Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nonworking Media Spend: Another Buzz Word With Teeth

A recent article in Advertising Age discussed the idea of ‘nonworking media spend’ vs. working media vs. earned media and [for the love of Pete] owned media.  In short, the article discusses the rising requests from large companies, asking agency partners to trim down the cost of content production.

For example: spend less on creative, creative thinking, concepts, content, production and just give us red meat to throw at the masses. But whatever you do Agency Types…quit charging us for what you do best…creativity. God forbid we pay for your time…we just…can’t do…it.

The emergence of nonworking media spend is utter B.S. The idea that you take the creative out of the process and demand a lesser fee so the client can dump it into working media is understandable…however it does not work. Agencies create. They have entire teams who’s job depends on their creativity. Take that out of the mix and what do you have? Crap. That is what you have.

Here is the interesting thing: a recent article in the New York Times shows worker productivity growing while wages remain stagnant. Corporations bottom line continues to grow and only they [shareholders] profit from the work of their work-force. I can see a direct correlation between corporate America now turning to their ad agencies and asking the same. “Give us more for less.”

Companies are frequently asking for 45 plus hours a week without equal pay. Managers say, “Hey, you are lucky to even have a job.” More work, less pay means higher profits for shareholders. Really simple math.

On the agency side…I see the issue as well. Huge overhead and large personnel count equals large fees. Large fees do not always equate to quality or value. During my time spent in agency life I could not believe what was charged for the work preformed. It was a little mind blowing. Again, huge overhead…lots of bodies means large fees not necessarily large profits.

So where does this leave us? It will inevitably leave us in the hands that feed us. Unless you can prove value and take ownership of the job at hand. Even then, it may not be enough to survive heavy client demands without the compensation for time, effort, content, creative and execution.

There is the matter of self worth as well. What do you think your time is worth? What does your client think your time is worth? Who is right? You or them. I believe it is very subjective. Corporate wants more for less and agencies want what they believe is fair pay for fair work. The danger lies somewhere in the mist: making creative types commodities. Making peoples time a commodity.

Time waits for no one. Time is all we really do have control over. Or at least what we do with our time. As time is not promised to anyone…is time not our most valuable commodity? I believe so.

I do know that if the current trend turns into a norm…we will continue to have some pretty major socioeconomic issues. There is a filed that we can all play on – and all play on equal terms. Time is precious for all of us. Ergo – time is not free for others to ask as they will of us. Nonworking media spend is another buzz word with very very big teeth. But full disclosure of where time goes and what it is for may help take the bit out of this monster.

 

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How Google Ad Words Is Getting You To Spend More

Google Wants to Help You To…Spend More…and this is how they do it

Fair warning. This post is more digital marketing [industry related] and may not be intended for the general business audience. As such, this may be painful reading for those not yet ensconced in the search. Read on at your own risk. Fair warning delivered. Moving on…

I wrote an article…one of my first, where I complained about the lack of service from those at Google Ad Words. You can read about it here. Not much for a post in 2009 but a post nonetheless. There was a time when the Google Ad Words team wouldn’t help you unless your business was spending at least $10,000.00 per month. Yes, it is true. I have been working in the search since 2002 and during the early years of the Internet [and yes, those were the early days], Google did offer whole teams to help optimize account for maximum effectiveness. Times were much different then. Easier in many ways and more difficult in others.

SEO was a twinkle in just a few marketing mangers eyes and paid search could make a company millions. In fact, PPC can still pull in millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands. I am a huge fan of PPC, in fact. Without question, PPC and drive highly qualified traffic and produce excellent ROI. However, over the past few years, the folks at Google Ad Words have been taking their collective jobs a little too far for my taste and I assume too far for the likes of other companies like mine.

You see, the folks at Google have been calling on clients regularly. Calling on as may clients as they can to help optimize campaigns and improve performance. Mind you, not just calling…but emailing…and following up…and emailing…and calling…and following up…getting you to spend more money. It seems as if the folks at Google Ad Words have gone a little too far. Their exuberance is surpassing their patience or surpassing their collective understanding of good business. In other words, their desire to help has had some negative affects on some highly performing paid search campaigns.

Sure, I have learned some new tricks. That is an easy task when Google continues to roll out new components and assets for Google Ad Words. For the help, I am thankful. But for the changes they have imposed on some of my clients and past returning clients…it has not been a very good thing. In short, Google wants to improve your overall performance to create a better search environment for users. Fully understood.

