You’re the analytics evangelist for Google. Doesn’t every marketer understand the importance of analytics? With hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions using Google Analytics, why would Google need an evangelist, and what do you see as the most important part of your job?

Numbers are hard to come by on this but in my humble experience a tiny fraction of people who should use data productively access it, and a tiny fraction of that actually end up using data effectively. We, as a universe, have a long way to go.

My role at Google is in two parts. In the inward facing part I am the “customer evangelist” as I help shape the vision, direction and features of 13 different Google tools that provide data to customers. In the outward facing role I help the top xx Google customers to leverage data more effectively.

The most important part of my role is that I am a small part of larger effort to create a data democracy in the online world.

All of the above is distinct from my role as a blogger (evangelizing the use of data in web decision making) and as the co-founder of MarketMotive (providing latest online marketing education and certification).

Avinash, following your first book, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, what drove you to write your second book, Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity? Did the field change so much since the first book?

The world indeed has changed a lot in two years, especially in three areas: user centric design, competitive intelligence and social media. There are a raft of new and delicious options that simply did not exist when I wrote the first book.

But the primary impetus behind writing the book was to address challenges that we all now face, challenges that present new opportunities (to engage and influence current and future customers) and how to measure success is a complex ever evolving ecosystem.

An example of that last point is in Chapter 9, if you see Figure 9.04. It makes you stand back and marvel at how we are measuring anything at all!

Even in a “standard” area like paid search analytics there has been so much evolution in the last couple years, analytics of which are covered in the new book.

Do you see both books as an evolution? I mean, would you recommend readers start with the first and then go to the newest one?

It is definitely an evolution.

People who have read the first book should feel that the second book is an immediate step up to a more evolved way of thinking about analytics, from the classic Trinity to the new Web Analytics 2.0. With each chapter there is a new way of thinking about what we already know and assumed. The second half of the book is where all the delicious stuff is that will help you change the game—it covers analytical techniques, social media analysis, competitive intelligence, new ucd approaches and of course things like multi-touch campaign attribution analysis.

If you want to start with the basic and take a gradual course then I recommend Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, but if you are willing to be a bit brave then Web Analytics 2.0 will get you to the goal faster.

I did want to point out that both the book are written for marketers, executives and analysts. You don’t need particular deep technical knowledge to become a analysis ninja.

Can you describe in a few words what is the main philosophy behind the book, the concept of Web Analytics 2.0?

Here is my definition of Web Analytics 2.0.

It is: the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your website and the competition, to drive a continual improvement of the online experience of your customers and prospects, which translates into your desired outcomes (online and offline).

Put simply, it is the art and science behind making intelligent decisions about all you do online—as a company, blogger, non-profit.

One sentence in particular caught my attention: “We’ve evolved from hits to page views to visits. Now we have outcomes.” Can you elaborate on that?

I have become convinced that more of the online world is not data driven because we have been reporting “silly metrics.” By that I mean hits and visits and page views and even visitors. What is the point of all those metrics?

They are all “aggregate” metrics that simply tell you “consumption”.

What they don’t do is answer this question: “What the hell happened?”

That question is important to answer because that is what matters to every senior decision maker, people who cut checks, people who will promote you and me.

Hence my near paranoid focus on first measuring outcomes—what happened as a result of all those people showing up? Did we make money? Are more people coming to my protest against cutting redwood trees tomorrow? Am I wasting my time marketing on twitter? What was the point of using video to sell micro-chips to B2B customers of Texas Instruments? So on and so forth.

God will welcome into sweet heaven people who focus on measuring outcomes. Because outcomes help businesses and people get better each day.

Your book has a lot of great advice for big companies trying to understand how their customers interact with their websites. But if I work for a Small-Medium Business, with a very limited budget, how can I go about implement this strategy? Any advice on whether search marketers should hire skilled web analysts or outsource the job to experts?

The book should be useful to businesses of any size. Throughout the book there are recommendations where to start and what to do first or what tools to use. For example on Page 13 it tells you that if you are a small biz then you must do x first, then y and then z and don’t worry about a and b. Or in Chapter 10 The Ladder to Analytics Nirvana gives a very specific road map for someone who is small to someone who is big. Same thing with Paid Search, Chapter 4 has the basic to medium stuff in terms of what to analyze for higher ROI and Chapter 11 is where all the juicy complex “I am going to be awesome” advanced stuff is.

My hope was to always provide a shallow end of the pool so everyone can get in, then those who want to do more can slowly, with confidence, move to the deeper part.

In terms of hiring… it would depend on your budgets and in-house sophistication. I have come to believe that if you don’t know what you are doing it is best to hire a consultant and put them on a “profitability plan” (i.e. you do the work I don’t know and we’ll both share the profit—not just hourly rates). Over time as your budgets increase, you become a medium sized biz, it is prudent to bring it all in.

Another interesting subject you deal with in the book is the web analytics career. What do I need to succeed as a web analyst? And if my main focus is on SEM, how can your book help me succeed?

You need to loooooove the web and all the glory and all the possibilities. If you don’t have passion for this medium there is no way you can put up with the work that is required.

Other main skills I look for: Initiative. Curiosity. An aptitude for data. Statistics 101. Self taught.

If your focus is on search then first Chapter 13 will help you plan your career effectively and help you create your own path for success. But most of all I am sure at some level we all understand that Search is not everything, certainly not paid search. The book will help you understand how the broad portfolio of online marketing works and of course how to be king by being data driven.

In the end it should make you a more rounded individual, and thus, I hope, a more marketable person in the job market.

You’re well known for the 10/90 rule. Why do you think it’s more important to put the emphasis on people rather than technology? How much is enough? How do you set reasonable goals and know whether you’ve achieved them, or to put your head down and try, try again?

Here is the picture that illustrates my concept of Multiplicity:

What it shows is the breadth and depth of the tools that are required to answer the four important questions: What, How Much, Why and What Else.

Even a few years ago for you to get access to tools would have required you to spend a lot of money, that’s not the case any more. Clickstream? Surveys? Competitive intelligence? A/B or multivariate testing? You got it, every single one has a 95% world class tool available for free.

So having tools (access to data) is no longer the key differentiator between companies, large or small. Having the brains to actually make sense of it all, look to the right tool to get the right answer, be able to actually analyze the data and not just data puke is not cheap. That’s where humans come in, that’s where the strategic differentiator comes in.

I had created the 10/90 rule almost five years ago when I was at Intuit. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would actually be practical, but it is now. Every company in the world should not shoot for 10/90 (10 tools and 90 in people), experiment and find your balance. I think many people start with 10/90 and in a few years might morph to 35/65. No worries as long as you can so ROI impact.

But I have to admit, if you are not egregiously overloaded in the big brains (internal hires or consultants) you don’t stand a chance.

There’s a lot of buzz around attribution modeling, knowing the “value” of certain clicks to the overall conversion process. Is it important to know whether the last click was the major influence on a conversion, or will analytics packages increasingly try to understand the various steps in the overall buying funnel? If so, how?

This is the only question on which I’ll bow out from answering, it is complex and I think the reason we are in the soup we are is we look for shortcut quick answers. There are none. Of course I absolutely apply critical thinking to this in the book and provide answers.

Analytics systems are notorious for delivering vastly different interpretations of seemingly simple data—how users interact with a site. Why aren’t there more standards, and why are the reports from different vendors so different?

This is like asking a four year old boy how come he is so lame that he does not already exhibit the mannerisms and sophistication of a fully grown man.

Our industry is a baby, it is in a growth spurt, we must be patient and let things evolve. And they will.

