Content discovery is the second most significant use of social networks.

The result? Content is now the foundation of SEO and Social—the bread to SEO’s peanut butter and Social’s jelly, if you will.

Content has become so central for the online marketer that improving on their content development strategy is their number one goal in the next 12 months:

The Brand as a Publisher

All these changes can be summarized with a single phrase—one that we have heard echoed repeatedly over the last several months:  the ‘brand as a publisher’.

But what does that really mean? What does it really take for a brand to transition into a successful publisher?

Mike Volpe, the CMO of Hubspot says it means:

Provide value to your customers. Be helpful. Become the best publication and information source in your industry. This is the core of inbound marketing.

In other words, the question the modern brand owner must have an answer to is:

“How are you adding genuine value to your audience?”

Another way of putting this is that the content paradigm has shifted in substantial ways: (Each of the below could be an article unto themselves.)

So we’ve established that Brands are now Publishers, and if they expect to generate real results—links, shares and community engagement—they’d better have a good answer to the question, ”How Am I Adding Genuine Value?”  By now, some may be thinking “I get that as a brand I am now a publisher. But I’m not having luck consistently producing awesome content.”

Great Content Requires Active Ideation

I’d like to suggest that the reason some might not be having the success they’d like to see, is because of an ‘Ideation Significance Mismatch’.

Most content creators think about the content creation process like this:

In this view, ideation is a static event confined to the start of the process, and it represents a small portion relative to the other steps – both in mindshare and time allocation – of the content creation process.  We spend a bit of time coming up with what we hope will be a winning idea, and then spend the majority of the time creating, publishing and promoting.  The result is often neat-looking infographics that no one is really interested in, or sweet social media campaigns that are the ‘lipstick on the pig’ of meh content.

I’d like to suggest that to consistently and repeatedly create awesome content, ideation must receive greater mindshare, with content creators spending more time up front building great ideas, and also ideating throughout the development process so as to tune and refine the idea:

I think the unspoken truth is, if we are being honest with ourselves, we know that the arrow will only fly as straight and true as the time and effort we spend aiming it downrange.

Recently, Mike King at iAcquire  mentioned to me that his team has a standing 30 minute brainstorming session every single day. Team members whose primary job responsibility may not be content creation participate, and it is a true democracy in that the best idea wins. This is very similar to how we build content at Conductor.

Enable Constant Ideation in Your Content Creation Process

At the end of the day, for your brand to truly become a successful publisher and reap the traffic, sales, and brand building benefits, ideation must become culturally embedded in your organization and receive the mindshare it requires in the content creation process.

[...] for your brand to truly become a successful publisher and reap the traffic, sales, and brand building benefits, ideation must become culturally embedded in your organization and receive the mindshare it requires in the content creation process.

Saying you are not having luck producing great content without giving brainstorming/ideation sufficient mindshare is like saying you don’t know why your crops are not growing when you don’t give them enough water. You’ve got to nourish it or it won’t grow and produce fruit.

Wherever you are as a content creator, take a moment to take a step back and honestly ask the question “How am I adding genuine value to my audience?”  Whatever your answer, consider if ramping up the mindshare you give to Ideation could help you to produce dynamite content your audience will engage with, link to, and share.

A version of this article originally appeared in Search Engine Watch on April 23, 2013.

Drawing the Line with Structured Data Markup

SEOs spend countless hours poring over data, searching for ways to boost their clients’ rankings, search visibility, and click through rates. If there were a single tool that could improve all of these things at once, you’d think that people would be all over it, particularly if that tool were free. As it turns out, there is such a tool, and although it was launched nearly two years ago, it still isn’t utilized on a widespread basis. That tool? Schema.org.

What Is Schema.org?

Before we get into strategy and ROI, let’s look first at what schema.org actually is and what it does. Launched in June 2011, schema.org is a collaborative effort between Google, Bing, and Yahoo that’s similar to sitemap.org in that it creates a standard vocabulary for webmasters to use when providing information for search engines. In this case, the vocabulary is for structured markup, which provides search engines with a deeper understanding of a site and allows them to display enhanced listings in search results. For example, http://schema.org/Recipe allows webmasters to tell the search engine not only that the information in the page is a recipe, but also specific details such as ingredients, number of reviews, instructions, the type of cuisine, prep time, cook time, and even calorie count. Search engines can then in turn display this information in search results such as in the example below. These enhanced listings often result in higher click through rates and better rankings.

