that companies lie in advertising
India has second highest base of #Linkedin users
41% of internet user trust information published on #Facebook
We are at the intersection of search and social
Aim of SMM should be - brand building and crowd sourcing...creating advocates
The selection of the social media medium depends on the message which needs to be sent across and the messenger matters.

Lalit Bhagia The multi- tasking digital consumer

He focused on the point that The challenge today is to get the attention of the consumer's nonstop limited attention 87% of the people are on social media while watching TV . We are multi-tasking all the time, hence the content that we share or upload on aour site or Apps should have an overall appeal and should pull the visitors attention from all the other task that he is doing at that moment.

Cross-leveraging SEO & SEM Benedict Hayes (Moderator) Navneet Kaushal, Hareesh Tibrewala,Benjamin Gonsalves

The day ended with a panel discussion on how to cross-leverage SEO & SEM.

The focus on this session was that at the end of the day whatever SEO and SEM strategy that you have the campaigns are judged by the ROI they generate.

SEO Events / Social Media - 01/20/2012

Google Adds Google+ To Give Us Search Plus Social Results

Google has always been synonymous to search . In 2011 the integration of social signals to search was the most common topic of the SEO blogosphere and everyone was trying to figure out how the social signals will be integrated into search results.

Google just yesterday announced on their Inside Search blog that : “…We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships….” Of course this endeavor of Google started in October 2009 and has been working on it since then.

Yesterday a major change has been announced and three new features as follows have been implemented:

Personal Results: which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page.

Profiles in Search: both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following.

People and Pages: which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World.

Google says: Search is simply better with your world in it, and we’re just getting started….

The change is live now, though not everyone will see it until it fully launches over the next few days. It’s only for those signed-in to Google.com and searching in English.

Google has introduced a prominent new toggle on the upper right of the results page where you can see what your search results look like without personal content. With a single click, you can see an unpersonalized view of search results.

Amit Singhal has concluded the blog post by saying:

We named our company after the mathematical number googol as an aspiration toward indexing the countless answers on webpages, but that’s only part of the picture. The other part is people, and that’s what Search plus Your World is all about.

After Google announced this ‘Search Plus’ feature the SEO blogosphere filled with post on how this will affect the search industry and what will be the possible pros and cons of this additional feature.

Danny Sullivan Of Search Engine Land wrote:

Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”

A Blog Post On Mashable Said:

Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut

Matt Cutts wrote a blog post on his blog titled:

Sharing a search story

The major concern is that Google might favor only the Google+ social signals and hence try to influence the use of Google+ more that other social media platforms. But, this was clarified by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt who says Google+ content is not being favored over Twitter and Facebook by Google’s search engine. Rather, those companies can be treated the same if they grant Google the right permissions to access their content.

Danny Sullivan wrote about this on :

Schmidt: Google+ Not Favored, Happy To Talk Twitter & Facebook Integration

I think the blending of social results in search is not only the inevitable evolution of search but the reflection of what took place when civilizations evolved. We can just say that the stone age of search is over and now search even has the ability to reflect what people in your community are talking about and recommending. It is basic human nature to search for a want and then discuss with peers about their opinions and then take a decision. Since ages we have been doing this but now we have to just adapt ourselves to the virtual world for this kind of an action.

To a certain extent I believe that if Google wants to improve the quality of search results and combat the spam on the web then yes, it is highly essential that the search engine can access data from a resource it has full control on. But, from the search engine perspective only time will tell how well Google succeeds in integrating the social signals from other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter else with the kind of hold Google has over the search market it is going to be, Google Google all the way…

Google - 01/11/2012

Google+ As A Complete Blogging Platform Diverges To Converge And Converges TO Diverge

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Google+ is a platform with some great features for sharing content. Moreover, it does not have the limitation of characters like Twitter which is truly a micro blogging platform. With the trend moving towards content excellence and content marketing and Google+ profile becoming the most integrated identity for an online presence. As the circles concept of Google+ makes it very easy to reach out to different groups of people and share what you want to share to the selected circle. Google+ has the potential of becoming an excellent blogging platform for all purposes personal and professional.

We have been till now blogging on our blogs and then sharing the link on the social media platform but with Google+ the blog post content , comments and the link to be shared on other social media sites can be available on the same platform.

