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How to Build a Google Analytics Tracking Code was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Need more input? As an optimizer who is regularly looking to learn more about how my recipients are interacting with content, I find myself regularly consuming analytics reports filled with Google Analytics tracking code data like Johnny Number 5 eats the Encyclopedia Britannica in the above clip from the 1986 gem Short Circuit.

Google Analytics tracking codes —  also know as custom campaigns or UTM codes — are custom tracking parameters that communicate to Google Analytics granular information about how your referral traffic is interacting with your calls to action. To implement a UTM tracking code simply add your desired parameters to the end of the URL you want to track insights for, like this:

http://www.YourWebsite.com/your-CRO-landing-page-article?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=viral&utm_campaign=CRO-0513-JThompson

UTM tracking codes can help you analyze traffic from banner ads, email newsletters, social media content, and any other campaign that links people to a property that you own (such as your website or your blog). You cannot use UTM tracking to analyze clicks to external websites, like YouTube or Link-To-Related-Content.com. To track click activity on links that send people to properties you don’t own, Bitly is a great free resource.

How To Put Together a Google Analytics Tracking Code

There are five possible parameters you can set for each UTM tracking code: Source, Medium, Campaign, Content and Term. You don’t have to use all of them. For this blog post I am going to show you show to create a UTM tracking code for a link that directs people from a blog post to a page on my website. To keep it simple, I am only going to discuss the parameters needed for this scenario — Source, Medium and Campaign.

Note: When and how to use Term and Content parameters is really a whole separate blog post; leave a comment if you are interested in seeing us write about it.

The Medium (&utm_Medium) is the most broad parameter and tells Google Analytics — big picture — how to classify the medium by which your link was presented to the user. For example, was the link presented in a Facebook wall post? Then the Medium might be “viral” because the link you posted to your Facebook wall is now spreading virally all over the Internet and, accordingly, was delivered via a “viral” medium. (If viral is too abstract for you, “social” could also work.) Was the link transmitted to the end user via an email newsletter? Then your Medium might be “email,” or even more specifically, “ConstantContact” or “CheetahMail” to identify the service that delivered your newsletter. In our example above, our link was a blog post, so we used &utm_medium=viral.

Getting one step more specific from Medium, the Source (&utm_Source=) tells Google Analytics where the click came from, where the person was when they clicked the link. In our example above (utm_source=blog) the person clicked on a link that was posted to my blog (so the Medium is “viral,” and the Source is “blog.”). Other Source options might include Twitter, Facebook or newsletter (Medium equals “email” and Source equals “newsletter”).

The Campaign parameter (&utm_Campaign=) is one step even more specific than Source, and the parameter where you can really start to get granular with your tracking. The Campaign is how you identify the specifics of a link, from the details of where it goes all the way down to the color and size of the call to action. In the example above I used &utm_campaign=CRO-JThompson-image because I wanted to identify which of my silos encouraged the most clicks, the longest time on site, and — at the other end of the spectrum — the most site exits. I also wanted to collect data to help me determine which of my authors are being read the most, and if an image call-to-action perform better than a text call to action. If this link was a banner ad I might have included the dimensions of the banner (for instance 320 or 160) to help determine which banner size encourages more clicks. If I wanted to test how well a link to free content performs versus how well a link to paid content performs I might have included “free” or “paid” as Campaign parameters.

Six Essential Google Analytics Tracking Code Details

•  Every UTM tracking code starts with a question mark. For example: ?utm_. This question mark tells Google Analytics where your link URL ends and your tracking starts. If you don’t include the question mark Google will think your link is http://www.YourWebsite.com/your-CRO-landing-page-articleutm_source which, as an alteration of the URL permalink, will result in a 404 error. The question mark is important.

• There are five possible parameters you can set for each UTM tracking code: Source, Medium, Campaign, Content and Term. The parameters you choose to use are strung together in one sentence (no spaces) and separated by ampersands (&). It doesn’t matter what order you list your parameters in, but your first parameter must start with a question mark and all the following parameters must start with ampersands. The & tells Google Analytics where one parameter ends and the next begins. If you forget the ampersand and write your code like &utm_medium=viralutm_campaign= Google Analytics will think that your Medium is “viralutm_campaign=” which, as you can imagine, will skew your Medium and Campaign data pretty badly.

• Since the Google Analytics URL builder makes it easy for any of your team members to create and assign UTM tracking codes it is critical to have a discussion about UTM parameter conventions before anyone on your team starts creating UTM codes willy-nilly. I highly recommend creating a spreadsheet or other living document (a Google Drive spreadsheet works great) that clearly outlines conventions for Source, Medium, and Campaign. (If you are using Content and Term parameters regularly, make sure to add conventions for those parameters as well.) You may even consider taking your spreadsheet to the next level to establish a record of every link posted and its associated Campaign allocations. While a spreadsheet that documents every link your company pushes out is a larger commitment, these resources become invaluable as associates join and leave your team.

Note: If you’re crafty you’ve noticed the links in this blog post have not been amended to include Google Analytics UTMs. This is because the Bruce Clay, Inc. content team is  currently developing our analysis goals and tracking conventions. Since I am a data-hungry Johnny Number 5 monster I have been using Bitly as my personal one-man-band interim tracking convention because I can’t survive a minute without data. I do not recommend this as it’s not scalable long-term. 

• UTM codes are case sensitive so Google Analytics will collect data for potatoes and Potatoes as two separate reports. This means, since Google Analytics does not have the human sensibility to tell you that there is a capitalized version of your Campaign floating around somewhere in your referral traffic data, you may be analyzing incomplete data if your team isn’t careful about capitalization.

• Hyphens allow Google Analytics to understand each word individually; underscores are considered alphanumeric characters and connect words to make phrases (see dashes vs. underscores for more detail). For instance: sandals-coupon versus sandals_coupon. If you are building UTM codes for a newsletter send it might make sense to use an underscore to connect your newsletter identifier with the release date of the newsletter — for instance, DealerUpdates_2013July09-colorado. In this example you will be able to find data in Google Analytics for the specific term “DealerUpdates_2013July09” which will tell you exactly how that specific dealer updates newsletter that was sent out on July 9, 2013 performed. You are also able to analyze how every email sent to your Colorado demographic performed, but because “DealerUpdates_2013July09”and “Colorado” are separated by a hyphen the Colorado data will not be exclusive to the July 9 email.

• Worth noting again, you must own a URL in order to attach UTM tracking to it. In other words, you can only use UTM tracking to assigned parameters to links that go to your properties — your website, your blog, your app, etc. You cannot use UTM tracking to analyze clicks that go to external properties like Facebook.com or Other-Website.com.

Why Use Tracking Codes?

I consistently use Google Analytics tracking codes to measure where my referral traffic is coming from, which of my initiatives are meeting traffic goals, how my target markets prefer to receive communication, and the ebb and flow of industry based on seasonality.

They give you a granular snapshot of your referral traffic, how your consumers (and potential-consumers) are interacting with the calls to action you’re putting out there, and they are a great way to quench an unrelenting need for specific ROI data.

Are you a Johnny Number 5? How have Google Analytics UTM codes made your life easier?

From the way we talk about content marketing, you’d think it was a new thing invented for use on the internet. But content marketing goes way back. I mean, waaaay, back. Look at this example from the History of Content Marketing Infographic.

More recent examples include a safe driving book from Michelin Tires which was published in 1900 and the free 1904 Jell-O recipe booklet which led to millions in sales for the product.

It’s an intuitive leap – if you help your customer do something better, faster or safer, they’ll think kindly of you and consider buying your product.

According to a new infographic from Demand Metric, 60% of people have been inspired to seek out a product after reading about it.

In other words, it’s all good–ish. Lately, there’s been a lot of concern about content marketing masquerading as unbiased articles on the web. We don’t want to feel tricked into reading what might not be true. What it really comes down to is trust. Here’s a list of 5 Excellent Action Movies. Does it matter if the list comes from Entertainment Weekly or Netflix? What about Stan the DVD blogger vs Universal Studios?

People will grumble if it’s from Universal because chances are only their films made the list. But that Jell-O recipe book was loaded with recipes that included Jell-O products and everyone was okay with that.

Let’s move on:

At first I was surprised by the 90% number of this graph, but a lot of things fall under the term “content.” If your company has a blog, a YouTube channel or posts helpful tips to Facebook, that’s all content. I’m not surprised to see the B2B guys are out in front. This infographic is a perfect example of how general content can be used to promote a company. This informative graphic doesn’t specifically advertise Demand Metric’s services but I’ve now been introduced to a company I didn’t know. Simple.

Marketing companies are experts at this. They run webinars and create free ebooks, slideshows and DIY templates that help the less experienced market their own businesses. Many of the people who avail themselves of these freebies won’t build on the relationship, but a few will take the offered hand and come on as a new client or customer.

Let’s look at one last piece of this enormous infographic:

Social media is a quick way to content market. It’s bite-sized and can be done on the fly. Blogs are even better. They take more effort but Demand Metric says that, on average, a company blog delivers 67% of the leads per month. Blogs are still one of the best ways to talk to your customers just remember to lean heavily on the informative side and go light on the company PR.

You can see the entire Demand Metric infographic right here.

