This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

Ahh… Here it finally is! My favorite day of the entire year; Christmas Eve Day! It’s full of so much excitement and anticipation! This year I tried to stretch it out as long as possible. I think I started listening to Christmas music the first week of November! It seems Google got in the spirit this year too. Has anyone noticed any of the fun effects they have added to their search results over the past month?

• By far one of the most fun toys I’ve played with this season; brought to us by Gmail, you can send a call/video from Santa! I highly recommend checking this out!
• Type “let it snow” in Google’s search engine, watch the snow fall, and then scrape the snow using your mouse (only works in some browsers).
• I absolutely love Christmas lights and, apparently, so does Google; check out their holiday doodle. You click on it and it lights up and then plays a song!
• Try using Google’s search engine and type in words including “Christmas” and “Santa.” Google’s results page becomes decorated with a string of holiday lights.
• YouTube even got in the spirit by adding a snowflake button to some of the videos so, when you click it, it starts to snow inside the videos!

It’s been fun to see how Google has gotten into the spirit. It seems like it was contagious too; people searching for the words “let it snow” increased more this month than it ever has! It’s nice to see that Google is helping spread Christmas cheer! Now I’m off to do the same thing!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday season!

Read more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

As we approach the end of the year, it is a good time to be making big lists of things we want to get checked off for the coming year. As many of you know, video and video marketing have been very popular this year. Making, editing and hosting videos for your business has never been easier.

The elves over at YouTube have been very busy in the last few months. So as you make your 2012 list, spend some time with two of YouTube’s newest upgrades – Analytics and New Channel Designs.

YouTube Analytics

As with most social networks, YouTube has always had an Analytics program. They called it Insights and you could view them at the bottom of almost every video. Now YouTube has beefed up their analytics. If you have a YouTube account (and videos on it) you can log into your account and check out the new analytics.

If you are familiar with Google Analytics, you will definitely see some striking resemblance (YouTube is owned by Google in case you didn’t know). In the new Analytics you get a snapshot of how all of your videos are doing on the Dashboard. You can see which of your videos are most popular. From there you can dive deeper in to the data by looking more into Views, demographics, playback locations, traffic sources, how long people watch your video, video interactions and more.

For more information on YouTube Analytics and a fancy infographic you can check out the YouTube blog.

New Channel Designs

Now that we have some solid numbers to look at… we can take that information and with the new look of YouTube Channels – we can make a perfectly branded channel design that appeals to our customers!

YouTube had customized channels before but there wasn’t much you could change in the form of layout. Now with the new channels, when you edit your layout, you can choose from 4 template layouts. Hopefully you will find a better layout to display your videos the way you want them to.

There you have it. Those are the biggest changes to YouTube that you should take advantage of for your business.

If you want more from this post, feel free to watch this currently trending holiday video… of the HMS Ocean crew excited to be able to come home for the holidays. Even Mariah Carey thought it was the best video ever.

Enjoy more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

During a pretty brutal return home from SMX Social Media in scenic Scottsdale this week, I started reviewing notes of easy takeaways that I could start implementing right away. One presentation that resonated was by Courtney Seiter from Raven Tools.

We use Raven Tools along with many others here at Hall, and having used Raven for a number of years now, I happen to be a big fan. One tool she shared is the very cool – and very free – platform, Storify. Of course she already used Storify to sum up the social trends shared this week (great minds think alike).

So I thought I’d use Storify to aggregate the tweets about social tools and tracking resources discussed at SMX this week:

View other posts from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

Google+ announced on Monday that they are now allowing businesses and brands to create their Google+ pages. For information on Google+ for business, please see the list of resources below.

What I want to talk about is the importance of claiming your business name on sites like Google+. Like many of you, the launch of Google+ makes me anxious – another presence to manage, create content for and try to build an online community on.

No one is sure what will become of Google+, if it will defeat Facebook or exactly how it is going to relate to search results. What we do know is that they sure are going to try and with the forces of Google behind them, there will be some impact.

If you don’t have a content strategy yet for Google+ or know how you are going to integrate it into your other marketing efforts, it is still important to grab your business name on Google+ page for branding purposes. This is also important for other popular social media sites you may not be participating on yet.

At this time, anyone can create a business page for anything they want without proof that that are associated with that URL or entity. Big brands will soon have a verification process but for many of us that will not apply. So in theory, anyone can set up a page under your business name and URL. I doubt it will turn into the Wild West but it makes sense to protect your brand before an issue arises.

