Tony Dietrich posted an interesting blog about local advertising and infrastructure today called Advertising Pays for a Lot of Things… What Happens When the Ad Budget Dries Up in a Recession?

I loved the promise of the first paragraph of the article and how it set up questions, issues, solutions and possible market targets for me to think about.

Doing some research on the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, I started wondering what happened to advertising during that period.
Although I haven’t turned up any detailed studies, I took a look at the various archives of advertising that allow Internet access to their exhibits, and noted the general move to less expensive, more localized advertising, and fewer adverts for more expensive goods.

Now obviously everyone in the marketing business is feeling the results of the American Recession, heck, just about every business sector is feeling the pinch now. I thought it was great that Tony took the time to try and dig up some information about advertising during the Great Depression to try and forecast what kind of trends we are all going to be facing in the near future.

It’s a feature of the 1930s depression that countries and individuals became more and more localized in their habits and mentalities, concentrating on survival rather than expanding their horizons.

The article itself was more about what (might) happen to the infrastructure demand if a depression were to hit full on, but the sideline of local advertising is, to me, the juicy part.

As businesses begin to scale back on their advertising budgets as a whole, focusing on their local market will be wise choice. To do that though, they’re going to need the tools to do the analytics carefully enough to target the RIGHT market, at the RIGHT locations.

The ultimate prize for any local internet advertiser is a site with thousands of thousands of hit’s a day, with 90% of the incoming traffic voluntarily entering their zip code upon entry to the site. No scrapping for ISPs that can be highly unreliable to pinpoint a user’s exact location. No begging the user for a hint as to where they are located…just precise, immediate and voluntary giving of their zip code.

Internet Advertising gold, people, and it isn’t just a platinum-lined cloud in an ad-exec’s dream world, it’s real. What site is it? What is the URL of this ad-utopia?

Lean closer. We’ll whisper it.

The Weather Channel at www.weather.com. Heck, you’ve probably already gone there this morning to check the beach forecast. And did we mention that they have a healthy mobile traffic, too?

The weather channel has been overlooked by some advertising companies who mistakenly believe that only ‘weather nerds’ go there. That’s a mistake. Business people, housewives, sports fans…. The weather channel is a great common denominator across the advertising board. Everyone wants to know the weather, and the URL is the easiest thing in the world to remember. The catch is, to know your weather, you have to type in your zip code when you get there. Something that we all dutifully do.

At that point there are numerous ads from local businesses targeted to exactly that area, exactly that zip code.

Clickz.com reported on NBC’s buyout of the (previously) privately owned Weather Channel, which encompasses its TV, Online, ad Mobile businesses.

NBC Universal’s joint acquisition of The Weather Channel properties in conjunction with Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group will result in a stronger local online business for NBC. In addition to the dominant cable television network, The Weather Channel’s properties include its well-trafficked weather.com site and mobile offerings.

This is bold and intelligent move for NBC’s Local Advertising business and I expect to see it grow exponentially.

There was a post a while ago on a forum asking for SEO experts to apply for a job. In the body of the post was a terrifyingly beautiful sentence.

“SEOs with ethics need not apply.”

Wow. Simple. Direct. The company really went right for the jugular on that one; they didn’t even bother to conceal their black hat tactics under pretend white hats, instead they just put all their cards out there and asked for the sneakiest Ban-worthy SEO willing to make a buck.

I do not know about any of you, but I’m not sure I would want to work for a company like that. Honestly, do you think they will pay you? On time? Or is that another grey area, too? Being an SEO for an ad campaign like that can quickly ruin your online reputation, thereby discrediting your career in two online advertising realms at once.

But the ad did get me thinking about White Hat verses Black Hat SEO techniques, the good guy verses the bad guys and the grey stuff in between.

One of my favorite Matt Cutts quotes is from an interview given a few years ago:

Truthfully, much of the best SEO is common-sense: making sure that a site’s architecture is crawlable, coming up with useful content or services that has the words that people search for

That is the best SEO advice for any serious, reputable company.

