'Net Features : week 24

Weekend Warrior: Inbound Link Prospecting

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:00:00 GMT

It is unlikely you will find a website high on the SERPs for which the person or team responsible for that placement has not done the necessary competitive research. Link prospecting does not stop at knowing the sites to target; you also need to group those sites and pages, provide some definition on their value, and then formulate your approach. Let's take a data-driven look at inbound link prospecting.

Much of the discussion on how to actually build links, unfortunately, is shallow and void of any practical value. Personally, if I hear the phrase “quality content” one more time I might explode. Let’s mix it up by addressing real ways to target real valuable links, and how to go about actually doing it for a business’ benefit.

Read more on using data to acquire inbound links

PMA Sues Illinois Over Affiliate Tax

Mike Phillips — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:40:00 GMT

For the first time, the affiliate nexus tax (Amazon tax) is being challenged by a lawsuit. The Performance Marketing Association (PMA) has filed suit against the State of Illinois claiming the new law unconstitutional. We get the details from PMA's Executive Director, Rebecca Madigan.

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New API from Kole Imports for Wholesalers

Mike Phillips — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Wholesalers have a new tool at their disposal and it comes from Kole Imports, a leading importing and wholesale company offering discount goods, most notably in the dollar-store business. The Kole Imports API can now be used – free of charge – to sell goods with real-time data.

In the coming weeks and months the API will be used to pull an individual product at a time, to supply shipment notifications and accept orders, as well as supply product feeds to facilitate Kole's drop ship program, as it does currently. Kole's business is based in bulk, but merchants and website owners can buy and sell in as little volume as 24 pieces at a time. Goods offered from Kole vary – from apparel and auto accessories to stationary and sporting goods. The advantage for merchants using the API is tapping into real-time data of thousands of items, all housed in and shipped from Kole's 250,000 square-foot warehouse. A merchant could, for example, sell thousands of items (on their own website or even on eBay or Amazon) and collect payment without ever handling the items or incurring any upfront costs, including shipping.

"It's really the next wave of importing," says Jason Kole, VP of business development, Kole Imports. "The opportunities for light importers – people who may buy one or two containers per year – it's getting much harder for them. The costs keep going up on merchandise, the warehousing costs are more expensive than they used to be. [The API] enables people to sell wholesale quantities and offer them without having to pay all of those costs. It's a huge step forward for the industry to have all of this available for someone to use at their fingertips. And it's free.

“Anyone can access it. It's very easy to use. We have a full customer service team, and anyone can begin selling right away. Our model is to make it available to as many people as possible and to not place any barriers to entry on it."

Also according to Kole, Web developers can contact Kole Imports to find freelance projects from merchants who need help setting up their online stores, at support@KoleImports.com.

Honey Badger: Bing Webmaster Tools

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:30:00 GMT

Bing announced several updates to its Webmaster Tools platform. The name of the update is Honey Badger to those playing along at home (more on that below). Let's look at some of the new features and why they will prove important to successful SEO at Bing (and perhaps even Yahoo!).

- Webmasters can now ask Bing to crawl slower during peak business hours or crawl faster during off-peak hours. This configurable crawl delay is a unique and interesting feature for those concerned with site performance.

- Bing has also rewritten its Index Tracker (the area most SEOs will spend time). The backend has been repurposed to showcase freshness and performance. The best part? New sites will have Index Explorer data the moment they sign up.

- Finally, Bing has finally added user/role management. Site owners can grant administrative privileges (read/write, or read-only access) to others users, and even grant certain users access to subdomains or subfolders.

Kudos to Bing on the moniker of this update to BWT being Honey Badger. The honey badger or ratel is a tenacious small carnivore that has a reputation for being, pound for pound, Africa's most fearless animal despite its small size. It is even listed as the "most fearless animal in the world" in the 2002 Guinness Book of Records.

When your prey is Google, you'll need to be as fearless as a honey badger.

Sample of the configurable crawl delay within Bing Webmaster Tools:

Product Extensions and Product Local Ads - Mobile

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:00:00 GMT

Google is now supporting two important ad formats for mobile devices in Product Extension Ads and Product Local Ads.

Product Extension Ads, which enable advertisers to display product images and product details, will now show within mobile search ad listings.

