How do you adopt SEO practices to deal with changing search algorithms?
Thursday, 07 July 2011
There's a not-so-secret fear in the search marketing world, and it's the algorithm update. Whenever the major search engines make a significant change, SEOs around the world will immediately dive into their analytics to see how it has affected them.
The good news is that by and large these algorithm updates tend to target sites using practices that are on the borderline of what would be considered "black hat" SEO practices. The latest major Google update, the "Panda" update rolled out in February/April, is aimed at content farms - sites that aggregate or create large amounts of low-quality content. Such content farms aren't explicitly SPAM, but are not valuable to most users.
Atomic advocates and practices "white hat" SEO tactics, in which we aim to create content that users will naturally value, share, and link to. These tactics have proven highly effective for a number of clients, for example Mint.com. Because such content is of actual value, and the links they attract are from natural, quality sources, the sites we work with are only minimally affected by algorithm updates.
None the less, any algorithm update will have collateral damage. If your clients have been affected, the first step is to evaluate your strategies for any tactics that might have been targeted in the update. The next step would be to see if your client sites are strongly associated with sites that have been affected. If many of your links or referrers come from XYZ.com, and they were hammered by an update, then it might have rippled back to you.
Lastly, it's possibly you've unintentionally triggered a penalty. For example, having very little content per page, little original content, or lots of duplicate content. Look to see if you can improve your content strategies and clean your site of low-quality sections that might be seen as a content farm.
Updates to the algorithms are always a good time to review your strategies, but the best defense is an adherence to white hat tactics that are unlikely to be affected by an update now or in the future.
The PR Value of Facebook & Twitter
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Two recent Fast Company articles have shed some quantitative light on the actual value of Facebook and Twitter, and helped to reinforce some of our internal observations here at Atomic Digital.
With regards to clickthroughs, SocialTwist reports that Twitter users click through 6.6x more often than do Facebook users, despite Facebook being by far the most popular sharing platform among users. This is based on analyzing 1MM clickthroughs of user shares via their "Tell a friend" tool.
In another report, Eventbrite reports that sharing event information through Facebook was 5.8x as valuable as doing the same through Twitter. Based on mining months of sales data, they calculated that each time a user shared an event via Facebook it generated $2.52 in ticket sales vs. only $0.43 for each Twitter share.
Both of these articles contain important insights from a PR perspective. Given the higher clickthrough rate of Twitter, sharing general news via that medium may indeed be more effective. With Twitter often used as a broadcasting medium this makes sense, as oftentimes people will have a much wider network on Twitter vs. Facebook, which is often kept more personal.
The Eventbrite data however shows that under the right circumstances the more personal network of Facebook proves more valuable. For events shared among friends there is a high likelihood that many of one's friends live nearby (and thus are able to attend), and friends often share each others' tastes. From a PR perspective this shows that Facebook may have advantages for local or grassroots initiatives.
Unfortunately neither article addresses Facebook fan pages, which are Twitter like in their messages often being more of a broadcast than a personal connection among friends. Our internal observations have shown fan pages can be tremendously effective, both for driving traffic and conversions for cause-related campaigns.
AtomicPR Perspective: The SEO impact of Google's new Caffeine index on public relations
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Google recently announced a major overhaul of its search index which they've dubbed Caffeine. The new indexing system marks a major shift in Google's ability to index content in near real time - so fast in fact, that some sites report new content being available in Google's search index within minutes.
In the past Google (and all search engines for that matter) indexed content over time, processed it, and used that data to make periodical updates to their indexes. A few years ago one could expect minor updates monthly, with the occasional major shift a few times a year.
Over the past decade the search engines have gone more and more real-time, prioritizing some content over others. Sites such as news sites and higher profile blogs would be crawled and processed more quickly (usually multiple times a day) whereas other websites might only be crawled weekly or monthly. With the advent of truly real-time services like Twitter, Facebook, and others, even this crawling frequency was often inadequate.