AH Digital FX Studios wrote a post about White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO, and in the end said this:

SEO = Good Website Design. That’s it.

That statement is as simple and direct as the ‘job posting’ from my earlier quote, but the underlying meanings are worlds apart.

A negative review of your business or product is detrimental to your online reputation, but if it is managed correctly you can negate some of its worst impacts. When you find a negative review about your business, under no circumstances should you knee-jerk a reply defending your business. This can quickly devolve into a nasty thread of replies that will in perpetuity online, for anyone to read. You would not want have a heated argument in front of your customers in public, and make no mistake, an online post war is public indeed.

The best way to manage a negative online reputation slur is to take moment to collect yourself and then investigate the situation before your reply.

Your first course of investigating should of course revolve around the facts listed in the negative review.
Was the review about service? If it was, find out when, where, and who, and then interview that employee to understand what happened.
Was the review about a product? If it was, look into the product and the complaint to find out if that particular product had a flaw that caused an issue.

Whether or not you believe the negative review is substantiated, you need to look into the identity of the person who wrote it.

Who is the poster?
Are they connected to competitor?
What is there sphere of online influence?

If the negative review stands, because of a bad employee or a fault in the product, reply back that you have or are addressing the situation, and how. So many negative experiences can be turned into positive ones if the company takes the time to take action.

If the negative review is factually incorrect, ask for a removal or a retraction of the post, and explain why.

We have talked about one of the most important things for any business to manage, their online reputation. The ability to monitor what is being written about your business or products online is the key to keeping your business and product names out there in a positive light. A good review about your business can bring an onslaught of customers to your site and increase your product awareness, but that also means that one bad review can do just the opposite. It can challenge your business like nothing else, forcing your small business to overcome negative press in what was once a playing field reserved for only large businesses.

Monitoring your business’s online reputation, however, is only half the battle. It is very possible that you will find negative reviews and statements about your business that you will need to either refute or correct.

After you are actively monitoring your business’s online reputation, the vital part is to manage it.

When you find positive reviews about your business, don’t just sit back and congratulate yourself. Take the time to find out about the person who posted the review. Who are they? What is their sphere of influence in the online world? What did they like best about your business or product? If they mentioned any specific names of employees, take the time to thank that employee for a job well done.

When you have an employee that is really going above and beyond, your first order of business is to recognize them and make sure that you retain their services. You don’t want them heading off to a competitor.

We’ll look into dealing with negative issues related to online reputation management in our next post.

One challenging issue for businesses is the ability to monitor the ever-increasing reviews online. While at the outset this may seem to some as yet another online social media issue, the reality is that a business’s online reputation depends on how it is managed. Bad reviews are going to happen, but in oder to negate it’s impact, you have to know about it in the first place.

Reviews about a business can be anything from a one word deal, “The Oak Hotel – Sucks!” to a glowing or scathing three paragraph review that encompasses everything from dining to concierge service to room cleanliness. Believe me when I say that both reviews are going to matter to your business’s online reputation. It doesn’t matter if your business is being discussed on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Yelp, people will read it and your business will either soak in the glow of increased business or sit in the dark wondering where your customers went.

In order to manage your online reputation, you must monitor your business’s name and any derivations online. If you own The Oak Hotel in Boston, you would need to make sure you monitor phrases such as “Oak Hotel,” “The Oak Boston,” “Boston Oak Hotel,” “The Oak,” etc. You need to be completely up to date on mentions of your business whether it is in blogs, social forums, or travel sites.

By monitoring your business’s reputation, you’ll be getting a insider’s look on what customers think of your business, your products, and your employees.

Technorati Watchlist and Google alerts are two easy monitoring tools to help you look into what is being said about your business online.

Techdirt posted earlier this month to talk about the relatively underwhelming need for Powerset.

