Social Media can be great for your business – great opportunities for marketing. Awesome with local search, etc. But do I think this is now the one and only way to market your business? No way. Do I think that Search Marketing, in a more general sense, that includes social is the one and only way to market your business? No, but it is the best, most cost effective and targeted way to market your business.

Just a couple of the more salient points in the argument – search engine marketing helps people who are actively looking for your product or service to find it – they don’t have to know who you are first. Social media primarily helps spread the word among friends and followers. Someone has to know who you are first, even if you initiate the relationship – it’s not going to go anywhere if no one knows who you are – so search engine marking needs to be the first priority when planning a marketing budget for your web site. This will lay the ground work for any social media and local search. I mean, if you are gonna use local search, you should probably optimize for it, especially if you are offering goods and services that are locally based, as in they can’t be shipped. If you are a dentist or install pools, you’ll want to optimize for your locality as well as the goods and services you are offering. Once you have that all in place, or concurrently, you’ll want to get into social media to “spread the word” – social media really is the new word of mouth advertising – so you should use it to your advantage as much as possible – and track what is being said about you online. People are much faster to complain about a restaurant or other business via Twitter or Facebook, than they are to promote it – so if you want it to be used to your benefit, make sure you are paying attention to what’s being said so you can rectify any complaints or issues ASAP.

This will continue to be an discussion as social media gets bigger and bigger. Social media has absolutely changed the way every size of business markets – of course it did – it’s cheap, it’s relatively easy, and it gets some results. It’s essentially put marketing in the hands of the consumer – which is great – more power to the consumer – but this is also why you really have to pay attention to reputation management – it’s essential to know what people are saying about you – the good and the bad. Social media has made it essential that you be friendly, outstanding, and special, or you are going to be tweeted about. If you are rude – tweet, tweet. If you are ordinary, no tweet. If you go above and beyond, likely tweet. Gotta go for the above and beyond – and really that makes everyone work harder, try to be nicer – win win, right?

There’s a great article over at Mashable with some tips on how Social Media has changed Marketing, as well as some things you can do to get started. The author recommends getting your employees tweeting and using social media to promote your company. This is a great idea – but I’d keep in mind that it is the first place they will turn sour on you if you part ways in an unfriendly manner – just sayin’. We’ve all seen it happen a time or two.

As is widely known, Google’s mission statement so far has been: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. I guess it makes sense that Google’s product is, in more accurate terms is actually knowledge. They are compiling knowledge and making it easier for users to find. I don’t think too many people are going to be switching all the terminology associated with ‘search’ right away, but who knows down the line? Google, for the foreseeable future, owns 70% of the market share in what we now call ‘search’. Perhaps down the road the terminology will switch to Knowledge Engine Optimization – rather than Search Engine Optimization. This change in terminology could have a desirable effect on some site owners. If they know that they need to provide information…i.e. – knowledge, it may make them more likely to produce more relevant sites, copy, etc.

As Michael Arrington from TechCrunch pointed out ‘The problem is, “search” still means “search.”’ Google hasn’t really promoted this change, and they have made some internal personnel changes along with this name change. I think what it gets down to is specifics. Search will always be search, but that will become known as the user end, not the provider end. Google is making these subtle but purposeful changes to let their staff, and later, the public know that they are in the business of providing knowledge. If your site does not provide knowledge, it probably won’t do too well in Google’s “Knowledge” rankings. At least, that’s where this is headed, in my opinion. Not a drastic change in actuality. Google has always maintained that relevance was key. If you have a highly relevant site for your niche, topic or keyphrase, then you will do well. If not, then your site might not rank as well as you would like. Google, in it’s massive book scanning, map making, etc., etc….has been on a knowledge gathering spree all along. Perhaps they have decided that it’s time to drive the focus on making that knowledge as accessible to the public as possible. Or maybe they are just being incredibly arrogant. What’s your call?

http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202486373422&Web_Host_Liable_for_Contributory_Infringement
Sheri Qualters All Articles
The National Law Journal

So here’s the basic rundown: A web hosting and SEO firm in South Carolina called Bright Builders hosts a site and provides SEO services for a counterfeit golf club company. The fake golf club company openly states on it’s site that they make and sell the best fake Cleveland Golf clubs on the internet. Cleveland Golf gets wind of this and sues. Judge decides a verdict against Bright Builders (the web hosting company) to the tune of $770,750!!!!!!! The fake golf club guys get a jury return of a mere $28,250 statutory damages verdict.

