Kerstin Baker-Ash

Spelling and Credibility

There are a lot of people who attach importance to how one is perceived online through their writing, grammar and spelling. I'm one of them. I'm not perfect, but it's a huge personal letdown if I find a spelling mistake in my own work. It likely stems from the psychologically traumatizing event of being beaten in the grade four spelling bee on the word "medieval", which I will never, ever spell incorrectly again. Since then, I've found myself rather pompously looking down on people who haven't attached the same sense of importance and perception of credibility to their online work. Overreacting or not, in the business world your audience's perception is your credibility. When you don't impress that search at a glance segment, you potentially lose out on custom and positive perception.

 

I'm in positively no way suggesting that SMX East is a conference which lacks credibility. It's the premiere search marketing event on the East Coast, and Danny Sullivan is the guru when it comes to programming SEM conferences. The quality of speaking and insight coming out of the SMX conferences is unparalleled, and you'd be hard pressed to find another event of this caliber to send a both a team of newbies or experienced practitioners to. 

The spelling mistake is doing a disservice to the conference. It's not a typo - the "i" and the "e" are too far apart on any keyboard. Someone forgot to hit spell check, and it creates the unfair perception that they're not "prestegious". This isn't meant to single out SMX at all - there are plenty of other examples of respected brands (including - respected or not - MI6) forgetting to hit Spelling & Grammar on their word processor. It bugs me that these brands, ones which I engage with and respect, let themselves down by niggling, easily fixed spelling errors.

Spellchecking is an often overlooked part of publishing any page, whether it's in the meta description or the meat and potatoes content of the site. Is it essential? It sure can create the opinion in the mind of a searcher that the product or service is less worthy because you didn't spend five minutes running your content through a spellchecker. Or, you could rank really, really, ridiculously well for all the non-spelling bee champions among you for your term. 

Bad spellers of the world untie.

Paid Search Sitelinks

First reported in August and September by Darrin Ward (USA) and iCrossing (UK) respectively, Google are now allowing some advertisers additional real estate at the top of the pops in paid SERPs. While this is largely a helpful step for PPC advertisers, what isn't discussed at length is the implications on natural listings, and the impact that has on SEO.

 

It's important to note that there are negative implications for brands invited to participate in the test. Firstly, the tracking needs four new layers added to a campaign to test the efficacy of sitelinks off one brand term. This can be a pain if you set it up with older tracking software which then requires individual tracking tags on the four different pages. A headache, but not an insurmountable obstacle. 

You can't measure brand engagement on a home page when you deeplink searchers to a microsite within the main homepage. The advertiser provides Google with a list of ten possible sitelinks; while they respect the order you give those sitelinks in, Google reserves the right to change your list without notice depending on performance. These are brand searches, not additional query strings with pets, motors or business tacked on to the back - it's also possible that searchers will not feel like their particular query (let's say content insurance) is being met, even though they searched on the pure brand term. Let's not discuss additional revenue generation methods by Google, it's something akin to beating a dead animal with a nuclear weapon.

On the positive side of the argument, you have the potential to give your brand extra prominence (in paid SERPs at least, more on SEO later). More users can engage with different strands of your brand - pets, motors, business, etc - without having to search or navigate through different parts of your site. Let's also not discuss the conversion potential for pure brand queries in paid search without additional sitelink help, either - see dead animal/nuclear weapon reference above.

Does this hurt traffic to natural listings? Potentially. When pages in the natural part of SERPs are pushed further and further down, this can't help with a case for SEO and brand optimization. Forget about outranking on key generic terms, either - if there are three paid ads at the top of the SERP and one of them has sitelinks, you can pretty much forget about appearing above the fold on most computer screens. To be fair, paid sitelinks are largely within the domain of brand terms, not generics. However, the rollout potential is dangerous when you consider the work that goes in to jumping even a one place above a competitor in natural rankings.

It's far too early to comment on the efficacy of Google's newest PPC beta test, but it will be very interesting to see if it increases brand engagement on different areas of a site or drives searchers to exactly the same place they wanted to go in the first place - the home page. 

SES Toronto Recap - Finally

And so begins a long-overdue post about Search Engine Strategies in Toronto. It was a very busy two days, and I was honored (or is that honoured?!) to speak about the UK market alongside some pretty big names in the industry.

Frederick Marckini got "back to basics" during his opening keynote. Get your initial strategy right, and don't wait for the success to come to you. 'Nuff said.

Many people who read this blog (and don't read this blog, to be fair) know that I am an avid user and fan of Twitter. I was especially excited to attend the Twitter session with great presentations from Lee Odden, Chris Winfield and Dave Snyder. I'll let the links speak for themselves, although I'm disappointed that Kevin Ryan still hasn't been swayed into much more Twitter usage after such great presentations from high-profile advocates of microblogging...

