SEO advices for 2013

SEO for Websites in 2013 and Beyondarticle written by ZDstaff

The world of SEO is plugged with, well, I’ll be frank – a lot of garbage and misinformation.  Literally anyone can throw up a website and call themselves an SEO professional.  Then, they can swear up and down what works and what doesn’t, even if they have no experience with the process themselves.

I’m a pretty honest, down-to-earth type, and I don’t like to give you any bad information.  At a higher level, SEO is impossible to predict because you have no idea what Google is actually factoring into its algorithm.  But, based on experience and talking with others in the industry, you can make reasonable assumptions about what will work for SEO in 2013 and the years after.

Ignore the Hoopla, Here’s What Works

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, here are some things you can count on working now and in the coming future:

Content. Common sense tells you Google wants to remain a rich and powerful corporation, and expand that wealth and power.  How does any business stay alive?  By giving the market what it wants.

Right now, and in the future, the market wants content.  At the SEO level, you have to make sure keywords appear in titles and scattered throughout the content in a natural way.  Google, and the market, also like websites with diverse forms of content – images, videos,infographics, and written material.

A long tail. Long-tail keywords (3 words or longer in length), are responsible for driving more and more traffic to websites.  It’s making less and less sense to target a handful of keywords and build links for them, especially given Google’s emphasis on providing web users with local results.

If you’re doing your own SEO, you can safely bet blogging and creating static web pages around long-tail keywords will be effective for the near future.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore Dorothy…

SEO has significantly changed over the years.  A few years ago, you could spam the hell out of a few keywords on your web pages, and you would be ranking highly for those terms.  Now, you have to be smart about it – Google wants your site to create an awesome user experience.  Here are some ways SEO might look different in the years ahead:

Google will prefer sites with loads of content. Micro-sites will slowly lose their search engine rankings.  Although they’re not seen as manipulative by Google now, if Google wants your site to provide a great user experience, it makes sense that Google wants big, robust websites with in-depth content.  It also follows that the marketplace will want the same – why visit a website regularly that rarely updates its content?

Unique content. Many people get caught up in the idea of unique content being a certain percentage of words.  For example, some believe if 41% of an article has unique wording, then it looks unique to Google.  On a recent Whiteboard Friday, SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkinhad this to say about that view:

“The algorithms that you might imagine are so much more sophisticated than an exact percentile of what is and isn’t duplicate, even when it comes to just studying the content in here. That specific percentage doesn’t exist. They use such a vast array of inputs.”

Already, it’s best to just write your own view on a topic, and keep that in mind as you develop content throughout the future.

An increased focus on ranking sites based on semantics. At SEOMoz, Simon Pensondiscussed the fact Google knows it’s entirely built on links and that it needs to get away from that model.  In simple terms, it’s going to try to figure out how to rank websites based on how many times they are mentioned in close proximity to key phrases.  For example, what people write about you would be a larger factor in your rankings than the anchor text on the links built to your site.

Help Remedies - Help I'm Horny

Help I'm Horny, a Condom Brand to people looking for great  sex:

Classification: Creativity: 4,2;  Call to action: 4,7;  Empathy for the Brand: 4,5 Total: 4,5

Help Remedies released a new product campaign,  Help I'm Horny,  I love this campaign, it has everything you learn in a branding book chapter "how to build a cult brand". Help Remedies have achieved  this, if I'm not mistaken, by creating the first premium condom brand. 
Help Remedies accomplish that by involving the consumer in a classic atmosphere, using erotic post-renascence as their theme for the website. I give congrats to them for not using the sex "bait" in a vulgar way, as most advertisers use. With this strategy they moved away from associations like a condom to be used to have sex in a cheap hotel, and they do it, without passing a snob image. 
Other smart move by Help Remedies is the exclusivity emotion they pass, this is a crucial step in order to built a brand clan. If you want to enter this clan, you have to prove that you are worth it, and which men says no to a challenge about his sex abilities. 
In sum this is a well enticing branding campaign using the apple sexiness move, but for condoms.


An Excerpt from the creativity-online article:

Are you a sexpert, well versed in the art of bedroom (and other-room) moves? Then Help Remedies might just consider you cool enough to use its latest product, "Help, I'm Horny." The design-minded OTC pharmaceuticals company has a new product in the prophylactic category, a package of two lubricated thin, natural latex condoms that promise to be as inconspicuous as possible.Like the girl you wanted but never could manage to get, "Help, I'm Horny" is picky -- the brand will retail the product only at "fine hotels," including select W Hotels, where, evidently, sex is bound to be wonderful. The product is placed in the mini-bar inside guests' rooms. Richard Fine, co-founder at Help, said that "the context in which you discover a product is extremely important," which was why they decided to go the hotel-distribution route for the new line, which he terms "more special," than a headache remedy. Other Help Remedies products are generally available in pharmacies. Nathan Frank, the company's co-founder and CD, in a statement said "We're not interested in making condoms for pedestrian, uninspired sex."The other place you can get your hands on the product is on the site, HelpImHorny.com, where interested customers can apply for approval by divulging their fantasies, commenting on past experiences, and reviewing erotic artworks. Individuals that pass the "rigorous" test will be given a link to purchase "Help, I'm Horny" online. And yes, it is actually a rigorous approval process, according to Fine. Three people are going to be charged with reviewing the application. "We will award the product to those who have sexually inventive and impressive resumes," said Fine. (via creativity online)