With social media signals being incorporated in search the need to have a quality social media presence which reflects the trust and authority factor of the brand is highly imperative. Hence we can see the SEO blogosphere filled with posts of how blogging and social media presence can help the SEO and online presence of any site.

I think all the clients who cannot maintain a separate blog for various reasons can start off their blogging journey via their Google+ business page which will not only associate and correlate valuable content to their social profiles but also pass of the necessary content correlation to the social signals for getting integrated to search. The content shared and the UGC content generated can be in the form of images, videos, text, links, etc. a whole plethora of content options available to correlate to the social profile.

I think from the users perspective also when you share your comment or views on the Google+ profile where the blogpost link has been shared you have a better chance of correlating that content to your social profile rather than commenting on the blog where the blog post is published.

Eventually all the Google+ data being accessible by Google is an overall added advantage . So, atleast from the search perspective currently Google+ has a win-win potential to become a complete blogging platform converging your overall web identity on a single platform .

(Google+) = Blogging (Personal + Professional) + Social Media + UGC + Location + (+1 Counts) + Image Albums + Videos + Recommended Links to integrate your overall web presence = Search Plus

Image As Shared on http://goo.gl/bTA5d

Google / SEO / Social Media - 01/09/2012

Age Is No Barrier For Learning New Technologies. Its Just Your Mindset.

The article I read today on http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/12/23/to-work-online-or-in-new-media-theres-an-expectation-for-you-to-be-young/ reminded me of an incident which occurred way back in 2000 when we used to run courses on Microsoft Technologies and train people for MSCE, MCSD and other Microsoft Certified Courses.

One day , the computer room was full of students practicing their Lab Work and I happened to be on my own without any help to attend to all of them (a batch of 16 students) working on different technologies.

My younger son then 8 years old had a holiday that day and was present in the lab drawing on one computers using Paint . There were two senior people from reputed organizations who were approx. 50+ in age sitting next to my son trying to learn MS Word. As I was busy with some other students they were waiting for me to come and answer their questions. My son who was sitting next to them asked them “May I help you in the meantime she comes?” They were surprised but were amused and thought of having some fun. They said why not and started asking questions.

To their surprise when he started answering their questions and explaining them they were dumb struck and when they left for the day they said more than MS Word we have learnt a bigger lesson today . An 8 year old also can teach you something which we think is advanced technology and had a resistance to learn. After interacting with this child I think it is so simple and I had a mental block of it being something very technical . This child made everthing sound so simple.

That day I had a win-win situation my son’s confidence soared and that person left the office premise with an open mind all set to learn more.

I think more than age it is our mindset which makes us still have that thirst for knowledge and open mind to learn new things .

upgrading oneself and keeping pace with the latest technology and adapting to the mindsets of the young is the only solution for facing the uphill battle confidently.

The experience and knowledge of the senior people is an asset for every organization but as you advance in age one should not stop learning and updating oneself with the latest technologies.

If one can do that then the young and the so called aged seniors can supplement each other in the most qualitative way and both can learn a lot from each other.

Always keep the atmosphere and ambience of learning alive at home and office . If you add a little fun and liveliness to it its like an icing on the cake.Well my motto in life is to learn for the pleasure of learning.

Below the multimedia set up we had at home in 2000 when my sons were 8 and 11. Now they are in their twenties pursuing their engineering and management studies.

Education - 12/23/2011

Google+ Is Coming Along Riding On The Social Wave….

Finally Google seems to be achieving the much needed stand on social media via Google+ . Google is very much focused on search and according to me the Google+ initiative is mainly aimed at enhancing the quality of search results which is very much affected due to the mal practices because of link building and content spamming.

On a wider perspective Google is trying to converge all the data from other Google owned platforms on Google+ and all these signals will finally affect the search results.

When social media signals got integrated with search , SEOs left no stone unturned to prove to their clients that having a social media presence is of great importance. But, it is not only the presence but a presence which reflects authority and trust for your business online.

Authority, trust and Goodwill cannot be bought it has to be earned. Hence every digital footprint you make on the web is adding up to the Halo of the overall aura that your online presence is creating.

2012 is going to be a year of the Greatest Challenge for the SEO industry. In 2012 the trust and authority of an online presence and all the UGC (User Generated Content) for that online presence is going to gain prominence and priority . All the SEOs who made hay while the link love sun was shining are going to get a reality check as in the long run only those natural links achieved as a result of the valuable contribution are going to have the multiplier effect for the online presence.