We never understood the hype around Powerset. It was the latest in an extremely long line of startups that claimed to focus on “natural language search” — which is one of those holy grails for computer scientists who never stop to ask whether or not there’s actually any market demand for it. As Google has shown, people don’t need to use natural language to search. They’re just fine doing keyword search. Yet, for some unclear reason, Powerset was able to raise a ton of money at a ridiculous valuation, and did so using all sorts of buzzwords (and vague patent threats). But when it finally released a product (just to search Wikipedia) it proved to be rather ho hum. Searching Wikipedia via other means was still more effective.

Many people consider that Natural language searching would only be useful in a two areas:
1. The Jitterbug phone demographic
2. College students caught in a space/time continuum 2 decades ago

The fact is, natural language searches have not become extinct, they have just evolved for the current market. The generations that grew up with an on the internet now think in terms of keywords when they are looking for information. The askjeeves.com search engine tried to go the way of Jeopardy by asking users to search in the form of a question. It turned out to be more difficult to change the innate way people learned to search.
When internet users need to find information, they mostly instinctively form their thoughts by keyword. It was not taught so much as it was learned.

While keyword searches are growing in length, they still average only about 2-3 words. The communication method and the way in which people form searches are much the way toddlers communicate. Short, to the point, and with lot of nouns. A toddler can get his point across by simply yelling “Ball! Purple! Mine!” He doesn’t really need to say “I would like the purple ball for my own.” Just because the other words are missing, it doesn’t mean that the thought process isn’t there.

Keyword searches act in much the same manner. Users haven’t lost their ability to communicate or ask questions or form complete thoughts, they’ve just narrowed down the extraneous words to the ones that will focus the search the most.

I don’t think that natural language searches should be abandoned altogether, though. Someday soon we’ll just ask our computers directly for information, and personally I don’t think I can speak in just keywords. When the time comes for true interaction, natural language searches will have their day.

Pay per click analytics are the core base for understanding the effectiveness of your keywords and their playback value. Before analytics tools came on the market most companies bid top dollar for the broadest keywords that they could in the hope that using a bigger net would catch more fish. In time however, the analytics tools came on board and some businesses found that the broadest search terms were not the ones that were actually bringing in the traffic.

The PPC Analytics basics were as follows:
Your PPC campaign analytics showed you a direct response model. A customer clicked on your ad after searching on a particular keyword that you have bid on. But did they convert? And more importantly, did enough of those clicks convert to justify the expense paid for that keyword?

The PPC managers took note and started to narrow down their keywords to the ones that seemed to bring in the most conversions.

The results were not always as expected. As it turns out, research heavy online shoppers were often visting a site multiple times on broad, then narrower, then focused keywords, and only after the final focused keyword are they converting and actually purchasing the product. Does that mean that the first two visits were meaningless? Does it mean that the broader keyword bids were a waste of money? Of course not!

The first couple of visits bring site and business name recognition with the consumer who then narrows down the keyword to exactly what they want. The next search brings your site up again. The customer is already familiar with it, and your site encompasses everything that they’ve looked for. Company name recognition and site familiarity will encourage customers to buy.

Think ahead before you turn off the broad keyword campaign and deem it unnecessary. If you want more information, look to analytic tools that will track multiple user visits and see what’s working for you.

Tele Atlas, which is a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based solutions, announced today that they have signed a long term licensing agreement with Google. This agreement will give Google the access to Tele Atlas maps and dynamic content in a global market of more than 200 countries from around the world.

“Google’s innovation and leadership is undisputed, and we are proud to have the opportunity to be the map foundation for one of the world’s most progressive web companies,” said Bill Henry, CEO of Tele Atlas. “This agreement is important too because it gives us access to input from a significant online community of map users, whose feedback can help us keep our maps fresh and accurate.”
“Geospatial data enhances global search significantly by organizing data and delivering results based on location,” said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps. “Tele Atlas’ map quality and the company’s innovative approach to business were the key drivers for our decision.”

The agreement between the two companies will encompass Google’s current and future map-based services, as well as their navigation offerings that span mobile, online and desktop environments. This will, of course, include Google Maps (including Google Maps for Mobile) and Google Earth. Tele Atlas, for their part, will be given access to geographical edits from Google’s global community of users.