However, with many of the changes, they request or suggest; bigger monthly and daily budgets, higher bidding on keywords, and additions that will cost advertisers more money in the short and long terms. Yes, I do the same thing IF the situation requires it. But those people at Google carry some great authority and they can be very convincing. Of course they have done a great many good things within these campaigns as well. It can be very hard to decipher the difference between someone wanting to help just to help and someone wanting to help in order to increase the corporate bottom line. Make no mistake about it…Google makes BILLIONS off of Google Ad Words.

I fully respect Google, the founders, and those folks I have had the great pleasure to work with. But Google has to stop being the daddy of the Internet and paid search. There are hundreds of digital marketing professionals that know how to do the same job just as well as the insiders. Those of us that touch these accounts daily don’t need the insider/outsider creating more conflagration on the PPC cabin that has already been built. If I need any assistance, I reach out to Google Ad Words. And for all of their assistance I am grateful. I have stated such in several surveys.  But until I or any of us running PPC campaigns ask for help…or until internal folks at Google verify who is managing these campaigns…they should hold off on the calls, emails, and constant contacting. It is just a little too much.

Is it too much to ask just one more question prior to pilfering clients or asking for more budget? The question is…are you agency or proprietor? I believe it will open a door of opportunity and create better relationships. Thanks Google Ad Words team. I’m sure we will talk again real soon.

 

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5 Things to Know When Working with a Search Agency

It’s time to finally get your SEO project done that you said you were going to take care of months ago. Your executive team knows it’s important, but that’s about it. You have to outsource the project because you know it’s too complex for you to completely take care of along with all your other projects and initiatives. The goal was to hand the keys on to someone else who knows SEO and paid search to get the job done right, but now you need to figure out how to be the liaison between your own team(s) and the search partner you have chosen to work with.

Here is a list of 5 items that will help you manage expectations in that relationship.

 

  1. You Will Not See Results Overnight

Search professionals evaluate SEO performance using pre-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs are a combination of metrics that are specifically measured and defined to chart on-site performance or improvement. Most SEO projects do not see any improvement in on-page metrics for up to six or nine months after the project is completed. Depending on when and how you implement your fresh SEO can impact performance as well. For example, when Mobilgeddon hit in April, our clients that had just undergone a mobile-friendly updates didn’t see an impact immediately. Instead, they had to chart specific KPIs over the following weeks to see how mobile users’ interactions with the site had changed. Since those mobile updates time on site, pages visited, and visit durations began to incline incrementally.  These KPIs indicated that the user experience on mobile had improved.

 

  1. Micro Managing Someone Else’s Project Will Get You Nowhere

It’s imperative to know what your SEO partners are doing at any point in time, but trying to manage the project yourself is only going to make things more difficult. Your search professional is going to be spending hours at a time working on your project(s) and will not have meaningful updates for you every day. One meeting a week can even be too much. Two meetings a month and a call here and there is more than substantial for even larger projects. However, when too many people are in the mix messaging can get confused. Keep a schedule with predetermined deadlines with flexibility in mind. Some items are going to take extra time due to checks and balances. Work will need to be approved before one party can move forward. It can be difficult to get everything when your bosses say they need it, but remember, they don’t always know the methods behind these processes. This makes it all the better to outline duties [internal and external] ahead of time and scope the project with your search partner before you get started.

 

  1. Content is King

There’s a lot of hype in the digital space about “minimalist” and “one pager” websites. It seems like a great idea because everybody is doing it. Big brands in your industry are doing it too, so shouldn’t you be? Well, no. There are very few cases in which a one page website can be recommended. It is a proven fact that websites with more pages and more text get crawled more, and websites that get crawled more get more visitors, and websites with more visitors get more conversions. It’s that simple. If your business offers a variety of products and services you should have a page dedicated to each individual product or service. The better that copy speaks to your users the more likely they are to fill out a lead form or pick up a phone. If you don’t have good, quality content with specific, clear calls-to-action then you’re going to be missing out. Period.

 

  1. Don’t Panic If Your Traffic Dives

I see this happen every day it feels like. The second a website’s traffic tanks everybody wants to freak out. That helps nobody. There are a vast amount of variables to consider and a myriad of consequences that could result from a paid search perspective, a search volume perspective, and a web hosting perspective. We’ve seen sites go down without warning, traffic stop overnight, and anything in-between. The fact of the matter is that we aren’t always able to foresee when there is going to be a shift or dive in traffic to your site. However, when it does happen your digital partner is going to have protocols to figure it out in due time – that’s our job. Some people also seem to think that the traffic dips will last forever. Guess what? They won’t. Picking up a phone at 2am on a Saturday isn’t going to help anyone. The best thing you can do is document your findings as best you can, offer any insight you might be able to think of, and then let us do our job.

