I am a big believer that the Internet is a tool that needs to be used more for the good of mankind. Watching the Haiti trauma unfold before my eyes on Twitter and Facebook, listening to the connections between survivors, loved ones and lost ones – it made me think about how the Internet has no borders. Humans all over the world build applications to help others survive disaster. Here are a few great examples that I found:

Connecting Vital Resources to the Haitian Victims
1. As you are reading this blog post, a volunteer organization called Ushahidi is helping survivors connect and communicate with the outside world. Ushahidi is a free open source project comprised of developers from Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, Netherlands and the USA. Their engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Their mission is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response. The site is http://haiti.ushahidi.com/. It shows a crisis map – where people are trapped, where food’s needed, and where they need help from police immediately. In addition, they list out what you can do online to help volunteer.

2. Google created an application that can be embedded in your web site to help missing people reconnect with their family called the Google Person Finder.

3. Google also developed a Crisis Response hotline that is providing free Google Voice Calls to Haiti.

Making it Easy to Donate
1. According to Mobile Marketing Watch the Red Cross has raised $24 million and counting from texting. If you have a cell phone you can donate $10 to the American Red cross by sending a text message with the word “Haiti” to 90999. Also, the Red Cross is providing a map of the % of Overall Text Donations By State.

2. Salesforce.com allows you to donate through their site and will match your donations.

3. Amazon.com has added a box on its home page that customers can click to donate to the Haiti Relief Efforts of Mercy Corps.

4. And even missionaries in Michigan, like Great Commission Air raised $15,000 from an email and Facebook campaign. They are now in Haiti helping transport food and fuel.

So please spread the word about these efforts; helping is contagious!

Search engine marketing is generally better when using a combination of strategies, but marketing budgets are not infinite. How should your company choose between Social Media and Search Engine Optimization strategies? One major consideration that can influence your choice between SEO and Social Media that is not often discussed is the impact of  product maturity.

Products and product categories are generally tracked on a life cycle curve that describe phases of a product’s development. From a marketing perspective, the primary aspect that needs to be considered in each stage is the way that it can be described, and the level of awareness the public has about that product. A Product in early stages often doesn’t have a commonly understood name, and the public has lower awareness about it. Think about how, in the last thirty years, the “mobile cordless cellular handheld telephone” has been shortened to “mobile”, “cell”, or “cell phone”, and think, as well, how many more people are aware of what these devices are.

How does this relate to search engine marketing? Well, each stage matches to a particular marketing strategy. Early stage product growth is driven by the enthusiasm of early adopters who can evangelize to the larger community. They also create the language of need and desire around the product that can be used as the product matures and grows. This makes it a good candidate for a social media campaign, since social media is most effective when being used by enthusiastic, authentic promoters through their online communities.

Mature product growth, in comparison, is driven by effective marketing and branding of known features, most of which can be simply and clearly expressed through simple, short, phrases. Since SEO focuses on widely used and understood keyphrases to generate visibility, it is a strong fit for later stage products.

So what do you have? A new, innovative idea that is going to take the world by storm, once people understand how to talk about it through your cadre of enthusiastic early adopters? Or do you have a well made, high quality or high value product, which just needs to win visibility against its existing competitors? The answer to that question — and how you can take advantage of it through Search Engine Marketing — can provide a lot of interesting ideas for your marketing team’s strategy sessions.

Now that Google incorporates video into their universal search results pages, and YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world, high-quality video is an essential component to any strategy for increasing online visibility. How can you make sure you get the most out of your YouTube uploads?

Create Content That Gets Results:

1. Create compelling content

You don’t have to be quirky and viral to create successful, high-ROI video for your business to promote on YouTube. Successful examples of video content that work for most businesses and brands include:

• Product demonstration: to show your wares in action
• Introduction to your team: to build a more personal connection
• “How to”: to highlight a product or service in action, to decrease customer support burden
• Office/factory tour: to highlight your capabilities, to bring your business to life
• “Hot topic” discussion: to show your expertise on cutting edge and controversial topics

At the moment, YouTube limits videos to 10 minutes in length for most users (some partners may get special privileges). Make sure to keep your video to this length. If you want to create longer content, make sure to divide it into coherent sections of less than 10 minutes each.

2. Record high-quality video

Use H.264 or MPEG-2 encoding. Record at an “HD” level resolution – this is 1920×1080 (1080p). Record in 16:9 aspect ratio if possible. Thumbnails are now set to show in 16×9 (prior wisdom used to be to upload in 4×3 because thumbnails showed at this ratio, this is no longer the case).

3. Highlight your brand

Don’t forget to include your company name in the video, both verbally and in writing. You can include your logo and company name as a title card at both the beginning and end of the video, or you can overlay it at the bottom or top of the video throughout. If you do not have video editing software, you can include these additions after you upload the video via YouTube’s Annotations feature.