Product Extension Ads are enabled by linking your Google Merchant Center account to your AdWords campaign. Not only will the ads really stand out (check out the image below), but advertisers will have an excellent opportunity to showcase information of relevance to users in an important phase of the buying cycle.

An enhancement to Product Extension Ads, Product Local Ads (still in Beta), show the actual availability of products in local stores along with the product image and price within the mobile ad. Product Local Ads are eligible to show based on location signals such as local search queries and device location which users opt-in to share.

Keep in mind when using product extensions that products should be correctly labeled within the merchant account that has been linked. This is important because Google determines which products to show in the ads. Advertisers and merchants will also want to keep track of product landing pages and check them for accuracy.

QR Code Solutions for Social Mobility

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:15:00 GMT

Mobile barcode scanning is on the rise and there are many tools and best practices to be aware of when marketing with QR (quick response) codes.

A QR code is an encoded barcode image that resembles a square-like maze. These two-dimensional barcodes store data that can be decoded by consumers with QR code readers. The data contained within QRcodes is typically URLs, SMS, contact/profile information such as vCards, email addresses, phone numbers, text, etc.

How can you deploy quick response codes in your day-to-day marketing? While it is increasingly common to include them on the Web, the best use is obviously to aid in bridging the gap between more traditional formats of marketing and the Web. Posters, business cards, letterhead, signage, books, brochures – the list of potential locations for a QR code is extensive.

Where you link that QR code also needs to be a consideration. Using QR codes in tandem with mobile websites, informational videos, or applications are a few possibilities. If users are engaged enough to read your QR code, it only makes sense to make that engagement as meaningful as possible.

The QR code solutions/tools below are available for free or on a commercial basis.

BeeTagg
More of an entire mobile tagging system than just a QR generator, BeeTagg is ideal for high volume marketers. System codes are editable and trackable.

BeQRious
A free QR code generator which enables users to select the type of code (basic like a URL, map locations, graphical like images, or social profile names. Output is GIF and PDF. BeQRious also provdes a mobile tracking analytics service. (http://qrcodetracking.com/)

QReateBuzz
While not as visually appealing as BeeTagg or BeQRious, QReateBuzz is highly functional (and free). Create multiple code types and tracking scanes, impressions and the number of days active.

For a list of a few other free and commercial grade QR code generators including Scanlife, Kaywa and zXing see this post on QR code tools from 2009.

Adwords Embedded Sitelinks

Administrator — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:40:00 GMT

Several enhancements have been made to Google’s Sitelinks offering for Adwords advertisers since its launch in 2009 and the list of features for the ad format keeps getting longer - and better.

Google introduce embedded sitelinks this week, a feature which will enable advertisers to include an alternative targeted link to their website directly from within the ad. The text within ads that exactly matches one or more of the Sitelinks set up within a campaign will be linked automatically to that Sitelinks destination URL.

Google provided the following example; “If you have separate Sitelinks set up for the words “appliances,” “furniture,” and “flatware,” those words would be hyperlinked in your ad text, leading potential customers to a page for the specific part of the ad that drew their interest.”

Advertisers interested in showing embedded sitelinks must first enable Ad SiteLinks in their campaigns. Google indicated that only those ads appearing above the search results are eligible for embedded sitelinks and they will only be shown when the ads fail to meet the general requirements for one-or-two-line Ad Sitelinks.

Example of an embedded sitelink:

Shopping Carts and Social Media

Administrator — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:10:00 GMT

Merchants that bave been slow to adopt social media support and functionality within their shopping carts are now officially late to the game.

According to Merchant Circle, 70 percent of local US small-to-medium size business owners are actively using social media marketing to promote their businesses. Couple that with a report from McKinsey Global Institute which indicates that 63 percent of companies using social media say it has increased marketing effectiveness (playing an important role in actual sales) and merchants simply have no reason not to do what they can on the social media front right now.

Shopping cart software and service provider Volusion is aiming to supports its merchants’ social initiatives by releasing several social media features into its platform that aim to help clients connect their ecommerce stores to popular social media channels.

Features include administrative integration with Facebook and Twitter (Volusion clients will be able to post content to the social networks), the addition of the Facebook Send Button so shoppers can share a stores products, and a tool that helps merchants manage YouTube videos within product pages.