Complete side note: It is utterly futile to wait for perfect data to make decisions and / or spend time comparing numbers between Omniture and WebTrends. What is the point of it? So we are more comfortable that one piece of data is 5% better than the other? Pause and think for 60 seconds how tv ratings are measured. It will horrify you how the data is collected and subsequently used for multi million dollar decisions. On its worst day the worst third party cookie based tool gives better and more accountable data for Marketing spend online. I personally don’t recommend wasting time trying to get the last 5% accuracy, simply not worth it. Implement tools correctly and completely. Don’t worry about the wife you just divorced. Worry about the one you just married and make a happy life with her.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to do this interview.

Thank you for spending the time to map your most interesting views of this subject, Avinash.

Editor’s note: Want to know more about Avinash’s new book, Web Analytics 2.0? He’s written a short overview of the book in this blog post. You can also buy the book through this affiliate link with Amazon and Avinash will donate 100% of the proceeds to two charities, the The Smile Train and Ekal Vidyalaya.

Advanced link building queries, for the link builders who use them extensively, remain a closely guarded secret. It’s easy to understand why. For one, they want to protect a valued link source from getting flooded with link requests from the general link-seeking public. Secondly, there are some choice opportunities out there that would lose their value if the entire SEO community happened to learn about them.

Another complication with discussing and sharing link building queries is that they’re often tailored towards the linkable and shareable assets of a particular organization. Further, two businesses within the same vertical may have widely different linkable assets, and therefore will need to seek different link targets, which requires different queries.

Despite their link-protecting reticence and the complexity of communication, the 21 link builders I surveyed delivered a highly-valuable array of advanced link building queries. Thank you to all who participated!

Framing the process

In my questions, I asked link builders to respond within this framework:

1. Linkable Asset. Definition: what’s “linkable” varies from vertical to vertical. Cash is almost always a linkable asset, as are available jobs, events, expertise for interviews and many other forms of great content.
2. Link Target. Definition: what types of sites, pages, and people seek this linkable asset?
3. Link Prospecting Query. Definition: what queries uncover great targets for your linkable assets?

This framework couldn’t possibly suit every link builders’ style and expertise. I mention it because you’ll see it in some cases below.

Last notes before digging in – I missed getting queries from some great link builders due to time constraints imposed by my late start (apologies to those I missed!). If you want more sample queries from link builders please say so in the comments (and/or add your own) so I can build the case for a follow-up article. And in closing, I’d like to extend a thank you to the SEO Dojo for their warm welcome and link query suggestions.

Link building queries from 21 link builders

Query #1

Ken McGaffin, Keywords and SEO Blogger for Wordtracker Academy:

Here is a mini case-study on our Firefox plug-in ‘SEO Blogger’ which shows how we create linkable assets, queries and approach people for link building.

The link building project

‘SEO Blogger’ Firefox plug in from Wordtracker

At Wordtracker, we wanted to target anyone who published a blog and we were especially interested in business bloggers. We did a reasonable amount of research on the project and it kicked off with doing queries on Google.

We were interesting in identifying sites that had published articles on ‘business blogging’ or advised people how to blog. We identified our prospects using “intitle” queries on Google.

At the last count, this piece of work netted us over 1,000 links in just a few months.

The queries we used were quite simple but they produced an excellent list of target sites.

Here are the queries I used:

• intitle:”business blogging”
• intitle:”business blogs”
• intitle:”blogging tips”

For each query, I’ll look at the first 100 results and then look to compile a list of what I think are the top 50 or so. I concentrate on the top 50 because it’s cost effective. If I get editorial coverage and links from among the top 50, then I know hundreds will follow their example.

You’ve got to have superb content and publicize it through multiple channels. That’s where we put in the bulk of our efforts. For ‘SEO Blogger’ we had a 7-step process:

1. Created a top notch, free plug-in.
2. We created a section on our Academy specifically to offer free blogging articles as well as a blogging download.
3. We also commissioned an e-book from Chris Garrett, “Blogging for Business” that would generate revenue.
4. About 4 days before launch, we contacted our top 50 researched targets, gave them some copy and invited them to be the first to try our new plugin – we asked them to write about it or tweet it if they found it useful. We gave people a strict embargo.
5. We wrote a series of customized press releases that went to the press list we’ve built up over the years. Note that we suggested how to link to us in all our communications.
6. This is the most important step – we responded to questions and queries almost immediately. That meant assigning people to take on that task. I’m convinced our quick responses helped build trust and relationships.
7. Finally, on release, we tweeted about the launch. Many of the bloggers journalists who we had contacted also tweeted at the same time. The results were fantastic – the synergy we got from these multiple channels is always what I’m after.

In summary,  I think you need to have a commitment to create great, free stuff in order to tap into these link targets.

Query #2

Shaun Anderson, of Hobo SEO Company in Scotland.

One of the simplest ways I use to build links for any business is finding colleges and universities who link degree students and alumni to to job opportunities, and promote their student discount partners online. I consider links from very real sites like these as authority building links.

Obviously the first thing to do is get used to publishing your job vacancies and any offers on your site, and then telling potential linking partners about them. TIP: never take these jobs offline either – just mention “Role Filled” and strike out the text.

• Target Asset = Job Vacancy / Internships For (with your important keywords of course)
• Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
• Link prospecting queries (in Google) = jobs degree site:.ac.uk, careers opportunities site:.ac.uk, careers advice site:.ac.uk, jobs degree site:.edu, careers degree site:.edu, careers advice site:.edu + variations
• View this example page typical of what you might find.

Another variation of this query occurs with colleges and universities who publish links to sites that offer their alumni special student discounts (so effectively, all you need is a student discount for products or services). This is useful even for small businesses in a very tight catchment area.

• Target Asset = Student Discount For (with your important keywords of course)
• Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
• Link prospecting queries (in Google) = student discount partners site:.ac.uk, student discount partners site:.edu + variations
• View this example page typical of what you might find.

Of course, in every case you need to dig around the site in question but offering a student discount to all colleges and universities and building a list of marketing communications offers at unis and colleges and contacting them asking for a link in their newsletter (which many have) in return for a student discount is going to be more rewarding than sending out 1000 unsolicited spam link request emails. TIP – don’t be cheap. The better your offer for students, the better chance you’ll get a link.

Ultimately these kinds of educational links are a win win – they are not hurting either site, and students get a good deal too. If you have good content on your site, you can just go right on and ask them to link to it if they already have a habit of linking out to similar sites to yours, or even send them articles about “How to get a job in {keyword} services” for their careers newsletter or resource section.

Query #3

Eric Ward, content link builder since 1994

Understanding how to use what Google will give you via advanced syntax queries is one of those private strategies where I don’t tell my exact approach, I only sort of hint at it. The specific queries I use are typically client/subject specific.

That said, I could share some vertical/marginally useful ones, say, if the content I am building links for is PBS’ content on volcanoes.

Then, an example target site would be this one.

And, I would have found that target site via a Google query string like this: [volcano learn diagram useful demonstration other links].

Now, this is a beautiful example, and it’s a real example, and it resulted in a topical link obtained, but…most folks who are building links are not doing so on behalf of PBS content about a vertical like “volcanoes”. So, while my example may look nice, and it worked for me because my clients are content creators like PBS, most folks will see my example and crucify me/it as being “unrealistic” for their purposes, since their content is not as “linkworthy” as PBS’s.

Query #4

Wiep Knol, newly of Linkbuilding.nl

Here’s a list of a few queries that I often use or have used in the past to find interesting websites. I left the most obvious ones out, because I assume that most people already know and use these.

