Ideas for Business

The first post-lunch session of day 3 of Pucon brought together a great mix of SEO experts including: Todd Malicoat, Rand Fishkin and last minute fill-in for Jessie Stricchiola, Andy Beal. Moderator duties were handled by Joe Laratro.

First up is Todd who covered 30 different tools which are too many to mention here but included tools for: browsers, domain server, keywords, competitive research, ranking checkers, backlink checking, on page optimization, spidering, productivity and tools for fixing duplicate content. but the most interesting included:

• User agent switcher allows you to surf the web as if you were a bot from an engine so you can see sites the way search engine spiders see them.
• Search Status Firefox plugin shows you various time saving information all in one place 
• Header Checker
• SiteUptime lets you know when your site goes down
• Domain Tools Bookmarklet that gives you whois information on the domain name you’re looking at. Also shows other domain names someone owns (paid)
• Ping time shows how fast your site responds to web requests. If slow, it can cause issues with spidering.
• Keyword tools: WordTracker.com, KeywordDiscovery.com, tools.seobook.com also offers a free keyword tool
• SEOBook - SEO for Firefox
• SpyFu scrapes Google AdWords and can give information about competitor keyword purchase activity
• Compete.com shows competitor traffic and keyword information (paid tool)
• Caphyon Advanced Web Ranking - rank checking tool
• Link Harvester shows unique linking domains to a specific URL, deep link ratio, number of .edu links, etc
• Hub Finder - will find collections of sites that all link to a particular URL. If they link to that URL, maybe they will link to you.
• Interet Marketing Ninjas - a Strongest Subpage Tool.
• SoloSEO.com is a project management tool for SEO projects
• Link Suggestion Tool shows a list of search phrases you can combine with keywords to research link opportunities
• Xenu Link Sleuth broken link tool. 
• Roboform remembers form field information for filling out information
• Jing Project ScreenCapture
• Copyscape will show you any time someone copies your content on the web
• DupeCop

Next up is Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz with “6 Tools that Rock” and promises there is very little if any overlap with Todd.

• SEO Automatic Tool - looks at common on page optimization factors and offers recommendations.
• DaveN’s Keyword Density Tool will analyze keyword occurrence on-page and it surfs as Googlebot.
• blogpulse - Tracks millions of blog feeds and provides insight into what bloggers are discussing as well as trends of phrases over time.
• LinkfromDomain Command @ Live.com - who is a particular site linking to. (linkfromdomain:toprankblog.com)
• Historical PageRank Lookup from SEOmoz tools
• Linkscape SEOMoz is a crawl of the web that offers metrics on link and score mozrank on the domain level and at the URL level. Shows who 301 redirects what page, anchor text distribution and others.

Last up is Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim.

• SEOResearchLabs.com offers keyword research for $100. Extensive spreadsheet of keyword data.
• SEO Link Analysis - Firefox extension gives you a bit more information when opening such pages, it gathers the PageRank for the linking page, the anchor text used on the link, and checks whether the link is nofollowed or not
• Google Webmaster Central - 
• Backlinkwatch.com - Shows the URLs of link sources, PageRank, follow/nofollow.
• SEMCheck.com - $12 tool that automates basic SEO functions and issues.

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Setting up a website can be quite costly, unless you learn to do some of it on your own, which many business owners do. After all, there are lots of free website templates on the internet and you can easily upload them to a host and customize the content, right?

While this is true, it is NOT the way to go. In fact, opting for a free template could well be the worst graphic design mistake you`ve ever made.

You see, those templates are free for everyone. That means the same template could easily be used by hundreds of other websites, eliminating any brand recognition you would get from your own graphic design.

It`s far better to invest the money and get a website that a graphic designer has created just for your business. That way, you can promote your brand and keep it strong, without dilutions from other sites.

I always get excited whenever I get a link from a reputable site. My traffic increases and my Google rankings go up.

Recently, I got a link to one of my blogs that surprised me. I had not really targeted the blog that linked to me. All I had done was leave a couple of comments. Also, I had linked to him telling my readers to check out his blog.

I checked out the post where he linked to me. On this post, he welcomed my readers and gave an overview of his blog.

This event reminded me of the effectiveness of linking to other sites to build links to your own site.

I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine

Linking to other sites, or “linking out”, works because of human nature. If you do a favor for someone, they’ll often return the favor.