Tele Atlas, with the previous purchase of Tom Tom, has access to the largest navigation community, which they tap to continually point out errors and corrections to maps. With the Google partnership, they now also have access to the largest internet-based community.

In the end it means more users, more accurate maps and most likely, more accurate ads when all is said and done. The real interest will be in the dynamic changes and advances to be made with a real merging of dynamic geographical information and a company that pushes for locally pinpointed mobile advertising.

Hyper Local Journalism is making headlines in the news, quite literally. Traditionally, journalists raced against time to be the first person reporting from a specific location, such as Disaster A. Whomever got there first got the story, the pictures, and the big bucks for breaking it to the news-hungry public.

Because video cameras weren’t an everyday item being carried about by consumers, and the ability to transfer that data was restricted to how fast your local mail carrier was. These things were not conducive to your every day person breaking the news.

With the full scale consumer embrace of cell phones with video capabilities and high speed data transfers directly from the mobile phone, the face of the news began to change.

Bigger news outlets found themselves one-upped on big stories that were reported first, on such sites as YouTube, by everyday Joes like you and I. It was then, and only then, that the news outlets so kindly began to ‘feature’ citizen eye witness reports on their sites. Unpaid, of course. The payment was the glory of having your cell video streaming on CNN’s website.

So how does this affect Social Media Advertising? By allowing consumers to gain a measure of control over what is shown as news , the products that they use and the events that they deem newsworthy are reaching a greater market.

Your new product could take months and years to take off with traditional advertising, but being featured in a Hyper Local Journalism streamed video on the news can skyrocket your sales in days.

If you have a products that is newsworthy and up-to-the-minute-relevant, consider submitting a video of it by Hyper Local Journalism.

The government is choosing a watch-and-see approach to online advertising, deciding to stall the inevitable hands-on, for now. At Thursday’s U.S. House Small Business Committee hearing on online advertising, Google was one of the main topics of conversation, though they did not officially participate.
One of the main topics of discussion from the committee members was their concern over the recent Google/Yahoo deal, and the possibility for governmental regulation on online advertising. It is probably that the merging of such online Search Engine giants was the impetus for discussions on regulation. When any sector grows so big so fast, the need for regulation to serve as consumer and business protector is always discussed. Unchecked growth in a market with few competitors can lead to price and practice gouging, but for now the House is not instilling regulatory measures.
CickZ has quotes from many of the participants in the house discussion.

“Do we allow market forces to play out?” Gonzales wondered. “I’m a strong believer in that…up until the point that we feel that there is a disadvantage…and the consumer or the businessperson is no longer on a level playing field or treated fairly.” He also briefly expressed an interest in user tracking as it relates to ad targeting.

Now if this was about any other sector in the business world, the merging of the two dominating corporations in the field would almost assuredly bring about regulation, so why is the government still choosing to watch and see how the market will play out in all of this? Probably because the online advertising business is still considered new territory and there isn’t enough understanding of the practices to instill regulation, yet.

Local Pay Per Click campaigns can offer a business a fast return on their marketing budget bucks in comparison to waiting for an organic SEO campaign to build, but that doesn’t mean a business should jump in blind. Here are some of the basics about Pay Per Click advertising.

What’s the point of Pay Per Click?
Pay Per Click is an online marketing strategy that is used to increase site traffic and get your business’s name out in the market.

How Does PPC Work?
Basically, your business will bid on keywords that relate to your products or services. The amount of your bid is what determines the ranking of your ad on search engine pages. If you want to sell ‘Safety Scissors’ and your competitor currently holds the number 1 ranking spot for that keyword, with a bid of .10 per click, you can try to outbid them for the number 1 spot for that keyword.

How Can I stretch my PPC budget?
You can stretch your Local Pay Per Click budget by going after keywords the smart way. If you are selling Safety Scissors, but your competitor holds the number one spot on the search engines for that keyword at a price you aren’t willing to match, try a variation. Bid and use the phrase “Buy Safety Scissors.”

