Matt Cutts, Google’s chief anti-spam engineer, posted a new video in which he answered a question from a user about whether Google rewards (or penalizes) sites relying on stock – rather than original – photographic images. According to Cutts, Google doesn’t do so now (although Cutts appeared intrigued by the idea that classifying sites on the basis of the proportionate quantify of stock/original photos might provide Google’s algorithm with a useful relevancy signal).

Should webmasters with stock image-heavy sites therefore rest easy? For the moment the answer is a clear “yes,” followed by a strong caveat. The fact is that there are strong advantages accruing to webmasters who invest in creating/curating original images who can use these on the paid side. For example, Google’s PLA (Product Listing Ads) and recently added Image Extensions rely heavily on images to attract relevant clicks. Those merchants whose images “stand out” in the strongest way will attract the most clicks and receive more favorable Quality Scores. It is therefore incumbent on merchants to invest in images that do this, and although stock image libraries are often very good, these libraries are not exclusive, and merchants obviously do not want to be running the same images in ads that their competitors are running.

So while you’ll get no penalty from Google for displaying the same ads your competitors are displaying – at least on this go-round — you’re not going to be able to benefit maximally from these new, increasingly popular, image-heavy search ad formats either. For marketers seeking competitive advantage in this latter area, it may make a lot of sense to invest in an original image library of their own.

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Mobile connectivity is quickly becoming ubiquitous (more than half of Americans now possess smart phones), and mobile U.S. commerce revenues are rising rapidly. And yet an alarming number of e-commerce firms appear to not understand the importance of optimizing their online properties for the mobile experience.  According to Cynthia Boris, over at MarketingPilgrim.com, less than a third of multichannel retailers maintain a mobile-optimized web site.

What’s holding up the upgrade? One would think that e-tailers obsessed by ROI would be among the first to deploy efficient, profitable mobile site. It’s not a shortage of knowledge about the problem – according to Boris, 49 percent of merchants know that their sites aren’t set up for the mobile experience.  Apparently it’s because their customers haven’t asked for it.  Here’s an even more troubling finding: 29 percent of merchants have no plan to optimize “in the foreseeable future.”

Given the stakes here – especially in light of Google’s stated declaration that it will soon begin to apply economic incentives (both positive and negative) to reward mobile-optimized sites – it’s hard to fathom what’s holding e-commerce merchants back.  On the other hand, it’s clear that mobile merchants who act proactively and take steps now will win out over competitors who wait for some outside factor – perhaps their customers, or perhaps Google – to activate their site optimization teams.

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An interview with Mike Miller, Google’s director of Industrial Markets, was posted to  Emarketer.com on June 14th, and Miller points out some interesting trends that B2B marketers need to consider. These findings were derived from a recent study that Google carried out with Web analytics company Compete.com.

Here some highlights:

Search-based B2B Queries Are Rising
Business purchases are increasingly involving Internet-based research, and this trend accelerated in 2012, which saw a jump in such research from 71 to 82 percent, a jump that Miller calls “huge” in light of prior history, where year-over-year leaps were usually “in the single digits.” This research primarily relies on search, and search-based research jumped from 67 percent in 2011 to 90 percent in 2012.

B2B Video Is Hot
Miller cites “how to” videos as being particularly popular in the B2B space, due to the fact that B2B products are frequently complex and therefore in need of long-form visual explanation. Miller seems to regard videos as an adjunct — not an outright replacement, of the familiar downloadable white paper.

B2B Messaging Needs to be Consistent (But Context-Sensitive)
While B2B message consistency is important for branding purposes, the same kind of messaging that’s effective in reaching a user arriving at a B2B site through a search query, direct access, or e-mail prompt may fail in different channels, notably social media and in video. B2B marketers need to think carefully about the context for their messaging as deeply as they do about the message’s content.

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“We are very pleased to be working with dELiA*s,” said Didit CEO Kevin Lee. “dELiA*s is a great retailer, and we welcome the opportunity to deploy our most advanced audience segmentation technologies on their behalf.”

“Fashion trends change quickly, and keeping the merchandise mix fresh and top-of-mind for searchers and shoppers is a non-trivial job,” said Dave Pasternack, Didit President. “We’re confident that we can drive dELiA*s online performance and profitability using the best technology platform in the industry.”