Content targeted:

• {keyword} “guest blogger” OR “guest post” OR “guest article” OR “guest column”
• {keyword} “become a contributor” OR “contribute to this site”
• {keyword} “write for us” OR “write for me”
• {keyword} inurl:category/guest

You can refine these queries by using {keyword location} in stead of {keyword}, or by switching to just {location}.

Resource/ research targeted:

• {keyword} “top * [tools/ articles/ websites/ etc.]” -> refine search to ~1 year ago. Contact anybody who shows up and ask if you can help with the 2009/ 20** edition of the article
• {keyword} research -> see explanation above
• {keyword} {location} resources OR “useful sites” OR links
• {keyword} {USP} intitle:resources -> Use ‘green’, ‘cheapest’ etc as USP
• .edu targeted: {keyword} site:.edu “planned research” OR “upcoming project” -> might return upcoming research/ project/ whatever that can be useful (both for info and for links)

To find specific types of websites:

• {keyword} “Powered by phpBB” OR “powered by vBulletin”
• {keyword} “Blog powered by TypePad” OR “powered by Wordpress”

Additionally, one thing that always works very well for me is asking the client what the most important industry related websites and blogs are, and which ones his or her favorite are. Then I do some searching in the LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers of the client and some of his colleagues, and look for connections with these websites. If I find a match, explain to my client how he can use that connection and turn it into a link. This not only results in links to the client website on highly relevant websites that he likes (=a happy client), but it also makes sure that he is building connections that will be useful in the future as well (= life time value).

Query #5

Ann Smarty, SEO Consultant, SEOSmarty.com

• target asset = new low-calorie chocolate product
• key link prospects = mommy bloggers
• link prospecting queries = [pr welcome], [submit * review], [pr friendly], [pr contact], [pr info], [get * reviewed], [allintitle:get * reviewed], [reviews inurl:submit]

• target asset = a contest by fitness equipment store
• key link prospects = bloggers who cover web contests with a link back to the host
• link prospecting queries = [intitle:submit intitle:contest], [allintitle:submit * contest], [blog contests], [submit * giveaway]

Also from Ann: Link Building Search Queries Collection How to Use Google Wildcard Operator for Link Building and Baiting

Query #6

Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link, link building services and training

We begin all custom campaigns by sending surveys to the client’s customer base, which cuts our prospecting time in half and pinpoints the sites and/or types of businesses we need to look for. From there, it’s a simple matter of doing basic research to match sites with our client’s demographic. I depend less on queries for this and more on tools like Quantcast and Compete. If I do need to query, I use all four engines (Google, Ask, Yahoo and Bing) plus DMOZ, Hoovers, Lexis Nexis and local directories. My goal is to find businesses with street and algorithmic credibility to pitch my promotions and content to.

Query #7

Melanie Nathan, consultant for Canadian SEO

Footprints: A footprint is simply common text than can be searched for thereby revealing all the places that use the same text.

For example, a Google search for [Allowed HTML tags:] will bring back all the sites and blogs that allow you to use custom anchor text when commenting.

If you happen to come across an authoritative site that allows you to automatically post content with dofollow links (for example, a classified ad), take note of the form they’re using as footprints left by the form software are easily trackable and can allow you to find other sites that are using the same form.

Some examples of common footprints:

Dofollow blog comments:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["Notify me of follow-up comments?"+"Submit the word you see below:"]

Result: Over 60,000 new prospects (ie. sites that use the same dofollow form software)

Dofollow classified ads:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC"]

Result: Over 40,000 other sites that use the same dofollow classified ad software.

Take it a step further with “drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC”+health and you’ve narrowed it down to only the sites that mention (for example) health.

Keep in mind that these are just 2 very basic examples. Get creative and you’ll be surprised at what you might uncover.

Disclaimer: I am in NO way suggesting that you spam these types of sites. However, if you’re going to spend the time interacting and engaging with other sites and blogs in your industry (for reals!), I AM suggesting that you maximize your efforts by making sure to interact on sites which will offer the most benefit to your organic goals.

Query #8

Wil Reynolds of the ThinkSeer SEO Agency

• Linkable Asset: A prize (product or service of course ;)
• Link Target: The target is charity web sites where we can give something away and be listed as an in kind donor
• Queries: ["in kind donations" list], ["in kind donors" list]

Query #9

Tom Demers of WordStream, the keyword management software company responsible for The Free Keyword Tool.

A couple of things I’m frequently promoting are videos and free tools or widgets. Here I’ll use some pretty generic queries like:

• target asset = Video Content
• link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} videos], intitle:[{target keyword} clips]

• target asset = Free tool/widget
• link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} tools], intitle:[free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of {target keyword} tools]

Then I’ll use SEO for Firefox to export the data and de-dupe and triage the link prospects based on PageRank.

Beyond just pulling down places linking out, you can also identify a few sites that are on multiple lists. From there, pull down their backlink profiles and sort by page rank (using SEO for Firefox) or find sites that are linking to them multiple times using the Hostname Occurrence Counter. At the end of the process I usually have a nice list of potential link profiles.

Query #10

Gab Goldenberg of SEORoi.com

For queries,  I try to find less commercial sites based on insider jargon, insider topics or thinking about communities. So if you are kindergarten related, I’d look up jargon related to parenting or issues like whether you should carry your kid in a sling or if strollers are better. This works better for B2C than B2B, since I can’t see professionals being up for selling links on their sites, vs the general public. I could be wrong though.

For prospects, I target bloggers, members of the said communities.

Building links to B2C sites that can have a related community. It’s harder when you’re selling stuff like toothpaste or ordinary drugstore items without associated communities.

The upside to this is that if you have the budget, you can saturate the key sites in the community with these paid links and build a brand. In which case, you can thumb your nose at Google because you’ll eventually build direct traffic as a key source as well as referral traffic, reduce their ability to penalize you, etc. I wrote somewhere about my friend Rachel who surfs Wikipedia for entertainment. That’s where you want to get to. Where people bypass Google to get to you directly. It’s ironic, but the best SEO will get you to the point you don’t need search traffic any more.

Check out Gab’s 101-tip guide to buying text links.

Query #11

Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures link building service.

Here are a few for you that I have saved in a our database of queries we use for link building:

• “keyword phrase” sponsor charity
• “public library” “useful links” keyword phrase site:.gov
• “useful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “helpful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “favorite keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
• “best keyword phrase” site:.edu OR site:.org
• keyword phrase resources public library site:.us
• keyword phrase site:.edu

Query #12

Members of the Huomah SEO Dojo, SEO Training for Search Warriors.

Many thanks to the fine community at the SEO Dojo for their contributions to this article!

member: fedem of http://www.buyandwalk.com/

• linkdomain:competitor1.com; linkdomain:competitor2.com; -linkdomain:mysite.com

This will give you a landscape of which sites are linking to 2 or 3 of your competitors but not your site. This increase the chances of finding partners willing to link to your site.

Query #13

Ken Lyons of WordStream.

I use search operators to find personal email addresses for link outreach. some of my favorites:

• site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + email
• site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + contact
• site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + email
• site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + contact

From 12 Ways to Find Anyone’s Personal Email Address

Query #14

Craig Parker of Soula.com

Social Media Based queries are obviously useful for commenting and scoping out competition so: site:{SN} {keyword}

Where SN (social network) is digg.com, delicious.com or twitter.com etc. and {keyword} is one of your keywords or brands/competitor brands.

The other one I find quite useful is narrowing down themed directories so:

• {keyword} + “add a site”
• {keyword} + “submit url”

Obviously there are literally loads of combinations of these utilizing different words for directory i.e. “suggest url” or “submit listing”

You can also combine it with the intitle or inurl command for extra fun! Again throw in different words for directory like “list” and you can make lots of combinations on this.