Determining Schema Scope

As much as search engines would love to see structured data on every page, it can also be labor intensive to implement, and it’s important to keep the big picture in mind when creating a strategy. Whether by increasing visibility or directly garnering leads and conversions, the ultimate purpose of SEO is to increase a company’s revenue, and schema.org should be viewed as a potential tool to be used in this quest. If it costs more to implement than it will bring in return, then it simply isn’t worth the effort. However, it can be difficult to place a specific value on structured data, and in turn to determine where the effort versus impact line lays.

Ultimately, each company will have to decide the best balance for their business objectives, but here are a few questions to consider:

• How much time will it take to complete the task, and what is that time worth? Compare the cost of implementation against estimated return, i.e., how much does each hour of your developer’s time cost versus what you anticipate to be the potential increase in conversions?
• How does it fit with your industry? Do you have an e-commerce site for which schema is exceptionally useful, or are you in manufacturing or another industrial business in which it may not make as big of a difference?
• Are your competitors doing it? If so, then to what extent? Could it give you a leg up, or do you need it just to keep up?
• How much impact could it have on your CTRs and ultimately ROI?
• How are you currently ranking on the keywords that may be affected by implementation? If you’re already #1, then you don’t have as much to gain as you would if you’re within striking distance (positions 5-10).
• What is the value of being on the forefront? Schema.org implementation may not bring immediate returns today, but it’s important also to consider the value of being ahead of the pack. Both short- and long-term costs and benefits should be included in your analysis.
• Can you start small? Because it can be so difficult to determine schema’s potential impact, you may want to do a high-level implementation to begin with, and then consider more intensive implementation once you’ve measured the initial results.
• Can it be baked in? If you use a CMS, you may be able to add schema markup on the back end and generate it automatically, drastically reducing the amount of work required while simultaneously increasing impact.
• Do you have plans to redo your website in the near future? If you’ll be revamping it within the next six months or so anyway, it may pay to wait and make structured data part of the new site development rather than do it twice. Alternately, structured data can be a way to refresh and update an existing website.

Structured Data Implementation

Once you’ve decided how and where to include schema markup, the next step is, of course, to actually implement it. However, because schema.org is relatively new and is specific to search engines rather than site functionality, many developers don’t have much experience with it, and you may need to provide assistance in the beginning. Fortunately, there are some great tools to help them get up to speed as quickly as possible:

1. Schema.org itself – Schema.org provides a great “getting started” page with specific instructions and examples for developers.
2. Structured Data Testing Tool – This tool allows the developers to see how Google is interpreting the schema and make sure it’s pulling the intended data, before they actually make changes to the site.
3. Schema-specific examples – In addition to the examples found on schema.org, give your developers a few examples of companies using the same schema that you’ve chosen. For example, if you have an e-commerce site, you might look to ebay.com or barnesandnoble.com, both of which have extensive markup relating to product sales. Ticketmaster.com is a great example for event-focused schema.org.

Measuring Impact and ROI

Going back to the big picture idea, measuring schema.org’s impact is of paramount importance in evaluating its worth to an SEO campaign. Before implementation, create a custom dashboard in Searchlight (and/or a custom report in your analytics) to allow for quick and easy monitoring of changes, and note the date that you added the markup, as well as the pages and keywords to which it applies. The goal is to quantify the effect of schema.org as much as possible and compare it against the cost.

To do so, there are some specific metrics that can be benchmarked and monitored over the weeks and months following implementation:

• Rankings on specific keywords – Create a category just for the keywords that you anticipate being affected by schema.org implementation so you can easily monitor their movement as a group.
• Traffic/visits from those keywords – Watch overall site traffic as well as traffic from the pages and keywords affected by schema.org implementation, and use the main site trend as a reference point.
• Conversion rates – Again, watch this metric both for the schema.org keyword category and site-wide.
• Average ranking of the schema.org keyword category
• Number of keywords driving traffic – In addition to the keywords you’re tracking, watch ones you aren’t and see if you notice any trends or an increase in keyword diversity and breadth.
• Click through rates – As one of the key metrics affected by structured markup, CTRs should definitely be included on your list of metrics to watch.
• Sources of traffic – Are you seeing a bigger change in one search engine over another? Bing is thought to give more weight to structured data markup, so you may see a jump in rankings on this engine.