Many bloggers understand the value of links. They know how hard it is to get links especially in the beginning, so they are appreciative whenever they get one.

Also, the web is now a social network instead of just a place to get information. The new PR for businesses is personal relationships instead of public relations. In this environment, a link is the equivalent to a compliment or a personal recommendation.

And just like in the offline world, if you compliment someone, you’ll probably get one back (at least in the long term).

I Thought Reciprocal Linking was Not Effective

You may have heard that reciprocal links are not as effective as one-way links. This is true, but what many people don’t realize is that a reciprocal link is better than no link at all. I’ve had one site that got a good amount of traffic and 95% of its links were reciprocal links.

Also, in the long term, reciprocal links lead to one way links because of the traffic and exposure you receive. Each reciprocal link is going to send you some traffic. Some of the people who follow the link to your blog have their own blog. If they like your blog, they may link to you in the future.

And don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. Each person that visits your blog may know a blogger. If you have good content, they will probably tell their blogger friend about your blog. This often leads to a link from that blogger.

With traffic and exposure being the key, you’ll want to link to sites that get a lot of traffic. I use these two simple methods to evaluate a site’s traffic volume.

If it’s a blog, I check to see if they have a consistent stream of comments (an average of 5 or more per post).

Looking at the site’s Alexa Rank also helps. Any site with a rank of 500,000 or lower will probably send a good amount of traffic. Alexa Rank is not the most accurate measure of traffic, but for the most part, I find that the lower the Alexa Rank of a site, the more traffic it will send.

Finally, reciprocal links are definitely easier to build. This goes back to my first point. If you link to a site, that site is much more likely to link to you than if you didn’t link to it.

Other Sites in Your Industry are Friends not Competitors

Think of other sites and blogs in your niche not as competitors but as friends.

Why do car dealerships build next to each other? Why are the food shops in a mall located in the same place? To share traffic.

The same principle applies for linking out. There are no physical food courts on the internet. However, if you link out to the blogs you want to be associated with, you can setup a “virtual food court” and share in their traffic as they link back to you.

Over to You

How often do you link out? Have you received any links?

The second day of WebmasterWorld Pubcon didn’t dissapoint with great sessions throughout the day.  In between sessions, I was able to take a few candids and had help from Lisa Barone and Ashley Bruce during the sessions where I was speaking.

Elisabeth Osmeloski and Alex Bennert

Barry Schwartz and Ken Jurina

Jessica Bowman and Heather Lloyd Martin

A taller Matt Cutts and Lee Odden

Lisa Barone and Tamar Weinberg

Andy Beal, Jane Copeland and Mike McDonald

Jake Baillie and Eric Enge

Dante Monteverde 

Susan Esparza and Rebecca Kelley

Google Booth

Take a look at all the Pubcon photos from TopRank opn Flickr.

Sponsored By: Learn Social Media Marketing in NYC TopRank & The DMA Partner on 2 Day Social Media Smarts Workshop

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The sheer quantity of different information sources online has resulted in a media circus. The various blogs, tweets and mainstream media outlets are like different acts vying for user attention. Online reputation management amid all the chaos can be difficult. It seems only appropriate that a circus insider, Jessica Berlin of Cirque du Soleil, weighed in with some tried and true advice in Reputation Monitoring and Management.

Andy Beal, Internet Marketing Consultant with Marketing Pilgrim and Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and primary author of this blog, also contributed their advice for keeping the positive spotlight on your brand in this session moderated by Todd Friesen.

Why Monitor Online?

Lee pointed out that both your brand influencers and those influenced by your brand live online; your customers, prospects, competitors, etc. What is being said about your brand online can have a huge impact, both positive and negative, on your business.

“It’s not just a search engine, it’s a reputation engine,” Lee said.

Rankings in the search engine results page (SERP) can be as valuable as a hit in mainstream media due to the volume of people who see it. A negative SERP ranking for your brand can come in the form of a YouTube video, blog post, Flickr image, forum thread or just about any format imaginable.

Andy Beal pointed out a wide range of reasons to monitor your brand online, both positive and negative, including:

• Getting product ideas
• Finding new relevant keywords for SEO
• Reaching out to brand evangelists
• Learning blogger sentiment
• Conducting informal market research
• Discovering industry trends

Regardless of your reason for brand monitoring, a brand can be missing huge opportunities by failing to properly monitor and manage online reputation.