Thoughts on content marketing? We’d love to hear them.

Google has announced a revamping of Google Maps and it is much more than a few changes. It is a reworking of the entire Google Maps interface from the group up, designed to make Maps more intuitive for users. Advertisements also have a new look.

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Ads Gets New Filter Options, Search Query Reports, Appealable Ad Visiblity & Keyword Competition Values Bing Ads announced a number of updates last...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

It’s Day Two of the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco and the new features and ideas just keep on coming. Look at this photo from the first day. It’s like Comic-Con! But I must ask, where are the women? Surely there are at least a few females in the developer trade?

Gender issues aside, I love the idea behind this event because it’s not just a set of PR announcements, it’s a community coming together to create amazing new tech goodies for you and me. I also love that the official agenda includes a time slot for “Bike and Coat Check.” That makes me smile.

Anyway, let’s get down to business – search business with a look at some of the new things coming your way.

The main theme going forward is conversation. Google has tweaked their voice activated search engine so it not only responds to simple questions, it can actually respond in a conversational way.

For example: ask Google to show you pictures of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. That’s easy peasy. It’s the next part that’s amazing.

“Google, how do I get there from here.”

Google responds with a map and directions and I wouldn’t be surprised if it told me where to get cheap gas along the way and the best place to stop for dinner.

Since we’re somewhat used to this concept, it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but think this through. In this example, Google has to understand that when you say “get there” there means the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. When you say “here” Google has to determine your current location using the locator in your phone. And it does all of this in a matter of seconds.

The feature will be included in the next iOS and Android updates but it’s also coming to a computer near you as long as you use Chrome as your browser. I tried Chrome long ago and gave it up in favor of Firefox but this might be enough to make me try it again. Mostly, voice search on a computer is a novelty (it’s not like I’m driving and can’t type) but with all the typing a do in a day, I appreciate any shortcuts.

Google has also put the work into their knowledge graph. They’ve made it more “intelligent” in a variety of languages including both simplified and traditional Chinese. They’ve also prompted the search fairies to give a more detailed response to a query. So instead of just getting the population of Australia when you ask, you also get comparison to other countries and graphs.

Google Now

I’m also looking forward to trying the updated Google Now portion of the search app. They’ve added the ability to trigger reminders based on place. You go to the store to buy milk and it reminds you that you also need dog food. It can also nag you if you’re about to miss your train and let you know when a new book, movie or CD is about to be released so you can be there on the first day.

It’s all about relevant information given your location and situation. Nice.

Okay Google, where can I get a juicy hamburger? I’m starving.

Google has revamped Google+. The new look and feel puts images front and center. While some new photo features and enhancements add some interesting functionality, the ridiculously huge cover photos are a bit hard for some users to swallow.

Google is working toward its vision of what the future of search should be, and yesterday at the I/O event announced developments that are helping that vision become a reality. The question: How will businesses continue to remain relevant online?

Bing Ads announced a number of updates last month, including new campaign filter options, improved search query reports, more visibility with appealable ads, and new keyword competition insights. Also, the Keyword Suggestions feature was made available to Bing advertisers in the UK. New Filter...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

This survey shows: 45% of marketers don’t have a mobile optimized site Testing is usually only performed on top entry pages 87% of those surveyed say less than half of visitors get targeted content Download now »

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Using the new markup will allow Google algorithms to understand which image on your server is your preferred logo. If you used such a file on your home page, you can designate it directly from the same IMG tag you use on your site.

In my last post, “ Improve Your ROI Through Better Landing Page Relevance and User Experience ,” I pointed out two key behaviors that search users exhibit after they arrive at your website: Locate information – people want to consume the information right away; they don’t want any obstructions. Judge information – once located, people will assess whether the information is relevant and addresses their intent. In order to have a deeper discussion of landing...(read more)

The news was flying fast and furious out of the Google I/O event yesterday. If you missed Matt McGee’s live blogging you missed more than a few chuckles but hey, that’s the way the Google Glass crumbles (yup, that was awful).

As we often do here at Marketing Pilgrim, we will turn over some of the reporting to Google itself regarding changes in Google+. Until these changes are realized by all it seems pointless to analyze or predict what they do or don’t mean. Besides, my crystal ball is in the shop following it’s prediction that Justin Timberlake would make MySpace relevant again.

So here is a series of videos to bring you up to speed on the new and improved Google+. Enjoy.

First up from the Google+ blog post about the changes covers

A multi-column layout. You’ll see one, two, or three columns of content depending on your screen size and orientation.

Awesome-sized media. Photos and videos can fill the entire width of the stream, making it easier to scan, and nicer to look at.

Delightful animations. The sharebox bounces, the menus slide, and the cards flip and fade — just to name a few.

Next up is a look at related hashtag implementation

And last but not least we learn about the new standalone Google+ Hangouts offering

We’ll keep an eye on all these changes as people start to digest them over the coming months. Is there anything that truly catches your marketing fancy? Let us know in the comments.

Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

For any successful organization that relies on the Internet for leads and sales, marketing automation stands to increase efficiencies and revenues. Here's a look at marketing automation: the primary elements, core benefits, and opportunities.

According to a report from IDG News, a “toned down” version of an earlier, more restrictive “ancillary copyright” law has been published in Germany and will go into effect in August. The ”ancillary copyright” rule was proposed in August of 2012. In its initial form it would...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Using data from more than 35 million search queries performed in 2012, SEO company WebpageFX  set out to determine search engine market share by state for Google, Bing and Yahoo. According to their study, Google dominates across the country, taking 70 percent or more of search engine market share...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

If one theme was abundantly clear at SMX West in March, it was the question over the importance of authorship and how it might impact future rankings in Google. During the “What’s Needed For SEO Success In 2013 & Beyond?” panel, I asked Matt Cutts if Google planned to expand authorship credit...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

We’ve tapped into some of the web’s finest web analytics professionals to share their tips for mining analytics gold. Here are 16 secret – until now – Google Analytics advanced segments that could make you insights rich, too.

Automating AdWords as much as possible is every advertiser’s dream, especially when dealing with the massive accounts we see in enterprise-level SEM. This article provides a few examples of how we at Top Tier Marketing have automated some of the more laborious tasks of running AdWords. Hopefully,...

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GeoFlow helps you automatically map clicks, conversions, revenue and more within minutes; create amazing visualizations like heatmaps and 3D column charts; and has play button functionality to show trends over time. Here's a step-by-step guide.

Posted by Zach Corleissen

Greetings, Mozfolk! My name is Zach, and I'm a technical writer here at SEOmoz.

We've consistently heard from you that Mozscape needs better documentation. I'm pleased to tell you: your requests have been granted! The Mozscape wiki just underwent a thorough update and review by developers, help teamsters, and testers. We incorporated your feedback from help tickets and forums to make Mozscape easier for new users to learn, and more functional for experienced users to reference.

Hopefully this documentation update helps you get the most value from Mozscape. If you haven't taken a look through our documentation yet, we hope it encourages you to see how Mozscape data can help your business grow.

Legacy documentation: a (very) brief history

Like documentation at most startups, the legacy documentation for Mozscape was inconsistent. Not all features were documented; for example, metadata supports a command called index_stats, which returns information about the contents of the current Mozscape Index update. It's been in production for a while, but hasn't been documented until now. (Check it out, it's pretty cool.)

When features changed, sometimes the changes weren't documented. Well-intentioned authors added and edited content in ways that weren’t always comprehensive, followed by other well-intentioned authors who did the same. Not everything made sense, either; the next_update and last_update features of the metadata API return dates for the next scheduled and most recent Mozscape Index updates, but the value returned is in Unix Epoch format, which only makes semi-intuitive sense if you already understand the "Expires" part of signed authentication.

I compare Mozscape legacy documentation to how pearls are formed: created in gradual layers; often valuable; frequently irritating.

With these updates, the Mozscape documentation is definitely on the mend and ready for your viewing pleasure.

What's new (and a new feature)

The What's New page makes it easier to track feature changes in future updates. From now on, any time we add or change features in Mozscape, the change and the date it went live will appear there.

For example: as of May 15th, Mozscape now supports HTTP Secure.

What's different: easier to learn

If you're an SEOmoz PRO user and have never tried Mozscape, now is the perfect time!

Our help team emphasized that we need a better introduction to Mozscape, especially for how Mozscape calls are formed. We responded by streamlining the introduction and improving the way we describe Mozscape’s call anatomy.

What's different: easier to reference

The query parameters are now organized in the way you're actually using them: Scope and Sort together, and Limit and Offset together. We distributed parameters and values specific to each endpoint into their respective articles; for example, possible Scope values for the links endpoint...

...are discrete from the possible values of Scope for the anchor-text endpoint:

Glossary entries are re-pointed to existing (and often better) resources on SEOmoz's main site whenever possible, and we added a few much-needed entries. (How did we get this far without defining target and source URLs?)

What's different: complete parameter value tables

A complete list of parameter values is a big improvement for Mozscape users. For example, the links API accepts the Sort parameter, but the possible values of Sort weren't listed. Also, only some values of the Sort and Scope parameters are compatible. Today's doc update addresses both of these:

What's different: better organization

We're excited to release re-organized topics and reduced duplicate information. An example of all three is free vs. paid access to Mozscape. Here's what it looked like before:

Here's what it looks like with one of the most-requested features: a side-by-side comparison of free versus paid access to Mozscape.

