“will no longer report the query terms that the user searched on to reach your site”

Oh fickle finger of fate. As soon as you get over your Panda eyes (the name of Google’s last bombshell), you suddenly can’t see anything anymore. Curse the luck of the SEO.

SEO is the house, Google is the sand

If you build a business based purely on SEO, the model is likely to come under pressure at some point. Google change their minds, they catch up with all the ‘tricks’ eventually, and this can have a big effect, instantly and dramatically.

How do you fancy building a business on something that might disappear in the snap of fingers?

And another thing. Where’s my soapbox….I’m not sure I understand why the world expects to continue to receive ‘free advertising’, or why they are so upset when it is affected by Google’s move to protect user privacy.

SEO people are very much up in arms, a link for their trouble. But as for telling Google you’ll have to go black hat to get around it. That’s not smart.

How will this affect our web marketing lives?

Only for those Logged in to google, right?

Ok, this does only apply to ‘Signed In’ visitors (Google Plus anyone?) but we are already seeing visits with search terms as ‘not provided’ – the numbers of people logged in will grow rapidly in our view. Google Plus will be a big part of search, you won’t want to miss it.

Sorry, it is really ‘going to be going away’

Bye Bye, it was nice knowing you

We will miss those search terms, they were insightful.

If you could discover the terms that were converting, then you could focus efforts. And, as only a small proportion of terms ever convert into enquiries, it was like finding nuggets of gold in the sifting pan, or striking oil even.

CPC is still information rich

But in the SEO’s mind, the biggest of ‘rat smells’ is that this doesn’t apply to Google’s advertising clicks. Google rightly argue that it will stop people spending money if you can’t tell what is working or not.

I can only say they haven’t met half the people using Adwords that I have.

Nevertheless, it looks like, for the moment we will still get search queries for visitors from paid, however hypocritical and however much SEO’s cry ‘foul!’.

Justifying the difference in stance, I keep thinking that being logged into Google must allow people to identify you personally somehow. It would explain the instant decision and not very well thought out response to the not very well thought out… outcry.

No change there then

We’ve always argued, (as most people who know us will verify).

Oh, we should have carried on with that sentence… we’ve always argued that we don’t start SEO until we understand the phrases that will convert. And the quickest, most reliable way to discover what works or not is to run very tightly focussed Adwords campaigns.

Depending on the volumes, this can be slow. But, actually, it is better than going fast and wasting loads of (clients) money on generating loads of traffic that does…nothing. We’ve asked them, they agree. Well, some do, occasionally.

So, we can still find the phrases that work in the same way we have always done. And we do understand from our Adwords data how many people are looking for things. Which is pretty much the only reliable way to focus the SEO activity.

You do know that we love SEO?

If we know what’s working, we want to make sure we optimise the site to focus on attracting attention from Google and visitors on that subject. This won’t change, data or no SEO data.

We will still be able to focus the content, we can still see that people are coming to the landing page, and we can tell the percentage that convert – just not the rate of conversion in precise terms from free visits any more. But the overall figure will be there to justify our existence.

And, we should also still be able to see ‘where we are in google’ for search phrases as a reference to how we’re doing.

If all Search Query Data went away?

We don’t want Search Data to go away, lets get that straight. But what would happen if it ALL disappeared.

My view is that people would have to put their faith more into good content, and they would still do the things they do today. It would just be like TV advertising all over again. You know half of it works, just not which half.

It would be more important to invite website visitors to identify themselves, at which point we may have permission to follow up and track their interest. That would encourage more content marketing which essentially trades valuable content for permission to stay in touch during the buying period. It’s called Marketing Automation.

Marketing Automation – the hidden grey line

This is where things have been getting tricky in the last few years. Systems have been starting to track people anonymously when they arrive on websites.

Systems like Marketo, Pardot and dozens of others have been starting to keep records of anaonymous visitors to be assigned to real people when they eventually identify themselves.

If you’re in marketing and you get excited by that sort of data, then you probably shouldn’t have it.

Along with re-marketing, which is essentially tagging people when they come to your website and then following them around with Ads (so….that’s why SEOMOZ advertise on some very strange sites), all of this behaviour freaks visitors out, or it would do, should they know about it.

And that’s where this ruling is coming from.