What to Monitor

Andy stated that a given brand should be monitoring more than just the brand name in order to effectively manage online brand reputation and fully utilize online resources that can improve brand perceptions online. He mentioned monitoring the company name, individual products, company executives, competitors, clients, industry patents, reviews and more.

Different companies will want to monitor online buzz for a unique mix of these elements in order to serve their purpose. To effectively monitor the online brand reputation of its six different Las Vegas Shows, the marketing team at Cirque du Soleil looks for:

• Customer Experiences Cirque du Soleil considers its customer experience to encompass everything from purchasing the ticket to when they leave the theater. They look online for both good and bad customer comments relating to any part of the overall experience so they can address concerns and build strong brand connections.
• Information Accuracy The team looks into any negative online mentions of Cirque du Soleil to correct any inaccurate information.
• Brand Mention Wording With six different shows in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil’s marketing team wants ensure each show is getting mentioned distinctively and not under the Cirque du Soleil umbrella term.
• Sphere of Influence The team looks for indications of how far and wide mentions of Cirque do Soleil spread, to see if one blog post mention can spread into social networks, bookmarking sites or even mainstream media.

Monitoring Tools to Use

With the circus of different media outlets online, brand reputation managers need an arsenal of tools in order to effectively monitor brand sentiment online. All three panelists mentioned several good tools to use in order to monitor your brand reputation. With most of these services, you can set up an RSS that alerts you of new items relating to specific brand names or keyword terms:

• Moreover.com Monitor competitors, industry news and trends with this site’s very granular news categories
• Google.com/trends Monitor up and coming industry trends to get ideas for new products or promotions
• Technorati.com Monitor blog posts and social media mentions
• Backtype.com Monitor blog comments about your brand or a competitor, or blog comments relating to your keywords
• Blogpulse.com/trend Monitor the trending of keyword phrases or your brand name to see if people are talking about you more or less
• Keotag.com Monitor tags of your choice across several bookmarking and tagging sites
• Boardtracker.com Monitor forum posts
• Copernic.com Monitor changes or updates on any given website
• Radian6/Buzzlogic Monitor a variety of different online media outlets and a wide range of social media

Marketers should also monitor their brand name in social media sites like YouTube, Flickr and Twitter to effectively manage brand buzz in multiple media formats.

How to Monitor

Lee outlined both a short-term and long-term approach to effective online brand reputation management. In the short-term, a company wants to ensure positive brand mentions are ruling the SERPs, as the search engine rankings tend to be highly visible. To do so, a company should focus on:

• Creating a brand optimization process
• Optimizing all digital assets including text, video, images, audio, press releases, etc.
• Optimizing across departments to ensure online assets from all departments are optimized. For example, HR should be optimizing job posts

In the long term, a brand should be working to identify, qualify and engage dissenters by correcting any inaccuracies and responding directly to negative mentions.

Jessica outlined Cirque du Soleil’s current online PR practices to illustrate the changes online brand reputation management has undergone in recent years. In particular, she highlighted transparency and building long-term trust between Cirque du Soleil, journalists and fans. Cirque du Soleil actually allows fans to control several of its ‘official’ groups on social sites such as MySpace, and gives them inside information to post as content. They also allow journalists and bloggers greater access to Cirque du Soleil content to build strong media relations.

What are the Results?

Companies can decrease attention on negative brand mentions with effective optimization tactics that result in multiple positive rankings on the SERPs. By directly addressing negative brand mentions in a personal manner, a company can turn a brand de-evangelist into a brand evangelist. Strong and open relationships with content producers in the form of journalists, bloggers and fans can prevent negative buzz and help ensure only accurate brand information exists in the online sphere. The comprehensive brand management advice from Jessica, Andy and Lee can help you make sense of the online media circus and keep a positive focus on your brand.

Check back with the TopRank Marketing Blog for more blog coverage of Pubcon 2008 and the Pubcon photos set on Flickr.  Also be sure to visit the video interview on reputation management with TopRank CEO Lee Odden and Mike McDonald of WebProNews.

Sponsored By: DMA Workshop on Social Media Marketing Build a business case, strategy & tactics - Dec 4-5 NYC

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