01.31.08
Posted in Online Marketing at 7:01 am by Christine
This is a little debate started on Eric’s blog yesterday which got quite a few people involved. It was quite interesting to see the reactions from various people IMO.
Not a new debate at any rate, but a SEM conspiracy theory going on for a few years now already. I wrote an article around it and a few other conspiracies a couple of years ago as well.
Initially the conversation started from an acquaintance that saw dramatic changes to his key-phrases on organic SEO only after he had activated his Adwords campaign.
SEM is quite subjective. Every search marketer has their own style and way of doing things, and I’ve often thought it incredibly amusing how everyone thinks that their style is better or worse than the next.
SEM is certainly not rocket-science. Anyone can do it, but its the experience (and passion for it) that counts. Knowing how to sift through what works and what doesn’t. Knowing how to combine various techniques to get the best results for the industry in question.
So back to the question at hand. Does PPC influence SEO organic SEO?
The short answer is No.
This was my response in the thread:
1. the PPC algo has evolved to factor in many organic elements as well. What I mean by this is that to run your PPC campaign optimally (as you know), your landing pages’ content need to reflect keywords accurately too and be highly relevant to the ad & keywords you’re bidding on. This brings down click costs and boosts ranking.
2. Now I can’t speak for your acquaintance as I do not know the variables of the situation: how long was his site running before he commenced a PPC campaign, did he make any changes to his content pages? What keywords / key-phrases are we talking about? Is the industry competitive (altho what industry isn’t competitive anymore…) etc etc
So one scenario could be that his site had been running a while, and just so happened that when he ’switched on’ his PPC campaign, the natural organic side kicked-in….
3. AND also because his site was getting more traffic all of a sudden, therefore more interaction and activity on his site - which SEs will pick up, Google ‘naturally assumes’ the site to be more relevant (Quality Score improves), therefore paying more attention to the content, therefore boosting the key-phrases it finds the site to be optimised for on the organic side too..
Andrew Smit pointed everyone to an article on Search Engine Watch which elaborates a little more on the topic, and reminded everyone how Matt Cutts had on several previous occasions denied the allegation.
At the end of the thread, the initial person who posted the question returned a very apt response stating “To be perfectly frank I don’t really care that much as to why it had such a dramatic effect. Happy that it did though…”
Isn’t that what all our clients want to see anyway? Results?.
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01.17.08
Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media at 8:24 am by Christine
Is Facebook online gambling advertising’s NBF?
Like cigarette advertising (for South Africa - we’re not allowed to advertise cigarettes), Gambling advertising was banned from the likes of Adwords etc and had to seek other ways of market penetration. Yes, they have many resources and ways of getting those markets - there are many Online Marketing agencies focussed solely on doing that… Facebook however is still openly marketing gambling. Through applications and also flyers…
I attended the unofficial Geekdinner with Jason Hoffman last night, and one of the points brought up (I think by Henk) was whether one could subscribe or unsubscribe to which flyers you see, or rather block ones you don’t want to see. To be honest, those gambling ads annoy me for some reason and if I could I would block them…
Just because I fit the “perceived demographic”, does not mean I am a potential client etc. I guess some would argue that it would still give them brand awareness to the market at least…
Now this is where it gets tricky, as I am first and fore-mostly also an Online Marketer, and yes, I do sell this stuff…So why this opinion?
Simple, because of relevancy.
Yes, you might get brand awareness per say, but not click throughs… So just as with Search, the more targeted your ad to the demographic, the more qualified clicks and impressions you will receive. This in itself would be tricky, as naturally you want your advertising to display to the widest possible audience, but surely your return would be that much better if your viewers subscribed to seeing your information…Perhaps they could do something like they have done in the News feed page whereby you can say what you want to see and what you don’t - after they show you everything first…
What ‘irks’ me even more is the annoying little emails I started getting after I had installed one of the card game apps. Not to my Facebook profile, but my personal email address. Not at anyone stage was I asked to “opt in”. I would have understood to receive an opt-in email to my Facebook Inbox from which to choose to receive further updates, but directly to my personal account? No thanks. I needless to say disabled this feature immediately.
Some of these Apps are giving other good ones a ‘bad image’. Enter the last few ones I’ve seen: “past life” and I think also “name reveal” or similar, that require you to invite 20 friends before you can even install the App! Clearly this is just a way of building their database…IF they can get people to make this ‘annoying’ step before adding their application. Strange thing is that if you decline the step, the application installs itself on your profile irrespective, but you are not able to see your relevant report. Which is what it incentivised you with in the first place to install the App!
I think its time for a “best practice Facebook App guide”- from a users & usability point of view.
Now there’s a topic to include in the next CT Facebook Application Development Garage. Maybe I’ll touch on that 
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01.04.08
Posted in AlterSage at 6:54 am by Christine
…Um, well blog post that is for 2008
Happy & prosperous 2008!
Our offices have reopened and to show my appreciation for my hardworking team I’ve decided to surprise them and spoil them a little by upgrading our environment a tad.
It is going to be another exciting and busy year for us and the online world, and I look forward to the challenges, updates and changes that it will bring with it.
Social Media is still the hot topic at this point.
Facebook is still the topic on everyone’s lips - but the handful of other social/business networking sites are not taking it lying down. One example that I’m happy to see beef up their game is PlaxoPulse, from which I am starting to see more activity as well. Twitter has resurged anew with increased tweets and interest, Xing geared at the professional audience is also on the uptake, and Seesmic is coming - positioning itself as a video Twitter.
One of the most recent FB events that I’m sure will spark a host of other “privacy related” scenarios is the Scoble ban from Facebook. According to MediaPost Scoble’s offense, apparently was to attempt to use a new feature of Plaxo to gather names, e-mail addresses and birthdays of some of his 5,000 Facebook friends. If you would like to read more or stand with Scoble, there is already a group on FB to petition his return.
Exciting year indeed!
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