The legacy documentation referred to different “versions” of Mozscape for free and paid users. This isn't technically accurate, as there's only one version of Mozscape with different access tiers. Also: notice the cleaner fonts and layout? Our awesome UI guy, Kenny brought the API wiki in line with our site-wide standards.

Best Practices is a single article now. It used to be a category:

Most of the "best practices" in the legacy documentation weren't best practices per se; they were required practices. For example: there's no way to use Mozscape without signed authentication, making it a practice that's "required" rather than "best." With the update, Best Practices now lives up to its name with value-adding information about batching calls and maximizing your value by making requests in parallel.

What's different: less information?

Our users are pretty hardcore (a good thing!), so you may notice that two or three topics now contain less information than previously. For example, some response fields were listed as being "for internal use and subject to change".

If a response field can only be generated from an internal call, there's no reason to expose it to users, so we removed them from the documentation...and it would be a rare feature indeed that wasn't subject to change.

I know what you might be saying. "But less information is less transparent! Less transparent is less TAGFEE!"

That's true; transparency is critical for good documentation. When it comes to user guides, though, more does not always mean better. TAGFEE also means empathy; if extraneous details make it harder to learn Mozscape, then the documentation lacks empathy, and that's bad. We're striving for the right balance between abundant information (transparency) and providing knowledge that will actually help you (empathy). Mozscape is awesome, and we want it to be as valuable for you as possible.

Closing with a question

How can we keep improving Mozscape documentation? Please let us know in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

SEO & PPC: Working Together To Maximize Returns is a post by SEO expert Shay Wright. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

SEO & PPC. Friends or foes? And which one really is more effective in an online marketing campaign? The truth is that they are not only friends but “coworkers” as well, and one is not necessarily more effective than the other. They serve different purposes but working together they create a synergy not possible as two independent parts.

PPC is great because you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. SEO, on the other hand, is more of a long term investment that takes some time and patience to finally start paying off. When you do get good organic placement through your SEO efforts though, the return on investment can be quite remarkable. Even when you do achieve top organic rankings, this still doesn’t mean you should just drop your PPC campaign altogether. There are some real advantages to maintaining both a strong PPC and SEO campaign together as outlined below.

1. The Best Keywords

PPC can be a great testing ground for potential keywords to target in your SEO campaign. You can run multiple PPC ads and target several different keyword phrases to see which ones not only drive traffic to your site, but actually convert. With this information, you can then target only the highest converting keywords in your SEO campaign. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to place a competitive keyword at the top of organic search results, so you want to be sure you’re targeting the best keywords possible before you embark on your SEO campaign or target new keywords in your current SEO campaign.

2. Higher Click Through Rates & Conversions

When sites eventually achieve top organic rankings, there is a tendency for the site owners to cut back on PPC spend because they feel they’ll get the click in the organic results anyways. However, studies show that the sum total is worth more than the individual parts. In other words, the additional benefits of having both PPC and organic placement more than pays for the PPC outlay.

As you can see in the example below, Hotels.com ranks #1 in organic search results for the search term “hotels”, but also pays for the top spot in the paid search results.

When your paid and organic listings show up together on the same search result page, users tend to place more trust in your site, and they will be more inclined to click on your website. And when they do, there is a higher probability that they will actually convert when on your site because you have already gained a slight boost in credibility in their eyes. They already see you as an established presence in that particular market.

3. Build Brand Recognition & Trust

When your site appears in multiple places on a search result page, you will start to build brand recognition and gain consumers’ trust.

4. Drown Out The Competition

As you start to gain a strong presence in both organic and PPC search results, your competition will struggle to get any sizeable share of the pie, and when you eventually dominate both the organic and PPC market, you may very well eventually drown out your major online competitors.

5. More Data to Analyze

If you run organic and PPC campaigns simultaneously, you will have twice the amount of data to analyze, to make educated and insightful changes, and then capitalize on.

6. Repurpose The Best Ad Copy

As you study your PPC campaign, you can determine which ads result in the best click through rate. This will help you in writing the best title tags and meta descriptions for the pages you’re targeting with your SEO campaign. The great thing about PPC ads is that you can figure out pretty quickly what ad copy works best pretty quickly.

Keep in mind that title tags are an important search engine ranking factor, so be sure to keep your key keywords phrases for a page in the title tag. Meta descriptions on the other hand have no real influence on organic rankings, so feel free to change your meta descriptions to whatever ad copy works best.

7. Improve Adwords Quality Score

A page that has been properly optimized for SEO should help improve your Adwords Quality Score for your targeted pages. This will result in better PPC placement for your ads as well as lower cost per click.

8. Maintain Site Traffic

When you launch a new site, it may take a short time for search engines to put their trust back into your new content and site. A PPC campaign can help maintain traffic to your site during this time period and help build legitimacy to your site once again. Increasing PPC spend can also help fill in for lost traffic due to a Google algorithm changes that may cause your organic rankings to drop. There may also be times when the PPC bidding for certain keyword phrases just goes too high, and when this occurs, you can start putting more emphasis on your SEO efforts for these keyword phrases while cutting back on your PPC budget for these phrases.

9. Target Competitor’s Brand Terms

If you were solely running a SEO campaign, it would not make much sense to target a competitor’s brand terms because this would require creating content focused around your competitor’s brand which in turn could benefit your competitor. However, it can make sense to target a competitor’s brand in a PPC campaign.

Just be sure your product or service really is superior to your competitor’s because if a user searched out your competitor specifically, your competitor is likely already one up on you. You’re going to have to convince them that their initial thought was wrong and that you actually have the product or service they really want.

10. Combat Negative PR

Sometimes bad things happen to even good companies. Employees do stupid things. Cars have to be recalled because of bad parts. Machinery goes bad and causes accidents. A good example of this is with the Gulf Oil Spill. During this time, BP bought several PPC ads relating to the term “oil spill” in order to address the public directly instead of relying on the press. The PPC ads help fill in until SEO efforts can place your website in a better organic position, and then together, you can properly address bad press head on.

Conclusion

To run an effective search marketing campaign and truly maximize online exposure and returns, a site should have both a good SEO and PPC campaign in place that work together to benefit the overall marketing campaign. SEO and PPC each serve different purposes, but when used together, they create a synergy that is not possible as two separate units.

What other advantages do you see for having both a SEO and PPC campaign working together?

SEO & PPC: Working Together To Maximize Returns is a post by SEO expert Shay Wright. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Mobile app attribution is vital for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. While there isn't a standard method of tracking iOS apps, two methodologies are most used: unique identifier matching and device fingerprinting.

The Internet world is indeed a mobile world. There is no longer proof needed for that to agreed to amongst any marketers.

What that mobile world has created, however, is a brave new world for the consumer who now wields more power than ever. That power comes mostly in the form of reviews of a business’ products and services. It all leads to a customer who can voice great joy or great dissatisfaction with a business and that is power.

According to Gib Olander, CEO, Local Viewpoints,

Word-of-mouth advertising has long been recognized as the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions; in today’s mobile friendly, digital world, consumer testimonials and online reviews have become the default way within search results for consumers to judge the viability of a business to meet their needs.

The folks at Local Viewpoints put together an infographic to help further explain this reality of today’s online world.

Here it is.

The importance of the review is hard to deny for sure. What is even harder is to deny is the general disarray that the local review space is in. You can’t flip over a rock without hearing complaints about Yelp or Google reviews. Olander continues

Reviews have become the go-to decision-making content when performing local searches. Studies show that 90% of people use online reviews to make buying decisions. It’s become evident that there aren’t enough reviews on enough businesses.

So what are you doing to control your reviews, get more reviews and ultimately impact your bottom line? It’s an important question that demands an answer in the brave, new mobile world.

Editor’s note: If you are looking for a strong company to create infographics for your business, check out our friends at Avalaunch Media who created the above infographic. This was not a paid ad or anything. Just a heads up to our readers. Carry on.

Coming out of Google I/O at Moscone Center in San Francisco yesterday, I did a double-take. Was that Microsoft pitching its “Bing It On” challenge against Google directly across the street. Yep. “Put the science back in computer science: test your Google bias inside,” read a...

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Page took the stage giving what almost could be described as an elevator pitch or Google infomercial followed by over a half hour of live question and answer with the audience. He spoke on technology, Google Now, opportunity, negativity, and more.

Google Play Music All Access allows users to browse tunes by genre, with options also available to look through popular and local tracks. It also boasts a feature similar to Apple's Genius tool, designed to help users find new music.

Google was granted a patent this week that describes how web sites might be given quality ratings, based upon a model that looks at human ratings for a sample set of sites, and web site signals from those sites.

The patent tells us that the advantage of such an approach would be to:

Provide [...]

The post How Google May Rank Web Sites Based on Quality Ratings appeared first on SEO by the Sea.