The Advanced Issues in PPC track was refreshing, with Bill Tighe providing a bit more than just standard Google fare. I also stopped by the SEMPO Canada booth (I belong to SEMPO UK) and chatted with Alexandre Brabant in Franglais, a bit of Shiac and some Quèbecois thrown in for good measure. Result? I need to work on real French, not just the mangled stuff I picked up at university.

I was torn between the SEM Toolkit and Social Media Success panels, but since I've been on a bit of a social media bender of late (and I'm pretty pleased with my current toolkit), I went with the latter. I was especially impressed with Li Evans' presentation.

The Yahoo! Canada/Epiar party gave me a great opportunity to schmooze with some people I greatly admire in the industry, and at the risk of over-gushing, I'll leave it there.

A great conference overall, and the smaller size made making new friends and contacts within the industry easier. I'm looking forward to more SES events on the horizon, and continuing to be aided in the development of my skills by some of the best and brightest SEMs. Thanks for a great conference, guys!

Holiday Recap - The Condensed Version

Ola everyone! It's been a packed couple of weeks, with some time off for good behavior and a presentation at SES Toronto. I want to do an entire post recapping a great two days at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, so I'll leave that for later.

We had a plan going to Canada this year, which involved trying to relax as much as possible, see some family and then relax some more. We got off the flight, cleared customs (after a lengthy Q&A session with, I assume, a new customs officer who asked me to not only recite my parents' addresses but my entire family tree and their whereabouts in Canada) and drove straight to the cottage. The mosquitoes are bad this year - so much so that they seem to have forgotten my unappetizing flesh (summers spent being bitten in Muskoka used to have a great effect, they didn't like the taste) and instead ate me alive. I had about thirty bites on my legs and arms in total, but my husband fared far, far worse; on one leg alone we counted thirty-three, and that was below the knee. It was also nice to be back at the place we were married - nearly three years ago. Wow. The garden path is still there, as is my family's sign for it - they think my husband is a saint; I agree!

My grandmother's family came from deepest, darkest Europe in the middle of the 19th century, so it's neat to see things that they've built or contributed to during their time in Canada. We visited the road named after them, as well as the war memorial where my grandmother's cousin has his name. There's something wonderful about connecting to your roots, and I count myself very lucky to have my grandparents as tour guides.

We were able to take in a little wine tasting in Niagara while we were in Southern Ontario. Inniskillin is our old standby, but we also tasted at Pillitteri and Cave Springs. Unfortunately, we're good kids and don't import more than our limit allows, so we only have two bottles to show for it. If you know of an Ontario wine importer in the UK, please let us know - my first name at this domain. I'd even be happy to do a blog post about it for gratis - these Brits don't know what they're missing!

'Tis the season to get married, fa la la la la, la la la la. We had the pleasure of attending the first of three weddings this year, this one in Maidstone. The weather was fabulous, we got to schmooze with family and friends and it was a great party. We'll be back in Kent in three weeks for another wedding and another chance to wear a hat. English weddings are wonderful.

Stay tuned for a blog dedicated to the fantastic show at SES Toronto, including a recap of a great Twitter session from Lee Odden, Dave Snyder and Chris Winfield. Definitely my favorite session of the conference, so thanks for that!

We had a great holiday, but it's nice to be home. Until next time, Canada.

My Un-Opinion: Is Social Media Better Suited to PPC or SEO?

This discussion has been popping up all over the industry, and has recently become a buzz topic at work. I wanted to generate some external conversation into who "owns" the social media landscape in an agency setting. It's a bit like a discussion of two job candidates; who's better suited for the job, and who's space can this easily slot into.

The Case for SEO

User-generated content on blogs and social networking sites are a goldmine for keywords and the direction of any SEO campaign. Social media is scalable as well; small stuff on Twitter can snowball into a group on Facebook and a video on YouTube, with users doing the content generation for you. Companies can get keyword-rich sites with quality backlinks - an easy-ish way to increase traffic, conversions, etc etc by using free brand advocates. Score one for SEO.

The Case for PPC

Paid models for Twitter Applications such as ThinCloud are making it easy for people to get exclusive eyeball access to hundreds of thousands of users, using a bid system (sounds like PPC, eh?). Expect to see a bid auction system emerge for a myriad of social media feeds soon - there’s a reason for $15 million round c for a certain social media app. Comcast, Dell and Southwest Airlines are just a few of the big-name companies using Twitter now - and they haven’t even monetized it yet. Expand your horizons; sooner or later, pay-per-click auction systems are coming to a social network near you, so it pays to get in on the ground floor of PPC. I'm talking about new, funky technologies and applications mostly - Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have been monetized for display and PPC for years.

Obviously, the comedy third option is that nobody "owns" social media and it belongs between the realms of PPC and SEO. I have a feeling that one segment is going to have to stand up and take greater ownership of the landscape though - I'm just a bit biased. Then again, we have search marketers completely devoted to social media now - maybe it's a pillar of its own?