We probably have all heard by now the struggles some businesses have had getting control of Facebook pages and Twitter accounts set up by a fan, an enemy or a rogue employee. Let’s not let that happen with Google+ too. Setting up a Google+ business page takes a matter of seconds. Trying to reclaim your business name by complaining to Google or the page creator could take hours, days, or even months.

Not ready to fully participate yet?

If you are not ready to participate on Google+ yet, that is fine. Set up your page, fill in the fields allotted and let it rest until you are ready.

Depending on your corporate voice you could:

• Leave a first status update that you set up the page but are working on the best way to use this new space
• Update your status with other ways people can currently connect with you
• Post links of some of your best older content from your site or blog that could use new eyeballs etc.

There are plenty of options on how to start your Google+ strategy but the first and most important thing is claim your space and protect your brand. Also, with Google+ brand pages you can create multiple pages. If you have a popular event, product or service that should stand alone from your business page – you should claim that too.

Resources on Google+ for businesses:

• Upcoming Hall Webinar – What are Businesses Supposed to do with Google+?
• Search Engine Land – Google+ Pages Now Open For Businesses, Brands, Places & More
• Google Blog – Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about
• Mashable – Google+ Launches Branded Pages
• SocialFresh – How To Create A New Google+ Page And Connect It To Google Search

Photo credit: Elke.Fleing

You may have heard of the new feature on the iPhone 4S (the iPhone that came out last week) called Siri. Lots of people seem to be talking about it but lots are still wondering what it actually is.

What it is

Siri is a speech-recognition “personal assistant” that is built into the device. You verbally ask Siri questions and it answers you. Siri can pull information from a variety of sources; like your location (since it is your phone and it knows where you are). So if you ask the upcoming weather, it can tell you the weather for your exact location. Siri can execute lots of  small operations inside the device, like update an item you have on your calendar.

Although Siri can work with many functions on your iPhone it’s still not compatible with most third party apps at this time. One exciting thing about Siri, other than the coolness, is that the functions and voice recognition will continue to be refined the more that people use it. Siri will be collecting data from users and updating how the system operates. For a full review on Siri, its features and drawbacks check out this recent Mashable post – iPhone 4S: Siri is Impressive, But Still a Work in Progress [REVIEW].

Siri says some funny things

With any new technology, the first step is official testing and then when it is released to the public comes the ‘unofficial testing’. That is where we simply play with it, try to stump the technology or maybe even try to break it. This is the step we are at with Siri now. People are creating blogs and tumbler accounts just on the funny things Siri says. This is why Siri was on a local radio program during the morning drive yesterday – because it says funny things. We will continue to play with the new functionality until one day it is just the norm. Some day soon, talking to your phone and asking it questions will be completely normal.

With Siri as your personal assistant, some have even wondered if there is doom on the horizon for their own personal assistants. The New York Times posted this fun video of filmmaker Casey Neistat putting his real assistant against Siri in a series of tasks.

What Siri means for how we search

Siri highlights a few major changes in search that I wanted to talk about. All of this is not brand new but with the launch of this new device it puts new functionality literally in the palm of users hands.

1. Mobile searches focus on doing something – A trend we, at Hall, have been seeing in mobile searches vs. desktop searches is that these users are more often looking to complete an action – look for directions, contact someone, buy something, share content etc.
2. Mobile search is powerful – As noted above, people who are searching on a mobile device are looking to complete an action. A mobile user is more connected to their search. Like the use of QR codes, capturing this in-tune audience is imperative to making a connection with them. Your QR code or mobile searcher should not be treated like a regular web browser. Your website should be ready for them. Make sure your site looks good to a mobile user, consider a mobile site and make what they are looking for easy to find.
3. Mobile searches are increasing – Another trend we are seeing is that mobile searching is on the rise. With the launch of Siri, you can start your mobile search with your voice and if Siri does not know they answer it suggests a mobile search for the phrase you asked. As this type of functionality increases (I am sure iPhone competitors are already working on it) more individuals will be searching from their phone, is your website ready for mobile traffic?
4. Mobile searches, especially on iProducts, can be tricky – With this unofficial testing moving into common use, more people will be searching on their iProducts. Still have that pretty website made with flash? Well all your users coming from iPhones, iPads and iPods can’t view it.
5. Siri knows where you are – Siri is a part of your phone, which is physically with you. This makes location so important. Looking for the weather, a restaurant, a business? Siri not only combines your keywords that you search but also your physical location to bring back to you the most appropriate results. Is your company optimized in local search so that people can find you?
6. Adding context of the search – A lot of the functionality of Siri we have seen before but not as seamlessly together as this. For example, if you ask, ‘Do I need an umbrella today?’ Siri calls multiple data points; where you are located, what the weather is in that location and if it is going to rain (meaning you will need an umbrella). That is pretty impressive.