Posted by JonQ

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

You could be the best SEO in the world, with the best recommendations your clients ever seen; but if this information isn’t presented and communicated in the right way, the sad fact is that your hard work probably won’t change a thing. A couple of weeks back, Dan and I ran a very enjoyable Mozinar on this very topic. (A huge thank you to everyone who listened in!) If you did miss it, feel free to check out the recording and download the slides here. Rather than talking through the ins and outs of technical SEO, we really wanted to dive into what, in our experience, makes the difference between a site audit being left on the shelf, compared to a document that can potentially turn a business around.

On the back end of the Mozinar, we had a ton of great questions. Many focused specifically on the delivery and follow-up process, and how we approach this particular part of the job. There was quite a bit of interest in this area, so we thought a dedicated post on the latter part of our auditing process (see below) would give us a chance to dive in a little deeper. Although the follow-up and implementation clearly comes once your document has been delivered, a lot of the very early conversations have a big influence on how successful the project will ultimately end up being. I’ve found that getting a client in the mind-set of working together and buying into implementing your recommendations right from the start always makes getting work done so much easier!

Although this post is about the follow-up process, I also want to spend some time touching on other areas that have a direct influence on that part of the project. Let's go!

Sales kick-off and briefing

The sales process is such a critical part of any project; and not just for the obvious reasons. A well thought out sales conversation is the ideal opportunity to discuss goals, understand the clients business, and really find out what they need to achieve. Ron Garrett summed it up brilliantly in this post, and covered some great points with regards to the important details that every initial conversation with a potential client should cover. In terms of how the conversations held at the beginning of a project can impact on the effectiveness of your follow-up, it’s so important to make sure you’re starting the project with the right goals in mind. After all, how can you measure success if you don’t understand what KPIs make a true difference to your clients business?

Q: How much should I give away during the sales process?

On a very similar point, we had a couple of questions crop up in the Mozinar Q&A from people asking how much to give away during the sales process. Some people like to run a sample audit, whilst others won’t give anything away until they have ink on paper. Really, this is down to you. From my perspective, you have to be sensible with your time and learn to consider each situation by its own circumstances. I’ve been in the situation many times before where you sense the company in question is just inviting agencies to pitch in order to gain some free expert knowledge. It takes time to put a proposal together, so you have to make a judgement on the best use of that time. Feel each situation out and you should be just fine.

This is not just about selling projects; it’s about understanding the situation well enough to sell the right project to solve the right problem.

Kick-off and briefing

If you take a step back and think about all the projects you’ve worked on that haven’t worked out well, it’s crazy to think how much probably went wrong before you’d even started. If everyone was in an honest mood, I think we’d all admit to being involved in projects before where it all felt just a little too rushed. As a result, a good solid brief can be skipped meaning the team get dropped in with no idea at all of delivery dates, or what the client actually wants or needs from the project. Clearly, things don’t tend to go well from here. At best, the project just ends up being another report on another desk – at worst reputations get damaged.

So with implementation and a smooth follow-up in mind, what should a good brief cover? As a bare minimum, I suggest the following should always be included:

• Deliverables
• Key dates
• Goals/objectives
• KPIs
• Key personnel

Why is this so important? One of the biggest and most common reasons for a project failing is that for a variety of reasons they simply miss the mark. Usually when a project doesn’t tick the right boxes, the issue can nearly always be traced back to the brief or a miscommunication at the start. The other point here is that if the project is simply being dumped on the team, they’re not likely to be too happy about it. Get your team excited and they in turn will get the client excited. If the client is excited about getting things done, suddenly getting work implemented is a far more enjoyable and productive process.

Deliverables

A major part of any project is the format in which you present your documentation. Sometimes a "highlights" presentation deck detailing the biggest issues is the way to go, whereas some situations require a detailed document and a large set of data to refer to. The best way to do this is really going to depend on who you’re delivering to, and what the initial outline of the project was. We had some really good questions on this during the webinar, so it felt right to pick out some of the best and answer them directly:

Q: What exactly should be delivered? A large document, a set of data, or just the top ten action points?

At SEOgadget, we’ve found that the best approach is to do a combination of all three, with the exact delivery style adjusted to whomever you’re meeting or presenting to. A typical situation for us would be to create a master document containing detailed explanations of our findings alongside all the necessary change requests. Of course, if we’re running crawls and conducting log-file analysis then there’s also going to be a pretty substantial amount of data on hand too. I like delivering the data for two reasons: first, data always backs up what you’re recommending. It’s always so much more valuable to show and not tell. Having the ability to clearly walk the client through exactly what you’ve found can work wonders for adding credibility to what you’re saying. Second, providing the data makes it much easier for a developer to work out what’s going on and gives a reference point for future questions should anything crop up. What’s more, in 90% of situations clients always ask for the data anyway!

Task lists also have a very valuable place. The first question that always comes back is, "OK, so where do we start?" If a question keeps cropping up, then answer it before it gets asked! At the top of all our documents we provide a prioritized list of all change requests (as seen above). This forms a great base for follow-up calls and meetings as everyone can refer back to the same task list. With development resource often being high in demand, it also enables you to start scheduling the biggest fixes first.

Q: Some clients are not "techy," and talking them website audit is not that easy. How many details we should give those clients? Should we spent a lot time and train them about SEO?

This is where being able to give a high-level view first is extremely important. Not everyone understands the details of SEO. You might not always be working directly with an SEO department; you could be working with a traditional marketing team or leading into an Ecommerce manager where their role touches on SEO, but it’s not something they do all day every day. In this case, the best approach is to deliver a "highlights" type of presentation. Break the problems down and focus on the benefits of resolving the issues. Show the client what you’ve found, but think more about explaining the benefits of fixing each issue will have on their business. It’s less about canonical tags and more about ROI. Again, get the client excited about the impact of fixing things and you’ll buy yourself a heap of influence. Even though you’re only presenting on a few key areas, you’ll still have the full document to refer back to in more detail later down the line.

Follow-up support

I’m a big believer in the idea that a technical project shouldn’t be about completing a review and then thinking it’s "job done." It’s so much more important to have the ability to really influence change and action. In fact, the most important part (and often hardest part!) of any technical audit is the follow-up process and getting your work implemented. A good SEO can diagnose issues – a great SEO follows up and makes sure these problems get fixed. Going right back to what we touched on earlier when talking about the sales process, having a good grasp of development resource can really help here. Do you have an understanding of what processes are in place for booking requests? Did you check when development resource is available and allocated for SEO? Getting ahead of the game in these areas is one of the biggest keys to winning!

The follow-up process can be greatly helped by having a central resource to track changes and keep on top of progress or indeed challenges with implementing your recommendations. Using tools such as Basecamp or Asana  can be a great way of keeping communication clear, and for making sure you have the right tasks in front of the right people. If you’re not keen on using these tools, a simple Google Docs sheet to display tasks and provide a place to leave comments is sometimes all that’s needed. Combining this with regular calls or checking in via email gives you the ability to keep the project moving in the right direction, and the retain focus when you come to catching up in a meeting or on a call.

If you’ve got any further questions on the process side of technical SEO audits, feel free to drop them in the comments, or tweet myself or Dan and we’ll do our best to answer them.

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Posted by stekenwright

This kind of thing might happen to Rand all the time, but it’s not often that a digital marketing company based in Leeds gets 100,000+ people reading anything it does (at least on its own site). That’s what unexpectedly happened to us on www.branded3.com a few weeks ago – what essentially started as a rant from some guy having a bad day blew up and now has 1,184 votes on Hacker News (and incoming links from some of the biggest sites in the world).

I think it’s likely I’ll never replicate this, and I didn’t intend this either – so I’ll not preach: “this is how you get 100,000 page views.” Everyone else is just as qualified as I am to write a post that’s read all around the world, and that’s exactly what I want to happen. I’d like to tell you what I’m taking away from this, and how I’ll use it when I’m creating content for my clients in the future.

Commonly known as sharking. Google it.

1. [citation needed]...but not always.

Google only wants you to list the links that are most relevant to and most important to your content – Eric Enge likened this to a research paper around a month ago on Search Engine Watch. The difference between your content and a research paper, though, is that your content doesn’t get discredited if there is nobody to link to that backs up the point you’re trying to make.

In a Webmaster Help Video earlier in the year, Google Engineer Matt Cutts said don’t link out to low quality sites – this is pretty much the equivalent of quoting from Wikipedia in an essay. You don’t have to get peer approved before people will read your post, though, so if there’s nobody to link to that’s talking about whatever you are then that could actually be a good thing. If someone else is covering the same subject as you there’s no real reason why you should get all the links, so you should definitely write about things that no one else is covering if you can.

NB: Not having anyone to back up your point doesn’t excuse you from not having a point in the first place.

2. Content needs to solve people’s problems…or highlight them.

I had a problem with Path and as of the time I started writing the post, nobody had solved it, though a few people had tweeted about experiencing similar problems. I tweeted @path at roughly 7am and the first person to reply was someone else who was (very) actively looking for an answer to the same problem. I embedded Design33’s tweet in the post and linked to him; let my cohort know; and instantly a problem shared is a problem…erm, doubled.

Whether your content is solving someone’s problem, or you’re just empathising with them; if you know where to find them…let them know it’s there and get your influencers on board.

