SEO or CEO - Customer Experience Optimisation

The new process interview

I was catching up on some SEO reading courtesy of inbound and I came across an interesting interview with Mike King.

A lot of what is discussed  will resonate with anybody who has ever carried out  in house SEO or been a digital marketing manager within a large organisation. To me Mike King always talks like an SEO who really ‘gets’ marketing and harnessing an organisations processes to result in better performance.

Question: Is it better to pay an agency to go out and build relationships with industry authority sites? If you have a PR department why not re purpose them?

A follow up question:  While spotting the opportunity might have required some SEO insight, its a management skillset that makes this happen for an organisation so what levers do you use to reprogram PR?

I digress….to get back on track and to quote the interview “Far more needs to happen first before we fire up the keyword tool”

Some nuggets…

Opportunity Discovery within the vertical – Understanding the business domain is sometimes neglected by agencies, yet is essential first step.

Business Goals – This is usually the second element after you understand the space the client operates in. Quite often business goals takes some teasing out – after this is done its worth revisiting the opportunity discovery phase armed with more detailed information.

Audience insight – success online is usually found via obsession with the customer and the end user. In the days when social media information wasn’t readily available understanding user intent was a process of reverse engineering keyword phrases. Key word research is still important but there are now many platforms and techniques that expose what your customer really wants and is interested in – remember we are not just interested in what somebody types in – its the motivation behind it that will inform much more than your SEO (think landing page design creative, copy etc.) This process is usually pulled together by some form of persona development.

SEOMoz to Moz – A customer centric move?

SEOMoz may soon drop the SEO from its monicker and be going with ‘Moz‘ . I don’t want this to be an ‘is  SEO dead’ style comment  but with social media and its relationship with search its worth asking…

Does SEO mean anything to anybody but the most technical of clients? The process eloquently described in this interview would be best described as digital marketing rather than SEO.

Secondly, a whole bunch of small businesses  are pestered  daily with people contacting them ‘promising them to make you number one in Google’ using SEO. So, back on the customer centric tip – calling yourself an SEO may be a badge of honour with your peers, but are you selling to your peers?

Image: epSos.de

Can the Welsh Government continue to ignore the digital economy ?

How will Wales shape its New Media Strategy? Two commentators come at the same problem with different perspectives

Why the Welsh Government should buy Media Wales

Interesting post by Robert Andrews that plots the financial trajectory of Media Wales and contemplates a Pravda style take over by the Welsh Government

Plumbing and Platforms

The technologist in me really appreciates this perspective from Will Stephens of Cube Media. The reliance on state funding in Wales often translates to a ‘Welsh way’ that lends itself to fragmentation and silo’s, not just in terms of money and organisations but also in terms of digital assets.

Why not invest in a “digital infrastructure” for Wales?

Make Welsh data and digital assets accessible not only to app developers, but investors, foreign business, firms looking to relocate…..

Who in Cardiff did Snoop reach out to and what was the digital strategy behind it?

When Snoop came to Cardiff smart digital marketers could see he brought more than his hip hop game to town.

This campaign is nominated for a Mashable Award. As somebody involved in digital marketing on a day to day basis,  I found it a great case study.  I am going to call it Snoops Cardiff campaign but obviously Mr Dogg and his agency Cashmere rolled this strategy out all over the UK.

What’s interesting for me is that the campaign challenges some traditional approaches to marketing.

• The only way to achieve mass exposure is by using TV
• That mass promotion requires  ’shock and awe’ levels of bulk media buying. (This is not the same as saying viral campaigns are cheap, quite often they are not.)

Does marketing come in two flavours?

A personal bug bear of mine is the notion that marketing commonly comes in two flavours. Online and Offline or Traditional and Digital. This is increasingly becoming a pointless distinction.

Snoops approach illustrates that media is not confined to online or offline.  It also proves that when content is planned and executed well, channels naturally combine to great effect, you could say virally!. As any Social Media Guru will tell you, people love to share and recommend across social media, but its worth remembering strong content can also move across different channels as well.

The power of diffusion and common denominator content

Cashmere's local targeting worked like a charm

Finding ways to access people with content they usually would have no interest in is hard. You need ‘common denominator content’ or ‘go between’ content like a football team or.. erm.. a vegetable!

We use Cardiff based examples here, but elsewhere Snoop uses other football clubs and celebrities and popular figures such as Pippa Middleton and Ricky Gervais to provide a suitable hook to engage people with.