4. Include a call-to-action

Your customer watched your video, now what? Let them know how they can contact you by highlighting your website and phone number in the video. Once again, this can be shown at the beginning and end or it can be displayed as an overlay throughout the video. Using YouTube’s Annotations feature, you can create fields in your video that display your phone number or URLs for relevant areas of your website.

Rank High:

1. Research keywords.

First, you must know which keywords you want to target. You want phrases that are relevant, descriptive, and are searched on. You can determine search traffic on keywords using Google’s Keyword Tool.

For example, more people search on “how to use chopsticks” than “using chopsticks” even though it is a longer query. Also, more people use the compound “chopsticks” than “chop sticks” with a space between the words. This knowledge helps determine which words are best used in title, description, and tags.

2. Use keywords in title, description and tags.

Make sure to keep themes tight and relevant. For instance, you would not want to target “how to use chopsticks” and “Chinese restaurants” at the same time. Instead, you might target “how to use chopsticks,” “chopsticks demonstration,” and “learn to use chopsticks.”

3. Choose the right category.

Make sure to review all the categories before choosing where your video fits. Once you have looked at all the categories, choose the most relevant one.

4. Share your video!

Don’t be shy about promoting your new video. If you use twitter, tweet about it. If you blog, blog about it. Embed the video into your site. Link to it from your email newsletter.

5. Don’t stop at YouTube

Gain incremental traffic by uploading your videos to Metacafe and Vimeo as well. Vimeo allows for significant customization of their channel pages as well as longer-format video uploads than YouTube. Videojug.com and 5min.com are also great sites for uploading instructional and how-to content.

Look Your Best:

1. Be aware of character limits on YouTube.

• Title: Keep your title to 45 characters or less to make sure it is not cut off (…) when displayed in search results.
• Description: Optimize the first 140 characters of your description to include keywords and encourage clicks. This is likely all that will be displayed within YouTube search. Include a functioning link to your website within the first 200 characters of the description. To ensure that it functions, do not remove the http:// from the URL. If the URL is longer than 27 characters, it will be truncated, so it is probably best to link to your home page. You may need to remove the “www” to save characters.

2. Make sure to select the best thumbnail possible.

The thumbnail is the image preview of your video, and the right thumbnail can make a big difference in views. In YouTube, you will be able to choose from three thumbnails, which are taken from the frames at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 into your video. In most cases, at least one of these thumbnails will represent your video well. However, if you find yourself having to choose between three bad choices (frames that are unclear, unrepresentative, etc.), then you can slightly modify the length of your video and re-upload. You will have new thumbnails to choose from.

I recently wrote a blog post asking if your business is using Twitter effectively. Today I’d like to tackle the topic of corporate Facebook accounts. Coca-Cola was recognized by Slate magazine as the number one Big Money Facebook account. What’s unique about their page is it was created by a fan; theirs is an authentic page made by two Coke aficionados.

The importance of authenticity within Social Media must be stressed here. These Coke enthusiasts wanted to “fan” their favorite soda-pop on Facebook but couldn’t find an official page so they created one. Once corporate got wind of this they did the right thing; they embraced the page, made it official and added all sorts of advanced applications. As of January 15th they have 4,142,073 fans. Wow.

Now I’ll move to an unsuccessful, unauthentic Facebook page that turned a corner . . .

Walmart’s official Facebook page started out with few posts and even less fans. Their “fans” often left disparaging comments and even questioned why the page existed.

Since then Walmart has taken a page from their peers and warmed up to Facebook by using their site to promote discounts and foster positive comments from their fans. Over the holidays they added applications linking to Black Friday specials, online deals and they even launched a charity-related application.

If you’ve been lucky enough to hear John Hill speak, then you can skip this post. He’s positively brilliant about explaining how LinkedIn is a cornerstone of any job search.

I wrote two years ago in this blog how shocked I was that students are not counseled by career services in networking online; and today I’m glad that people like John and Terry Bean are out there preaching, because the situation hasn’t changed nearly as much as it should.

In talking recently with a current student at the University of Michigan, I was encouraged to hear they were counseled to “reach out to friends and relatives” – terrific advice. But the idea of doing that through LinkedIn as well as the real world hadn’t been broached.(!) While I’m sure that the UM is so large that it’s happening in some places and not others, my point is that LinkedIn coaching is still not standard practice at many educational institutions.

Why am I so passionate about this? In part, I know too many people looking for jobs. It’s a tough time to be in Michigan. But it’s also a great time to be in Michigan! There are people creating jobs in all sorts of places! And where are you going to find the movers and shakers? Online.

Who’s connected to the movers and shakers? Build a network in LinkedIn, and you’ll have access to the address book of everyone you know. Then look up a company you want an intro to, and find out who can make the intro for you. Easy peasy.