3. Find out what people are looking for.

The principles behind content marketing are gaining real traction in the SEO community, and more and more companies are getting on board with long-term content strategies. There’s plenty to say about planning your content out for months in advance, but as Simon points out in this fantastic YouMoz post from last year, it’s not all about Google Keyword Tool anymore. There are some great tools out there to find hot topics (Bottlenose is particularly useful), but the best way to find what your audience is looking for is by using the same tools as they are.

Wil Reynolds is a great advocate of using Google Complete to find content topics (check out Wil’s LinkLove 2013 presentation, around slide 90) – start typing questions, don’t press enter; just note down what people are actually searching for. Search Twitter and find out not only what problems need solving, but who it is that actually has that problem (see point two)! Google Keyword Tool shouldn’t be your first stop when you’re looking for fires to put out, and if it’s monthly search volume you’re looking at, chances are someone faster has created content solving the same issue weeks ago.

4. Find your forum.

…by which I don’t literally mean a forum, since as an industry we’ve pretty much ruined that for everyone – all I’m saying is that you just need to find the right soapbox to spread your message.

In the comment string on our site this guy called me out for posting this on a company blog. At the time I hadn’t really questioned where else I could actually write this up, so Luca made me think. If I had put this on my own blog nobody would have read it…I would have just been complaining without any real platform to build on (might as well have just put it on Facebook or Twitter).

One of our clients is a cloud storage company who obviously have a vested interest in online security, and do write about issues such as this from time to time. They’d never approve something like this for their blog (more in point six) so I would have had to dry it right out…or put it on another site on their behalf.

Hammering this article to fit brand guidelines would have dulled its impact so much, and for a company to write about real life issues like this they really would have had to find a real life case…otherwise they’re just tipping off the media. It would never have worked.

If you’re going to be controversial, find a site that’s fine with that to host your content – that goes for the content you’re putting out on behalf of your clients too. We’ve had plenty of content turned down by webmasters for being too much for their blogs, and you’ve got to respect that. Guest blogging is like the name implies, and you’ve got to make sure you don’t leave a mess in someone else’s house.

5. Write for your audience…

Something everyone is taught in English class from a relatively early age is how to write for an audience. Even if you came into SEO from something else – a computer science degree, MA in marketing; whatever – you still have those classes to fall back on, and they’ll give you a pretty solid foundation in content marketing. In this industry everything comes from experience – if you covered search engine optimisation in your degree I’m sure you found half the things you knew were obsolete by the time you’d graduated…and post-Penguin the other half will get you penalised too.

I found when I moved from in-house to agency side search engine marketing, most of the things I’d been doing for the last year were considered pretty spammy. If you’re writing to put content on websites that nobody reads, like article marketing websites, then you’re not writing for an audience…and that shows in the work you put out.

You don’t have to be a journalist to create great content. If you’re solving problems imagine you’ve got that problem yourself and then just write for you…

6. …don’t write for your client.

If you think you’ve found a hot topic and your client isn’t happy with being associated with it, there’s probably a case for not pushing that. Controversial content gets links, but there’s a certain amount of press that comes with those links.

I don’t have a PR agency, so TechCrunch pointing out that it was probably my fault isn’t a disaster from my point of view. If your client makes a mistake then it might be. In the case of my blog post it wasn’t long before the media-at-large didn’t care anymore (TechCrunch may have even been the start of that) and the chances are pretty good that nobody will remember a guy getting mad at his phone in a few weeks – if a tech company posted a rant about Path it would probably be called a smear campaign.

…and I won’t lie – when the VP of Marketing called me I was more than a little worried.

7. Your content has to be worthy of links to get any…

This is my very first YouMoz post, and there’s a good reason for that – up until now I’ve not really had anything to say that I think might help the community, so I’ve stuck to my blog, Twitter and getting all up in other people’s business when I get the chance.

If you’ve got an opportunity to write for a great site – or to work with a well-known journalist, or whatever – giving them a few hundred words of nothing content will a) not generate much in the way in traffic, b) not generate any leads, and c) make that great site think twice about having you back.

8. …and so does your site.

Which leads me on to number eight: the whole point of placing links as part of a content marketing strategy (or at least it probably should be the main point) is for people to click through to your site. Make sure your users are arriving on a page they want to see.

@stekenwright @phillipsnick @newsyc20 @path I think that branded3.com needs to install a WordPress caching plugin. :D

— David Lynch (@kemayo) April 30, 2013

When St. Louis-based developer David Lynch submitted the post to Hacker News our entire site went down almost immediately (at 17:25, which our Development team were definitely not happy about). It’s a pretty extreme example, but if your site doesn’t present people with the screen they were expecting to see they’re probably going to leave straight away.

This applies not only in a technical SEO sense (see Aleyda Solis’ wonderful resources on mobile SEO and which versions of a page you should be serving to which people for a start), but also in something as intrinsic as the services you’re providing.

Going back to point four (Find your forum): the company I work for not only has a burgeoning social team, but an entire blog dedicated to social media – the perfect place to host an article about a social network, in my opinion.

Make sure your link is pointing to the kind of page your audience wants to find.

9. Be funny, or insightful. Probably not both.

The links generated by my post contain so much more useful information and insight than my content does. Like I said, I’m not pretending to be a journalist uncovering a story. I just presented a real life experience in a humorous way…because it was pretty funny. How do you explain what you do to your partner’s grandparents? I go with “I work with computers”. Imagine trying to explain a social network to two different pairs of 80 year-olds before 6:30 in the morning? You’ve got to laugh, as the expression goes.

Your multi-national debt management firm probably can’t be funny in its content (very happy for people to prove me wrong here). Companies like this have guidelines to uphold and the chances are they’re much more interested in their brand guidelines than the links you’re working so hard to get for them. Make sure you take tone of voice into account and if your content doesn’t work in their speak, see point six. You’re writing the wrong thing.

Your post definitely needs a Wonka meme.

10. Don’t do it for the links.

Writing my blog post, I had absolutely no intention of getting a single link. In all honestly I didn’t fully expect the guys at Path to see it – I just wanted to vent and if possible, make my colleagues laugh. In a very helpful post on Quick Sprout last October KISSmetrics’ Neil Patel wrote that he never manually built a link – he just kept writing. We’re not KISSmetrics, but our blog has been covering as many of the happenings in the digital marketing world as we can possibly manage for more than half a decade – and mostly we just do it because we want to.

Posting a piece of content on your blog every few weeks or months and expecting it to get picked up isn’t going to happen; and it’s definitely not content marketing – it’s just content. No matter how good your stuff is, don’t be disheartened if you don’t get any traction with a blog post…or a hundred blog posts.

What I do think is important is that you look at every piece of content you write and think about how to make it better this time. You don’t need to over-analyse every post before it goes live – I would guess you’ve got targets and deadlines to make after all – just think about how to improve on what you’ve got so your next article will make outreach easier, or will help more people out; and if your last piece performed well, how are you going to beat it? Even if you know you won’t.

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Want to have your company logo appear in Google search results, similar to the way authors get to have their pictures displayed? Keep waiting. New “organization markup” support that Google has announced won’t do that, but it might be useful for putting your logo in Google...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Bing’s U.S. search market share has hit another all-time high, passing 17 percent for the first time. It gained at Google’s expense, as the search giant slipped six-tenths of a percentage point last month. That’s from comScore’s April 2013 qSearch report, just out today. For...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Mobile isn’t just for finding local merchants to start the shopping experience. Google data shows mobile is a companion while consumers are in stores looking to buy. 84% of smartphone shoppers use their devices to help shop while in the store.

This morning, Google posed a question: “What if we told you that during your lifetime, Google could create millions of custom maps…each one just for you?”

You’d say, “Of course you can! You’re Google!”

We’ve sipped the Kool-Aid and it tastes good.

Introducing (insert fanfare here) the new Google Maps!!

This nifty number isn’t just about how to get from here to there. No, no. Like its big brother the search engine, Google Maps is all about discovery. That’s a huge plus for anyone running a brick and mortar location – except when it’s not.

Let’s take a walk with Sue. She’s walking down Dolores Street in San Francisco and she wants Italian food for lunch. She takes out her phone, activates the new Google Map app and types Italian. Instantly, dozens of tiny fork circles appear on a map. It’s easy to see that there are several good choices within walking distance. Like Sparky’s. But wait. Delfina is listed as a “bustling” Italian restaurant. That sounds like fun. Sue clicks and a info card overlays on the map with reviews. Her friend George left a 5 star review. Forget Sparky’s – Sue’s headed to Delfina’s.

One click and she has walking directions, or directions using public transportation, a bike, even a car.

If Sue enjoys Delfina, she can click the star to “like” it. That will help Google decide which other restaurants she might enjoy. And thanks to Google, Delfina now has a new, loyal customer.

The new map app lets you switch in and out of street view. You can locate photo galleries for nearby attractions and you can get a 3-D view of the city with a touch. It’s not any more helpful than a flat map, but it’s cool.

The new Google Maps is designed to help people find places to eat, shop, and enjoy. This is great news if you have terrific ratings and a catchy description, but it’s deadly if you don’t. Why settle for a three-star burger joint when there’s a four-star place right around the corner?

If you’re not happy with the way your business shows up on Google Maps, Google has a page of instructions that will help you submit photos and review your Google+ listing.