Monetization Models for Affiliates (Intermediate)

Linc Wonham — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:00:00 GMT

WM recently posted an article entitled How to Make Money on Your Website, which was intended to give those new to affiliate marketing a useful overview of the different payout structures available to them through merchants and networks. These monetization models include cost per acquisition (CPA), cost per lead (CPL), cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (commonly known as CPM).

Novices just starting out in the world of Internet marketing must know the basic differences between each option, but more savvy affiliates will tell you that one size does not fit all. The reason for now exploring these payment structures in more depth is to illustrate the fact that the most successful Web marketers are the ones who – rather than pick and choose – can find the optimal balance between them all.

CPA – Cost Per Acquisition
As the name suggests, the affiliate earns revenue only from actual sales – or acquisitions – made through their website. In most cases, this can require a significant amount of time and effort on the part of affiliates, whether through building a following, persistent communications, creative promotional offers or all of the above. This is the most common payment structure, and also the one that involves the most work and produces the greatest rewards. Choose these campaigns wisely, and then devote the proper amount of available resources to make your investments worthwhile.

CPL – Cost Per Lead
If the CPA model requires a hard sell from affiliates (and it does), the CPL model can be considered a considerably softer sell. The affiliate earns revenue simply by providing leads to the merchant, which can include any number of interactions but does not have to involve an actual sale. Under this structure, the affiliate’s main goal is to get visitors to fill out a registration form, download a whitepaper or join an email list, which is a significantly smaller undertaking than trying to get them to purchase actual product. Again, the most successful affiliates are vigilant in their choices, allotting the most time and energy to the highest-hanging fruit.

CPC – Cost Per Click
Cost-per-click revenues may be the lowest-hanging fruit on the Web marketing tree, but they also demand the least amount of effort on the part of affiliates and generally produce the lowest returns. Whereas CPA models require acquisitions, CPL models require moderate engagement, CPC campaigns require only that visitors click on an ad or a text link for the affiliate partner to receive a percentage of the merchant’s bid price. The downside, of course, is that the commissions on each click can be quite low, and marketers have to be somewhat discretionary about the CPC agreement into which they enter. These campaigns can provide a nice supplement in combination with the other models – and with much less effort – but, again, choose them judiciously based on your overall affiliate strategy.

CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions
This payment structure is far better suited for highly trafficked websites and makes little sense for (nor is it available to) those not pulling in a large volume of visitors. But once a site starts to generate a high number of pageviews, CPM campaigns can be an outstanding method for increasing that site’s affiliate revenues without the heavy lifting involved in CPA or even CPL models. This model is also commonly and effectively used for testing new formats that can be implemented in the targeting and segmenting of these larger audiences, once a site reaches that coveted level.

Once marketers have grasped the general concepts behind each payment structure, they can begin to tailor their affiliate campaigns accordingly. A CPA campaign, for instance, may be built around creating a community of followers -- or vice versa. CPL campaigns, on the other hand, may be more aggressive in their immediate calls to action, but less so in terms of building relationships with visitors. The ultimate goal, of course, is to find the right balance and to know which models call for which strategies.

Retailers and Smart(er) Consumers

Administrator — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Are you meeting the expectations of your web-savvy consumers? Unlikely - at least according to a new survey from Demandware which indicates that retailers are simply not prepared when they encounter the smarter consumer of today’s Internet.

The Demandware study suggests that all retailers must embrace new technologies and significantly change the way they approach multichannel commerce if they plan to meet or exceed consumers’ heightened expectations.

“This research should put brands on notice that the traditional, channel-centric, transaction-based approach to commerce is no longer enough. Smart Consumers are demanding unified, highly branded experiences across all touch points,” said Jamus Driscoll, vice president of marketing, Demandware. “Brands that don’t marry consumers’ growing expectations with their own operational realities will struggle to compete and thrive in the evolving commerce market.”