• {keyword} + “intitle:directory”
• {keyword} + “inurl:directory”

They are basic ones but can be often overlooked by those not used to this stuff.

Query #15

Jon Santillan of SEO Dubai

I used search operators to find potential links for my link building campaign using footprinted Scripts. This varies from directory, blog commenting, forum, social media directories and competitors.

• Target Asset = Red Widget
• Strategy – A combination of standard text or content that usually can see in a website
• Ex: Directory = inurl:submit.php intext:Powered by “Directory Name” intext: red widget
• Blog Commenting = intext:red widget intext:blog comments powered by “Comment Plugin”
• Social Media = intext:”Submit A New Story” intitle:Register intext: “Name of Social Media Script”
• Forum = inurl:forum intext:red widget

My favorite: Competitors Footprints. Following competitors Backlinks is the most exciting one, you can use link:competitorsdomain.com and check a potential link partner. By following competitors footprints, you can sometimes see the strategy of their link building, for example, if they are using Directory, Blog Commenting, Social Media or Forum. If by any chance you got the name of a Directory Script, Social media script, plug commenting plugin that is not in your list, you can add that in your arsenal.

Once you have figured out the competitors pattern how they are building their backlinks plus your link building strategy I think that will be easier for you.

In my opinion, combining different search operators and website content pattern is one of most effective link building strategy you just need to be more creative to combine and try different combination.

Query #16

Navin Poeran

I’m using advanced queries in combination with Google alerts, to receive mails, whenever there is somewhere i can drop a link.

I just create a new alert with: OR -mysite.com inurl:links

Query #17

Andy Murd of MMMeeja.

I use this query in Google Image Search to find the little “U Comment – I Follow” logo:

• “MY KEYPHRASE” inurl:ifollow*.gif

For deep links to your blog posts, you can add “CommentLuv Enabled” to find the popular Wordpress plugin.

I make RSS feeds from link-building searches so my feed reader nags me to post a few comments per day.

Query #18

David Harry (The Gypsy) of the Huomah SEO Blog

When reverse engineering link profiles, we use stuff like:

• [linkdomain:huomah.com site:.com "SEO Blog"]
• linkdomain: – searches for links to Huomah.com
• Site; – tells it to look for results from ‘.com’ extensions.
• “SEO Blog” searches the KWs on the page (or hopefully in the anchor text)

Or

• [linkdomain:example.com site:.edu "keyword"]
• [linkdomain:example.com site:.gov " keyword"]

Or maybe if we’re looking for relevant pages, we can track the TITLE

• [linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com intitle:SEO]

Page URLs are strong also, so we might do something like:

• [linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com inurl:"search engine optimization"]

We also can use a variety of low level link trolling with dorks related to:

• [add-links, last-updated 2000 inurl:.edu]

Query #19

Julie Joyce, of the link development firm Link Fish Media

“You can find particularly interesting sites geared towards a very specific interest, by using an organic thought process in which you have no major agenda. This all sounds very New Age but it has led us to some of our best inbound links.

I’ll give you an example for this one, since it’s the only method that isn’t exactly what it sounds like. When working for a site that sells punk rock concert videos, we may search for “punk videos” to start with, then we’ll see a long-tailed search phrase somewhere down in the SERPs on page 3, so we’ll then type that phrase in, then click on the first result, see something on the site’s homepage that triggers an idea, and we’ll end up on a fan site that is devoted to the music of Stiff Little Fingers.

We see that this site seeks to list all online stores that happen to sell Stiff Little Fingers items, and our client has one of these sites. Therefore, it’s a great place to get a link, and it was a somewhat random method of discovery. It’s also relevant but we still go about it in a slightly more haphazard way.”

Excerpted from: 6 Discovery Methods For Finding Ideal Linking Partners

Query #20

Brian Gilley of SocialSEO.com

Drupal Powered Websites (most allow comments links and/or dofollow)

Targeting Drupal sites with the keyword phrase “home mortgages” with comments turned on and that allow HTML links to be added and are almost always followed.

Want to get more specific and search for the keyword in the title. Try the “intitle:” search operator on for size.

Want to get freaky with it and go the broad route and not including Drupal websites or any specific CMS platform? Just search for sites allowing the HTML tag, which usually means a followed link and brings up endless possibilities.

See more tips from Mr. Gilley on how to find backlinks with search queries.

Query #21

Brian Chappell, Search/Social Marketer

Finding people who will want to share your content (…including linking to it…) can be much simpler if you know how to search quickly through the major social networks.

• Linkedin: [site:linkedin.com inurl:in “social media expert”]
• Bebo: [site:.bebo.com inurl:profile inurl:bebo “social media expert”]
• CafeMom: [site:www.cafemom.com inurl:cafemom.com/home/ “stay at home mom”]
• Facebook: [site:facebook.com/people “led zeppelin”]
• Flickr: [site:flickr.com/people “@gmail”]
• Twitter: [site:twitter.com -inurl:statuses -inurl:status “social media expert”]
• MySpace: [site:profile.myspace.com inurl:myspace inurl:fuseaction “go to nc state”]
• YouTube: [site:youtube.com/user “social media expert”]

From: How to Target Users within Social Networks

Additional link query resources:

Two Link Prospecting Query building tools:

• SEOBook Link Suggest Tool
• Link Search Tool by SoloSEO

10 Articles on Advanced Queries for Link Building

1. Long List of Link Searches
2. Five Search Queries to Find Sponsorship Link Opportunities
3. 13 Search Operators for Ultimate Link Building
4. Advanced Link: Operator to Explore Your Competitor’s Backlinks
5. The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 2
6. Link Building Tip: Easily Find DoFollow Blogs Search String
7. Search Engine Query Cheat Sheets
8. Google Hacks for Dorks and SEO prowlers
9. Getting Links From Known, Quality Linkers
10. Eric Ward Queries from Print Search Marketing Standard Interview

To successfully promote a business through social media means walking the finest of fine lines. To market without intruding, to advertise without offending; these things are not easily done. This week, I was thinking about online marketing opportunities using Facebook. And nowhere is the line finer than on Facebook. On that platform, you need to entice your audience to become fans, use your apps and share your content.

You need to achieve this on a platform that is all about friends and family—people are not on Facebook to blog, to chat to strangers or to publicize themselves—they’re there to keep in touch. Tricky.

So, I thought I’d list five Facebook campaigns that have really interested me, by the different ways they have achieved support—or not, in the case of one of my examples.

Aleksandr Orlov – 605,602 fans

Even if that damn meerkat is starting to grate on you (and now he’s launched a soft toy and there are rumors of a Christmas single, get ready for him to begin grating!), his Facebook presence is genius.

His updates are written in exactly the way he talks: they’re sporadic and they’re really very funny. For example: “Today Jacuzzi have finally been fix by Sergei and plunger. Next time he enjoy bubbles I make him wear fur net.”

So why is he so successful on Facebook? Well, it’s partly down to the genius of the initial campaign—it’s really captured the public’s imagination.

However, since then, his success is down to a well-written online persona and Aleksandr’s distance from the brand he’s marketing. Because he isn’t closely associated with the official compare the Meerkat website, it’s okay to become a fan on Facebook—you don’t feel you’re aligning yourself with a commercial brand.

Armed Forces Day – 183,754 fans

Some types of organization can garner hundreds of thousands of fans without marketing brilliance simply by the value of what they stand for—and in the UK, Armed Forces Day is one of those.