Depending on your goal, you may want to include or exclude other metrics, but those listed above provide a good starting point.

Structured data, particularly schema.org, is still a nebulous area, but by using a systematic approach and using concrete metrics to measure its impact, you can make this markup work for you.

All guest posts are the opinion of the author and may not reflect the views of Conductor.

Hit With a Hockey Stick

A hockey stick graph is a certain shape – a graph showing sudden exponential growth.  Here’s how it looks (I added the hockey stick):

The hockey stick graph has been used (sometimes controversially) to illustrate the rate of global warming, population growth over time, etc.

The rate of change in growing and changing industries like search marketing feels pretty rapid even if it’s not exponential. I like to call it the hockey stick of change because getting hit with accelerating rate of change sometimes feels like getting hit with a hockey stick.

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”

Karen Kaiser Clark

In years past you may have used the following to keep up-to-date with SEO changes in the industry:

• Paper books
• Email newsletters
• Google Alerts
• Trade shows and conferences – SES, SMX, etc.
• Follow “weblebrities” and their associated web presence: Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin, Lee Odden, Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen to name a few.

I still go to the large trade shows and conferences, and still keep tabs on my favorite weblebrities, but in a different and – I think – more efficient way. These days you need a strategy to keep up-to-date in the search industry.

How about this? – Keep your inbox free and keep your go-to sources simple. Use Twitter as your main touch point to track topics and back it up with an RSS reader loaded with good informative feeds. Top this off with a personal presence at your local search marketing association to network with peers and educate yourself in real life (IRL).

Using Twitter to Keep Up With SEO

Build yourself a SEO Twitter list and drop in on that stream on a regular basis. You can also subscribe to someone elses Twitter list. For example I subscribe Danny Sullivan’s Twitter list (along with 847 others I might add).

Save your favorite industry hashtags and participate in hosted Twitter hashtag chats. A good hashtag chat should have two things: a topic for discussion and a moderator. Not only will you get a sense for what’s going on in the community, but you can follow links to online resources that you can then add to your RSS reader.

#SEO is a major general industry hashtag. The corresponding Twitter hashtag chat would be #SEOchat. Leah Beatty provides an excellent Twitter Chat 101 Guide for Inbound Marketers. The basics according to Leah:

• The topic should be promoted via the hashtag on Twitter a few days prior, so all participants know what to expect. (Many chats also have websites or blogs for chat archiving, and will post the chat questions.)
• A moderator is in charge of conversation flow and pace. They ask the questions and encourage conversation while keeping an eye on the clock.

Twitter is also the place to go when you want to follow what’s going on or being announced at a conference. To help keep up you should probably attend at least one major SEO conference a year but watching the hashtag stream from other conferences (#SMX, #SES, #pubcon…) can be valuable.

RSS Feed subscriptions

There are many blogs, videos and social media channels dedicated to search marketing topics, techniques and research. A great way to keep your inbox clean and keep up on a variety of search marketing topics is to use an RSS reader.

Google Reader was very popular for this but has since passed on. You will have to select a new reader. Here are a few you can consider:

• Netvibes – popular and very customizable, but currently no mobile app versions
• NewsBlur – syncs with android and iOS mobile app version
• Feedly – A browser extension reader that syncs with android and iOS mobile app version

Some solid resources with quality RSS blog feeds to browse in your reader include:

• SearchEngineLand – a news and information site covering search engine marketing, searching issues and the search engine industry
• SearchEngineWatch – tips and information about searching the web and analysis of the search engine industry.
• SEObook &SEOmoz- some good tools as well
• All Google/Bing feeds (Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Corporate, Places, etc.)
• Matt Cutt’s blog. Matt is the head of Google’s Webspam team, and he frequently answers SEO questions on his blog.

Local Search Marketing Associations

The large search marketing trade shows and conferences are fun and informative to attend periodically, but they are expensive and usually require travel and time away from your search marketing work. For these reasons and more I am a big fan of attending local search marketing groups. A great example of this is SEMpdx the Search Engine Marketing Association of Portland, OR. This organization was created to provide a resource for both local SEM professionals and area businesses. They are a great model to follow.

In the upper Midwest we have MnSearch, the Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association. (Full disclosure: I should tell you that Conductor is one of the event sponsors for MnSearch.) They hold an evening event the last Wednesday of the month. MnSearch strives to help businesses and individuals keep a pulse on the latest news, trends, tactics and tools. I happen to be its president:

Search marketing is an art and a science. In fact, it's rocket science; it really is. It’s complicated and changing constantly. As a result, search marketers have special needs, and the Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association was formed to address those needs. Learning from our peers is often the best way to improve our skills.