A lawyer (Finnerty) in the case maintains that hosting a web site is the same as being a landlord –
“A Web-hosting company’s obligation is similar to that of a landlord’s, he said. A landlord doesn’t have the obligation to act as an investigator against his tenants to find out they are doing anything illegal, but once they knew or should have known, they have to act,” Finnerty said. “How is that any different online?”

Basically stating that a Web hosting company has a minimal obligation to know what they are hosting, as a landlord has a minimal obligation to know whom he is renting an apartment. If the hosting company or SEO provider discovers something remiss, or flat out illegal, they are obliged to report it.

I guess that’s just basic common sense. I don’t know that I want to get hit with a monetary judgment because I wasn’t aware of what a client had on a Web site TKG is hosting or does SEO for. I think for the most part, we are fairly familiar with all of our clients and would notice something going on. In this particular case, it was clear and obvious that Bright Builders knew what was up, and just didn’t do anything about it. TKG has always upheld the highest Web standards, and hopefully, this would never be an issue. That being said, we host hundreds of Web sites, and a few are just hosted here, we haven’t touched them other than to host.

As law catches up to technology, we’re going to see more and more of these cases. Judges are going to have to try and use existing law as a precedent, as in the landlord example. Or they are going to be setting landmark precedents. Hopefully, these types of cases will be decided justly, and won’t impinge on the freedom of the Web.

What are your thoughts on this case? Do you think the hosting company should have been liable for damages, or do you think it’s a crock? I think I am in the middle on this one. If they were aware of the situation, then yeah, they are liable, but I don’t see how they are more liable than the actual site owners. That one baffles me a little. What say you?

SEO STRATEGIST – Just as our SEO department keeps growing, as does the number of SEO staffers going part time due to motherhood, so we need more strategists! If you have experience, and know your way around SEO, send us your resume, we’d love to talk to ya!

SEO SALESPERSON – Because SEO is vital to any website’s success, we are on the lookout for a great sales person who truly understands SEO, and how it impacts a site’s conversions. If you believe in the fundamental importance of SEO, and can demonstrate it to your client, give us call!

ACCOUNT MANAGER If you are great at client interaction, and can run interference between two departments who rely on each other to work together, check out this job posting – we need ya!

RECEPTIONIST – Hannah is moving up in the world, becoming a personal assistant for Stacy in HR, and me. On second thought, this could be construed as a step down, as she’ll have to contend with me, but she’s too nice to mention what a pain in the neck I am.

If you’re interested in any of the above positions, I invite you to stop over and check out our offices. I think you’ll be in for a great surprise – a laid back atmosphere, pool, foos, darts and a nice deck when you need a little down time. Casual dress, friendly faces and some pretty awesome aesthetics to keep the creative juices flowing. Drop by, we’d love to meet you.

That being said, social media is good, too, and should be a secondary consideration. Jamie Turner over at Mashable has a pretty interesting post about the Social Media ROI Cycle. According to Jamie’s post, there are three stages of a social media ROI cycle: Launch, Management and Optimization. A bit backwards from the way we do and SEO strategy, at least from a web developer’s best practices standpoint. We would, depending on what the client wanted to undertake, recommend for a new site, while the copy is being developed, optimization going forward would be a great thing – ready for the search engines at launch. Any social media strategy should be on top of a traditional SEO campaign.