Caffeine is a fundamental shift in the way Google indexes the web. Rather than have a layered index with different priority levels, the index is now designed to be instantly updatable.
Previously each layer of the index would have to be crawled in its entirety and then updated. With Caffeine Google now processes all content in smaller chunks and continually updates its index with the new content. In other words, when Google sees your content it goes live.
This has obvious PR implications. Now blog posts can ping Google and be live right away, providing for much richer near real-time content possibilities. Beyond blogging, all new content - be it on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, or anywhere else - can instantly surface on Google.
The implications of real-time search are like hashtags on steroids. Having an understanding of search and the factors influence rank now take on a much broader role, as all content can be instantly evaluated against Google's search algorithms.
AtomicPR has been weaving search principles into its practice for nearly a decade, with several of us having specific backgrounds in search, SEO, PPC, and content optimization. We view search as an intrinsic part of any PR / marketing campaign, not something to be bolted on after the fact. Read more about our approach to search here.
Atomic's "Hollywood sign" stunt for the Trust for Public Land. More coming...
Friday, 12 February 2010
Atomic LA and Atomic Digital Ops have had to keep mum about this project for some time, but now we're public with our efforts and the news is making headlines around the globe. So far we've seen hundreds of major press hits, broadcast pickups, and social media chatter (1,750+ Facebook fans in 36 hours, a Top 10 trending Twitter keyword in LA, etc).
We're helping the Trust for Public Land in their campaign to save Cahuenga Peak, the land surrounding the Hollywood Sign. Owned by private developers, the land is at risk of having a number of mansions built atop it, forever marring the iconic view of the Hollywood Sign and preventing the public access to the land which people have enjoyed for decades.
Much more to come soon - in the meantime check out our microsite for the latest updates, and feel free to share the widget below and encourage support!
Communicating with video (it's more than viral)
Monday, 07 December 2009
Producing video can do a lot for a brand. While going 'viral' is clearly one potential benefit, I think most of us are well aware of what that is and what it achieves. But beyond virality, how else can video be of value to a brand?
How about playing on the NASDAQ screen in Times Square? More in this in a minute...
Producing video can do several things. In some cases, it can make complex ideas simple and intuitive. For example, trying to communicate the benefits of a networked power grid can be a tough sell for people outside the utility industry. Knowing that, we worked with our client Echelon, a leading provider of smart grids and networked power solutions, to produce a series of videos highlighting the cost savings and environmental benefit of the technology. In addition to making the message accessible to consumers, these short videos also helped clarify their position to journalists and instantly illustrate what exactly they do.
In other cases, it can be helpful to introduce and build trust for new companies. When Mint.com launched in 2007, we produced a series of videos around the holidays centered on personal finance for 20-somethings, such as holiday budgeting (BTW, Mint was recently acquired by Intuit for $170MM). These videos served several purposes beyond the obvious consumer appeal. They also helped introduce the product to journalists and analysts, and they also served as a showreel for Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer, ultimately leading to a screentest with CNBC to appear as a regular contributor on personal finance issues.
Video can also be used to raise awareness on macro issues. ArcSight, a leading security and compliance management company, helps companies from the private sector all the way up to the military and intelligence industries protect themselves against cyber threats. To help raise awareness on the issue, we produced an animated typographic video highlighting some disturbing statistics on cybercrime and major cyber incidents. The piece was so well received, it was used in the opening keynote of the Protect09 cyber security conference in Washington DC, and also played in Times Square when ArcSight rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ.
Lastly, video can provide a search benefit as well. With universal search, videos and other content sometimes appear in search results alongside the usual ten blue links. A strategically produced and optimized video may rank well for relevant searches (as it did for our client Ingres during their 'Vectorwise' product launch) which both supports client messaging while helping to defend the first page of results against competitors or off-message content.
Check out a short snippet of the ArcSight video in Times Square below. Questions? Feel free to send a note to our Digital Ops group at digops@atomicpr.com.