Here’s hoping the new explorers come your way.

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Google is continuing to take action on link networks that violate its guidelines as well. Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts reported that Google has taken action against "several thousand" link sellers for passing PageRank.

Want to know something Pinteresting? America’s favorite image pinning site just added a bunch of new features on the web and on the mobile app!

Okay, I can’t take credit for the whole “pinteresting” usage, but it’s cute, it works, so let’s run with it. . . straight to the website.

This is Pinterest’s new duplicate warning system. It will pop up and warn you when you’re about to pin something you already pinned. Pinterest says users have been asking for this feature which is funny because there are billions of images in the world, so what are the chances that you’d accidentally pin the same image twice?

Pretty high, apparently. I don’t know if it’s because we travel in the same circles, are drawn to the same colors and faces or what; but we do tend to return to the same images over and over again. Is there a psychologist out there that can explain this?

The real irony is that Pinterest thrives on repeated postings. Scan the popular pictures and you’ll see the same pics turning up over and over again, each pinned and repinned by different people. A repin is a duplicate – but obviously, that’s not the point of this warning. This is for those people who have already pinned 500 pictures and can’t remember what they put up last week.

For those people – it’s a good thing.

Mobile Upgrades

For those who prefer to pin on the go, Pinterest just rolled out updates for both their iOS and Android apps. Highlights ahead:

Notifications: Pinterest added this feature to the website only a few weeks ago and now they’ve added it to mobile. For marketers, this little drop down is a gold mine of information. It shows you who repinned, liked or commented on your pins and it goes back a lot further than the original activity feed. If you’re really hot on this, you can set it to send you push notifications whenever someone interacts with your page. Wow, that could get crazy fast.

Mention your friends: Pinterest has added the ability to tag people when you post or comment. Just use the @ symbol to start the search. This is an interesting move because, to me, Pinterest has never be about people. It’s about pictures. But by allowing folks to tag other folks, you can draw them in to a conversation. (They get a notice when you tag them.) Now we’re putting the “social” in this social network.

Recent Searches: Pinterest upgraded the search engine so it not only remembers what you’ve searched for in the app, it will remember what you searched online, too. This can be a time saver if you often search the same words on Pinterest. And heaven only knows, when you’re on Pinterest, the last thing you want to do is waste time typing words in a search box.

Now, if they would just stop blocking my shortened links, I’d be a happy pinner!

What feature would you like to see added to Pinterest?

This morning, we kicked off the 6th annual Google I/O developer conference with over 6,000 developers at Moscone Center in San Francisco, 460 I/O Extended sites in 90 countries, and millions of you around the world who tuned in via our livestream. Over the next three days, we’ll be hosting technical sessions, hands-on code labs, and demonstrations of Google's products and partners' technology.

We believe computing is going through one of the most exciting moments in its history: people are increasingly adopting phones, tablets and newer type of devices. And this spread of technology has the potential to make a positive impact in the lives of people around the world—whether it's simply helping you in your daily commute, or connecting you to information that was previously inaccessible.

This is why we focus so much on our two open platforms: Android and Chrome. They enable developers to innovate and reach as many people as possible with their apps and services across multiple devices. Android started as a simple idea to advance open standards on mobile; today it is the world’s leading mobile platform and growing rapidly. Similarly, Chrome launched less than five years ago from an open source project; today it’s the world’s most popular browser.

In line with that vision, we made several announcements today designed to give developers even more tools to build great apps on Android and Chrome. We also shared new innovations from across Google meant to help make life just a little easier for you, including improvements in search, communications, photos, and maps.

Here’s a quick look at some of the announcements we made at I/O:

• Android & Google Play: In addition to new developer tools, we unveiled Google Play Music All Access, a monthly music subscription service with access to millions of songs that joins our music store and locker; and the Google Play game services with real-time multiplayer and leaderboards. Also, coming next month to Google Play is a special Samsung Galaxy S4, which brings together cutting edge hardware from Samsung with Google’s latest software and services—including the user experience that ships with our popular Nexus devices.
• Chrome: With over 750 million active users on Chrome, we’re now focused on bringing to mobile the speed, simplicity and security improvements that we’ve seen on the desktop. To that end, today we previewed next-generation video codec VP9 for faster video-streaming performance; the requestAutocomplete API for faster payments; and Chrome Experiments such as "A Journey Through Middle Earth" and Racer to demonstrate the ability to create immersive mobile experiences not possible in years past.
• Google+: We unveiled the newly designed Google+, which helps you easily explore content as well dramatically improve your online photo experience to give you crisp, beautiful photos—without the work! We also upgraded Google+ Hangouts—our popular group video application—to help bring all of your real-life conversations online, across any device or platform, and with groups of up to 10 friends.
• Search: Search has evolved considerably in recent years: it can now have a real conversation with you, and even make your day a bit smoother by predicting information you might need. Today we added the ability to set reminders by voice and we previewed “spoken answers” on laptops and desktops in Chrome—meaning you can ask Google a question and it will speak the answer back to you.
• Maps: Today we previewed the next generation of Google Maps, which gets rid of any clutter in order to put your individual experience and exploration front and center. Each time you click or search, our technology draws you a tailored map that highlights the information you need. From design to directions, the new Google Maps is smarter and more useful.

Technology can have a profound, positive impact on the daily lives of billions of people. But we can’t do this alone—developers play a crucial role. I/O is our chance to come together and thank you for everything you do.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Android, Chrome & Apps

In a ruling this week, a German federal court said Google must restrict information in autocomplete when it violates personal rights. The suit, filed by an unnamed man, claimed defamatory autocomplete suggestions on Google.de linked him to fraud.

How to Make a Graphic-Text Mash-up to Promote Blog Content on Facebook was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

I’m in a few Google+ groups focused on SEO, social media and content marketing. The question of what stock photo service to use and where to get free images has come up a couple times. It got me thinking about the process I use to find, modify and use images in my day-to-day.

As a community manager and a blogger, I have 2 main needs for images:

1. Including them in BCI blog posts to break up text and add visual interest
2. Posting images to social media to share blog and other BCI content

What you’ll know by the end of reading this is:

• Where I get images, both free and paid services
• How to make a graphic-text mash-up using Google Drive that will get noticed in the midst of noisy Facebook, Twitter and Google+ streams

 

Free Images and Paid Stock Photo Services

The stock photo site I use is Dreamstime.com because the price is right and the selection passes muster. If you use advanced search to set the price slider bar to the lowest setting, you’ll find images available for 1 credit in the extra small size. Extra small is usually around 480 px by 320 px, which is fine for both my purposes (blog posts and social media posts).

Credits will run you $1.36 if you buy the smallest credit package to about $1 if you buy 120 credits at a time; 250+ credit packages save you even more cents.

Other Stock Photo Services

I checked out some stock photo site comparisons to get an idea of what else is out there and how they stack up.
In 6 Stock Photography Services Compared I learned that Stock.xchng is the most popular free stock photo library, yet it has a limited selection. Among the most popular paid services, iStockphoto has the most massive library and Getty Images has a complicated pricing and licensing scheme.

Getting Images for Free Online

As long as you’re not looking for high-res or print quality images, you’ve got good free options online.

Creative Commons

When using images with Creative Commons licenses, the attribution requirement adds a hurdle to the graphic mashup use for images I describe later since it adds another element to what must be included in the graphic. But CC images are great for blog posts.

For a long time, I used Creative Commons licensed photos on Flickr that allow commercial use and derivatives. For use in blog posts, Flickr makes it easy to use Creative Commons licensed images, and the Share function gives you HTML code including the required attribution. The Creative Commons site search includes Flickr, Google Images, Open Clip Art Library and Pixabay for images, and a number of media and music sources as well.

You can also search Wikimedia‘s library of free images, a collection with Creative Commons copyrights, free documentation licenses or no copyright.

For free images, you can also search EveryStockPhoto.com, a search engine for free photos across a number of sources and including a variety of license types.

Public Domain

You can also search Flickr’s collection The Commons, images that have passed into the public domain and belong to everyone, mostly due to their being old. You’ll find awesome vintage photos, advertising, illustrations and art that have passed into public use and can give modern blog and social posts refreshing classic flare. Since they don’t have copyright or licensing requirements, you can use public domain images for the graphic mash-up use which we get into next!

 

The Graphic Text Mash-up Promo

This is my little trick for sharing blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to get a little more attention than straight text updates.

As you may have noticed, recent layout updates to Facebook and Google+ have put an emphasis on visual media. Skyrocketing mobile use of Facebook, along with other social media apps, was a big reason behind Facebook’s update last March. Images show up larger in the News Feed and may also get priority in the ranking algo. An update to Google+ around the same time also made images feature more heavily. And in the endlessly updating churn of a Twitter stream, a picture attachment makes tweets stand out and, as pictures are worth a thousand words, lets you extend your message past 140 characters!

The graphic should include these three vital components:

1. Image to grab fan/follower attention within a feed or stream
2. A link to drive a viewer to your site
3. Text that promises a payoff from clicking through

You can opt to include a logo for branding purposes as well. Note that if there’s text in the logo, it would add to your text to image ratio which Facebook limits to 20% for ads and promoted content. More on that below.

