It has
always been difficult for Twitter users to get specific stats about theirimpact on Twitter, such as how many times a tweet has been favorited, the
number of retweets, and how many replied a tweet received. While you might
notice it on the fly, it can be hard for Twitter users to spot trends in their
tweets, such as the type of content that is most popular with their followers.
To access
theTwitter Analytics, simply go to ads.twitter.com and login with your Twitter
account information. Click the Analytics link to see your Twitter stats for
favorites, retweets and reply interactions.
The data can
also be downloaded as a CSV file. The information is basic, and is the same
information that business users have had for some time. But for smaller
businesses and marketers, having this information at a glance is helpful
without having to resort to a third-party tool.
Hopefully
Twitter will expand their analytics offerings. It would be great for Twitter toinclude even more information in their analytics, especially for marketers
using Twitter for business.
It would be
useful to know whether it is the same people retweeting and favoriting tweets,
or if it is different people everytime. Knowing the overall reach of each tweet
based on retweets would be helpful, such as knowing how many followers those
retweets went to.
This will
also have the added bonus that it will get more Twitter users familiar with
their advertising, since you need to login to the ad platform in order to
access analytics data. Even if a small percentage of users test Twitter ads or
tell others about Twitter advertising, it would be a net win for Twitter,
particularly since Twitter has seemed to struggle a bit in getting advertisers
on board with their fairly new ad system.
Are algorithmic updates created solely to
force webmasters to buy ads and increase Google's bottom line?
It's no conspiracy that Google wants to make
profits, but Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has come out swinging
against an often repeated "conspiracy theory," arguing that all
Google updates are designed only to improve the user experience.
In a new video, Cutts also addressed the
difference between a data refresh and an algorithm update, and where he
believes SEO professionals are spending too much time and energy.
Algorithm Update vs. Data Refresh
Many webmasters are confusing what is an
algorithm update and what is simply a data refresh.
"When you’re changing your algorithm,
the signals that you’re using and how you weight those signals are fundamentally
changing," he said. "When you are doing just a data refresh then the
way that you run the computer program stays the same, but you might have
different incoming data, you might refresh the data that the algorithm is
using. That’s something that a lot of people just don’t seem to necessarily
get."
Google Conspiracy Theory: More Updates = More
Revenue
Cutts also tackled the persistent rumor that
the reason Google does updates like Panda and Penguin isn’t to reduce spam but
is to actually increase revenue. But Matt points out that if you look at Google’s
quarterly statements, Panda actually caused revenue to drop.
I have seen a lot of accusations after Panda
and Penguin that Google is just trying to increase its revenue, and let me just
confront that head on. Panda, if you go back and look at Google’s quarterly
statements, they actually mention that Panda decreased our revenue. So a lot of
people have this conspiracy theory that Google is making these changes to make
more money. And not only do we not think that way in the search quality team,
we’re more than happy to make changes which are better for the long term
loyalty of our users, the user experience, and all that sort of stuff. And if
that’s a short term revenue hit, then that might be okay, right, because people
are going to be coming back to Google long term.
So a lot of people, it’s a regular conspiracy
theory… Google did this ranking change because they want people to buy more ads
and that is certainly not the case with Panda, it’s certainly not the case with
Penguin, and so it’s kind of funny to see that as a meme within the industry,
and it’s just something that I wanted to debunk that misconception. Panda and
Penguin we just went ahead and made those changes and we aren’t going to worry
if we lose money or make money or whatever, we just want to return the best
user’s results we can.
Pay Attention to Marketing & Make
Something Compelling
Next, he tackled what he thought was where
SEOs are spending too much time. He thinks people are spending too much time on
links and perhaps not enough time on social media. He also thinks people are
missing out on the user experience they could be working on instead.
A lot of people think about “How do I build
more links?” and they don’t think about the grander, global picture of “How do
I make something compelling, and then how do I make sure that I market it
well?” You know, you get too focused on search engines, and then you, for
example, would entirely miss social media and social media marketing. And
that’s a great way to get out in front of people.
So specifically I would think, just like
Google does, about the user experience of your site. What makes it compelling?
What makes it interesting? What makes it fun? Because if you look at the
history of sites that have done relatively well or businesses that are doing
well now, you can take anywhere from Instagram to Path, even Twitter, there’s a
cool app called YardSale, and what those guys try to do is they make design a
fundamental piece of why their site is advantageous to go to. It’s a great
experience. People enjoy that.
So you could not just pay attention to design
you could pay attention to speed or other parts of the user experience. But if
you really get that sweet spot of something compelling where the design is
really good or the user experience just flows, you’d be amazed how much growth
and traffic and traction you can get as a result.