Website owners please do not assume that your SEO company has some magic wand and just because you have signed an SEO contract and are willing to pay a big amount for the SEO services you will start getting unlimited traffic to your site and your business is going to start getting unlimited inquiries.

If you do not have a good product even if you have a good presence on the search engines your business is not going to improve as you may get the inquiry but to finalize a sale your product and pricing has to be highly competitive. You need to work hard on your product and the display on the website, share the information on social media, create a persona for online queries , create an authority and trust factor for your online presence by meaningful engagement and then as a result of course whatever effort your SEO has put in for on-page factors, technical issues and other off-page SEO factors will work in your favour.

In fact I appeal to the website owners to take ownership of their digital presence by taking interest in what their SEO is working on. At least one person from the organization should be in regular contact with the SEO for knowing how their online presence is improving.

SEO is like establishing your business online and whatever factors apply in real life to establish a business are also applicable to the online presence . The SEO just tries to help you to highlight these factors and makes it possible for the search engines to record it in their index to influence better search presence. Just like in real life you need to have an attractive sign board, a good product, a competitive price, good WOM, efficient sales people, etc. which help in improving your business . Google also tries to find such signals via many platforms and metrics. The social media buzz and the UGC generate your digital WOM, your website content reflects the product details and company ethics, The Time On Site and the bounce rate indicate the interest level of the people in the products, the online sales indicate the acceptance of the product and pricing, etc.

Just as establishing any business in real life takes a lot of effort , hardwork and time similarly SEO also take a lot of effort and time to start accruing results.

In December 2010 , on our blogpost for SEO 2011 http://blog.webpro.in/2010/12/seo-and-online-presence-in-2011.html we had mentioned the following factors playing a vital role for 2011:

Have great content on your site
Have a social media presence
Engage and interact on social media establishing an individual and business persona
Have a blog with a focus on your main line of business which you keep on updating regularly
Participate in conversations of your topical communities
Take guest blogging seriously
Do not ignore the Local Search
Go mobile

The overall aura generated from all these efforts put together will create your online brand and identity which in turn will reflect on your current and potential online business.

The search engine bots will measure all these signals according to the algorithms which the programmers have worked on, the online visitors will make judgments on the basis of what they read on the various platforms about your business and your ROI and social media mentions and comments will give you the answer to where you are heading to on the web world .

All put together SEO is going to emerge as Web Presence Optimzation rather than Search Engine Optimization maybe we need to have a new term for SEO as in order to reach the search engines and SERPs, first you need to have an over all presence on the web

All the people who have worked on these issues in 2011 qualitatively will be the beneficiaries as Google can measure all these digital footprints more efficiently now with their updates in algorithms and the gradual convergence of their technologies on Google+

The competition is becoming tougher as the aggregate of your overall online presence is going to decide your trust factor and authority factor and thereby the search presence on the search options.

Though the future seems to be challenging I am just in admiration of all the changes and updates made by Google in 2011 to fight content farms and link spam because finally one can easily fore see that only those SEO companies working on SEO in its true perspective are going to survive and the grain will be sieved out from the chaff.

Google+ is not only a social media platform it is going to be the consolidation of your overall online presence quantifying your online personality.

I personally just love this video which very effortlessly shows the seeds of the convergence being laid by Google.

Google+ is not only a social media platform it is going to be the consolidation of your overall online presence quantifying your online personality.

Google - 12/20/2011

Saying Bye to SEO 2011 and A Very Big Hi to SEO 2012

As the sun is setting on 2011 and as the dawn of 2012 approaches the SEO industry as a whole seems to be discussing in a frenzy regarding the core issues of its existence with true dignity, respect and meaningful existence.

We all know SEO means Search Engine Optimization that means optimizing for search engines but the fact is that Google practically monopolizes the search scene so the changes, updates and modifications in the Google algorithm and search results are of high priority for all search industry professionals and website owners.

According to Amit Singhal in 2011 there have been more that 500 updates in the search algorithm and all these updates have been aimed at achieving better quality results for the user by penalizing low quality content and attacking the link spam.