With the nation desperate to find ways to support our troops while they fight overseas, there are thousands of online groups dedicated to showing our soldiers some support. The MoD simply relies on this outpouring of public enthusiasm.

So, if you’re a charity or worthwhile cause, your Facebook marketing will be easy as people willingly strive to associate with you. Social media will do you a lot of good for very little investment.

Dunkin’ Donuts—947,414 fans

Okay, hop over the pond to the US (at least for me anyway) and Dunkin’ Donuts is doin’ well on Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of fans are happy to associate themselves with a brand of cake.

How? How come DD has managed to entice so many people to tell their friends and family that they like to eat doughnuts?

Well, as far as I can see, the success of this brand on Facebook is all down to how it involves its fans. During the summer, it ran a campaign where Facebook users could post pictures of themselves on the fan wall with any Coolatta drink. Each day, one of these people would be randomly picked and win prizes.

Now, it invites fans to upload their pictures to its wall and once a week it picks a picture and uses it as the profile image. People like to be involved.

Directgov—11 fans

Now, I’m making an assumption that the Directgov fan page is the actual, official, UK government-endorsed Facebook presence of the public sector website.

So why is it not working? Why only eleven fans when Directgov is such an important, relevant and enormous brand. You’d think there’d be at least some Directgov employees willing to associate themselves.

What’s the reason for its failure then? Well, mainly the page has only been updated once (and that was with the campaign against drug driving where the teenagers all have Dobby the House Elf’s eyes). There has been no initial investment, which is a shame when Directgov normally does such a good job of marketing itself.

Wispa—800,138 fans

People really love Wispas and Cadbury knows how to make this work. Facebook has been an incredible marketing tool for the chocolate bar.

It was relaunced following a Facebook petition that was, apparently, genuinely a public response to the lack of Wispa in their lives. The press coverage alone was immense and Cadbury’s declared this was the first time “the power of the internet played such an intrinsic role in the return of a Cadbury brand.”

Now the brand is giving back—and helping itself to hundreds of thousands more fans. It has promised to give its advertising space to Facebook fans “as a thank you for all the love you’ve shown us.” It’s bought space on more than 1,000 billboards in the UK and Ireland and invited brand fans to submit messages to be put on them—you can read more at the dedicated Wispa Gold website.

That is very clever marketing.

How have you successfully marketed on Facebook? Do you have examples of what doesn’t work? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

If you think social media provides value now, just wait.

From a developer’s standpoint, Twitter is an exciting application because of the freedom provided through their API. A rogue hacker can download one of the many Twitter libraries, connect to the API, query for the top trending topics at that time, take and put the trending topics in irrelevant tweets that are meant to spam Twitter, in the end 4chan‘ing the trending topics that show on a user’s home page for monetary gain.

Let me explain. Or rather, let me quote Superman: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Twitter has essentially given every developer in the world great power by allowing them access to their API. You can make the argument that any API can provide this value. However, due to the sheer amount of content and range of the audience, Twitter takes the cake right now. That is until Facebook releases its search API, if they ever do.

From a business standpoint, Twitter’s API should provide the same excitement. How you might ask? Through savvy content distribution.

So what does this have to do with search engines?

A few months ago I wrote an article on a topic that gained a lot of attention. It was retweeted about 100 times, which wasn’t a huge deal—relatively small in comparison to many other popular articles shared on the web. But what came next was shocking.

Through the retweet button from Tweetmeme, I was able to derive the short URL used to share the link. I also distributed the article by using a short URL link of my own. Using these two short URL links, one posted on the website and the one I created for myself, I setup Google Alerts so that I could track the viral activity of each.

I also took it a step further. I realize that due to the different Twitter clients, web apps, desktop apps, or any of the hundreds of ways to post a Tweet to Twitter, that most likely the short URL would be changed during a retweet, thus diluting my attempt to track the viral activity. To counteract this, I set up a script to check the Twitter search API for Tweets about my article periodically each day. I then logged the URL’s that were included in each Tweet. If the URL showed up more than once, I started to track it with various methods, including Google Alerts.

The point was to try and find out every spot that my article was distributed via Twitter. Luckily right now URL shorteners are usually only used for Twitter, which allowed me to ignore the potential influence from other website applications on the short URL’s.

What I found was a huge opportunity to gain backlinks from posting links in Tweets.

Twitter = content distribution = backlinks

Alarm bells are probably going off telling you that links on Twitter do not count because Twitter utilizes the “nofollow” attribute on all links, and you are correct. Many of my friends who consult for companies on search engine optimization theorize that even though “nofollow” exists, links using the attribute still maintain a measurable value. True or not, I don’t know—but the valuable links from retweets are not search engine backlinks.

The value of the Twitter API comes with giving free access to millions of developers across the globe to your content.

You play the savvy marketing executive and I will play the exceptionally resourceful programmer. You don’t know me and I don’t know you.

Lets say you break a story about Google Wave on your company blog and you ask your bright young intern to Tweet about it with a link to your blog post.

Just after your intern posts the link, I query the Twitter Search API (the beauty of real-time) for “Google Wave” and it serves up your Tweet. Since I am a content aggregator, my cool little script pulls your Tweet down from Twitter to my local database, parses the Tweet for the link to your blog post and removes the shortened link which gives me the full website address to your company blog. I pull the title from your website, and then distribute the result on my website.

Visually, the initial Tweet looks like this:

JoshuaOdmark: Is Google Wave the next best thing? We think so… http://9mp.com/Yxe

And the result that shows on my website:

Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web.

Boom! You just gained a backlink

Of course this is a hypothetical situation with certain assumptions, but you can see how it is possible to gain backlinks through Twitter. The key is to get your Tweets in front of as many third party applications as you can.

You can do this by getting as many retweets for your links as you can. Each and every retweet is an opportunity to gain at least one backlink.

But always remember, nobody likes a spammer. Take the high road and follow Twitter’s acceptable use guidelines. Over time you will keep all of your current followers, continue to gain more, and create an authoritative Twitter account which will pay off in dividends down the road.

Twitter is one of the hottest companies in the world right now and they have the venture capital funding to prove it. So focus on the long-term value by building great content, continuing to build your engaged followers, and the backlinks from retweets will come naturally.

At that point, all that’s left is to count the increase in organic traffic to your website.

Running effective PPC campaigns in B2B markets is a competitive task that can be extremely expensive. That’s why it is so important for search marketers to run efficient campaigns that create maximum value for those high-cost clicks. So what can you do to be more competitive and increase ROI, even as these tough economic times are shredding your budgets?

Measurement. Better yet, effective measurement. Because, as we all know, you can’t improve what you don’t accurately measure.

If you’re like most search marketers, you’ve often wished for more insight into your campaigns than what AdWords alone can provide. You may also be looking for a ‘one-stop’ place to analyze all of your PPC data from all engines and efforts. Recent upgrades and enhancements to Google Analytics make both possible.

While those of us who rely heavily on Google Analytics (GA) are still getting up to speed on the new features released in October, it is important to get back to GA 101 and look at the features that can really give you the most bang for your PPC buck.

In this article, I’ll present four steps to improve PPC performance by using Google Analytics:

Before we continue, there are some assumptions and necessary steps for success. Most important, however, is that GA has been properly installed on the website pages that you are tracking. If you are unsure about this, please stop here and read this.

Another assumption is that you have used the GA URL Builder, or compatible application, to build your keywords for the other engines. More information on this is available within Google Analytics support documentation.

Linking your AdWords account to your GA account

The biggest benefit to using Google Analytics to measure you PPC efforts is its ability to have all of your data in one place. Linking your AdWords account to GA brings all of your PPC data to a single, customizable repository you can use for measurement and reporting.