This is of course the best case scenario, but it makes the most sense. Once you launch, you manage, or analyze and tweak your on going SEO efforts, which might include some social media. Regularly re-examining your strategy will help you decide if social media is a good fit for your company. Regular tweaking of your ongoing SEO is a must. Good copy, a well developed site, and carefully constructed SEO is always going to give you a good ROI. Social media is great, and has been the icing on many cakes so far, and it will continue to be a major part of any online marketing strategy. But SEO is the cake, it’s fundamental.

There are many, many ways to plan and implement SEO strategy, and some of them do fall into a grey area. A really good SEO won’t try most of them, and will stick to what is considered “white hat” or “ethical SEO”. Overstock.com, as of yesterday, their rankings dropped to the 5th or 6th pages for many phrases that they had been ranking well for in the past, according to the Wall Street Journal. Overstock approached colleges and universities, asking them to link to product pages for bunk beds and other items with a 10% off discount for college students and faculty. It’s a good idea, except that it doesn’t fall within Google guidelines. I don’t know that I would call it unethical. More stupid, since you really don’t want to be penalized by Google. Therefore, it falls into the “grey” category.
JC Penny has also has some trouble in recent weeks with Google. It seems that JC Penny did not do their homework before hiring an SEO, and ended up getting more than they bargained for. You’d think they would have questions for this SEO when they were suddenly ranking first for everything from area rugs to dresses. It was eventually brought to light that the SEO was employing some seriously stupid, and majorly black hat SEO techniques. I guess the guy paid a good bit to throw a couple thousand links back to JC Penny all over the web with anchor text like “dresses” and “samsonite luggage” and hundreds more on sites all over the web. Some had a vague relevancy, but most did not. So, JC Penny’s rankings are tanking. JC Penny is also firing back, unappreciative of the “exposé” by the New York Times, or Google’s response. Within hours JC Penny’s rankings all fell significantly.

So what is up Google’s sleeve after a month of big retailers using some grey hat and black hat strategies to gain rankings? They’ve come up with algorithm designed to weed out “cheaters” and low quality sites. What’s a low quality site? Any site that does not serve it’s own purpose: link and content farms, ones with no copy or little copy, just ads, or copied content. The new algo will help Google determine how people interact with the sites. It’s supposed to weed out low quality sites, but the specifics of how it works, of course, have not been released. Some data from Chrome, I am sure helps them determine what users consider low quality sites.

I think that no matter what search engine you use, you have to consider what has always been the case with search. This algo changes none of that – you still have to go with high quality content, fresh content. And a white hat SEO…

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380306,00.asp
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/25/did-googles-algorithm-update-go-far-enough-on-content-farms

A few folks from TKG went up to the Browns / Steelers slaughter game on Sunday, as well. About half of us had a really great time – the half that was wearing black and gold. The other half, well, lets just say the tailgating and great food made for a fun morning, and leave it at that. Kidding aside, it’s great to work with a group of people who like to hang out together. It fosters great working relationships, cooperation, and teamwork. It doesn’t hurt that these folks are a lot of fun, to boot.

I hope that you were able to spend some time over the last few weeks with good friends and family, as well, as it’s now time to get back to the grind, and we’ll need the fortitude offered by all those cookies and um, beverages, to keep us warm as we power through the coming winter months.

NE Ohio seems to stand at the ready for whatever comes our way. The political scene is a little less bleak. Businesses are hitting the ground running after a great holiday shopping season. We are done with this recession, we’re rebounding – ready to do business, ready to make some money – for ourselves – and help our clients find the best ways to do that as well. I hope that as you plan your marketing budget for 2011, you seriously consider including some SEO and SEM. Not only is it incredibly cost effective, it is the way the world/business/markets are trending. I am looking forward to 2011. It’s going to be the year America lands back on her feet, and TKG will be here to do our part. It’s gonna be a great year!