Keeping Up With the Evolving Search Marketing Paradigm

Each change leads to an evolution of the search marketing paradigm. How will you keep up in the future? What channels will you use? What device will you use? I don’t know – perhaps a philosophy would serve us better: “Don’t do search marketing for the search engines, do it for people who use search engines.” I like to think that Matt Cutts would agree.

All I really know is – the only thing that never changes, is change itself.

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

Henri Bergson

All guest posts are the opinion of the author and may not reflect the views of Conductor.

While it is still fresh in my mind, I want to share a few key themes that came out of the conference that reflect how Marketers are thinking today about the ever-evolving online landscape. (These takeaways extend above and beyond the learning that when walking through the sketchier parts of New Orleans at 12:30 at night, if you are 5’8” 140 pounds, have someone like 6’5” Brian McDowell with you to let those in the shadows know you mean business…)

Imagery is a Force Multiplier in Online Marketing

Several presenters in several different sessions pointed out that imagery is a way to enhance our efforts to stand out in both search and social.  But, the headline above should really read  “Good Imagery is a Force Multiplier in Online Marketing”—it’s not enough to just include any imagery in a tweet or Facebook post, choosing the right imagery is critical. One presenter recommended taking an extra 5 minutes to find a strong image to go along with a tweet or facebook post—it can make the difference between a great post that catches a tailwind and a *yawn* from the internet.  Likewise, in search, authorship in the search results can have a substantial impact on click-through rates and digital assets in the search results can drive competitors off the page and increase brand exposure.

Evolution towards Unifying Platforms

The Keynote speaker on day 1 was Michael Slaby, the CTO for the Obama campaign.  He described how in the 2008 campaign, the campaign used a cobbled-together collection of homegrown and off-the-shelf tools to digitally market, engage and track their audiences online.

In 2012, they had developed an in-house platform that pulled together data from disparate sources and gave them the ability to effectively track and monitor efforts both online and off.  This evolution from cobbled-together, home-grown tools to platforms that pull data together from disparate sources and drive Marketers to new found levels of efficiency and productivity is a theme we heard echoed throughout the conference.

Narwhal project creates unified experience by data exchange. Highly focused on APIs to share meaningful data to proper groups #pubcon @slaby

— Brian McDowell (@brian_mcdowell) April 23, 2013

narwhal was a way of creating a unifying experience…the most important part is data exchange @ slaby #pubcon

— Missy Shorey (@MissyShorey) April 23, 2013

(As an aside, I’m still hoping Michael responds to my tweet pointing out Conductor’s research that shows – while correlation does not imply causality – that whatever they did in developing the platform seems to have worked as Obama’s digital reach far surpassed Romney’s in the 2012 election).

Don't Bet the Farm on Social > SEO Just Yet

Despite many cries in the industry that social signals are the new, well, everything, when it comes to search algorithm signals there are many factors impacting ranking beyond social signals.  In fact, the fundamental underpinnings remain links and on page factors.  One of my favorite sessions was one where the presenter showed many instances of pages ranking in top search positions despite not having any social sharing activity to speak of at all on the ranking page. This is not to say that the engines are not working to figure out how to best leverage social signals in ranking algorithms but the message was clear: don’t panic and go betting the farm on it just yet.

Organizational Enablement is the New Thing in Enterprise SEO

Another theme that emerged was the concept of the SEO in the enterprise transitioning into an enablement role. That is, moving into a role where they spend a large percentage of their time enabling others in the organization with the data, insight training and tools to succeed.

For example, in one conversation I had with the person who, for years, managed all of Microsoft’s SEO she described how in managing the SEO efforts for a multi-national organization the ways in which she could spend her time stretched nearly to infinity.

She described, how she (recently) recognized that the best way for her to maximize her organizations natural search potential was by spending her time empowering and enabling others in the organization to succeed in natural search.  By providing training, data, insight, tools and general support she could multiply the effect she could singularly provide, short of visiting a geneticist to clone herself multiple times over.

Miss Pubcon 2013? Get Nathan and Brian's Decks Here

Hope to see you at a future conference. Download Brian and Nathan’s slide decks to find out what you missed.

