Fanatically Digital

Category: Front page

  • Why can’t I find new customers? Wrong question.

    Not too long ago the paradigm shifted. With few media choices for consumers and large budgets for advertisers, brands would focus on targeting the customer. Consumers watched one of the major television stations, you just needed to look at Nielsen to know which shows. It seemed like every household received the major newspaper in town (or one of the few). The idea of targeting a prospective customer kind of made sense back then.

    For most companies, that’s no longer true. Today, customers find you… the real you.

    They research online, read articles, ask friends and family, look at reviews. With the exception of references, people generally use search engines to uncover the information they are looking for. Companies need to create a presence online that is both useful to the customer and understandable by the search engines. This takes the form of websites, social media, community activity, forum participation and content creation and sharing. When people research their next purchase, you have to be where they can find you.

    Business buyers and consumers, the saying goes, are in control. They decide what they will read, what they will trust and what they will share. Businesses that try to craft a message are finding themselves in tough times. Though perhaps overused, this is why the term “Authentic” has become so prevalent. Brands that look at this as just another marketing tactic, trying too hard to craft a message, fail to recognize the paradigm shift that has given control to the consumers.

    To help consumers find your company, engage.

    Create robust social profiles on those platforms that people interested in your product or service are likely to use.

    Share broadly about your product or service category. Be helpful beyond the scope of your own company. Give them something they want to read, hear or watch.

    Participate in forums as individuals who are part of a company, not just a company.

    All content and communications must be driven by the core values or principles of the company.

    Companies must decide what they stand for. Not some cliche, but what is important to those “in control”, and guide their companies accordingly. This is the core of being authentic. When mistakes happen, and the company makes corrections, the main driver comes from the core values of the company, not the fear of market repercussions. As consumers research, they will come across information (flattering and otherwise) about your company; stick to the core values and the balance will be in your favor.

  • What to look for in a search marketing agency

    Organizational and cultural fit.

    There are a lot of search marketing agencies out there. And, putting our competitive natures aside, there is a lot of good talent spread throughout. Often it is not the competencies of the search marketers themselves, but the culture of the agency that will determine if they are a good fit for your company.

    Because of the nature of search marketing, virtually all agencies share characteristics. The difference comes in the mix of things such as reliance on bid management automation, reporting tools, processes and procedures, newbies vs highly experienced staff, and media partner relationships. Where companies put their focus directs where their culture goes, or their culture drives their focus, depending on the agency. Even this nuance says a lot about the fit.

    Price based agency

    Some client companies are price driven. There is a culture of tough negotiation and getting the cost for everything to the bare minimum. There are some search marketing agencies that thrive in this environment. Some characteristics include very regimented processes, standardized reporting and a heavy reliance on automation to offset a higher mix of newbies vs experienced search marketers. Essentially these are good for marketers who are purely price driven and don’t need / want high touch search management.

    Cutting edge agency

    I’ve seen clients who are heavily focused on being cutting edge. They like the bragging rights that come with always being the first to try new technologies, be in all the betas, and blog about how they were “there first”. Search agencies that do this well tend to be larger, often combined with other digital marketing capabilities, have a lower dependence on automation and standardization. You’ll typically find a higher mix of more experienced search marketers vs newbies. Generally, these elements have a higher price tag, but that comes with the ‘cutting edge’ search marketing label. For some brands this is a great fit.

    Performance focused agency

    Performance based search marketing agencies focus in on maximizing a client’s goals for each dollar spent. We didn’t say ROI because some companies can’t directly measure it. But, they do have goals that are important such as leads, content consumption, engagement, sharing etc. While the ideal is to measure direct ROI, the inability to do that does not preclude these companies from setting goals and optimizing their search marketing accordingly. These agencies tend to be more balanced in their approach because optimizing programs depends on the nuances of the programs; they can’t be too rigid yet they need the capacity to focus. They test into new areas (usually a predefined portion of the budget) and keep what works, trash what doesn’t. Often this is where knowing what to do when search marketing best practices aren’t working and how to integrate that with automation tools comes into play. Clients who can or want to start setting goals and developing reporting to guide decisions (not just fill up in boxes) work well with these agencies.

    Starting down the right search path

    For those looking for a search marketing partner, the trick in all of this is to be honest with your assesment of your own company. Too often, we’ve seen companies say they are performance based yet negotiated for a price point that simply cannot support the mix of talent to do that. Or, they’ll say they are performance based, but then constantly push for the new stuff (ie, unproven). Not properly managed, new stuff blows up performance based search marketing programs. As companies seek a new search marketing agency, they first need to prioritize their own objectives. One isn’t better than the other, but they all require different approaches and most agencies are simply better suited for one versus the others.

    So, what kind of search marketing agency is Fanatically Digital?

    • We focus on our clients’ program performance.
    • We use bid automation and reporting software to help manage the daily flow of search efficiently.
    • We employee search marketing experts to oversee programs and develop recommendations to make them more effective.
    • We implement Google Analytics to provide nuanced understanding of users activities.
    • Our reports are developed for each client to focus on the key elements of their program so we can, together, make well informed decisions.

    We offer our clients the option to be deeply involved with access to our own project management tools so they can (if they desire) know exactly where we are in our program management and optimization processes.