We all know that Facebook can be leveraged for marketing purposes, but not all small businesses are going to get the greatest benefit from it. Take for example, the wedding photographer featured in the article. She states that for her:
“Facebook is huge for networking. As far as marketing goes, it’s the best tool,” said Guenin, 32, who promotes weddings and other events she has photographed on the fast-growing social media site. “

I can see why Facebook would be a great fit for her. Her business is highly social. She friends her clients when she accepts a project. She can upload pictures from her weddings and other events, allowing her clients to share them, all marked of course, with her logo. Free advertising. People like what they see, especially if she uploads the best or most interesting shots, gets lots of comments on them, and remember that when they need a photographer for their own events. It’s a great setup, especially with such ease of use and low or not cost. The only cost would come from the time involved in updating her profile, if she did not maintain it herself.

But, all small businesses are not so socially oriented. I don’t see this working quite so well for a dentist or a metal fabricating company. I mean, you can’t really post about the great root canal you just gave, or the awesome filling you just did. You might be able to get away with some shots of tooth whitening, but, really, who wants to shop for a dentist on Facebook? A metal fabricating company might have the same experience. Your friends and family aren’t going to “share” your pics of guys welding in helmets, or the finished product. Friending clients on Facebook might come off as strange. It’s not a natural fit, by any means.

In the end, there are Web marketing solutions to fit every small business. Some will do well with social media, while others might need to concentrate more on their email campaigns, SEO, and some local search – that dentist will want to spend more time on local search than Facebook. It’s just a better fit. It just makes sense.

Two things seem to have happened with the unemployment rate in this country. The first thing is the years long, some 99+ months of unemployment payouts that have created a culture of people unwilling to work as long as they can rely on the government to pay their bills. The second thing that has happened is a fear, a worry by business owners as the new taxes loom in the near future. The end of the Bush tax cuts, the Health Care Reform Bill, and the potential (hopefully this worry is now null and void) of the Cap & Trade Bill. These new taxes are creating a train of thought among business owners who have no real idea what it is going to cost to hire someone. How much will it cost to provide a full time employee with health insurance? How much more in taxes will I have to pay if I grow my business and get hit with the end of the Bush tax cuts?

This might lead you to think that the safest bet is to play it slow and easy for a while, until you see how it all shakes out. But, you still have a need for skills, labor, whatever. So where are you going to turn? Freelance? Part time help? Overtime for current employees? Outsourcing jobs you used to handle in house? All of these are viable options, though I hate to be the one to encourage people not to hire. I tend to be optimistic and think it will all work out in the end, TKG has been hiring for over a year now, and I do think that the economy is making a slow turn-around. I really can’t say that I believe that will continue if some of the political atmosphere doesn’t change, but we have to go with what we know for now.

So, what can the Web do to help you fill in the holes in your workforce?
1. Utilize sites that provide legal forms, business administration forms and schedules, and just about any other paperwork you need to do.
www.lectlaw.com/formb.htm
http://www.entrepreneur.com/formnet/index.html
2. Use Freelance sites to help you find the temporary or long term extra help you need.
www.freelancer.com/
www.freelanceswitch.com/
3. Use LinkedIn.com, job sites and Craigslist.com to find employees who might be willing to work part time until the economy becomes more secure and hiring becomes an options.
4. Outsource jobs that you might normally have handled in house, if there were someone around to do the work. You can have many jobs outsourced – I know that The Workshops in our area even takes small assembly jobs, packing and sorting, it’s worth checking into if you would prefer to wait to hire.
5. You had to know I was gonna get to this – the plug for TKG, but hey, it’s valid! Have a Web firm do some SEO, search marketing and social media marketing for you. We do copy, too. Not only will it save your marketing budget, but we might be able to help you squeeze through a time constraint or deadline when you really don’t have the resources available. Freeing up your in house marketing folks to concentrate on traditional marketing, or if you are a smaller biz, your assistant, to work on some of your more niche jobs might make your life a little easier and your business run a little smoother.

As for me, quite frankly, I am grateful for the way things turned out last Tuesday. I really hope this is the beginning of a turn away from so much government spending, enormous tax increases and a slippery slide into socialism. I hope that this resistance to hiring doesn’t last long, and that we all start to feel like we can relax, have faith in our economy and capitalism. To move forward we need to grow, hire, spend, and hopefully, not have all of our efforts go to China’s the government’s coffers.