The logic is simple. Many people might type in Safety Scissors if they are doing research on the product, or looking for price comparisons, or just curious, but when they’re ready to buy, they will often type in ‘BUY Safety Scissors.”

Michael Brito on Britopian.com began his own coversation on the merits of Social Media conversations verses tradtional search impressions. Obviously each person is biased by their personality in regards to what they value more.
Michael wrote:

So to address the original question of “What’s more important: a million impressions or 5 relationships? and considering that I am referring to all web users in general, I would say it depends who you ask. Paul would say impressions and then narrow it down to a click-through rate – conversion rate – revenue per keyword – cost per acquisition – blah blah blah. Yes, he is THAT ANALYICAL. For me it was about engagement, relationships, conversational sentiment and tone; and I could care less about the clicks and impressions.

Now, Michael’s aquaintance was ‘That Analytical Guy’ focused on the hard numbers, and let’s face it, most companies drill down to the importance of a number. If it’s not quantifiable, than it can’t be put in a spreadsheet. If it’s not in a spreadsheet, then the top execs aren’t looking at it. If the top execs aren’t looking at it, it’s not important. The aquaintance was obviously biased based on what his job, and his personality deemed important. He was a numbers guy.
Michael, on the other hand, is a bigger-picture-guy. He wants to build the relationships, which are the backbone in social media marketing, in order to build his business. That the two of them work together is probably a sign of a healthy buisness strategy.
It’s Michael’s next point that intriqued me:

I would also say that the users who were browsing HP Shopping were “ready to buy” and could care less about engagement and conversations at that precise moment; which is probably a common scenario for most e-commerce related businesses, where users do want to be sold something.

It’s true that once customers are on your site, they’re ready to buy, especially if they’ve clicked directly to you and are searching your products, and Michael explicitly recognizes that.

To do social media justice, however, you have to remember that a good company reputation thorugh social media is imperative. For the social influencers, a bad experience with a company can spread like internet wildfire, and the hundred and thousands of social contacts will read about that bad experience, and believe me, they’ll stay away from the company. The same is true of a good experience read by thousands of contacts…the company in question will be left with a good impression (HA!) in thousands of potential customer’s phychees.

Matt Cutts from Google gave an interview in USA today that provides a basic primer for the SEO newbie on how to get your site optimized for Google. In the article Matt gave tips on increasing your site’s visibility to Google.

1. Spotlight your search term on the page. “Think about what people are going to type in to try and find you,”
2. Fill in your “tags.” When creating websites, Internet coding language includes two key tags: title and description.
3. Get other sites to “link” back to you. Google says it looks at more than 100 pieces of data to determine a site’s ranking. But links are where it’s at, once your search terms are clearly visible on your site and the title and description tags correctly marked.
4. Create a blog and post often. Blogging is a great way to add links and start a conversation with customers and friends. It will cost you only time: Google’s Blogger, WordPress and others offer free blogging tools. With a blog, you can link back to your site and offer links to others. It’s also a great way to start building content.
5. Register for free tools. Google’s google.com/webmaster offers freebies to help get your site found.

The advice offered in the article is a great starting point for people unfamiliar with SEO and SERPs, but it’s not going to be a shining beacon of ideas for webmasters and online advertising gurus. In the article, Matt does say that it is only a myth that you have to advertise to get to the top of Google’s searches. That is true, but depending on what your site is about and it’s keyword popularity, you’ll be facing steep competition for traffic. If you are a car dealer, there’s just no way that your dealership is going to show up if someone just types in “Ford Truck, Iowa.” Unless, that is, you follow some hardcore SEO strategies and have an advertising budget.

Again, it’s always nice to hear from one of the Big Boys’ specialists about what they’re considering the important factors in rankings and how to get to the top.

For the intended USA Today reader, the article was interesting but for serious business, it was a wash. If they write an article about what algorithms they’re using, however, we’ll be all over it.