Before you link your account, ensure that you’ve used the same Google Account email address for both your Analytics and AdWords account, and that the AdWords login email address has Admin access on the Analytics account. If you haven’t used the same Google Account, simply add your AdWords login email address to your Analytics account as an Account Admin.

• Go to Reporting>Google Analytics
• If you already have an Analytics account, click I already have a Google Analytics account
• From the Existing Google Analytics Account drop-down list, select the name of the Analytics account you’d like to link to
• Click Link Account
• Next time you log in to AdWords, go to  Reporting>Google Analytics and you should be linked up

Setting up your GA Dashboard

One of the greatest strengths of GA is the ability to customize your initial screen or dashboard view to display data that is most important to you every time you log in.

All GA reports have an “Add to Dashboard” icon in the upper left side of the screen. If you have a report that you use daily/monthly, click this button to add it to your front-page dashboard for easier access. The four fundamental reports that we will review should definitely be part of your GA Dashboard.

Setting up GA goals

As I said earlier, you can’t improve what you don’t accurately measure. And you can’t accurately measure your PPC performance without clearly defined goals or metrics for success. There are many factors that go into creating goals. You should consider the following issues when setting goals:

• Did you or the client help with these goals?
• Match types/Case Sensitive. Are they working?
• What are your conversion goals for the site?
• Do you have a good idea of what the user is doing while on your site to get to that goal?

Google Analytics is most powerful when you are tracking these additional steps as well as the goal itself. Be sure to get buy-in from your client or your boss before creating these goals. What you think is a good goal may not be right for them. You all need to be on the same page to prove the success of your campaigns.

Creating reports to measure success

The Google Analytics interface is full of pretty charts and graphs that can be intimidating to even the most seasoned search marketers. To turn that stream of data into useful and actionable information, you must create reports that give you the information you need when you need it. They can be canned GA reports or custom reports you create yourself. Either way, these reports will give you the ability to extract and present your successes and show you where there is room for improvement.

In Part two of this step by step guide, I will discuss four fundamental GA Reports to help you manage your campaigns.

Despite indications that the U.S. economy is starting to turn around, low consumer confidence will undoubtedly have an impact on retail sales this holiday season, making every consumer’s online search, browsing and buying experience more critical than ever. The challenge for online retailers is not only to get shoppers to your site, but keep them there and entice them to make a purchase.

Niraj Shah recently gave helpful search marketing tips for the holidays, and Stephan Spencer shared advice on SEO during the upcoming shopping season. Both stress the importance of strategic search engine marketing to help with the first step: driving shoppers to your website. But once they get there, what if your website takes too long to load? The images in your product catalog don’t appear, or your checkout page times out? Delivering a poor end-user experience will leave all your SEM efforts wasted.

Delivering a great user experience when shoppers are on your website is the best weapon that online retailers have to convert holiday visitors into loyal shoppers and customers. Given that consumer expectations on the responsiveness of your web pages and applications have increased drastically, testing web performance in advance can help ensure that every shopper can navigate through the site quickly and successfully.

Here are five suggestions for online retailers to ready their website for the holiday rush.

Measuring, measure, measure. Just as the old saw “location, location, location” means everything in the brick-and-mortar world, measurement is the key to success in the online realm. Proactively measure your web performance to get an understanding of how your web store is performing at all times. Synthetic monitoring tools regularly check website and application performance around the clock.

Continuously monitor store functions, including the home page, site search function, product catalog checkout process, login and order confirmations. Analyze the performance and availability of these website features during peak periods to gain insight into how well your site will perform during high user demand.

Don’t rely on your customers to point out web issues. If customers are calling to tell you there is a problem on the website, it is already too late. Consumers want a seamless web experience, and errors, especially during the checkout process, can cause cart abandonment and lost customers.

Deploy a website performance monitoring strategy that comprehensively checks your site from different locations around the world and generates instant, real-time alerts when page errors or performance issues occur. That way, you can get ahead of the problem and proactively identify a solution before it impacts the end-user experience and store results.

Test the visitor capacity limits of your website. In addition to performance monitoring, load testing is another critical step in preparation.

Performing a load test prior to the start of the holiday shopping season will allow you to test your site’s limits and make the necessary adjustments to support anticipated shopper levels.

If you are preparing for Black Thursday or Friday, introducing new functionality to your website or launching a new advertising or promotional campaign and expecting an increase in traffic, it is imperative to determine how many users your site can handle in advance.

Take time to role play. One of the best ways to gauge your customers’ experience is to experience it for yourself. Look for a web performance monitoring service that lets you simulate user activity at every stage of the online experience. Walk through users’ typical click streams from searching, to shopping cart, to checkout, constantly checking to make sure each element is functioning properly.

For the most value, combine this effort with regular, detailed reporting and monitoring from a variety of locations to ensure total website performance.

Have a back-up plan in place. Even with the most dedicated planning and efforts, unexpected problems can occur. That is why it is a good idea to have a plan in place to handle website errors and downtime. One way to do this is to have a personalized downtime message ready should you need it.

Rather than having an error message appear with language that the majority of consumers will not understand, create a branded message that lets your customers know you are aware of the issue and it is being worked on. You can never go wrong with adding a bit of humor to the message as well.

The holiday season offers a huge opportunity for online retailers to capture sales and new customers, even in a tough economy. Website testing, monitoring, and performance measuring are the keys to unlocking a successful user experience for customers and successful conversion rates for retailers.

As SEO rapidly becomes a core task for local business owners, there’s a new temptation to build advertising messages or tracking mechanisms into business listings on the web. Typically, this might mean adding a slogan or campaign tagline to a business name or changing an office address to appear local to more customers. Unfortunately, this misguided enthusiasm can negatively impact the way search engines rank local business listings based on variations in company name, address and phone number (NAP, for short).

Business listings—name, address, phone number—are a company’s fingerprint and single unique identification point—much like an individual’s social security number. If businesses don’t manage their listings consistently across the web, a company could be walking into an identity management problem.

Although some might think adding multiple names or phone numbers to a business listing will increase real estate space on the web, the truth is variations can have an acutely long-term and far-reaching negative impact on a businesses’ online presence. It can even result in a business being delisted by a search engine.

Here are a few important rules for you to remember about your online business listings. These rules are for local business listings, but you can find broader SEO tips for your web site on SearchEngineLand’s Local’s Only columnist Andrew Shotland Local SEO Guide.

Rule #1: Don’t change a phone number in your business listing to evaluate metrics. Do not change your company phone number within a business listing. Although call tracking measurement is important for advertising, remember that your online business listing is not an advertising channel. If a business modifies or adds a different phone number to the foundational layer or the index of local search, search engines will view the business differently and the company will risk being delisted by search sites, including Google’s Local Business Center.

What some businesses do not realize is that if Google finds duplicate listings for a business, they may be deleted or merged with a “similar” looking business listing within the index until further verification takes place to identify the accurate listing. This can take several weeks. Again, a business listing should be a brick or foundation piece and you should layer your marketing on top of it. If you have to add an alternate phone number to your business listing, make sure it is clearly marked as a secondary number so that a duplicate listing isn’t created.

Rule #2: Do not add seasonal keywords to a business name—or any keywords for that matter—to a business listing. A leading financial services company recently tied seasonal keywords to their business name, changing their corporate name for online listing and SEO purposes. The company suffered disastrous results in Google Maps as well as other search engines because duplicate business listings were detected. They were delisted from Google’s Local Business Center for a lengthy period of time because of this change, hurting their local search web presence, fragmenting their reputation and compromising their identity in the long run.