Creating A Graphic with Google Drive

I use the drawing function in Google Drive to add text on top of images. It’s super easy and Google gives you a ton of font options as well as shapes, arrows and call-outs you can add to the drawing. Here you can see a graphic mash-up I created last week to promote our Thank You page series.

1. Sign in to Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/ and create a Drawing.

2. Insert an image that you own or one sanctioned for public use.

3. Create a custom short link to the content. If you’ve got a registered Bitly account you can customize links, and in the Elvis example here you can see I created a custom link “typagecro,” which I chose to suggest “Thank You page CRO” (conversion rate optimization). Another bonus of a registered Bitly account is that you can track clicks on your short links.

4. Insert text on top of the image. These are elements #2 and #3 in my list of three critical components.

   (#2) Include the custom short link, which a viewer can type into their address bar since it’s short and easy to understand. Of course, also include a hyperlink in the image caption or tweet.

   (#3) Include a promise of what’s to come in the full article, or hint at what the full content contains. If it’s a “Top 3 Reasons Why…” post, you may want include the three reasons right there in the image with an invitation to get all the info in the full post. In the Elvis example I included a brief description of what was covered in each of the two-parts of the Thank You page CRO series. Try to make this message seductive, whatever that means for you and your content.

5. When the graphic is done, go to File > Download as > JPEG and save it.

A Quick Note About Design

I’ve taken one graphic design class, one web design class and a handful of painting and photography classes, so while I’m not a professional designer, I’ve been exposed to the rules of good composition. I think these are the basics to keep in mind when you’re creating mash-ups.

• Make sure text is clearly legible. Black on white is best. White on black is hard for the eye to process. If text is anything besides dark text on light, not-busy background, make sure text is legible in other ways, such as increasing font thickness or putting a background color behind the text.
• Use no more than two font types. At least one should be extremely easy to read; sans serif fonts are generally easier to read online than serif fonts. The other font can be stylized, used as an accent and in small amounts.
• For the most part, text should align left. It’s hard for the eye to follow a ragged left edge
• White space is a component of good design, especially in the modern aesthetic. While the graphic will likely be dense as you’re trying to communicate a lot in a little space, available white space should be a consideration in choosing the image.

If you want to get a background in some basics of design, I recommend Bootstrapping Design, a $39 ebook. It’s written for programmers, but I like it because it’s accessible design fundamentals for a non-artist set. Considering we’re in an age where everyone can publish online content, learning the basics of good design is an investment that will payoff.

Facebook Guidelines for Text in Images

Acceptable

Unacceptable

Shortly after Facebook’s update in March, it made a new rule limiting text in images used in ads, sponsored stories and Page cover photos to 20%. If you plan to “promote” the Facebook post including an image, pay to boost its visibility or turn it into an ad, the surface area of the image that includes text has to stay under 20%.

I’ll also note here that image posts as they’re displayed on a Facebook Wall favor portrait orientation and will cut off the left and right sides of landscape oriented images. If you’re using a landscape image, try to keep the text within the area that is “center square” to the height of the image. I’ve illustrated the center square in this drawing.

Yep, made that in Google Drive, too.

Google CEO Larry Page has revealed some new details about a rare condition that caused him to lose his voice. It was a second case of vocal cord paralysis. While he is quick to state it isn’t life threatening, it has weakened his speaking voice.

Once you have your ads up and running, the next step is experimenting with your ads, keywords, and bid prices to make sure you meet your advertising goals. But how can you quickly tell how your ads are doing? Let me introduce you to the Ad Group performance trend chart: First, I select a campaign and ad group on the campaigns page. This way I am looking at data for a specific set of ads and keywords. Then, I expand the Ad Group performance trend chart and in a quick glance I can see how...(read more)

Posted by bradfriedman

We've got new, delicious data for you! The second Mozscape index of the month is now live. Consume all the data with your favorite apps, including Open Site Explorer, the Mozbar, your PRO campaigns, and the Mozscape API.

Below is the histogram with the crawl dates.

Here are the metrics for this index:

• 90,641,413,665 (91 billion) URLs
• 7,388,144,649 (7.4 billion) Subdomains
• 158,669,066 (159 million) Root Domains
• 926,144,106,342 (926 billion) Links
• Followed vs. Nofollowed
  • 2.14% of all links found were nofollowed/li>
  • 57% of nofollowed links are internal
  • 43% are external
• Rel Canonical - 14.42% of all pages use a rel=canonical tag
• The average page has 79 links on it
  • 68 internal links on average
  • 11 external links on average

And the correlations with Google's US search results:

• Page Authority - 0.36
• Domain Authority - 0.19
• MozRank - 0.24
• Linking Root Domains - 0.30
• Total Links - 0.25
• External Links - 0.29

Please feel free to leave feedback! You can find a list of our previous index updates with metrics here.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Moz on, Brad out.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

With IAB Mobile Engage, one of London’s top mobile events taking place tomorrow, Mandeep Mason, Director of Mobile & Windows 8 Advertising - International at Microsoft Advertising, gave the IAB his views on key issues in the mobile space.

“The biggest challenge for brands is to harness the growing mobile ecosystem and overall opportunities within the channel in the most meaningful way to drive impact. The key to success is to make sure they have a mobile strategy as part of their overall business design and start by focusing on the areas of Mobile that will deliver best against their business objectives. Doing fewer things better as a brand can drive richer and rewarding experiences for consumers, with greater results for the business.“ says Mandeep when discussing key challenges in mobile at the moment.

When asked about what will the mobile marketing landscape look like in five years’ time Mandeep believes “Mobile is only going to grow and become much more central than today as a marketing medium in my opinion. The use of ‘big’, dynamic data will be integral to the fabric of marketing like never before for both content and advertising experiences. Devices themselves will interface with more sensors, data and physical environments and will unlock new and dynamic advertising scenarios. In terms of location-based services we expect these will have improved greatly with advances such as indoor mapping and positioning at more scale and accuracy.”

Read Mandeep’s full IAB interview here and for those of you lucky enough to attend IAB Mobile Engage tomorrow Mandeep will be key noting ‘Five ways to connect with the multi-screen consumer’ at 9.40am.

Get the latest from IAB mobile Engage by following @MSAdvertisingUK on twitter.

Google AdWords has introduced a whirlwind of updates and new features for advertisers and PPC managers to experiment with, including upgraded sitelinks, new keyword and display planners, ad group mobile bid adjustments and an upgrade center.

Square is a revolution in the way that merchants of all sizes (but especially the smaller ones) take payments for their products and services. Even in the little town I live in I can count several ‘main street’ merchants using the Square system to make their payment processing direct and easy. You pay on what you process and there are no extra hoops to jump through etc etc.

The one trouble has been that the process can be a little less than quick for any variety of reasons. It can be somewhat clumsy depending on the user. There’s is nothing worse than the panicked high school kid at the register having trouble processing a payment and looking at an impatient line of customers. I feel sympathy for them (in most cases) but there are many others that feel scorn and impatience. Don’t misconstrue this. It doesn’t happen much with Square but it can just like any other payment processing system.

So what has Square come up with for an improvement? Ta-da! The Square Stand.

Slate tells us more.

This morning Square announced a new product that took me by surprise: the Square Stand, an iPad holder and credit card reader that’s meant to function as a point-of-sale system for high-volume small businesses like restaurants and cafes. The Square Stand costs $299, which is far more expensive than zero, which is what Square charges for the tiny credit card reader that made it famous.

What does payment systems have to do with marketing? Just as much as anything else. Marketing entails the ‘entire’ customer experience. You can do all the marketing in the world to get someone to the store but if checking out is a dreadful experience you can undermine all that great work.

This Square Stand looks cool and apparently works better. People like to associate with other folks and anything else that they think is ‘cool’ or is a reflection of their good taste. When a small merchant looks the part; they are efficient and quick and they have a certain look which the Square Stand can offer, it helps the business.

As a merchant, Square is great on the back end of the business and the overall business process. That’s great but it also helps with image and branding. If that’s not marketing, I don’t know what is.

„Abgelehnte Anzeige” - Ein Albtraum für viele Advertiser, die ihre Werbung online auf Bing Ads schalten wollen.

 

 

Leider werden sich abgelehnte Anzeigen wohl nie gänzlich vermeiden lassen. Die folgenden Tipps und Beispiele können Ihnen aber helfen, Ihre Werbekampagne zu optimieren und die häufigsten Ablehnungsgründe in Zukunft zu vermeiden. - Süße Träume!

Fehlende Relevanz

Einer der häufigsten Gründe für abgelehnte Anzeigen ist das Fehlen von Relevanz zwischen dem Keyword, der Anzeige (bestehend aus Anzeigentitel, Anzeigenbeschreibung und Ziel-URL) und der Zielseite.

„Eine gut aufgebaute Kampagne ist in sich stimmig, benutzt reflektierende Keywords, verwendet ansprechende Anzeigen, die einen Vorgeschmack bieten auf die eigentliche Webseite. (Blog: “Relevanz als Zugpferd” vom 29.10.2012)

Relevanz ist das Schlüsselwort für eine erfolgreiche Werbekampagne.