So, not only was this strategy local in its focus it was also enhanced by the fact that it hit a variety  of  interest groups, some far removed from the core product of a Hip Hop.

The importance of detail – ‘Looking out for yer Mama’

Tired of hearing the old adage ‘content is king’?  It’s undeniably true but it is often a throwaway line.

My background is in Search.  Search marketers tend  to be preoccupied with relevancy and user intent which is another way of saying ‘the audience’. This preoccupation with the audience and relevance pays off  with other digital marketing strategies as well.

Being fixated with the audience helps you to understand them, understand what excites, angers, or titillates them. It also enables you to prepare for their reaction whether that’s a sale, a signup, a like, a comment etc etc.

Snoops team obviously did their homework on their audience they new the triggers would be football clubs and the key bloggers to reach out to. Even down to mentioning obscure local news stories where Snoop praised a young local girl for looking out for her mama whenn she chased a thief away.

What about the vegetables?

Who did Snoop talk to and why?

Snoop didn’t succeed because he talked about rap, his album or even his tour date. He didn’t target his fans either.

• He talked about Cardiff with Wales Online
• He talked about Cardiff City Football Club with Cardiff City fans
• He asked the local blogging community for advice (amplification)
• And finally he reached out to vegetable growers like Ian Neale*

The disconnect between a gangster rapper and a prize vegetable grower was too much for TV news networks like Sky News to resist. Snoop turned ‘small, local and obscure’ into a national media news story.

So what happened when Ian Neale met Snoop? The pay off.

Good to his word and “Keeping it real” as they say in hip hop, this is what happened when Ian Neale ‘hooked up’ with his boy Snoop.

Graphics, educational and effective – Why don’t we use them in our online marketing more often?

Educational infographics

I am trying to make a habit of posting some good infographics up here on a regular basis. Inspired by a great on page optimisation infographic from SEOmoz today, it really registered with me how great these things are to get a point across. It also fits nicely with way in which inbound/content marketing is becoming the way to gain traction online.

How does your on page content stack up?

Focus on the users and people

It really is a great post, and in an SEO world where links and link acquisition seem to be the focus for every man jack, it seems to me that the whole exercise is futile unless you deliver for the end user once your found. Be sure to check the rest of the post out as it deals with some classic problems facing anybody charged with putting together effective web sites today.

The second infographic is somewhat of a monster. Its a brave attempt at summing up the whole digital marketing shooting match. Have a look and see for yourself

Unbounce – The DIY Landing Page Platform

I have sat through many online marketing seminars, read thousands of blogs about the ‘new’ tools of digital marketing. There is quite often little that’s original in them. They tend to be rehashed, reworked or reconstituted for a new medium and a new audience.

Once you learn how to use these new tools, the underlying principles of marketing remain the same.  Regardless of the tools we use we are still working with the same material – we are ultimately trying to influence what Seth Godin calls the ‘lizard brain‘.

Digital Marketing v General Advertising

Anybody who has worked for marketing directors for which “the big idea” is everything will recognise the tensions between general advertising and direct response. It seems that the data driven, customer focussed nature of successful online marketing is at odds with those that worship at the alter of creativity. But, this is nothing new. The David Ogilvy clip below tells it far better than I can.

Do you worship at the alter of creativity?

Four quick links

1. Designing for Conversion –  Oli Gardner from the Unbounce team illustrate the visual design principals that encourage users to do things we want them to do.
2. Many people still think Adwords is a Direct Marketing tool and they would be right. However, the GDN (Google Display Network) has matured into an effective branding and awareness channel in its own right – check out these case studies for more.
3. We may be at a pivotal stage for bricks and mortar retailers – Get Elastic’s summary of some exciting retail developments for this years shop.org runs through the big trends for retail in the future.
4. Content in the social space – nice post that looks at content from the point of view of a marketer with marketing objectives rather than the creator and creatives.

image by Leo Reynolds

Some times the hunch doesn't pay off (RIP Peter Falk)

The truth about viral marketing and a cautionary tale for ‘assumption based’ persona development

Came across this really insightful video on the latest Mckinsey Quarterly. There are some other good interviews on there but this one by Duncan Watts stood out.