He also brings up that webmasters should
continue to improve, because if you do not evolve, others will come along,
think about how they could do it better, and then jump in and surprise you.
Google has just rolled out
Penguin 2.0, a large algorithmic update promising to go “deeper” than the 2012
Penguin release, which put a hurting on websites with number of manipulative links in their profile.
This prospect creates fear
for many small businesses who depend on search engine optimization (SEO) for
their livelihoods. But there is also a sense of confusion as the line often
shifts and the message from Google contradictory.
Sorting out Panda, Penguin,
and Manual Actions
Google's Panda update is a
different release than Penguin. Panda is geared toward duplicative, thin, or
spun content on websites.
Google's Distinguished
Engineer Matt Cutts recently stated that Google is actually pulling back on Panda because of too many false
positives. This is good for news aggregators and other sites that reuse content
appropriately and have been hit hard by the Panda filter.
Penguin is much harder to
understand, focusing on backlink patterns, anchor text, and manipulative
linking tactics that provide little value to end users. To make matters worse,
Google likes to take large manual actions just prior to major algorithm
updates. In 2012 we saw the removal of Build MyRank from the index just prior
to Penguin.
Earlier this year we saw
major manual action taken against advertorials. Last week Google announced the
removal of thousands of link selling websites and we are hearing of a manual
spam penalty against Sprint this week.
The proximity of these
manual actions with major algorithmic updates is brilliant PR as it associates
them together in our memories, discussions and debates - but they are very
different things.
Is SEO Enough?
As small business owners
move through the here we go again feelings to actually decide what to do in
response to Penguin 2013, sorting out the truth is paramount. Google is clearly
beating the familiar drum with the same core messages:
But the reality is that
visitors don’t magically come, at least on any reasonable scale, without
organized promotional activities. Many excellent websites have died a slow
death due to lack of promotion. And this is where the contradictions emerge in
SEO, which has demonstrated extremely high ROI compared to other marketing
channels.
Long Live Online Marketing
While discussed many times,
webmasters still struggle with shifting their link building activities to real SEO strategy. They fail to see that SEO in
2013 is now integral to online marketing and no longer a standalone activity.
Whereas SEO used to be
about tuning a website for optimal consumption by spiders, today’s SEO is about
earning recognition, social spread, and backlinks through excellent content
marketing. This means SEO is now ongoing, integrated, and strategic – whereas
it used to be one-time, isolated, and technical.
Real SEO
Real SEO is the
prescription for those who fear Penguin 2013. Here are practical activities
that need to be done every month to achieve real SEO:
Continually Identify Audience
Demand: Your
SEO won't be successful if it isn't useful. To serve a need, webmasters
must understand what the audience is seeking. Keyword research, as always, is critical.
While doing keyword research don’t over-emphasize head terms or money
keywords. Focusing on long-tail keywords renders more immediate
results, increases the breadth of a website (remember Panda), and builds
authority that will ultimately help the head term.
Content marketing: In my opinion,
content marketing is the new link building. Earn recognition, social
spread, and backlinks by giving away valuable information for free.
Excellent content has high audience value and points readers to other
resources via cocitation. Video is an excellent form of
content marketing that is still under-utilized by small businesses. And newsjacking is an emerging form of content
marketing that specifically targets hot news topics for viral spread.
Work on the brand: There is increasing
evidence that branded mentions are an important legitimacy signal to
Google. Promoting the brand has traditional marketing benefits and also
now helps SEO. But be careful not to turn SEO content marketing into an
endorsement, as this crosses the line. Find traditional marketing tactics,
such as press releases, to drive branding while
announcing news-worthy events.
Syndicate: The "build
it and they will come" philosophy doesn't work on an Internet with
more than 500 million active domain names. This is why even excellent
content needs to be promoted. Email marketing, social media, community
engagement in forums, and guest blog posting are efficient mechanisms
for spreading the word about engaging content. Interviews, PPC ads, and
local event sponsorship will also get your name and content noticed. Any
activity that broadcasts your message, your brand, and builds real
community discussion will ultimately support SEO, and should be considered
part of the SEO process.
Conclusions
The arrival of Penguin 2013
has many small business owners scared and confused. But SEO remains one of the
best online marketing channels.
Real SEO is the path forward
for those who wish to make a long-term investment in online marketing.
Forward-looking webmasters can prepare their sites for Penguin 2014, 2015, and
beyond with well-researched, end-user focused content marketing that provides
strong audience value.
Using modern syndication
tactics, they can broadcast their message, gain audience mind-share and earn
recognition. By spreading valuable content, small business can build their
brands and earn bulletproof backlinks.