Der Advertiser muss sich fragen: „Steht meine Anzeige im Kontext mit meinem gewählten Keyword und besteht zwischen meiner Zielseite und der Anzeige eine logische Verbindung?” Es liegt in seiner Verantwortung, den notwendigen Bezug herzustellen, der sich in der Wahl des passenden Keywords, einer gelungenen Anzeige und einer guten und gepflegten Webseite wiederspiegelt.

Ein Beispiel: Es wurde auf das Keyword „Bikinis” geboten, der Anzeigentext liest sich wie folgt: Urlaub am Meer? Trendige Bikinis hier clever einkaufen!Auf der Zielseite findet sich eine gute Auswahl des beworbenen Produktes mit einladendem Fotomaterial, detaillierten Produkt- und Kaufinformationen.

Wenn also alle drei Komponenten eine sinnvolle und aufeinander abgestimmte Verbindung eingehen, werden sie von der Redaktion als relevant zueinander angesehen. Kann jedoch keine Relevanz festgestellt werden, muss die Anzeige abgelehnt werden, da das Suchergebnis für den Nutzer wenig zufriedenstellen ist.

Am häufigsten finden sich Relevanzprobleme bei Anzeigen, die einen dynamischen Text nutzten und auf Keywords bieten, die nicht immer mit dem Anzeigentext und/oder der Zielseite eine schlüssige Verbindung eingehen:

Es ist demnach wichtig, die Anzeige noch einmal auf ihre Relevanz hin zu prüfen und gegebenfalls Änderung vorzunehmen, bevor die Anzeige live auf Bing Ads erscheint.

Finden Sie weitere Informationen zum Thema Relevanz hier.

Verstoß gegen Stilrichtlinien und Anzeigeninhalte

Ein weiterer Grund für abgelehnte Anzeigen ist der Verstoß gegen inhaltliche und stilistische Richtlinien.

Hier einige der häufigsten Beispiele:

Die Anzeigen-URL gleicht nicht der Ziel-URL

Die angezeigte URL muss den Inhalt der Zielseite akkurat wiederspiegeln und sollte entweder die aktuelle Ziel-URL sein oder eine abgekürzte Version, wie z.B. die Top-Level Domain. Die Ziel-URL kann auch nicht als eine zusätzliche Textzeile oder als ein E-Mail-Adressfeld benutzt werden.

Sie muss mindestens eine der folgenden Komponenten erhalten:

• http://

• www.

• eine Dateinamenerweiterung wie .org, .net oder .com

Hier einige Beispiele erlaubter Anzeigen-URLs:

• http://www.contoso.com

• http://contoso

• www.contoso

• contoso.com

• http://contoso/mystore

• www.contoso/mystore

• contoso.com/mystore

Das beworbene Angebot kann nicht auf der Webseite gefunden werden

Wenn eine Anzeige ein spezielles Angebot bewirbt, sollten alle Informationen zu diesem Angebot auch auf der Zielseite leicht vom Nutzer gefunden werden können.

Ein Beispiel: Wenn die Anzeige eine Kaffeemaschine für 25 Euro bewirbt, sollten alle Informationen zu diesem Angebot auch klar und deutlich auf der Zielseite zu finden sein, ohne den Nutzer lange suchen zu lassen.

Kurz gesagt, das Angebot sollte dem Nutzer gleich entgegenspringen!

 

Verbotenes Siteverhalten

Siteverhalten und Navigation Pop-ups, die die gewünschte positive Nutzererfahrung reduzieren, sind nicht erlaubt. Häufig wird dieses Verhalten ausgelöst, wenn Sites laden, Sites die Funktionalität der „Zurück“ Schaltfläche behindern oder sich Pop-ups öffnen, die den Nutzer am Verlassen der Site hindern. Auch ist es nicht zulässig, das Schließverhalten einer Site vorzutäuschen, wenn der Nutzer die Schaltfläche „Schließen“ anklickt.

Um die Ablehnung von Siteverhalten und Navigation zu vermeiden, sollten Sie ihre Zielseite so einstellen, dass diese nicht die Funktionalität der „Zurück“ und „Schließen“ Schaltfläche einschränkt. Dem Nutzer muss es jederzeit erlaubt sein, sowohl zu der vorherigen Webseite zurückzukehren, als auch Browserfenster zu schließen, ohne auf nervige Pop-ups zu treffen, die ihn daran hindern, die Site zu verlassen.

Die Zielseite selbst muss für den Nutzer ständig verfügbar sein und auch bei einer hohen Besucherzahl zuverlässig reagieren.

Orthographie- und Grammatikfehler

Wichtig ist es auch, dass die Anzeige der deutschen Rechtschreibung entspricht und Grammatik sowie Zeichensetzung ernst genommen werden. Falsch geschriebene Wörter oder eine falsche Grammatik im Anzeigentext werden abgelehnt. Eine übertriebene Zeichensetzung wiederspricht auch den redaktionellen Richtlinien und wird ebenfalls zurückgewiesen.

Einige negative Beispiele: !!!Super Angebote!!! - ==> Hier clever kaufen - Heute schon geschoppt????

Es ist daher anzuraten, sich mit den stilistischen Richtlinien von Bing Ads vertraut zu machen. Lesen Sie ihren Anzeigentext sorgfältig Korrektur. Tippfehler können leicht passieren, haben aber erhebliche Auswirkungen auf ihre gesamte Anzeige.

Weitere Informationen zu den stilistischen Richtlinien finden Sie hier.

Unzulässiger Inhalt

Werbung von verbotenem oder eingeschränktem Inhalt ist ein weiterer häufiger Ablehnungsgrund.

 

 

Einige Beispiele:

Tabakwaren

Tabakwerbung ist für den gesamten deutschsprachigen Markt nicht zulässig. Anzeigen für Zigaretten, Zigarren, Kau- und Schnupftabak, sowie für andere Tabakprodukte werden abgelehnt. Das beinhaltet auch elektronische Zigaretten, einschließlich der Kartuschen und flüssiger Nikotinlösungen, Liquide genannt.

Einige Advertiser haben darauf verwiesen, dass elektronische Zigaretten derzeit im deutschsprachigen Raum legal erhältlich sind – das stimmt – dennoch ist die Werbung für diese Produkte auf Bing Ads nicht erlaubt. Anzeigen mit diesem Inhalt verstoßen gegen interne Richtlinien und werden daher von der Redaktion abgelehnt.

Waffen

Werbung für Schusswaffen, Messer und Munition ist auf dem deutschsprachigen Markt nicht erlaubt. Anzeigen, die Waffen bewerben, die in erster Linie der Gewalt dienen, werden strikt abgelehnt. Dazu zählen unter anderem:

• Schusswaffen: Gewehre, Revolver, Schreckschusspistolen, als auch zugehörige Teile wie Auslöser und Schalldämpfer

• Messer: Klapp- und Taschenmesser, Gürtelmesser

• Munition: Kugeln und Magazine

• Schlagringe, Granaten

Ein Beispiel: Große Shoppingsites bieten häufig auf gängige Keywords, z.B. Girl oder Bär, die nicht gleich mit Waffen assoziiert werden. Es kann aber passieren, dass ein Teil des Waffennamens das Keyword aufweist und so auf der Zielseite eine Waffe innerhalb einer vielfältigen „harmlosen“ Produktpalette beworben wird. Diese Anzeige muss abgelehnt werden.

Eine ausführliche Liste der verbotenen Waffen finden Sie hier.

Software und Downloads

Werbung ist nicht zulässig, bei der automatisch Programme auf dem Computer des Nutzers installiert werden, ohne dass dieser vorher seine ausdrückliche Zustimmung dazu gegeben hat. Das beinhaltet alle Aktivitäten, die nicht sichtbar für den Nutzer ausgeführt werden, als auch Versuche, seine Computersoftware zu manipulieren oder zu beschädigen.

Ich hoffe, Sie fanden diesen Blog hilfreich. Obwohl viele der angesprochenen Themen selbstverständlich erscheinen, sind sie doch für einen Großteil der abgelehnten Anzeigen verantwortlich. Nehmen sie sich daher die Zeit und machen sich mit den redaktionellen Richtlinien vertraut. Einer erfolgreichen Kampagne sollte danach nichts mehr im Wege stehen!

P.S. Bitte beachten Sie, dass es sich bei diesem Blog um den ersten von zweien handelt, die sich dem Thema „Abgelehnte Anzeige“ widmen. Ein weiterer Blog zu Trademark, Pharmaprodukte, Glücksspiel und Richtlinien für nicht jugendfreien Inhalt wird zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt gepostet.

 

Bei Fragen, bitte an mich zurück.

 

Dankeschön

Pia

A new Reuters report claims that Google+ is struggling to attract brands. However, it might not be as dire as the article makes it seem. Why? Because brands that are doing it well, and seemingly doing it right, are in it for the long haul.

Our friends at PPC Associates have put together an infographic to hopefully clear up the age old (as in the social media age) question about the importance of recommendations in the purchase process.

We don’t know for sure but we sure do ‘like’ this infographic and we hope you do as well.

With Google's Knowledge Graph, Wikipedia's Wikidata and Wolfram|Alpha's database (that supports Siri), the efforts to make the world understandable to machines are making information on entities and everything about them instantaneously available.