It may seem silly for awhile but the functionality of Siri is probably the way we are heading. With anything in the digital world, there is countless data surrounding it. Siri is the first in the game to pull so many pieces of information together, present it in a conversational framework (and sometimes sassy) and brought it to the mass market. Things could get a little interesting, just make sure your business and your website are ready for the future of searching!

By now we know that beyond your site design and ease of navigation, the heart and soul of your site is the content that is provided there. Often times we ask our clients to figure out what content is working for them; what brings them traffic, what is being shared, what gets people to stay and convert? In some cases it might be obvious what content is popular but many times you have to do a little digging to really see which content are your real all stars.

Thanks to my pal, Google Analytics, the Content Report offers a variety of ways to look at the content on your site and will offer you a better understanding of what kinds of content to continue expanding on. Just by viewing your Content Dashboard you can see the top 10 most visited pages (organized by pageviews for that given time period) and then you can click “view full report” to see more data about those top visited pages. You can start to see which content is:

• Most popular – Organized by the number of pageviews. You can change the date range if you want to see what content was popular over a longer period of time or at a different time altogether.
• Stickiest – In Google Analytics you can click on the top of each column to reorganize the pages by different information (see image of columns below). By organizing the pages by average time on site, you can see which pages people spent the most time engaging with certain content.
• Best retainer – Find out which content keeps the visitor on the site. Organize your website by bounce rate to see which pages kept the user from leaving (the smaller number the better!).

Dig Deeper

After completing the exercise above you’ll start to see some content pages as all stars for your website. With some other content reports available you can dig a bit deeper to see why they might be performing so well.

• Keyword Traffic – One way to understand why certain pages are performing better than others is to determine if the subject matter is something that your audience is interested in. First off, you have to understand what keywords are bringing organic traffic to your site.  Then, in the top content section, you can click a content page and then select secondary dimensions to review for those pages; like traffic sources, visitors, technology, and content. Since I know that the blog, “What is a QR Code” was one of my most popular pieces of content, I want to look at what keywords (under “Traffic Sources”) people typed into search engines that then navigated them to this post. I can know that a large amount of organic traffic was driven by the keywords “smartphone scan box” and “scan box code”and that is verified when I look at the keywords that drive traffic to that particular blog post.
• Entrance Sources – Using secondary dimensions again, you can find out where the traffic that ended up on a certain page had been prior to coming to the website. It might be helpful to understand that your most popular or most engaging content pages came from visitors who were on Twitter. You can find that out by reviewing your entrance sources for certain content pages.
• Navigation Summary – Use the navigation summary to understand more about the how the traffic moves throughout the site while interacting with your known “all star content.” You can see where they had been before a particular page and where they went to after visiting that page. You can see how often a certain page was an entrance page as well as how often a certain page was the last page that a user was on before leaving the site. This just gives you some depth of knowledge about where your opportunities might be or areas of the site that might need to be improved

Big Opportunity

The whole point of understanding which content is making a splash is to continue producing more content around the topics that are more popular to help drive new traffic to your website. You should also take a look at the actual content page – what is your offer? Is it clear? Are you obtaining leads from that page? Understanding your content all stars reminds you that those pages are a good opportunity to get the engaged traffic to take action and convert.

Authorship markup is a way to attribute certain content back to its author.

Updated 11/17/11 – New information about authorship markup: Authorship Just Got Better

Using existing standards for HTML5, the “rel” attribute is used by search engines to get more information about a certain link. In this case, rel=”author” is telling search engines who authored a specific article online. This is great for those who publish content online as a way to compile their work.  Plus, Google is testing a way to display the author’s information within search results which is something we, as marketers, should pay attention to.

Here’s an example of how Amanda’s blog about Twitter photo galleries would display in Google’s search results:

How do I set it up?

Setting up is pretty simple, so I’ll give you a (super) brief overview. For more information, here’s what Google has to say about setting up authorship markup.

Step 1: You Need a Google Profile

If you have a Google account, chances are you already have a profile.  Remember, like any profile you should probably make sure all the fields are filled out as much as possible.

Step 2: Add Links to Your Google Profile

As you’re editing your “About” section on your profile, add links to the websites your publish content to. In the example below, Amanda has linked to her author page on Hall’s website. Linking to your author page is a good option for business blogs with multiple contributors.

Step 3: Link Your Author Page to your Google Profile

Add a Google profile link to your site. Google says,

“Your link must contain the ?rel=author parameter, and your anchor text must start or end with a + character. (You don’t need to be a Google+ user to do this, and you can use any anchor text you want.) If either of these is missing, Google won’t be able to associate your content with your Google Profile.”