An analysis of ‘SEO’ vs. ‘social media’ coverage on the top two major tech blogs, while not the most scientific study ever done, shows that social media was covered 4x more frequently on Techcrunch and 58x more frequently on Mashable.

This matters because, as any first year political science student knows, media coverage impacts public opinion.  In this case, that means impacting Marketer’s organizational decision-making, such as budget and resource investment.  And, as many a frustrated SEO practitioner knows, even if you yourself have things straight, the VP or CMO at the top of the food chain who likely controls the pursestrings is often the most susceptible to the tech media’s influence.

Media Saturation of Social Dominates Mindshare and Budgets

To add to the ‘how much’ coverage factor, the ‘what is being said’ is another variable influencing public opinion.  To a certain extent, the tech media has touted social media as the Inbound Marketer’s magic bullet, promising it will change the very fabric of how we market online.  When it comes to online retail in particular, we have been told that social will change the way people shop, presumably because recommendations from friends carry more weight than results from a search engine.

Given these dual factors putting downward pressure on public opinion, we thought now would be a good time to check in on where social should, in fact, be positioned in the Inbound Marketer’s toolbox.

Before we look at the data, let me put out there that we know that measurement of the current traffic social media drives to websites is not a definitive indicator about its future utility.  But it does give us a finger-in-the-wind check as to where social currently stands relative to other drivers of inbound traffic.

With that, let’s take a look at some data.

Data: Social Drives Far Less Traffic than Search

First, from Adobe’s analysis of ‘…billions of visits from 500 retail websites during the holiday season,’ only 2% of visits come from social, while 34% come from search:

Source: marketingcharts.com

And, a study from Monetate shows similar findings with social hovering at around 2%:

Source: marketingcharts.com

It would seem clear, therefore, that from a traffic perspective, social is driving only a small percentage of visits to retailers.  Our own study at Conductor suggests that may be in part because users overwhelmingly turn to search as a discovery platform versus social when it comes to online shopping.

People Use Search and Social Differently

One last point.

Jay Taylor wrote an article on Search Engine Watch last month titled 5 Reasons SMBs Should Focus on Search, Not Social for Customer Acquisition.  He made a number of good points about re-positioning social when it comes to customer acquisition, but he must have struck one heck of a cord with one particular aspect of his observations on social because I noticed a phenomenon I had never seen before on my Twitter stream.  No less than 5 people I follow tweeted a link to his article with the same article snippet (or close variation) preceding the link:

People use social media to, well, socialize. People use search engines when they want to find something.

Facebook and Twitter are hoping to change that, particularly when it comes to commerce (see: Facebook Graph Search and Twitter enabling instant commerce with American Express ), but for now the data says that he’s right.

In the survey we mentioned earlier, users showed that they want to use social for, well, socializing, while turning to search universally across all information retrieval scenarios:

Let’s Reposition Social Where it Belongs

There’s no question that social has a place in the modern Marketer’s toolbox, both as a brand development and customer service listening platform.  But can we agree that it’s time we as Marketers return it, at least for now, where it rightly belongs: a place for socializing.

A version of this article originally appeared in Search Engine Watch on March 25, 2013.

Video SEO has been a buzzword in the online marketing world for some time now. People have been trying to figure out how to rank well within the video search engines ever since sites like Vimeo and YouTube started getting recognition for driving decent traffic and interactions for websites and brand names. While a video going viral on YouTube can skyrocket your business to the next level like it did for Dollar Shave Club, this is the exception rather than the rule for YouTube stardom.
The viral video that shot Dollar Shave Club to fame.

In reality, over 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute which means that your videos on YouTube goes up against a lot of competition. Not to bash on YouTube too much, but if you want to drive more quality traffic to your site by using video, then you may want to look at self-hosting videos on your website.

Advantages of Self-Hosted Video

Granted, starting up a YouTube channel and posting videos is easy to do, but the benefits can end up stopping there. Any traffic the video gets is isolated on YouTube, and in order for that traffic to get to your website an extra step needs to take place. Viewers either need to search for you (probably in Google), or click on a link that directs them to your site; all while not getting distracted by the billions of other YouTube videos (ask any college student writing a paper how likely that is). At the end of the day, your best content should be featured on your own domain and be used for these main things…

Rich Snippets in Google SERPs

You’ve all seen them – images that appear along with the links in search engines that give searchers a better idea of what they can expect to find if they follow the link. This is an example of Google’s Authorship markup that appears for the search query video SEO.