People like Watts have both a data driven ethos and are steeped in a social science background. With so much noise in this field and gurus claiming they know how you can be ‘liked on Facebook’ its refreshing to remember that there is data and science behind the very real changes that are happening at the moment. His opinons on intuition are a further take on  those built around John Kay’s ‘Franklins Gambit‘ central to his Obiliquity argument.

Of particular interest are Watts’ thoughts on viral campaigns and the requirement of mass media to take it further than ’1 degree from seed’. Looking more closely at hugely successful ‘viral campaigns’ like Old Spice backs this up. True it has phenomenal uptake across social networks, but it was launched at the superbowl –  a prime mass media slot if ever there was one.

image credit: smeerch

Keep your eye on the business side of web design

Looking to build your firms Website? Before you reach for the Web designers number…..

I meet a lot of businesses who expect a Web designer to build them a Website that’s going to win them work and turn a profit for them. Off they go in search of  a Web designer.

Lets use a specific example of a type of business in a particular town or city and consider some of the issues outside of design and aesthetics.

Design v Marketing

Photoshop or Excel?

The problem is, your average Web designer is primarily concerned with technology and design. Quite often, the business owner, lost in this world, concentrates on the tangible things, the items both they and the designer can see, the look and feel, the layout – page design. I am not suggesting that these are not incredibly important, they are. But what I do contend is that business owners often leave their knowledge at the door when they design a web site.

The things that are most valuable to the online marketing process, intimate knowledge of business goals, their customers and the products/services are often sidelined. Logo size, colour scheme and fonts often take centre stage.

Tip#1 – Use the customers language

Small businesses often learn a harsh lesson when it comes to marketing online – it doesn’t matter what you call yourself. This is often difficult for some Directors to take, but for the ones willing to adapt they often reap the rewards. To be found, its important that you describe your  services in the same way your customers describe your services and their situation.

Tip #2 – Language Complexity - Head, Body and Tail

The many ways people can refer to an accountants

Explore the long tail

This is a slightly more technical point, however its key to understanding search marketing. In terms of targeting the right keywords,  its worth remembering that every niche has a “head” a “body” and a “tail” key phrases. In our example the phrase “cardiff accountant” is what could be considered a head term. Sadly, a phrase like this is often as far as most businesses go when it comes to thinking lie the customer.

Its true, that in isolation this phrase will have more people typing it in to a search box than say “local accountant”, “newport accountant” “charity accountant”. However, as the above Google AdWords screengrab illustrates, there are many different ways people describe accountancy services depending on where they are located and what type of organisation they are. Add these phrases together and you probably have more volume than the head term.

Proper research by a creative Internet Marketer working closely with a business owner should uncover multiple approaches using this technique  so long as they are creative and they take the time to learn about your business.

Tip#3 Be recommended

As in other walks of life, its not what you say about yourself, its what other people say about you that counts.

Internet marketing is based on recommendations and  citations. Those with lots of recommendations from the most influential sources find themselves at the top of the list. Those at the top of the list tend to get more emails, phone calls from prospective clients.

Recommendations come largely in the form of links from other Web sites and sources online. Link building should therefore be an intrinsic part of your strategy.

Tip#4 – Be local

Local Internet Marketing is a hot area at the moment. Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Groupon and Living Social are just some of the players aiming to claim a foothold in this area. However, we are marketing a B2B businesses, so selecting Google places, Business Directories and Linked In is probably the way to go. Techniques vary and  its probably best to tackle Linked In in another post. Local citations are increasingly important to get exposure in the search engines as are rich snippets and microformats when considering web design.

Tip#5 - Give it away

This tip is completely counter intuitive to a lot of small businessmen, but its key to developing trust and reputation. Insights, analysis and tips about a range of subjects like budget implications, corporation tax or inheritance tax planning help persuade people you know what your talking about and that you are generous. You are growing your reputation.

Key tools for this would be blogging, social media (Twitter) and possibly Linked In. Email could be used for data collection for valuable give aways.

Tip#6 – Timing is Everything

There are few businesses that don’t work to some form of seasonality (possibly funeral directors?). Accountancy works to a reasonably fixed calendar. Ramp up marketing efforts by adding Paid Search to the mix at given times in the year where possible.

Economic crises, tax hikes, company car allowances, and changes to investment regulations all allow room for the  opportunistic to gain exposure if they are set up to exploit the scenario.