Findings from the study include:

- Only 12 percent of retailers allow consumers to download a retail or brand shopping application (23 percent of consumers are currently doing this and 50 percent plan to do it in the future)

- 54 percent of consumers would like the ability to click on barcodes or smart tags in magazines or catalogs that link to websites, but only 12 percent of the retailers surveyed currently offer this feature

- While 62 percent of consumers say they intend to purchase products or services on mobile websites or apps, only 32 percent of retailers currently enable this

- Only 29 percent of retailers allow consumers to use their mobile phones to check in-store product availability, yet 38 percent of shoppers do this now and 52 percent expect to do it in the future

- 23 percent of retailers allow consumers to add items to their carts via mobile phones and complete the transaction later on computer or tablet, but 51 percent of consumers would like to be able to do this

Google's Author Tag – Conduits to Richer Writer Profiles

Administrator — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:15:00 GMT

This week Google announced support for “authorship markup” which will help the search engine connect its users with authors through the content those authors publish on the web. Google will ultimately use the data to help its users find content from specific authors directly within the search results but it could also help Google rank search results.

According to Google, the author tag markup enables websites to “publicly link within their site from content to author pages.” This means that if you were to use the markup, you would be able to connect all of the articles to an individual author page (which is what Google will likely include on search results pages). The author pages, according to the announcement, will describe and identify the author, and can include content like the author’s bio and photo, articles and other links.

Authorship markup uses the “rel” attribute in links to indicate the relationship between a content page and an author page. For example:

If you are already doing structured data markup using microdata from schema.org, Google will interpret that authorship information as well.

An important “usage” cue was provided by Google in that the rel=author link must point to an author page on the same site as the content page. The benefit of using authorship markup and remaining consistent in usage is that search engines and other web services will be able to identify works by the same author more easily.

Google has worked with several sites to markup their pages, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNET, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker and others. Google has also added the markup to everything hosted by YouTube and Blogger. In the future, both platforms will automatically include this markup when content is published.

Most Important SocNet? 60% Say LinkedIn

Administrator — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:45:00 GMT

Web users communicate in a variety of ways (email, IM, forums and social networks) but the bulk of activity occurs on a few platforms. So which is the most important for you as a Web professional to participate within?

Performance marketing agency Performics released results from “S-Net (The Impact of Social Media),” and the report provides one possible answer. According to the survey of 2,997 active social networkers, 59 percent of respondents said it is important to have a LinkedIn account - more than any other social network.

“We may not necessarily be in a double-dip recession but, individuals have embraced social networking as a means to actively manage their personal visibility in the global economy.” said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “Factors including LinkedIn’s recent IPO announcement, the May uptick in national unemployment and signs of a slowed market certainly contribute to LinkedIn’s attractiveness among social networkers.”

As Middleton points out, there are obviously quite a few factors as to why LinkedIn may be top of mind, but what a professional network like LinkedIn provides is visibility and it is successfully living up to the expectation.

Of the study respondents with an active LinkedIn account, 50 percent visit the site at least weekly and 20 percent visit the site at least daily. While visits to LinkedIn decreased since the height of the recession in 2010 (67 percent weekly and 22 percent daily visits), the percentage of people who deem LinkedIn the most important social networking site jumped dramatically from 41 percent last year to 59 percent this year.

Finding Customers & Targeting Messages (Beginner)

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:00:00 GMT

:: THREE PRIMARY SOURCES OF WEB VISITOR ACQUISITION ::

Where do Internet users come from? The real question is, where don't they?

It is difficult to specify the total number of our future friends and website visitors at any given time, but rest assured that it's just enough to sustain every Web business - mine, yours and that of many others. When it comes to actual first-time exposure, however, there are three primary sources - search engines, social media and internet advertising.

Let's look at the primary visitor/traffic origination sources from which you should plan on acquiring visitors. Yes, you'll be familiar with each and every one - at least I hope you will. To make this article as practical as possible, we've also provided some guidance on messaging strategies (structure and format, primarily) for each potential website traffic source so that you can jump right in and start closing some deals.

STRUCTURED, DISCIPLINED, COMMITTED
Search Engines:
If you don't have natural, organic, unpaid traffic from search engines, well, you should. Search engines provide websites with users and lots of them. However, these are users of an infinitely diverse set of needs, wants, experiences, likes, dislikes and demands - a most challenging environment for many websites - especially those with limited budgets for research, content development, media assets, etc.

Search engines provide the world with access to information, but they force Web marketers to be structured and disciplined with the approach to traffic acquisition through content development. With such a formal approach to providing the Web with access to information, the cues for gaining new traffic are present. For example, what types of content (videos, whitepapers, etc.) are your competitors producing and what type of content is appearing in the index at Google or Bing? What is the structure of the page titles or the site architecture? To acquire traffic from search engines, you must not meet but exceed the relevance and appropriateness of those ahead of you. So, create more content, build links, and don't stop.