The impending doom

This just can’t happen, or I’m moving across the Atlantic. Don’t worry, I’ll visit, you’ll keep in touch, it’ll be great for holidays.

The information commissioner’s office to be found at – ico dot gov dot uk

I’m not linking to them, I don’t want them to know I exist. They’re pushing ahead with their public protection charter and threatening to implement policies that will make you seek permission to use any sort of anonymous analytics. Seemingly this has to be done before people get to the site – (well, that’s just as silly as what they’re suggesting).

It only applies to Europe, not the rest of the world. Europe can afford the loss of business, right?

Bottom Lines

You have to respect people’s privacy, it is a fundamental human right. There’s no doubt it is a good thing if the prospect of collusion and sharing data is about to undermine our travelling aorund the web unmolested.

And if Ryan air manage to increase their fares automatically the second time I visit their website, then so can other people.

But I don’t personally think there is anything wrong with tracking people anonymously. We don’t need signatures for people who happen to be caught on cctv.

Oh wait, We do.

The man who knows everything about CCTV rules says it’s covered by the Data Protection act, and you can actually demand to see what you were wearing in the tax office last week.

So we’ll have to wait and see. Apparently, the Euro Debt talks continue, and we may be out of Europe by the morning.

Well, you never know your luck.

Big Brouhaha in Google Land -

Google Advice

Thankfully, there are a few places around the net that offer advice, and one of the best is the chaps from google themselves. The latest (March 2011) is a question around larger company SEO…

In summary then

• Speed of site is important from a user point of view, and so Google is also now taking this into account
• Get CEO (they must mean MD) ‘buy in’ for projects and train the team.
• Produce great content and use Social Media to promote it

Plus – there is a terrible joke about being on the same page.

Of course, now that Social Media counts towards search engine results, I should imagine that more people will have to get involved. Like us, for example, yet more learning to do!

What do we mean by Social Media

• Blog, as a hub for all activity, RSS built in and Email
• Media: Videos, demos, screenshots, infographics, web casts,
• Platforms: Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook if necessary, Slideshare, Flickr,
• And then spread the news: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, industry blogs

Creativity for SEO Success

Another gem of advice comes from the creative productivity blog, Lifedev. I truly believe that creativity will drive success on the web, as every business moves towards becoming its own micro media channel. It’s not just design, it’s what and how you say things.

That phrase from Google they keep repeating, ‘Great Content’ means that it should be interesting – and that means; educational, entertaining or inspirational. And, if you want all three, some shiny infographics are probably a good bet. More on those another time.

Here’s their shortest guide to SEO ever

Simplicity at it’s best.

SEO Advice for 2011 -

The best advice we can give is to go read something. Preferably something related to what you do of course, but for ideas there is nothing like ‘news’ to set people’s opinions going.

For the technical, they would use ‘Google Reader’ which is a fantastic tool for subscribing to relevant news from a google newsfeed.

You see, to generate your own personal news stream, head over to google news, search for something fundamental to your business, hunt for the RSS button and click. You’re done. Read once a week for instant idea juice.

So, why is this a good idea?

Blogs are publishing platforms, and one of the main reasons to publish is that you have some news. News is fresh, and Search Engines give this some credence by seemingly placing ‘news’ articles almost instantly into their index. Some higher than others of course.

To give a great example, one of the best case studies I’ve ever seen for Search Engine Optimisation has to be the Brent Payne interview recently over at the Wordtracker website. Kudos and links go to them, congratulations.

You couldn’t get a better example of how keywords and news mix to give exposure to those who work them hard. It sets an example to us all, you included!

Another example: when Google chose a new ‘doodle’ today to honour the invention of the barcode, I ‘searched’ for bar code, and between the first time I looked and 20 minutes later, the Daily Telegraph leapt to the top of the rankings for a new article on bar code….above Wikipedia.

The reason Google did that, it’s ‘news’. See the google news feed…. and look for the orange button at the bottom.

The reason the Telegraph did that – it knows what people are looking for (from Stats or a keyword tool), and then writes about it. Just as the case study of the Tribune above, writing about things that ‘we know people are interested in’ is easier than trying to make it on your own.