About Didit
Didit.com is a privately held industry pioneer in Search Engine Marketing and Digital Marketing founded in 1996. Didit’s proprietary Maestro search and auction-based display campaign optimization technology combine with recent advances in the application of “Big Data” to SEM and display campaigns. Didit pioneered the “Managed Technology” model of cross-media digital campaign management for marketers and agencies, earning Didit.com both Inc. 500 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 recognition as a rapidly growing company. For more information, go to: http://www.didit.com.

About dELiA*s, Inc.
dELiA*s, Inc. is a multi-channel retail company primarily marketing to teenage girls. It generates revenue by selling apparel, accessories and footwear to consumers through direct mail catalogs, websites, and mall-based retail stores. For more information, go to: http://www.deliasinc.com.

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Read complete article at iMedia.com.

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There is a definite trend toward social media differentiating themselves in order to appeal to distinct demographics. For example, Twitter is young, urban, hip and mobile; Google+ is for social marketers and smart talk; Quora is academic. These are of course all broad generalizations, but there is a no doubt that each of the social media sites has its own brand and vibe.  And there is no question that Facebook’s popularity has been taking some hits, especially with the coveted teen demographic. According to this latest study, UK Facebook use dropped by 9% since last year.

Recently the residents of The Warrior Forum – a popular Internet marketing forum — have declared that Pinterest is the new Facebook.  While such a judgment might seem prematurely over the top, it’s clear that Pinterest can be a terrific tool for building a fan base and activating a community for your product or service. For marketers that rely on visual media to generate excitement about products and offerings, Pinterest is terrific, although using it can be intimidating to marketers that are unfamiliar with how its analytics work.

Could Pinterest become the next Facebook? Here’s what it’s got going for it:

• Pinterest is non-intrusive. Pinterest  – in its Google and Facebook integrations — only accesses the friends and contacts of the user, nor does it ask for intrusive information.
• Pinterest is about content, content, content.  The site focuses on the exchange of content, and is inherently designed for fans. This is a boon to marketers as fan communities spontaneously arise, are nurtured by community managers, and then passed on into the larger Internet ecosystem.
• Pinterest pays it forward. Unlike Facebook, which struggles to be ‘sticky’ in order to keep users within its walled garden, Pinterest paradoxically encourages users to pass along content outside its gates. This facet duplicates one of the great features of Twitter. Pins are analogous to Tweets, making Pinterest a launch pad for content sharing. This is great for marketers who want to drive traffic back and forth between their own site and then back to Pinterest, creating a perpetual cycle of engagement.
• Pinterest is social by trying not to be. Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he wants Facebook to be an online equivalent to a newspaper. Pinterest does this better by self-organizing interest-based communities that focus on content.  Facebook and Pinterest differ in terms of how customers communicate about interests and brands, but Pinterest may in fact be a far more brand-friendly platform to do business on than Facebook, especially with visual products.

Drawbacks

Pinterest has a few of its own problems, and not all of them are related to “being like Facebook.”

• No room for discussion. Pinterest has a clunkier interface for discussion than Facebook has. Pinterest is about showing things, not chatting, but some better implementation of forum-like features would help immensely.  If Pinterest isn’t careful, Google+ could make advances against it on this front.
• It’s not a billboard– In my explorations of Facebook, I’ve seen too many brands go up and attempt “whack-a-mole” broadcast-style marketing.  Pinterest is user-curated and interactive, and content that attempts to function like outdoor display advertising will fail. At core, Pinterest is a platform for content marketing — not advertising.
• Monetization – As Econsultancy notes, Pinterest hasn’t quite settled on its business model quite yet, relying on VC money for operations. We suspect that Pinterest will make most of its scratch primarily from user analytics and data, because it functions so well as a “sandbox” in which brands can observe the behavior of customers in their native environment without the interference of traditional advertising models. Pinterest can also serve as an excellent platform for special deals and offers, as long as care is taken to not be intrusive with such things.

Whether it ever catches up with Facebook, Pinterest offers marketers a lot of value, and it can serve as a model for user-driven, inbound marketing efforts. If you haven’t explored what it offers, you’re missing out.

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Using its familiar carrot-and-stick approach toward encouraging webmasters parties to comply with its directives, Google announced yesterday that it was planning to introduce “several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.” Although Google didn’t reveal the details of exactly how its ranking changes would reward compliant webmasters and punish non-compliant ones, it did publish a list of common misconfigurations likely to bring the offending site under Google’s microscope.