Then learn how to ask for an intro. It’s an art. Learn what a good ask looks like. Talk to Terry Bean – he is a great coach at the ASK. He’s also got a great book on business networking that ought to be required reading for anyone in a job search – the same rules apply. For nine bucks you can’t afford not to check it out.

John has some great tips on the ask, too. In particular, he suggests tapping into alumni networks. He’s done an exemplary job of building the MSU alumni network – and using it to help students – and the university make helpful connections. Every college needs someone like John!

If you haven’t already checked in out, LinkedIn has added an invaluable job search feature. You can search jobs by keyword and by zip – both within LinkedIn and through the aggregator Simply Hired. Take a gander if you’re doubtful about the existence of jobs in Michigan. My bet is that you’ll be (pleasantly) surprised.

Happy hunting!

When you control the defaults in your product or website, you have the power to shape human behavior.

We touched on the matter of how you can influence users’ decisions on a form back during the presidential campaign, when we looked at the John McCain contribution form. If you were to make a form where the default contribution is $200, you imply that it is the amount that normal people donate. People will probably contribute less, but they’re bound to contribute more money than if you had set the default value to $10.

The recent story on Mashable, “Facebook Founder on Privacy: Public Is the New ‘Social Norm,’” reminded me of the power and responsibility that comes with being able to design choices for people. Mark Zuckerberg stated that the default settings on Facebook would be to share your data on the open web rather than restricting it to your friends. They changed the default with the expectation that most people would simply accept the default of sharing their data, and thereby increasing the value of Facebook.

Whether you agree with it or not, this is a reminder that design choices have consequences.

If you’re like most marketing managers we talk to, chances are you’re using Google Analytics and learning some good stuff! Chances are you’ve also got some nagging feeling that there’s more to learn if only you had time to fully explore Google Analytics and discover all the truly great stuff hidden inside.

However, given the world shortage on time, and given Google’s propensity to add new features to Analytics every time you log in, we’re sorry to say the odds aren’t exactly in your favor. That was, until you found Pure Visibility. (Wink. Wink.)

Seriously though, we hear this conundrum repeated every day. You are not alone! And since we are an organization full of problem solvers, we have a couple ideas that may help:

1) A “Drivers Ed for Google Analytics” course, designed to help you get to all the good stuff faster. We know you’re busy so we’ve boiled it down to one day, with a nice long lunch so you don’t have to fall too far behind on email – or you can check out an awesome restaurant while you’re downtown Ann Arbor. We’re sure you’ll come away with something that changes the way you think about your business; and you’ll be armed with data to make decisions like never before.

2) We also provide analysis as a service. Most often it’s bundled with our other internet marketing services that together, are designed to increase your sales. The magic in that analysis is worth a post of its own so we’ll tackle that another day.

In the meantime, we hope to see you at a class someday soon!

In nearly 15 years of writing for the web, one thing I’ve seen change dramatically is the role of meta tags in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This post is specifically about keyword tags – and their slow, painful death.

Today, Google doesn’t use meta keyword tags at all, as Google Engineer Matt Cutts explains in this short video:

While this topic has been hashed out in all the professional SEO forums, the death of the keyword meta tag is still not common knowledge – despite Danny Sullivan’s heroic attempt to bury the keyword tag way back in 2002. Here’s a quick history of how keyword tags evolved, and why Danny is right.

Back in the “good old days” when I started optimizing, there were FAR fewer web pages, and even fewer companies cultivating the web into a viable sales channel. Google didn’t exist yet, and neither did paid search. Hand-curated directories were still prevalent, and search engine algorithms were nascent. Back then, title tags and keyword tags ruled. Submitting your site to prominent directories and creating well-written pages with thoughtful keyword and title tags might be all you needed Own Page One®.

Over a decade later, the web is MUCH bigger (here’s a nice Google post on how big the web has become) and consequently the algorithms used to rank sites are far more complex. In addition to handling more content, algorithms have evolved to increase fairness and avoid attempts at gaming the system.

Those attempts include “keyword stuffing”, a practice used by less-than-scrupulous optimizers to gain visibility by showing up for popular but irrelevant searches, such as for pop stars, or (forgive me) porn. So basically, Google gave up and doesn’t use keyword meta tags anymore.

Among other things, one of the more important factors in Google optimization are back links (hence Google’s original name, BackRub). Back links used to come exclusively from other websites – in today’s world, they often come from social media sites. Links from social media sites show recency and relevancy – which are factors currently favored by most algorithms (roughly speaking).

That said, is it possible other search engines use keyword tags? The short answer is “no”. No major search engine uses them. Even Yahoo! – the last holdout – admitted to (nearly) ignoring the keyword meta tag in an industry conference in October of 2009. As with nearly everything in SEO, it’s possible to find an edge case where you might actually want to use a keyword tag, but for all practical purposes, it’s time to put it to rest.

In summary, our advice is to invest in more fruitful SEO activities, and skip the keyword meta tag.

Happy optimizing!