2008 September

photo credit: m.gifford

This afternoon we talk about keywords. And while I obviously have no idea how the conversation will turn out, I’m guessing that ultimately there’s just one ultimate question — how do I pick the right keywords?

Well hold on, not so fast.

Too often in the realm of search marketing it’s tempting to focus on the numbers — of search rankings, traffic, bounce rate, stats, etc. which do of course paint a portrait of a site’s vitality and the success of content. But more importantly is the question of providing value to customers, which the numbers might hint at but don’t entirely reveal.

When you think about the keywords you do or want to focus on, don’t just think about the numbers given to you by a keyword tool. Don’t just think about the competition in the top 10 for that keyword, or the pay per click advertisers crushing the ad space. Don’t just think about what you’re selling, think about what you have to offer.

It’s like the old adage — walk a couple miles in your neighbor’s shoes. But in this case, they’re your customers, and if you haven’t tried them on lately, you might find your business is tripping over itself more than it should.

Agree? Disagree? This afternoon’s your first chance to engage in a public roundtable with us at Hall, talking about this very subject, both the rote technical question of choosing keywords and the greater marketing vision component I’ve just touched on.

Sign up for the free webinar now!

This week we change up the format from previous incarnations of the show. NO we’re not losing the quick tips and tricks, but starting today you’ll hear fresh news and pretty soon, voices from the larger social media community.

In today’s show:

• Marketing your business despite a grim economic picture
• The launch of the Election 2008 Twitter Channel
• The implications of a Google-Yahoo ad merger
• What Microsoft’s $40 billion stock buyback means for their web business
• Creating your first Twitter account and getting Tweeting!

Download SEO Audio Episode 48 (MP3)

While we’ve heard plenty about how people use blogs and the growing proliferation of the art, it’s not often that we take a look at the people behind the wheel to see what we learn.

Well a tribute to Technorati, then, who this week launched their “State of the Blogosphere” report, currently on Day 2, which has revealed to us several revelations about bloggers, such as:

• They are well educated
• They are well off
• They consists of a diverse group of people
• They have benefited personally and professionally from their blog
• They have many different motivations for blogging

Alright, well the findings aren’t that earth-shattering, but it’s fun to see their profiles of different bloggers, which have consisted of two women who blog semi-professionally, an octogenerian, and statistical profiles of different groups such as women bloggers and Asian bloggers.

Also interesting is some commentary (both on the introduction to the article and in related posts such as this one on Bruce Clay) which talk about microblogging and its effect of blogging as a whole. The proliferation of Twitter certainly must come at the expense of time and chatter from other media, though now of course, you’ll see Tweets and blogs for the same piece of content — has the signal to noise ratio gotten better or worse?

I’ll remark again on the blogosphere report as it continues on this week, but the way I see it now — yes, blogs have gone mainstream, and it’s no surprise that they’re most successful with educated, comfortably living people all across the world. Those are the people with the communication skills, the access to technology, and the evolving culture of media that is driving the terrific roller coaster of social media we’re on now.

Make sense to you? Probably not. Then again — is it really meant to?

No one is quite sure what to make of the newest Microsoft ads (phase 1 of a whopping $300 million roll-out) but it’s sure done one thing — getting people to talk about Microsoft WITHOUT talking about Vista.

(That’s what we’re doing now, right?)

Though some people are claiming that the Microsoft ad’s are the worst ads ever created, and plenty stare in blank puzzlement or leave nasty comments on behalf of frustrated Vista users or out of sheer spite, the point is that people are talking.

And if you believe the numbers culled from this NY Times article, at the end of it all, the discussion speaks in Microsoft’s favor.

The creative direction for this expensive, oddball endeavor is coming from viral video legends Crispin Porter + Bogusky, famous for BK’s Subservient Chicken website, VW’s wacky beat-boxing German and the more dubious Ask.com’s chicks with swords (not to mention being subject of an insightful — and hilarious — BusinessWeek article from 2006).

While word on the street is that Seinfeld is out, that move was supposedly part of the plan from the beginning and now, Microsoft says, the real ads begin.

What’s fascinating is that this campaign — what I’d dub an “anti advertisement” — is culling such big bucks from the behemoth software publisher, while in essence, it’s trying to replicate the viral marketing techniques that’s been devilishly effective for practically zilch by smaller companies (Will It Blend being a famous example).

In some ways, this feels to me to be the “Hollywood Approach” — e.g., you can make a movie with big bucks and every actor in the world, or you can do it on the cheap, with blood, sweat, tears and a lot of screwball ideas going into it. Are Microsoft’s efforts to market themselves as un-corporate a meatball sundae?

Maybe you find the ads hilarious, or maybe you find them contrived. Maybe it’s got your mind OFF your problems with Vista, or maybe you take the campaign as a stab in the back as a frustrated consumer. But the bottom line is that everybody’s talking about Microsoft, and everybody’s wondering what’s next.

Genius or insanity? Take your pick.