• You can add it to a common place that appears on every page of the site; like a footer.
• Some people include a link on each blog post.
• In our example below, since we have multiple authors contributing this this blog, we include the link on our individual author profile pages.

Google makes this part super easy for us. Here is a link to the  Google Profile button tool to easily add a Google+ button to your website.

Step 4: Link Your Articles to Your Author Page

Make sure your articles include a link that relates back to your author page, using the rel=”author” attribute. See below.

Step 5: Test and Wait

Use Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool to check your work. Then you wait. For bigger sites like The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly you can already see these in action. In fact, Google is showing the author image on the left hand side versus the right hand side now (a change I just noticed from earlier this week!). This feature, similar to Google Sitelinks, is all dependent on Google’s algorithm – so the author information might not always appear in the search results.

The best thing to do now is get this set up for the different websites you contribute content to. Then, when Google has rolled it out to everyone, you’ll already be ahead of the game!

I’m a B2B, what does this mean for me?

The impact on authorship markup as an author is pretty obvious; it’s a great way to keep a compilation of the content that we publish as well as a way to attribute our work back to us. Here’s a few reasons why authorship markup is important to businesses.

1. Attraction – People are more likely to click on something that catches their eye, like an image that shows up when you post a link on Facebook. Imagine this scenario: Someone searches for “golden retriever dental care” and they get 10 results on the first page.  But if one of those results displays an author’s image, it might catch the searcher’s eye enough to get them to click on that link versus any of the other results that rendered. Plus, with with the addition of author images it expands your real estate in the search engines results page; another nice plus.
2. Trust – You might be a well-known blogger or author or even have a niche audience. Once more and more of these author images are showing up in search results, it will be helpful to you to be in that space. People who know and trust you can immediately find what you say on a particular subject.
3. Authority – Very similar to trust is the idea of authority. When searchers query a search engine and start to see the impact of authorship markup, they are going to start to see those with author images as an authority on that subject versus those who don’t have an author visually tied to their links.
4. Branding – Authorship markup is a great way to visually brand you to the content you create online.

Follow the steps above to get your content ready for authorship markup!

Have you ever heard of “sitelinks?” Sitelinks are those extra list of links that you see below a main search result in the Google search engine. [See my example of sitelinks below where I searched for "maine popcorn"] Google’s secret algorithm determines whether sitelinks will appear under a particular search result or not. The idea behind sitelinks is to give the user an easier way to immediately navigate to interior pages of the site within that search result. Although they have been around for a while now they have changed, and continue to change announcing their most recent update this week.

Here’s what’s new with Google Sitelinks:

• Now, when you see sitelinks, you’ll notice that they are larger and resemble the main search result more.
• The maximum number of sitelinks possible to appear for a search result is now 12 (up from 8 previously).
• Sitelinks are being ranked now. Before, a site would be given a fixed set of sitelinks that would either appear in a search engine result or not show up at all. Now, the original query will influence the sitelinks that appear for a given result.

What does this mean and why should you care?

As a Google user– The goal of Google’s search engine is to make our lives easier by simplifying search results and saving us time. By delivering us the results with additional sitelinks that are relevant to our queries means we can find what we’re looking for quicker. Thanks Google, you rock!

As a marketer –  Google does a great job of making continuous updates to their products that will improve the relevancy of their search results to the user. Our job is to follow suit – make the content that we provide to our users as relevant to them, their needs, and challenges as we possibly can. By creating consistent, informative, helpful, and relevant content to our users will boost our chances of benefiting from those associated sitelinks in Google’s search results for our website. Plus, with additional space required for sitelinks, that’s more real estate that we could possibly own on the search engine results page. And who doesn’t want more real estate there?

How do I get sitelinks for my website’s search results?
Since Google’s algorithm is under strict lock and key, there isn’t a handbook on how to get sitelinks for your website. However, sitelinks are based on your site’s linking structure and there are a few things you can do to make sure that’s good to go:

• Ensure your site can be crawled successfully
• Use informative anchor text
• Optimize your website with various on-page SEO elements
• Create content for your site that proves your are an authority on your subject matter

Even though we don’t get a particular say in which pages actually show up as sitelinks, we can request that Google demote certain sitelinks that we don’t want to appear, but even that isn’t guaranteed.

With this update that Google has made, and many in the past, for me it is just a reminder on who the focus is on – the user. Site rankings, Twitter followers, and Facebook Likes don’t mean much if I’m not getting traffic to my site and converting that traffic when they are there.