Ladder - Homepage for the Homeless

Classification: Creativity: 4,2;  Call to action: 4;  Empathy for the Brand: 4

Total: 4,1

Redirect your consumerism this holiday season and make your shopping benefit the 1 in 200 Australians who will be homeless this year. GPY&R Melbourne and youth charity Ladder present "Homepage for the Homeless." Click through to participating retailers' sites from the hompage, so 15% of what you buy will be donated to the cause by the store -- with no cost to you. - (via creativity online)

Advertising Agency: GPY&R, Melbourne, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Ben Coulson
Senior Art Director: Paul Meates
Senior Copywriter: Alex Wadelton & Katie Britton
Group Account Director: Julian Bell
Account Manager: Rachel Semmens
Producer: Carrie Burman & Jessica Krt
Designer: Kota Matsuda

Developers: Brett Harris, Chris Upjohn 

6 Dos & Don'ts for Better Content Marketing

Think having a bold, eye-catching homepage is enough? Think again. Outbrain's CEO shares his best strategies for attracting quality visitors to your site--and keeping them engaged. 

by: Marla Tabaka (inc)

Hey, your blog looks great! And those videos certainly add the finishing touch. Congratulations!

Now what?

Is it really enough to create your own content, push it out to your list, and wait for sales to boom?

This strategy may bring some measure of success to business owners with lists consisting of hundreds of thousands of contacts, but not for the average entrepreneur.  According to Yaron Galai, the CEO of Outbrain, a content-discovery platform that places their clients' articles, mobile, and video content on high-profile publisher sites, you need to get creative about how you market your content. 

So, ask yourself: What's your most outstanding digital content? Does your content marketing plan to ensure that it's actually found and appreciated by the right people?

"Whether it's through the social Web, sponsored placement on a publisher site, or via others channels, readers are not searching for your content," Galai says. "It's vital to provide them with the opportunity to essentially 'happen upon it.'"

Of course, to qualify as recommended reading you'll want to produce the most brilliant content possible and, regardless of earned media, many brands and businesses are doing just that. Here are Galai's tips to ensure that your efforts produce quality pieces of content--not just thinly veiled marketing pushes that your readers can see right through--and always fail to produce results.

1. Don't Skimp on Design

Sure, it's the quality of the content that will keep your visitors coming back, but don't underestimate the power of a slick, eye-catching site. Designing your site with a high-quality screen resolution will help your viewers to think of your site as premium, as does using high-quality images that take up their entire frames.

2. Don't Go for the Hard Sell

Although the ultimate purpose of all marketing is to drive sales, content marketing employs a fairly nuanced approach. The focus is on educating, entertaining, and delivering value to the consumer, rather than giving a hard pitch for your products or services.

3. Do Make It Multimedia

This goes hand-in-hand with investing in design. Varying the type of content you show on your site is essential to providing an engaging, well-rounded user experience that sucks people in and keeps them clicking for more.

4. Don't Leave Dead Ends 

When it comes to content marketing, the old adage about "leave 'em wanting more" most definitely does not apply. The best time to engage your audience is when they're already in content consumption mode, which is why every page on your site should offer plenty of links to further content.

5. Do Run Both Earned & Owned Media

Have great press coverage or a fantastic review? This is a perfect opportunity to maximize your earned media. Adding it to the mix of your own content is a good way to engage your audience and increase your brand's credibility.

6. Do Make Sharing Easy

If you create great content, there's a good chance that you'll garner some fans along the way, which is why it's so important to give them mechanisms to share that content with their friends.

What marketers say about working online: McKinsey Global Survey results

Mckinsey released their global survey results, I'm gonna share with you some excerpts:

The online survey was in the field from October 11 to October 21, 2011, and garnered responses from 792 marketing executives representing the full range of industries, regions, titles, and company sizes. The data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP to adjust for differences in response rates.

Marketers agree that digital tools and technologies are valuable, though many of their companies struggle to measure the financial impact and capture customer data.

November 2011

Digital media and online tools: (...) Most respondents agree that their online presence is important and that digital tools provide their companies with a major opportunity, but few are taking the structural steps required to benefit from selling online or engaging consumers through new technologies such as social media. Indeed, most respondents indicate that companies are still trying to figure out how digital media can meaningfully improve their bottom lines.(...)

The most pressing competitive challenge marketing executives identify is producing and using customer insights, and respondents hope to use data to drive sales and customer engagement. But they also say their companies often have only basic customer information— despite the tremendous increase in data available to them in recent years—and they report difficulties in measuring the impact of online tools and channels. Respondents also say they lack the internal leadership and resources to develop better analytical capabilities and, as a result, better information and insights about customers.