  • FTC Issues Guidelines on Native Advertising

    Ever read an article on the internet that has a link embedded in it that appears to be linking to information similar to the article, only to click on it and be pitched with something that is, at best, only remotely related to the original content? You’re not alone. This is Native Advertising at its worst. Native Advertising is intentionally created to look like part of the content in order to give it credibility in the eyes of the reader. The publishers and advertisers tried to make it appear okay by calling it promoted content, as if the content was independent of the advertisers. The deception got the attention of the FTC a couple of years back and now the body has given 11-pages of guidance for advertisers on, well, how to be honest.

    Those little in content ads lead to big revenue. According to SocIntel360 spending on these ads will climb to $8.8B by 2018. This is not an insignificant amount of advertising. With the new FTC guidance advertisers will need to be more clear on the nature of the advertising and so I wonder if the $8.8B project is still inline. With the new guidelines, there may be fewer clicks reducing the spend for pay per click deals and the negated fee for placement deals.

    However, the expense is not necessarily representative of the value. Advertisers may receive less traffic, but that traffic comes with higher intent as the initial ad was clearly identified as such. If done well, it can add value to the user experience and the value of each interaction, on average, will increase. Time will tell.

    The IAB and publishers are not overly concerned, though the IAB did express some reservation about the wording in one section that refers to advertisers / publishers clearly identifying the content as an ad. There is more on their response in the Ad Age article on the FTC action.

    FTC building - native advertisingFor now, the key elements of the FTC guidelines are here: FTC Native Ad Guidelines. The FTC provides direction on placement, prominence and clarity of meaning (it’s an Ad). The better publishers have been trying to keep the content and the ads relevant to their reader base and seem not to have any issue here.

    The guidelines give plenty of examples and instructions. They also reference the 2013 guidelines for making disclosures. So, the new ad format still needs to follow basic disclosure practices.

    An interesting note, and something that may eventually spur publisher concern is that the language refers to both publisher and advertiser responsibility in clear disclosures. Previously, it has been the advertisers’ responsibility. With the addition of the publishers on the block, it we may see them being more assertive in monitoring and enforcing guidelines.

  • SEO: Don’t underestimate the basic practices

    SEO: Don’t underestimate the basic practices

    Over the years SEO tactics have evolved to try to keep up with the changes in how Google ‘enforces’ what it considers to be quality websites and content. As we engage with new clients we see that many of the problems are related to ignoring the basics in favor of chasing the latest tactics. It is not that we should put aside these tactics, but they should be employed judiciously and only when the basics are covered. It is what we refer to as good SEO hygiene. Keeping your site clean helps avoid surprises and saves time in the long run. While SEOs can argue over priority, here are the areas we usually address first either because of their volume or their importance.

    Image alt elements are a lost opportunity for most sites

    The base intent of the “alt” elements(alternative text) is for a better user experience for the visually impaired users, as the alt text is used to say what is in the image. Search engines also use this information to identify the image content, as well as affirm the connection to the content on the page itself. Additionally, should the image not load in the browser, the alt text will appear in its place.

    Key to good alt text is an accurate description of the image content. Without spamming the text, it should provide the subject description and setting of the image. Chances are, if the alt text is one or two words, it is not enough to provide useful information for the users or the search engines. Keep the description focused and thorough to give the search engine enough to connect the image content clearly with the page content. (google on image optimization)

    H1 tags: none or too many

    H1 Tags (and subsequent H tags) are your way to indicate the primary subject area of the page. It should be a few words covering the broadest scope of the page content, using lower Hn tags to indicate sub-content. Generally, the more focused you can make your content subject matter while providing useful information, the better.

    We tend to see one of two errors. First, no H1 tags. This is a relatively simple fix provided you’ve done the keyword research to identify the best way to identify the content.

    The second issue is too many H1 tags. We see this when developers / designers decide to take a shortcut and use H1 tags because of their styling. Take the time to create a css style that will be used for paragraph or content area titles instead of using the H1 tags.

    Duplicate content on… everything

    From page titles and meta descriptions to page content duplication, we see this a lot. The culprit is typically a CMS that was not configured or implemented properly. The CMS may use categories and tags that create folders. If you apply more than one tag or category to a page, there will be more than one url leading to the page. There are other causes, but these tend to be among the most frequently seen.

    Duplicate content is not good, but engines have a tolerance for it when it’s on your own site. However, the issue is that the inbound links to your site on a given topic are diluted if they are spread among duplicate pages of the same content. By directing the inbound and internal links to a single source page, you increase the juice or PageRank of that page relative to the topic.

    Take the time to understand the CMS implementation and plan your categories, tags or other content organizational standards, and prioritize or eliminate components (use 301s if you eliminate). If you cannot eliminate duplicate content, select a primary page source and use canonical ref of all other pages to it, so the search engines know which page to give the ‘juice’ to.

    Broken Links lead to 404s and empty images

    SEO broken links chain demonstration
    Companies have to move fast nowadays and sometimes that means never looking back. But, when this happens we often see things break, but prospective clients didn’t notice. You’re giving up historical benefits and potential content validations when links break. Perusing your site, if it is not too big, or using SEO audit tools can help keep you on top of broken links.

    Counting for, not against

    We have seen some SEOs dismiss issues like this on the basis that the engines can be forgiving as long as the ‘important’ content is clean. However, overall site quality will eventually be affected, which will impact your rankings as user experience deteriorates. On the other side, you are foregoing the benefits derived from juice flowing freely through your site. While the algorithms change and the weight given to anyone aspect of SEO alters, keeping your basic site hygiene up will decrease the impact of any algorithm changes.