While search engines are sliding a little in the face of the rising popularity of social networks, search is still the primary driver of traffic. Focus on not just the big engines, but others including those from coupon and bargain search, general portals, document search, image search, local search, shopping search and specialty portals.

STYLE AND TONE
Social Media:
Many years ago the notion of transparency was top of mind with Web marketers. While total and absolute transparency is near impossible, Web marketing on the whole has become, if not transparent, then certainly more open. From Facebook to Twitter and every micro-social network in between (from forums to Q&A sites), social media destinations - whether bookmarking sites, content sharing services or connection services like Facebook - provide every business some opportunity. The strategies of most, thanks in part to the push toward transparency, are wide open - visible to all.

When looking for your own strategy, understand the style and tone of your competitors (and even those outside your industry) before striking out on your own and deciding what works best for an individual case. Keep in mind that the type of network will in great part dictate the tone, so consider modifications to message approach for each, as personal networking is far different than professional networking (you would not likely post the same message on Facebook as you would on LinkedIn).

DEPTH AND ABILITY
Internet Advertising:
There are few more important visitor acquisition strategies than advertising - but probably not why you think. It is because it is expensive when executed improperly. When done efficiently and with an eye steadily on return (however that might be measured), advertising is the force behind the success of many Web awareness campaigns. Not only are they able to generate awareness, but thanks to increasingly sophisticated technologies (from remarketing to incredibly granular targeting control), to do so at fairly reasonable rate as it stands today. Those involved in Internet advertising must have a depth of resources and the technical ability to execute in order for the approach to work.

3 Key Steps to Optimize for Local Search

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Because there are fewer competitors, local search engine optimization is not nearly as challenging as broader categories -- but it still has its challenges. Many of the same core SEO rules still apply, but thanks in part to improvements on the part of search engines and the intersection of search and social, it is far simpler than at any time in the Web's short but rich history to optimize for local search.

Be Everywhere That Matters: From Google Places to local directories, local links and user citations are the primary influencers of high rankings for geo-specific terms. Local users go deep for information, so even small, seemingly low-volume destinations can result in quality links. They may not receive a lot of traffic individually, but a few links from relevant blogs can go a long way - on the search result pages and even in your local community.

Ask for Reviews: If you're a local business and are not collecting reviews, you won't be in business long. Search engines rely on content, and in the eyes of search engines today there is no more reliable signal of businesses' authority and relevance to an individual query than the presence of reviews. You don't just need to ask for reviews here and there, you should consider making it part of either your business processes or marketing campaigns. If you run a dry cleaning business, what's 25 percent off your patron's next visit for a review? You don't need hundreds, but in order to remain fresh and relevant, your review assets do need to be constantly appended.

Set Up a Schedule: It sounds basic (perhaps overly so), but ask the next local business owner you encounter when was the last time they checked their position on the search results pages for keywords and phrases relevant to their business. The answer will likely be "it's been a while". Setting up a schedule to monitor position and the impact of individual promotions, just like spending time delivering paychecks to your employees, is a neccessary function of business.

Canadian Search Data through Searchmetrics

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 04:30:00 GMT

Search analytics software provider Searchmetrics has added Canada to its search performance index, giving search marketers visibility into their campaigns in Canada.

Previously, search marketers seeking country-specific data or results from the latest Google algorithm changes (e.g. Panda update), for example, would not be able to differentiate Canada-specific search performance data from U.S. data. With the addition of the Canadian market to the Searchmetrics Suite, online marketers will be able to access such features as a Quick Analysis research of their domains and competitor domains to obtain country specific insights into their search engine visibility on a weekly basis.

"Canada is an extremely important market for us, so we are pleased to be the first search analytics provider to offer Canada-specific search performance metrics in our products," said Dr. Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics. "With this launch, Searchmetrics continues to demonstrate its deep commitment to the North American market."

SearchMetrics also announced today that it has added tracking of five additional countries to its SEO analytics tool including Australia, India, Israel, Japan, and Portugal. Searchmetrics now provides search performance data for a total of 29 countries and 90 search engines worldwide.