The state of play online - Marketing executives overwhelmingly agree that an effective online presence is very or extremely important for staying competitive—81 percent of them say so. (...)   about half as many cite either the ability to reach new customer segments or the emergence of new business models as one of the greatest effects of digital media’s pervasiveness. Overall, these tools seem to be creating little competitive differentiation.

Marketers’ online challenges - The most important digital-related challenge for marketers and business leaders—ranked first by the largest share of respondents—is generating and leveraging deep customer insights (Exhibit 3). The good news is that more respondents say their companies either are taking or plan to take action on some of the higher-ranked challenges compared with those they ranked lower (Exhibit 4). Notably, many companies seem to want to do it themselves: on many of these challenges, more respondents say the best approaches involve developing internal capabilities rather than relying on external resources.(...)

(...)Though measuring the effect of online tools isn’t the most-cited problem, other responses indicate that many marketers continue to struggle with developing the right metrics and translating insights into actions that influence consumer behavior. (...)

Marketers and big data - Congruent with the importance respondents place on leveraging customer insights, 71 percent say data-driven customer insights will be very or extremely important to their companies’ competitiveness during the next two to four years—but just 4 percent say their companies now have the required analytical capabilities to manage their businesses more effectively (Exhibit 6).

Looking ahead

Most companies are struggling to define an online business model to drive competitive advantage, despite being well aware of the importance of digital media and its potential to foster customer engagement and loyalty. That’s partly because there’s no single solution: companies need to consider factors such as the extent to which digital operations should be integrated within existing commercial functions, whether it should be centralized or regionally based, and how much online activity should be standardized rather than tailored by geography, product, or service. Yet even though one size does not fit all, companies need to begin searching for what works for them. 

Few companies are taking full advantage of the opportunity presented by exponentially increasing volumes of customer data. Insights derived from how consumers behave and interact online can inform everything from product development and innovation to sales processes, but it requires a commitment to gathering, analysing, and deploying data much more effectively than most companies currently do. 

The race is far from over. While companies recognize the potential of digital tools to drive customer engagement and sales, few have seized the opportunity: only 14 percent of respondents say the effects of digital tools in marketing have included the entry of new competitors. Yet it’s only a matter of time before disruptive competitors that skillfully use digital tools quickly emerge, and incumbents need to take aggressive action before a lot of current value is destroyed.

If you want to read the full pdf you have to register here

"TV's Scariest Generation: The Cable Nevers"

Like Zombies.... They are the UN-cabled! And here's the scary part -- they are multiplying!

A Credit Suisse analyst this week projected that the multi-channel TV universe will fall by 200-thousand subscribers in 2012. They had previously forecast a GAIN of 250-thousand subs. The report said "the real challenge to the pay TV business model are behaviorally-driven cord-nevers.". Who are these phantoms? They are young. They are growing up watching online video. When asked to PAY for TV - the answer is often "WTF"!

Separately, comScore reported this week that online video watching hit a record 43 BILLION views in October. The average viewer consumed over 21 hours of video.

We've heard plenty of talk about "cord-cutting," which really means "cable TV cutting" because everyone still needs a broadband connection. But who's doing it?

I'd put the "cord-cutters" in three buckets:

1. Cord-cutters - These are the REAL "cutters", they have had a cable box in their home for years and now have had it. Or they've found better alternatives. This number is still small. MSO execs have rightly diminished the impact this group has on their bottom lines!
2. Cord-shavers - This group is downgrading service. They are canceling premium channels or getting a more basic service plan. It's been hard to find any publicly available numbers on this category.
3. Cord-nevers - This is the most troubling group for the traditional operators. They are graduating college, leaving the nest and have become comfortable finding their viewing choices online. They don't recognize networks - they know "shows." They like on-demand viewing. They like skipping commercials, too!

If you have a better name for this group than "cord-nevers" - please speak up! "cord-zeros"? "cord-less"? "cord-wtf"?

The Credit Suisse report also states that "other than content rights protection and content cost growth, we view the generational culture shift surrounding video consumption as the biggest challenge pay TV will face over the next ten years."

This point is really important! This is not a blip. This is the new paradigm for the next generation.

In some ways it mirrors the generational shift when this age group stopped acquiring land line phones. Remember the term POTS? Stands for Plain Old Telephone Service! Well, if you know the term you probably still have cable. The landline phone business is in rapid decline. You probably won't leave home without your mobile phone. If you have a landline phone, it's probably still connected to your fax machine.

I predict that a true OTT (over the top) player will emerge in the next twelve months. This service will offer 40-50 live TV channels, a rich VOD offering, cloud DVR functionality and portability. Portability is key. A service that will truly live on your iPad or smartphone and not be tethered to a cable box in your home.

Clearly, we are seeing a changing dynamic in video consumption. This will play out over the next few years. There is clear opportunity for smart entrepreneurs and there are also major threats to the current incumbents. Thoughts?

Article written by: Bernard Gershon 

Published: 02 December - AdAge Digital