The major changes , updates and modifications announced by Google this year have been as follows:

· The Panda Updates:

Panda/Farmer - February 23, 2011
Panda 2.0 - April 11, 2011
Panda 2.1 - May 9, 2011
Panda 2.2 - June 21, 2011
Panda 2.3 - July 23, 2011
Panda Goes Global (2.4) - August 12, 2011
Panda 2.5 - September 28, 2011
Panda "Flux" - October 5, 2011
Panda 3.1 - November 18, 2011

· The +1 Button - March 30, 2011

· Schema.org - June 2, 2011

· Google+ - June 28, 2011

· Expanded Sitelinks - August 16, 2011

· Pagination Elements - September 15, 2011

· Query Encryption - October 18, 2011

· Freshness Update - November 3, 2011

· The integration of Webmaster Tools with Google Analytics, reflecting SEO data (queries, landing pages, geographical data)

· Google Analytics social data (engagement, action and pages )

· Google Analytics real-time data ( this data shows you what is happening on your website as it happens )

With algorithms being updated with such frequency and the ranking factors varying with the changing times one can easily understand the challenge of achieving search engine presence and then maintaining it.

The Panda update focused on improving the search results by rewarding original content with high standards of quality .

The other updates and modifications focused on the ownership of content. Integration of social and search was proved when Google introduced the +1 button and also launched Google+, its own social networking site and went one step further by reflecting all this data in Google Analytics.

I am sure all these changes will be perceived differently by website owners and search industry professionals depending on their field of operation and what elements of the web they have a focus on, for getting meaningful traffic to their website depending on budgets and beliefs.

But, one thing is for sure that the search engines are aiming for better quality results by attacking the content farms , link farms and the spammers and the search behavior of the users is also evolving . The search options in the search results are also increasing trying to cater to the user in a more specific way.

Search engines are a source of targeted traffic having a very high potential for business opportunities whether it is advertising on search engines by getting listed under the paid listings after paying a high bid amount or whether it is ranking on organic search results after working on the SEO of your site. But, both these options need a unique and a different approach when you include them in your online marketing strategies.

The paid listings are a source of income for the search engines and as search engines are not charitable institutions the importance to paid results is quite justified. But again, search engines are not paid directories either, hence quality organic search results are the true character of a search engine, the organic search also cannot be undermined. As a result the search engines have to achieve that optimum balance between both the results. Google has always given a lot of information about SEO on their official blogs, webmaster videos, forums, discussions on blogs and by announcing the launch of every product by trying to have the maximum outreach via live events.

Lately there have been many blog posts on whether SEO needs to known by any other name after the integration of social and search. There are even blogposts on how the so called big companies are resorting to spam and black hat for gaining and maintaining their rankings and search engine presence.

Firstly, I think the very reason such topics have come out in the open for discussion it proves that the search industry especially the SEO industry is on the verge of transformation and is finally come of age and has evolved to carve a meaningful niche of its own on the online scenario.

Instead of searching for a new term for SEO , I think the right approach to SEO and its true inherent meaning needs to be put forward not only to the budding SEOs but also every website owner whose site we optimize. As this will sow the seeds for the right reputation of the SEO industry which is at a stake mainly due to the link spam.

Infact this year we were approached by one of the so called well known SEOs for outsourcing their SEO projects. When we delved further into the project details they told us that they will be sending us the list of sites where they want us to make submissions to create back links for the sites managed by them. When we told them that we do not undertake such tasks as we work on the on-page factors of the site, help create a local online profile and then train the client’s team for engaging in social media and help them work on the natural link building methods in a qualitative way involving them at every step. This reply made that SEO tell us that this will make us earn more than what we normally are earning. But we refused to go ahead with their proposal as it was totally against our SEO ethics and Mission. This made him furious and he said that the part of the world we are working there is a pressure on high rankings and quick results hence all this talk about ethics should not be discussed with him.

The reputation of the SEO industry is getting tarnished because of two main reasons:

· False promises by people who want to make a fast buck by calling them SEOs

· Very high expectations of website owners

This very pressure of quick results which SEOs commit to their clients or vice versa is the root cause of the bad reputation of the SEO industry . Hence we do not need a new name but the right approach towards SEO to reach out across the web.

Yes, we have to stop comparing PPC and SEO. Though PPC also operates on the edifice of keywords and search engines, it has its roots on the propensity to pay and the bid amount of the targeted keyword. The PPC campaign needs to operate keeping budgets in mind. SEO on the other hand requires a different mindset altogether, SEO is about overall search engine algorithms, the technical and content quality of your website and the willingness to patiently develop the overall web presence by the website owner to get targeted traffic in the long run. This difference has always been there inherently.