 

  1. Help Us Help You With Understanding What We Do

Another thing I cannot stress enough is how frustrating it can be when a client doesn’t know what questions to ask. Sometimes we will work with a team member on the client side that thinks SEO and PPC are the same thing, or reversed, or identical, or who knows what. We do not expect you to know everything, or even half of it. However, it is your job to know which questions to ask us. Simply put – we do not know what you do not know. I love teaching my clients new things about search. There are insights you can gain from your Analytics and reporting dashboards that can help marketing and sales teams immensely if they understand that data in context. There’s also a vast amount of research out there to keep yourself busy if you’re trying to break into the search industry. One thing I have learned over the past few years is that there is major news that impacts our industry every day. Whether it’s a monster update from Google or a new feature added to any Google product, there’s always a new tip, trick, or piece of information that can keep you ahead of the game.

 

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://media.licdn.com/media/p/8/005/063/2b5/3dcb6cb.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Colin Mumma is a lead Searchologist at Searchology. He lives and breathes all things SEO and loves quality content. Colin has managed client campaigns at Searchology since 2014.[/author_info] [/author]

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The dirtiest word in corporate America is…

There is no top ten list in this post. Only one word incenses and assaults my gray matter more than almost any other word or name in the English language. Sure, Ted Nugent is horrible. Yes, Trump is right up there too.  Covered rock and roll. Covered what-ever-the-hell Trump is now. Moist. Yes, that should go as well. Same for all of the truncated words that used to be full words but are not just too complicated for some of us to fully pronounce or text. There is just one more word I’d like to see drop off every list in the business world…VENDOR.

I’ve long believed that the most important tangible thing in life are the relationships you create and keep. There is nothing more comforting than knowing the known and knowing those who know you. The relations you keep help craft and define the future. A solid relationship continually perpetuates mutually beneficial goals and spurs personal improvement. A good relationship is much like finding a unicorn sleeping in a hollow – sun-drenched in a rainbow. A thing of wonder, magic, and beauty. Yes, it’s corny but it is a vision, no?  And come on…unicorns are cool. Although a liger or growler bear may suit just as well.

With a good relationship, or a really great one, you cannot associate a monetary value with it. Placing a value on such a thing is mostly impossible and should be avoided at all costs. Yet, in corporate America that is exactly what has happened. Relationships equal real money. Real returns. And, at times, real heartaches.

Over 60% of the US economy is service based. Manufacturing and producing consumable goods takes the remainder. As service providers, by default, we must commit to a relationship with clients, and other service providers. And it is during our calls, meetings, emails, Skype sessions, and other digital interactions, we are indeed creating relationships.

During our interactions we create mutual bonds of understanding, compassion, and empathy during our communications…building something more than a binding contract between two parties. We create support systems, sounding boards, call-chains, ideas, openness, and collaboration. We attempt all of this in the face of corporations and business that may want us all to pull the company line.

Vendor is the dirtiest word in corporate culture

As such, we use the name vendor when we refer to companies that provide us goods or services that are not delivered or provide from within our own corporate structure. Vendors help us move products globally, manage systems, monetize new digital channels, discover new areas of opportunity, improve workflow, deliver our latest gadgets, drive ROI, and in some situations, stay up all night to make sure the job gets done. Vendors can make the management team complete, the boss look good, and the board members happy.

However, most of the time…vendors are just that. Vendors. Or hucksters, street merchants, sellers, traffickers, hawkers, traders, and peddlers. Yes, we exchange services and good for money but do the majority of us not do much more? We do indeed. As vendors do we not strive to achieve the holy grail of business…the mutually prosperous relationship? Most certainly. Then why the horrid name vendor? It is demeaning, unsettling, repugnant, and certainly displaces the possibility of a healthy relationship. So let’s stop using the term.

Some change agents needed – lets bring back the warm and fuzzy

In order for business to run at its maximum, it requires people. People, by nature, require relationships and societies. We need to create more meaning and context in what we do as it pertains to our lives and livelihood. Why not? It can only better the human experience and erode the commoditization of those who work with and for our company and cause.