Adding or changing keywords is similar to Google finding various phone numbers for a business at a single mappable address. Changing or adding to a business listing can disturb the linking structure that puts a businesses’ name in the search engines’ rankings, which ultimately puts a company in front of potential customers.

Also, if you are hiring branding agencies, SEM marketers or public relations agencies to raise online visibility, make sure that they understand that your NAP is your local search identity and should remain unaltered in their promotional efforts. Seasonal keywords, products carried, services offered and the keywords that describe your business are essentially important, so provide appropriate keywords within your listing by adding them below your NAP to help drive search results.

Rule #3: Do not add a duplicate address to a business listing to appear local to more consumers. Some businesses trying to market to multiple areas in a region might think that by adding additional addresses to appear uber-local will generate more customer calls.

Not so fast—this seemingly smart trick can create confusion in local search by creating multiple identities for your business location making it difficult for search engines and your customers to find you. It also fragments your reputation by allowing conversations, ratings and reviews about your business to be stored and distributed with a “fabricated” location. It is crucial to have one business address so that the major search engines—especially when dealing with long tail queries—can find all relevant information about your company. Multiple locations appearing within a single listing will only create noise and fragmentation that search engines choke on.

It is crucial that a business owns its name, address and phone number in as many places as possible and keeps listings consistent for all search engines and data providers. Don’t confuse business listings with advertising. Instead, create a solid foundation. Give search engines the ability to aggregate as much consistent content as possible about your business. That in turn, will give your business maximum online visibility.

Marshall McLuhan was the Canadian educator, scholar and philosopher who popularized the term “global village” way back in the hippie sixties. He coined the phrase in reference to the effects of mass media on the world, in that it enabled people to instantly experience the effects of their actions on a global scale.

At the time, most people were probably more concerned with skipping the light fandango than fretting over the mass-communication musings of Mr. McLuhan. Today, McLuhan’s observations seem more than a little astute, given the proliferation of the internet across the globe.

Digital technology has shrunk the world—time and space no longer inhibit real-time communication like they once did. A business in Uptown Chicago can communicate just as easily with the UK as they can with downtown. A simple laptop and broadband internet connection can reduce oceans to streams, making online marketing one of the most powerful sales channels available to 21st century business.

But the unity of the market in the global village breaks down when it comes to language: there is no universal language.

English may have emerged as the de facto language of international business and, subsequently, the web, but any organization that is looking to make serious inroads into foreign markets shouldn’t allow the fact that many foreigners speak English obscure the following facts:

• Asia accounts for over 40% of the world’s internet users
• China has 30% more internet users than the US
• 75% of the world’s population speaks no English at all
• Internet users are four times more likely to buy from a website in their native language
• People search the internet in their native tongue

Online marketing and SEO go hand in hand. With international markets, localization is an obligatory addition, given the cacophony of cultural and linguistic complexities that come into play.

Take French for example. In France, dîner is “evening meal,” but in French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland it means “lunch”. Similarly, déjeuner is “lunch” in France, but “breakfast” in Belgium and Switzerland.

There are clear differences between standard German and Swiss German too. For example, the Swiss don’t use the “ß” (Eszett) symbol, choosing to use “ss” instead. And Switzerland sometimes uses a different grammatical gender to that in Germany (e.g. “das E-Mail” instead of “die E-Mail”). There are many such examples from within Europe alone that help to highlight the importance of following a strict localization strategy.

When launching a foreign language website, it goes without saying that you should always use a professionally qualified translator who is a native speaker not only of the language in question, but the precise country variant too. Now we can talk search.

Keyword translation

Research from eConsultancy has shown that more than half of European marketers planned to increase their SEO activity this year. When converting this activity onto the international arena, however, there are a few issues to be wary off.

As a general rule of thumb, translating keywords is a bad idea. Even if a search term is correctly translated, it may not be what people use to search for a product or service locally.

The term “car insurance,” for example, ranks highly on Google. A correct translation of this into French is “l’assurance automobile.” However, by checking the keyword tool on Google France, it’s clear that most consumers search with “assurance auto” or “assurance voiture” instead. You can avert a major SEO travesty by carrying out just a little research.

With some languages, English keywords can be imported directly. In German, English words are often used with regards to technical and web-based terminology. Terms such as “web design,” “web designer” and “design web,” for example, rank very highly on Google Germany’s keyword tool, meaning a business that ranks highly for those terms in the US or the UK would be fine to import them straight into their German language website. But the business would need to have this checked by a native German speaker first.

Language, SEO and the web

If any persuasion is needed as to the wisdom of adopting a proper multilingual marketing strategy, consider this: English may be the dominant language of the web in terms of content, but over fifty percent of all Google searches are in languages other than English. This figure is likely to rise as online populations grow far quicker in foreign language-speaking emerging markets such as China and Russia, than in the west.

This creates a great opportunity for international marketers. Because online competition for key search terms in foreign languages is much less fierce than in English, many businesses find that they can attain lucrative high positions on country-specific search engines, with much less effort than in English.

If this tells you anything, it tells you this: a multilingual marketing and localization strategy should underpin any international campaign, with SEO playing a pivotal role.

It pays to address the linguistic and cultural complexities that come with targeting foreign markets and you must speak to customers in their own language. By using inappropriate style, terminology and grammar, key messages are often lost and overall confidence in a brand diminishes.

Marshall McLuhan was ahead of the game in realizing the changes that mass media would bring to the world’s consciousness. But language is one of the last remaining barriers in creating the global village he envisaged.

There are two key factors crucial to assuring the success of any large SEM optimization process: First, tuning the campaign so that it is efficient and second, scaling the account while maintaining the efficiency you’ve gained. In any SEM account there will be a relatively small set of keywords that are naturally efficient (usually but not limited to branded terms) but that only drive limited volume. As a result, the goal is to use the tools available to identify incremental opportunity without losing profitability. In my work, I use three processes to identify qualified incremental opportunity: keyword expansion, impression share analyses and sophisticated bid management logic. When used together, these three processes can effectively identify opportunities for growth while keeping ROI/CPA under control.

The most basic approach to identifying incremental opportunity is through keyword expansion. Blindly expanding keyword sets has the significant risk of being unprofitable. However, if you have to expand blindly, be sure to implement a robust negative keyword set—limiting the potential detrimental impact of new, unproven terms. A more efficient methodology is to use the AdWords search query report to identify queries that have been broad or phrase matched by terms that are currently in your account. Adding terms which have converted (assuming the account is using Google conversion tracking) in exact and broad match pre-qualifies their relevance, mitigating risk as these terms are likely to continue to convert. While this process is not as fast, risk is negligible.

If you’ve had a meeting with a Google account team in the last 6 months or listened in on any holiday webinar, you’ve heard of impression share—a fantastic tool for identifying incremental traffic opportunities. Impression share (IS) metrics are available at the campaign level and consist of four unique data points:

1. Impression share: the percentage of impressions garnered relative to total impressions available
2. Lost IS (rank): the percentage of lost impressions due to rank
3. Lost IS (budget) the percentage of impressions lost due to budget limitations
4. Exact match IS: the percentage of exact match impressions garnered relative to total exact match impressions available.

If you take the sum of impression share, lost IS (rank) and lost IS (budget), the total will be 100%. These indicators are directional in the sense that they do not give truly actionable insight outside of whether you need to increase rank or budgets to get more impressions. That said, if you’re using Google conversion tracking or have the ability to track revenue/conversion data at a campaign level, it’s easy to see which campaigns are converting and have incremental volume opportunity.