SEO has always meant to enhance the quality of the website in such a way that the search engine spiders and the visitors can read what they are finding on the web page and the content adds value to their search. Hence the SEO works on the code behind the page to cater to the bot and the SEO also works on the content on the page to cater to the visitor. SEO also contributes to the web eco system by adhering to the technical aspects of the site like the Page load speed, 301 redirects to avoid duplicate content issues, removing unwanted content from the search engine index, etc .

Sometime back we had written a blogpost on : Why SEMPO showing a decline in SEO spending in 2011 is good news for the SEO industry.

As according to us this indicates that finally the website owners are realizing that once the site is optimized for search engines, then in order to future proof the presence, they need to focus on quality web presence which is reflected in the increase in the social media spending . This further reflects the integration of Social media and Search. This attitude shows that there is a shift from the focus of just building links to developing quality content and then sharing it on social media for natural link building – which I am sure is a step ahead towards the right attitude to SEO.

So SEO is about the improvement of overall quality issues of the site , quality footprints across the web for natural links and there by achieve high ranking as an offshoot.

Google clearly says SEO is not spam and infact they have been quite open in offering the SEO Starter Guide, SEO Guidelines and have a plethora of information on the Google blogs and forums.

It is the SEOs who have to carve a niche for themselves by letting SEO retain its unique essence and gain good reputation for this industry else the SEOs itself will be responsible for the doom of this industry .

Lets say Bye to 2011 and a very big Hi to 2012 by having a focus on the true meaning of SEO and work on natural methods of earning links by trying to add more and more value to the site holistically.

Google - 12/18/2011

Search Queries , Google's Encrypted (Not Provided) Keyword Data And SEO

In mid October 2011 Google had announced that “As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users. “

This meant that , when you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools. This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic.

When the user’s search gets redirected to https://www.google.com , the user can have an end-to-end encrypted search solution between his computer and Google. This secured channel helps protect his search terms and his search results pages from being intercepted by a third party. This provides him with a more secure and private search experience.

This organic search query data gets displayed in the Google Analytics Report as “Not Provided” for the keyword metrics for such a search as follows:

	Keyword	Visits	Pages/Visit	Avg. Time on Site	% New Visits	Bounce Rate
1.	(not provided)	60	3.20	00:01:12	100.00%	25.00%

From the SEO perspective that means that the website owner will not get such keyword data as a result of which the visits were recorded. Google recommends the user to receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools. This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic.

The Webmaster tools Search traffic data includes the following:

Queries: The total number of search queries that returned pages from your site results over the given period. (These numbers can be rounded, and may not be exact.)

Query: A list of the top search queries that returned pages from your site.

Impressions: The number of times pages from your site were viewed in search results, and the percentage increase/decrease in the daily average impressions compared to the previous period. (The number of days per period defaults to 30, but you can change it at any time.)

Clicks: The number of times your site's listing was clicked in search results for a particular query, and the percentage increase/decrease in the average daily clicks compared to the previous period.

CTR (clickthrough rate): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click to your site, and the number of percentage points increase or decrease in the daily average CTR compared to the previous period. For example, if your CTR went from 40% to 30%, this column would show a change of -10.

Average position: The average position of your site on the search results page for that query, and the change compared to the previous period. Green indicates that your site's average position is improving.

To calculate average position, Google takes into account the ranking of your site for a particular query (for example, if a query returns your site as the #1 and #2 result, then the average position would be 1.5).

Such a depiction of data in SEO reports regarding keywords surely makes the website owner think from a larger perspective and focus on the correlation of content and keywords rather than rankings. This will take SEO campaigns above the metrics of keywords and rankings and the focus will be on other quality metrics like CTR , conversions, bounce rate, etc. which will improve the quality of the web overall as the websites besides being rich in content will have to focus on good landing pages, a proper call to action, page load speed and good navigation which will ensure a better UX .

Search query data is now integrated within Google Analytics and the SEO Reports can have those metrics , data and details from analytics itself.

The metrics can be found under Traffic sources and is represented as follows:

When the businesses are at a loss for the complete keyword data the focus is shifted to the search queries in WMT which have a good CTR which is a true measure of quality over quantity.