Just I write this, I’m absolutely gratified to see one of my clients, who know a think about data capture and barcodes, have written an article on this very subject…spotting opportunities is a ‘key’ phrase for today.

My work there is done , oh wait, I don’t mean that.

What should you blog about? -

Cue disappointed look from ‘search engine types’.

Getting Search Engine attention is at least as much about what is done on the website as it is about external factors. These are far better thought about during the re-building of a website rather than afterwards. Not only that, it’s always difficult to propose changes to people who have waited a long time for their new site, hence the downcast feeling.

What to think about when re-designing a website

First things first: get some analytic software running on the site, so that you know which pages are getting traffic. This will help planning.

Do think about the existing ‘URL’s – the page addresses.

These are often changed, without a thought, to match the new schema. Of course, by ‘changed’ what we really mean is deleted and completely new pages put in their stead. They didn’t move them, they knocked the house down and built it elsewhere.

Redirects are important. Whenever you change an address, tell the people who send you things because if not, it will be ‘return to sender’.

How much that matters – probably depends on the page, but if visitors matter, then lets send them to a page that looks like something they were expecting, instead of a home page, or black holes.

The next thing is to check for Page Titles and Descriptions. Relevance is important, and if you were receiving visitors it was because Search Engines thought your page was relevant for ‘something in particular’.  The ‘in particular’ is usually from the page title, content, and incoming links, but descriptions can help improve the number of visitors.

For the avoidance of doubt, here’s how Google uses page Titles, Descriptions and URL’s

All these things are inserted during the page construction, during the (re) building phase.

Yes, the external factors are important for SEO, but if the website isn’t properly organised, then it will never work as well as it could.

Website redesign: Don't forget about search engines -

In layman’s terms (meaning I can get this ever so slightly wrong), there are;

a. well understood laws for large objects – bigger than an atom – called relativity, and
b. well understood (if not quite complete) laws for very small objects or particles in ‘quantum’ level physics.

And, these laws are mutually incompatible.

Up until 50 years ago, physicists were making brilliant progress, assuming that all was going swimmingly well, and but for a few pauses, discoveries of the 18th century were being developed and were informing the next logical theories right through to the point it all just….got really confusing, and nothing worked.

Even Einstein spent his last thirty years looking for something that would bring it all together, but ultimately he came up blank.

Marketing has similar issues.

As our friend Seth Godin says, mass marketing has worked fine, making its inexorable progress through the TV industrial complex, right up to the point where things got very small. Channels, readership, circulation, user bases, blog posts (twitter) and attention spans (I must get to the point), well, they have all shrunk immeasurably.

Suddenly, the old rules don’t work any more – in fact they’re more confusing than anything we could have possibly imagined. Just like our physics.

We’re dealing in fragments.

Fragmented tasks, fragmented communications, markets, job descriptions, jobs, economic realities, projects, product life cycles and fleeting fads, microscopic opportunities. Higgs Boson PR anyone?

Are we truly going to end up marketing on a one to one basis? Hasn’t anyone got a chaos theory we can use to put this together? Well, there have been a few viewpoints around one aspect – SEO vs PR. All from one conversation on a social network. Now there’s a promising start.

Jed Hallam, SEO and Public Relations

Stuart Bruce, Public relations is about reputation

Stephen Waddington, good summary from a technical PR perspective

Wom on Socnets from Rob Brown

Julia Shuvalova, you need every digital marketing skill in a perfect world (including the higgs boson perhaps)

My two penneth, at this stage, is that this seems like a classic big bang confluence of ideas, skillsets and job descriptions. A Large Hadron Collider…especially when you include communications technology, which is driving all this together (in circles perhaps). Convergence.

Industry vs techniques, pah, so much fluff to me. Where do we all come from, and what is the meaning of life? Is there a dog after all? Which particle of the marketing atom are you?

Forget whatever industry you think you’re in, it is about sales, marketing and relationships. But not necessarily in that order.

As an aside to my PR friends, isn’t reputation management only necessary when you’re not able to control your product or your people….oh wait, what? we can’t do that?

I do have some string theory, I’ll have to post soon, but I’m getting the feeling the attention span is ‘gone’, and we’re all moving on to the next big passing phase. So I’ll stop for now.

Any more views you can point out, the more the merrier.

Splitting the marketing atom -