This report starts to get really useful when you add an additional column, Ad distribution: with search partners. In general, Google.com tends to deliver more qualified traffic than its syndicated search partners, so with distribution-level insight at the campaign level, you can determine the average rank necessary to maximize Google.com traffic without maximizing syndicated traffic. Analyzing keyword level data to identify terms that are performing well with a rank that is above (the integer value is greater than) the “ideal” rank will provide an actionable data set to work with.

On the topic of ranking, before maximizing volume by pushing terms to a specific rank, it’s worth running a rank-based analysis to identify the ideal rank in terms of performance. Holding quality score, ad copy and landing pages constant, there is an “ideal” rank range where terms will maximize CTR relative to CPC (for more insight on ad rank calculations, see my post, how to get more PPC traffic for less money). In other words, analyzing the relationships between rank vs. CTR and rank vs CPC will yield a range (for example, 2.5 to 3.5) which has the most lucrative ratio of CTR to CPC. The image below shows an example using branded data:

When determining the ideal range, be sure to factor in conversion data to identify the max CPC you are willing to pay (through substitution and knowledge of the AdWords ad rank algorithm, we can determine: Max bid = goal ROI * average order value * conversion rate). When looking to maximize volume, aim for a rank that is at the more aggressive end of the ideal rank range. As this is simply a rank-based analysis, conversion rate is not expected to change as rank changes. If the goal is to boost conversion rates, other optimization techniques such as pre-qualifying traffic via ad copy and landing page tests are more likely to help.

The third tool for scaling with efficiency is bid management. It’s easy to lose track of ROI when managing terms to a given rank. This is why it’s important to identify a range within which you can manage for efficiency. Adjust bids to keep average rank at the keyword or match type in the ideal range (for example between ranks 2 and 7 to ensure first page exposure), then you can increase bids when ROI is above goal and decrease bids when ROI is below goal. This task can be tedious, which is why AdWords has developed conversion optimizers and rank-based optimizers (however both tools cannot be used in tandem). This is why most SEM software providers will allow logical rules to be implemented at the keyword or even match type level to automate the process, respecting the rank and efficiency parameters.

There’s a lot to think about when trying to efficiently scale an SEM effort. As always, when using each of these tools, often times together, don’t lose track of the underlying goals of the account (ROI, CPA, CPC, etc) as a byproduct of driving incremental volume.

Can you apply the spirit of social media to other marketing channels?

At this year’s SMX East, after my presentation on Landing Page Usefulness—emphasizing a “usefulness” mission over “usability” tactics—it struck me: great landing pages can bring many of the ideals of social media to paid search marketing campaigns.

Here are five principles of social media marketing that can energize your landing page program:

1. Engage in specific conversations, not generic one-size-fits-all talk.

When a company engages in social media, the worst thing it can do is echo canned, cut-and-paste responses to every incoming comment. It’s painful just to imagine! Yet many paid search marketing campaigns commit that very faux pas: a user clicks on a keyword/ad combination with a specific promise, and then they are unceremoniously tossed to a general-purpose page. Such “message mismatch” between keywords/ads and their associated landing pages damages brands and hobbles conversion rates.

The reason I advocate deploying dozens—or even hundreds—of landing pages is because doing so lets you deliver focused and well-matched introductory dialogues with respondents, framed in their terms. As I said in my presentation, the goal is have respondents exclaim, “thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for!”

It’s not about optimizing one page to rule them all—an illusory, marketer-centric fantasy—but deploying many separate pages that each speak authentically to their niche. That’s the kind of respect that honest social media marketing shows to people reaching out to you, and a good landing page strategy can live up to the spirit of that goal.

2. Embrace “constant content,” continually releasing new ideas out into the world.

From blogging to tweeting, the engine of social media is the frequent generation of content. Hopefully it doesn’t take a committee or half a dozen pairs of hands to put up a new blog post or to update your Facebook fan page. The incentives in social media are to be fast, prolific, experimental, relevant and real.

The same tenets should apply to landing pages.

Sometimes, when I suggest that people should publish dozens or hundreds of landing pages, I get a look of incredulity: how could we ever create so many landing pages? Yet organizations who embrace social media marketing produce 10-times as much content without breaking a sweat. The resistance to such agile production of landing pages is often a hang-up from the bygone days of long-cycle web development. Today, deploying new landing pages should be as easy as—maybe even easier than—posting to your blog.

If you have a good content management system (CMS), a nice collection of page design templates, a shared library of images, maybe a few reusable Flash components, and a standardized mechanism for data collection and analytics tracking, then you’re ready to crank out landing pages on demand. And if you don’t have all of those pieces yet, none of them are particularly difficult to put in place.

3. Harness fast feedback to learn about your audience.

Arguably the best feature of social media is that it lets you tap into candid and immediate feedback from your market, albeit in an unstructured manner. It’s a wonderful environment to put ideas out into the community and quickly gauge reaction.

However, you can also solicit a different kind of feedback—more quantifiable and more directly connected to sales—through rapid experimentation with landing pages and keyword buys. Participation is more predictable with such PPC experiments, and the results can be easily benchmarked against your e-commerce or lead funnel metrics. It’s a small, low-risk investment that can help you discover big wins.

Struck with a novel theory about an unaddressed customer segment over your morning coffee? Don’t just hypothesize about it or file it for the next quarterly planning meeting. Launch a targeted search ad and tightly matched landing page for it before lunch and have real-world feedback by the next day. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can test and tweak as you go along—an ongoing feedback loop.

Ads and landing pages also lend themselves to A/B tests, in a more controlled fashion than variations in social media tactics. If you structure your tests with good hypotheses, you can learn a lot about audience preferences and personas.

4. Open up a dialogue by asking relevant questions—and respecting the answers.

Social media is a conversation, not a soliloquy. People can ask questions, usually quite informally, to help identify the content or information that’s most relevant to their interests. This allows a single discussion to adapt itself to many different participants.

A similar dynamic can be achieved with landing pages. Sometimes, you have to field clicks from keywords/ads that appeal to several different segments of respondents. Instead of reducing the specificity of your content to a bland common denominator—the ill-fated, one-page-to-rule-them-all approach—start by offering them a few meaningful choices. Are you more interested in A, B, or C? Based on their one-click selection, you then deliver more detailed content that’s tailored to their needs.

This technique is known as multi-step landing pages or conversion paths. It can be a tremendous source of feedback, especially when you test different types of choices. However, it’s crucial that the choices genuinely help respondents find what is most useful to them—you want segmentation that benefits users, not just marketers. Remember, we’re striving for that “thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for” effect.

5. Champion transparency and authenticity over cleverness and technology.

The essence of social media is its authenticity, plain and simple. You can try to manipulate it with gimmicks and complicated machinery, but such machinations tend to fall flat. People love what’s real in social media, not what’s artificially crafted to appear real. Human trust is more important than plastic perfection.

Certainly this holds true with landing pages as well. There’s no shortage of sophisticated software you can use to dynamically alter your pages to users based on their IP address or behavioral profile. You can layer rules upon rules to calculate the optimal offer for each respondent. But inevitably, such overly processed experiences lose their authenticity.

Similarly, you can play UI tricks to try to force people to engage with your page (e.g., you must fill out this form before continuing!), but it’s almost always more of a turn-off than a successful hard-sell tactic. If you’re going to remove your regular navigation choices from a landing page, do so because it helps eliminate clutter for a respondent in that context—but still always give them an option to easily jump to your main site.

Be genuine, creative, open, and enthusiastic in your landing pages, and you will win more converts.

Landing pages, like social media, are something that you get better at by doing. So release your inhibitions and make more landing pages.