Sure, if we can really get this movement going, I believe we will have to make a few changes. We will have to come up with a new name for VMS [vendor management systems] and come up with some new terms to replace the crappiest term of all…VENDOR. But we can certainly do this together if we try. It shouldn’t be that hard. The Searchology team is willing to go first if you would like to build it together.

Alternates for the word vendor

  • Support team
  • Strategic partners
  • Vertically integrated specialists
  • Exterior experts in residence
  • Granite Team
  • Brand Champions
  • Dedicated account personnel
  • Team Wolf
  • Company name is always nice when tied to surname
  • Collaborative consultants
  • Searchologists

Whatever you decide to run with, you will have my full support as long as it’s not vendor.

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Keyword Level Tracking for Calls Now In AdWords

Website Call Conversions Are Here

At Searchology, we love it when our clients see their click-to-call metrics. What gets us excited about these reports is that not only do we know where the call was made from, what time of the day they were made, or how long the calls were, it’s that they don’t cost our clients anything. When a visitor clicks on your phone number extension in your ads it doesn’t count as a click, and therefore costs you nothing. It’s having your cake and eating it too. How great is that? But wait – it gets even better. Now, in Ad Words, you can see which keywords are driving your phone conversions.

Seventy percent of all mobile searchers have called a business directly from PPC ads. This new functionality helps marketers get more information out of these calls.

A happy client makes for a happy business owner, so now more than ever seems like the perfect time to optimize your AdWords call extensions to see how they can be used to drive more conversions, or at least, more leads for your sales team. Here are some top-level reasons why this is good for marketers:

  • Associate more value of your PPC efforts to your sales team
  • Strengthen campaigns where calls are the highest form of conversion
  • Know which calls are more valuable
    • [i.e. Calls from page A aren’t converting as much as page B]
  • Automated bid adjustments target pages that drive the most qualified calls
  • Geo target areas with the highest amount of calls

How You Can Get Started with Website Call Conversions

In order to implement these new features and start putting them to use you must currently have a Google AdWords account with call extensions enabled and a valid phone number. If you already have those things in place head over to AdWords Help for setting up website conversion tracking for calls. Or heck, call us and we can do it all for you. (312) 316-7202.

Useful Links:

Visit Google’s Official Blog for AdWords for more information about how to implement click-to-call ads and website call conversions.

 

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://media.licdn.com/media/p/8/005/063/2b5/3dcb6cb.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Colin Mumma is a lead Searchologist at Searchology. He lives and breathes all things SEO and loves quality content. Colin has managed client campaigns at Searchology since 2014.[/author_info] [/author]

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The Internet “Kill Switch”

According to the Huffington Post, there is another proposal proposed by Joseph Lieberman to which would allow the President of the United States to shut down or take control over portions of the Internet. Not only is this news, but if it passes, it would potentially change how we gather information and what we can access via the Internet forever. What reasons would the U.S. government have  for shutting down the Internet? The short list; cyber terrorism, protect government agencies, secure government files from groups like Wikileaks , after that…it gets very fuzzy on why a Internet Kill Switch would be needed.

In fact, I imagine that if government agencies are protecting their data, records, top secret files, and have the best professionals in the industry, there is no need at all for a kill switch of any type for the Internet. How does shutting down the Internet protect “the people”? Shutting off access and the Internet does nothing for anyone at anytime. If your computer is protected properly, you and your data should be just fine. If not, get better counter-hackers to combat the hackers or build better firewalls.

The power of the Internet is; the freedom to publish content and read content freely without restraint or censorship. Knowledge is power. The ability to locate documents, new languages, concepts, formulas, and information is empowering. If is one of the purest forms of freedom we have ever experienced. If the freedom to access the Internet becomes restricted consider, the restrictions and “Kill Switch” the Chinese or North Koreans have.

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t think a Kill Switch would ever pass. Nor do I think our government would revert back to hunting communists. Then again, Germany and the world was doing just fine prior to Hitler. The Internet may end up being the most important discovery in human history. To give anyone man, person, woman, or government body the ability to kill it for any reason is the very first step in controlling and regulation for other, more personal liberties.

Keeping the Internet accessible for all is critical for commerce, communication, liberty, and in some cases life itself. So, ponder the possibility of turning on your computer one day to find FaceBook has been shut down, or you simply can’t log in and all you see is this:

Due to U.S. Government Policy Bill number 666-4579 Article – A The United States Government has shut down the Internet because we can’t protect our own computers from the boogieman. Please try in a few weeks or so [when after long delays in bureaucratic B.S.] we will have the Internet turned back on. We do not apologize for this inconvenience.

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