These errors include:

1. Videos unplayable on smartphone devices due to a number of possible factors, including licensing constraints and/or 3^rd party helper software (such as Flash). Google recommends that HTML5 be used to render video on smartphone devices.
2. Bad or Irrelevant Redirects. If you’re using a user-agent to redirect users from a desktop-optimized site to a mobile one, make sure that the redirects do not default to a different page. Both sites should have an identical directory structure and redirects from example.desktopsite.com/directory1 should go to mobilesite/directory1 – not to any other page.
3. Smartphone-exclusive 404 (Page Not Found) errors. If a smartphone user attempts to access a desktop-optimized site, a 404 should not be shown. Such users should be redirected to an equivalent page on the mobile site, or, if this is impossible, allowed to pass through to the desktop-optimized site. Google notes that “showing the content the user was looking for is a much better experience than showing an error page.”
4. “Disruptive” App Download Interstitials. Google recommends that webmasters seeking to promote their apps via interstitial ads adhere to best practice examples such as Smart App Banners for Safari on iOS6.
5. Irrelevant Links. Google notes that “a common practice when a website serves users on separate smartphone-optimized URLs is to have links to the desktop-optimized version.” Any such links should be relevant and not, for example, link to the home page.
6. Slow Sites. Google’s ranking algorithm has incorporated page speed for some time, so it’s no surprise that this factor would loom large in any ranking changes it makes in regard to mobile-optimized site.

If you have any doubt that your mobile sites have any of these errors, it’s recommended to clean them up now. Google has not announced when its ranking change will take effect, but one can assume that it could happen at any time, so take care of these issues now.

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“Spring Cleaning” is a healthy yearly ritual in which floors are swept, carpets are beaten, and cobwebs are cleared. Spring is also a great time for marketers to take some time making sure that their Adwords and adCenter accounts are clean, well-organized, and error-free.  Tackling this task is especially important right now because Google Adwords is transitioning to an “Enhanced Campaign” format. So what should you be looking for when you clean house? 404 “page not found” errors, duplicate listings, missing or malfunctioning traffic technologies, poor landing pages, and sites that aren’t optimized for mobile.

Read complete article at ClickZ.com.

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This past week Google’s anti-spam chief Matt Cutts laid down tht law on paid media, advertorials, and native advertising. Because Cutts’ words have been a reliable predictor for Google’s content policing policies, anyone with a commercial website should listen carefully to what Matt says.

The reaction on Youtube was predictable. Many voiced howls of outage, along with the usual complaints about Google’s content policies generally. Lost in all the shouting was the fact that Cutts wasn’t criticizing sponsored content; only paid media masquerading as earned media.

Google has always treated content that is paid for as advertising, and any attempts to conceal this fact as deceptive. “If money changes hands, then links should not pass PageRank” said Matt. His position is that if paid media is used, the fact that it is paid for or sponsored must be disclosed. Can anyone argue with that? From an SEO point of view, taking a hard line against undisclosed “sponsored content” may represent a range of new problems for some webmasters for whom full disclosure hasn’t been a front-burner issue. It certainly means that many webmasters are now obligated to check that links and content must be appropriately identified to the public. Content marketing strategies may have to be reexamined. And the question must now be asked: if popular content on your site must be disclosed as “sponsored,” how does will this disclosure impact the brand? Will there be a drop in organic performance? Will brands look “smaller” when it’s clear that they’re there because of money, not necessarily merit?

What’s clear is that honesty with the audience and ethical SEO is the best way to build an online brand. Paid content can be great content, and brands should be proud of creating and curating great sponsored content. If discussion is created by sponsored content on social media channels, this will give an SEO lift, especially if the paid contributor already has his/her own strong social presence.
What’s also happening is that Google is pruning organic results containing reviews that purport to be from users but actually constitute “black hat content” created by automation and less than honest SEO firms. This is good for everyone – such firms that freely and proudly display sponsored content will get the natural SEO lift that comes through the social networks, generating the SEO value that a piece of earned media normally would. Indirect means of analytics may now be needed to show ROI, but this can be measured by such simple things as direct conversions and landing page traffic. Sponsored links and content will generate brand equity if brands are honest, play fair and show customers respect.

Love Matt or hate him, in the long term, Google’s efforts to disclose advertorial and paid content will be good for everyone, and wise marketers should take his advice very seriously.

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