#Final Tip - Find an internet marketer rather than a web designer

As you can probably tell by the tone of this article, we believe that while design is important, design is ultimately driven by the business, the user/customer and your marketing plan. Get this right, execute it effectively and you will be surprised with the results. Good luck!

Before searching for Web designers in South Wales, ask yourself – Is that what I really need?

Build a business not just a Web site (image credit: dok1)

A Web site or an Online Business ?

Your on the right track, a well built optimised website is essential, but its only half the story.

Unfortunately, many designers are not marketers. Design is important, but it is only important once somebody has found you and is looking at your business web site. Being found online is often the result of a combination of planning and tactics (SEO, PPC, Affiliate & Social etc ) Working with these channels often requires a different skill set to those of your typical designer. You don’t need to think like 20 something web design expert, you need to think like your customers.

Cues

If after 15 minutes the design firm hasn’t asked you about your business, and how you plan to get people to your site, alarm bells should ring.

However if they are actively engaged with you and chipping in with advice on landing pages, site structure and content you should be encouraged. You should feel even more reassured if they start talking about your CRM or email marketing requirements, they are clearly interested in how you will retain your customers.

The Content problem

Content is why people come to your site.  Most web projects are delayed because of problems developing content. Most web designers believe that content is down to business, and as such they will wait until the client comes up with the goods. Spotting good content opportunities and knowing how to develop them is not typical of Web design firms, but good relevant content is often the first step in getting you noticed.

Why do most website designs look similar?

In our opinion there are two reasons why web sites tend to fall into a few different design patterns.

The first is the idea of ‘convention’ in design. User friendly web sites offer the visitor familiarity, consistency, navigation and feedback. In short, people are comfortable when they know where things are.

The second reason follows on from the above point.  If there are accepted and proven design conventions, it makes sense to build web sites based on a selection of templates that share familiar layout and navigation and customise them. (Its the content that helps sites stand out).

South Wales or Eastern Europe

We live and work in an increasingly connected world. IT work can easily be outsourced and often across disperate teams. Template based web designs can be cheaply built abroad. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you are able to select from a wider pool you often get high quality professionals.

Where do you need to allocate resource?

The web is awash with sites that never get traffic. Small businesses often make the mistake of blowing their budget on design and fail to think about the business side of things. Spend on the build but leave funds for marketing.

Build your business, not just a Web site

Adam Curtis - thought provoking?

Power, Strategies and Tools

A quick post in recognition of the brilliance of Adam Curtis and his latest offering All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.

Whether you agree or disagree with findings of Curtis, you must admit that the way in which he puts together his arguments provokes thought and discussion. I have been a fan ever since first seeing The Power of Nightmares. Curtis is a keen observer of power and the strategies, tools and processes that go hand in hand with it.

Its not surprising that along with political manipulation and doctrine, marketing is also one of the areas that provides a focus for his work.

Imbalance

Its interesting to note that the idea of networks and ecosystems is not a new one. ‘All Watched Over’ describes the shock of the scientific community at discovering a lack of harmony and balance in mother nature – a state of constant flux.

Similarly, legendary hedge fund manager George Soros’ Theory of Reflexivity describes constant imbalances in the highly dynamic and connected world of stock markets (another type of machine driven ecosystem).  At the risk of gross over simplification, Soros believes that there are often times when the market (or collective intelligence) has got its calculations wrong. This stands in stark contradiction to the efficient market theory that is generally accepted by the finance world, which believes that the market (or ecosytem) is always right.

Soros managed to exploit this imbalance back in 1992 to the tune of $1 billion.

Businesses cannot ignore machine driven (or human!) networks

Many businesses seem bemused by the Web. They view it as an impenetrable black box. In fact the complete opposite is true.

The web is developing into a data miners dream. It’s still relatively early days yet Search Traffic SQR reports, Facebook profiling, network analysis concepts of authority and connectivity are developing fast.

If you can put ethics to one side (and that’s a big if) this might represent a moment in time where commercial insight can be gleaned comparitively cheaply.

There has never been a better time to develop your businesses digital presence, there are imbalances everywhere you look, if you can spot them.

Going back to the documentary I would like to echo the point made that the Internet is not an egalitarian utopia, its a method of control. There will be those who develop control and those (as always) that will be controlled.

Internet as liberator?

For those who still believe that the Internet is a one way street to mass empowerment have a look at the following talk by Evgeny Morozov to the RSA.