The percentage of the “Not Provided” data may vary from industry to industry but on an average should be in the range of 10 – 15 % currently but this encryption is trying to safeguard the privacy of the user and this way the website owners are also getting the accurate organic search data which is not influenced by personalized search preferences.

From the SEO perspective the only thing affected is the reports which tell the website owner about how many people visited their site while they were logged in to their Google account in the form of the “not provided” keyword. This as mentioned earlier makes them shift their attention to the content and keyword correlation and CTR to the data available in the WMT for atleast the first 1000 queries. This widened focus will definitely ensure more quality content on the web and that is a good thing.

I fail to understand why this made the SEOs attack Google with accusations , because according to me all these changes are drawing a clear, distinct line between organic search campaigns and paid campaigns and carving a niche for the SEO industry where the focus is on the holistic and overall quality aspects of the website rather than the cost paid for every click received.

http://www.seocopywriting.com/content-marketing/why-googles-recent-changes-mean-good-news-for-the-seo-industry/

Google / SEO - 11/30/2011

The Evolution Of Search In Six Minutes By Google

Google published a video on their official search blog essaying a short history of the evolution of search, highlighting some of the most important milestones from the past decade—and a taste of what’s coming next.

Amit Singhal at the discussion hosted by Church Hill Club had openly explained the testing procedure of every algorithmic update at Google. He says that the focus has always been “DO What Is Best For The User”

Search behavior is always evolving and Google keeps on trying to keep up with the pace of this evolution in search and hence the search algorithm get updated nearly on a daily basis.

As part of making the video Google has also created a timeline of search features. The timeline categorizes the different kinds of Universal Results and Quick Answers Google has over the years:

With this kind of approach to search one can only say that search is ever evolving, dynamic and here to stay. Hence ignoring an overall search presence is the biggest mistake one can make.

SEO - 11/29/2011

Is The SEO Of Your Website On External Link Steroids – A Case Study

Sometime back we had conducted a SEO Training Programme at Ahmedabad Management Association which was attended by many professionals from the Internet Marketing Industry and also by Marketing Managers of some companies.

After all the SEO training sessions were over one of the marketing managers after a few days called up to discuss some points related to the SEO of their site.

The main points were as follows:

We are ranking for many keywords but only the home page of our site is ranking as they did not have any idea about Google Analytics and Landing pages. ( After the SEO training programme they did an SEO audit on their site and found this.)
The SEO has given us a list of some 1000+ links are these links valid and relevant.
The On-Page of our site is practically zero but yet we have the page 1 rankings for so many keywords so is it correct to let the site be as it is.
The most valid question and concern was , what should we do to future proof the SEO of our site though we have the rankings.

Firstly, I was very happy at the fact that the training programme conducted by us had made them think beyond rankings for an SEO campaign and they were open for an approach of an overall quality presence rather than just being satisfied with page 1 rankings.

After the initial analysis it was found that:

The on-page factors were not as per the norms
The inbound links were not from authority sites with anchor text which just mentioned the domain name and all the links were to the home page.
The client was totally unaware about Google Analytics metrics and was not sure if the site was added to any webmaster tools account.
The client only got the ranking report regularly without any further analysis of any other metrics.
The client was not aware of the search and social media integration and did not have a blog or social media accounts.
Other technical factors like canonicalization, customized 404 pages, XML Sitemaps, etc. were not in place either.

In short only submission to some directories and link building was done in the name of SEO but surprisingly the site was ranking well.

There have been many such cases in the past too when the rankings have been achieved only by link building and though the links were not quality links but due to the sheer high no. of links the site had got a temporary boost but the website owners have approached us when the site suddenly disappeared from the search engines.

Hence I thought of sharing this case study. It is very difficult to say how long the benefit of such rankings will accrue to the site but it is very important for every website owner to know that a complete SEO campaign caters to the following aspects of the site.

On Page Factors as per the norms of the search engines and W3C
Off Page Factors which help create an ambience of natural external links to the site
The site should also have the potential to rank for local intent keywords and have a local search presence
The technical factors also should have been attended to
The client should also be given an overview of the analytics and
Should be guided to start a blog and engage on social media to benefit from the integration of social media and search.

No doubt quality inbound links are important but just focusing on one aspect gives a lopsided growth which may be working like steroids and giving a temporary boost which is not the main goal of a genuine SEO campaign. Once these directories close down or if the external websites remove the links the rankings are bound to get affected and the site will be lost in the invisible web.