Posted On June 23rd, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, Marketing, 2
It used to be that the average person thought of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a series of tricks that a professional expert used to trick Google into ranking their site above a competitors'.
And for the most part, that was true. There's the old definition of a SEO being either black hat, someone employing cheap nasty tricks that got huge results for the short term, and white hat, someone focusing on quality content and link building which takes longer but gets long-term results.
In 2011 Google made black hats pretty well redundant for good, and even some strategies that the quality SEO's utilized has become less relevant. Google has updated their search algorithms with something called "Panda" which takes into account ratings from real human beings visiting a website. More than ever, this means that Google's criteria for ranking a website is based off of the following:
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How trustworthy does the site feel?
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How easy is it to use and navigate?
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How engaging is the content?
What has become much less important are things like meta tags, headings and other technical tricks that were meant to assist Google's bots in indexing and caching the website.
The other big thing that affects SEO is social media. In the past, the amount of links to a website from a social network like Twitter or Facebook was not counted vary highly. However now social engagement is one of the most effective ways of showing Google that real humans care about a website.
So instead of a SEO strategy consisting of planning what keywords appear in title and meta tags, headings and anchor tags, it has become more imperative that the plan focuses on compelling, unique content, a well-designed interface and letting people know about it through a variety of social channels.
This is a change for the better, and will hopefully result in a better internet, where the #1 result for a keyword will be based off of the things we humans care about.
Posted On January 23rd, 2012 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Headspace News, Design, Business, Marketing, 0
Yesterday I attended Podcamp Halifax, which is a great annual, free event full of presentations about the web and social media. It's a great place to connect with people face-to-face that you know from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and learn new things that can help you with your business.
Much kudo's to the folks who put it on including Craig Moore from Spider Video. To those who came, it was great meeting you and I hope to you next year (or sooner)
I was privileged to put on a presentation based on Aarron Walter's book, Designing For Emotion. It attracted a good sized crowd and seemed to resonate with the people in attendance. Here were some mentions on Twitter:
HarmonicDev Harmonic Internet
GREAT talks yesterday by @brightwhite @kyleracki @SpiderVideo and keynote speaker @julien #podcamphfx and big kudos to the event organizers!
HStu Hannah
Designing for Emotion session with @kyleracki is packed and has tons of great ideas about creating human websites. #PodCampHalifax
22 Jan
TheRedSparrow Carly Murray
Design for emotion is a full room, very exciting! #podcamphfx
22 Jan
RegisDudley Regis Dudley
Add an element of pleasure for people using the website. Make boring tasks fun. Via @kyleracki #PodCampHFX
22 Jan
mattrogers222 Matt Rogers
Love the analogy usable=edible. Need to make web experiences not only usable but pleasurable #designforemotion #podcamphfx
22 Jan
I've also included my presentation in a PDF form for those who attended if they'd like it for reference.
Posted On November 3rd, 2011 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, Marketing, 0
I was looking at a website today and noticed a link to an online application for payroll. Great, I thought. An alternative to ADP. I reviewed their site and found the sign up form to learn about a special offer.
I took the time to fill out the form, which included fields asking how many employees I have, and what I currently use for payroll, and within 30 seconds I received a call from the sales agent. Everything okay so far. But he made several mistakes that lost him the sale in the end:
Uncomfortable Silence
The sales agent seemed like he wanted me to start the conversation when he was the one who called me. After some ums, ahs, and stutters, he asked me what I wanted. He should have already known what I wanted since I filled out a form to learn about a special offer!
Making me repeat myself
The rep then asked how many employees I had and what I currently use for payroll. It wasn’t hard for me to repeat what I already typed in the form, but the point is that I already told them and he should have had that info in front of him already. It just made me start to lose confidence.
He then asked how I found the site and I told him it was through an affiliate site - which he already should have known since the URL and banner on the site showed the online affiliate!
Put me on hold
Finally, he asked me to hold and I waited on the line for about 1 minute hearing shuffling and muffled talking, before hearing music kick in. At that point I hung up. He called about a minute later but by that point I was busy and didn’t care any more.
You would think that these days any company would think of this stuff as common sense what-not-to-do, but amazingly this company is probably wondering why they are having trouble closing deals when the answer is right in front of them - an inefficient sales process and inexperienced sales agents.
I’m sure there are lessons here we all can learn from when it comes to selling for our own companies.
Posted On May 18th, 2011 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, Marketing, 0
I was recently doing business in the US when a potential client for a large organization asked about the value of social media. He said a prominent person posted something on Twitter akin to “Wow, the sun finally came out today. I want to get to some long overdue gardening”. His point was, who cares and why should his followers be subjected to such pointless drivel?
I’m going to use two examples to illustrate the value of needless information in social media:
Celebrity Magazines
It always astounds me how celebrity gossip magazines/blogs stay in business. But they do because there are millions of people out there who care what Brangelina ate today, where they went, what they bought at the store. And when a celebrity starts a twitter account, look out! Millions of followers are ready and willing to read when their last bowel movements were.
Advertising
How many of us look forward to Super Bowl ads? Have you ever noticed that some of the best ads that we enjoy watching do not sell with information or logic? They often sell with emotion and humor - two powerful weapons of any marketer. We don’t enjoy them because they gave us information and told us about their product in a direct manner, we enjoy them because they entertain us, and over time we associate their brand with positive feelings.
Social Media can build your brand
So to answer the question; Who cares what you ate for breakfast? Everyone who follows you does. If they have cared to subscribe to your content, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Four Square or any other social network you use for your company, then people care about what you are doing.
Does that mean they are necessarily going to comment or respond any time you make small talk that is weather, food, travel related? Not really. Sure, constantly talking about irrelevant personal data will get annoying and people will stop following you. The key is to mix it up and be yourself, just like you would if you were talking to someone in person.
Talk about things that matter to you and throw in a few trivial statements about whatever you happen to be thinking about. If you’re funny in real life, then be funny on the web. Some posts can be informative, some can be direct self-promotion, and others can be statements on the weather.
What’s the point you may ask? If someone is following your posts, then small talk shows that you’re human, that you have feelings and that you don’t just use Facebook to talk about new deals you’re offering. And the more someone trusts you and associates your brand with positive things like gardening in the spring, or enjoying a fine ale at the local pub, then the more likely they are to give you a call when they need work done, or visit your site to buy products. That is just marketing, and the principles haven’t changed just because social media came along.
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