Ms. Christensen’s headshot makes the link pop when compared to the rest of Google’s otherwise bland links but, since you can only have one rich snippet show up in the Google SERPs, an Authorship markup won’t do much good if you want your videos to show.

Now people are getting used to seeing something like this in Google SERPs…

This is an example of a YouTube rich snippet which links directly to the video. It features a wider image than the Authorship markup, as well as the video’s time with a play button image to show the viewer that this is indeed a video. This is great if you want to drive traffic to your YouTube videos, but it doesn’t help much if you want to drive more traffic to your website. Luckily, you can still get the video rich snippet when you host videos on your own site:

As you can see here, Yoast has the same type of video rich snippet as the YouTube example above, but it is going directly to Yoast’s page that features the video. Rich snippets catch the searcher’s eye and have been proven to improve click through rate and, if paired with strong content, higher conversions. This Google Webmaster page explains the markup for video rich snippets in more detail.

Build Natural Links

When a YouTube video goes viral it can create thousands of links from social shares and people posting the video on their own websites, but all of these links are pointing back to YouTube. If you host your best video content (and are exclusive with it) on your site, then you can build natural links and traffic to your site as people share the video and embed it within their own blog posts. Including rich, keyword anchor text within the video embed code gets you natural backlinks that can help your entire site climb the rankings for your keywords. This natural accumulation of links feeds itself as the site begins to rank higher in Google SERPs and more natural traffic comes in from search queries.

Don't Discount YouTube Completely

While it may have sounded like this article is bashing on YouTube, that was not the intent. You should merely be aware that targeting your entire video campaign on YouTube may not have the desired effect for SEO since you’ll mainly be promoting your YouTube channel, rather than your website. A full video SEO campaign should feature videos on your site, and sites such as YouTube. After all, YouTube gets over 1 billion unique visitors a month which is a huge bus to throw your content in front of. While your site may not see a drastic increase in numbers from videos on YouTube, you can still build your brand and reach a much wider audience than you might have by only focusing on self-hosted content.

Please note all guest posts are the opinion of the author and may not be reflective of the views of Conductor.

Conductors Presenting at Pubcon: New Orleans Conference April 22-25

We’re excited to announce that later this month, two Conductors will be heading south to the Big Easy to present at the Pubcon Search and Social Media conference.

Director of Research, Nathan Safran will draw on his experience heading Conductor’s Research and Content Team and will participate on a panel titled, “Social Media Content Creation”

Successful social media practice begins with a thorough content strategy. This session will delve into the creation, management, and strategies of a social media content calendar. We will cover exact details and descriptions of the most successful content for Twitter, Facebook (including notes on EdgeRank), Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

Director of Search Intelligence, Brian McDowell will participate on two panels at this event. The first session will be on “The Best SEO Tools” along side Scott Hendison and Dixon Jones:

In this session we will discuss the most up-to-date tools for maximizing your results from search engine optimization efforts. Come learn all about search engine marketing so you can add more bang for your SEO and Internet marketing buck.

Brian will also be moderating a session, “Organic Keyword Research and Selection” with presentations by Bonnie Stefanick, Barbara Coll and Craig Paddock:

Keywords are the foundation of search and a vital element of your SEO campaign. Join us as we explore and examine the latest keyword tools and techniques to help you uncover which keywords you should be focusing your SEO efforts on.

Come Join Us!

Now’s your chance to start addressing one of the key challenges Search Marketers face in continuing education, so come on down to New Orleans and join us to learn a bunch about the latest happenings in Search and Social while hanging out in the Big Easy. If you can’t join us, stay tuned to this space to download Brian and Nathan’s presentations.

Headed to New Orleans next week? Don’t forget to pack Brian’s top 20 Pubcon must-haves in your survival kit.

Yet, Google is looking to change that. With the addition of the Knowledge Graph, Google has announced its intention to evolve from a ‘search engine’ to a ‘knowledge engine.’ Matt Cutts said as much at an industry conference late last year, explaining Google is so committed to this evolution they renamed Google’s ‘Search Quality’ team the ‘Knowledge Team.’

Although they have taken some steps forward, there are definitely elements holding them back from stepping fully into becoming a true knowledge engine. For the sake of clarity, we’ve grouped our view of the primary challenges into two categories:

• Business: Business issues sometimes get in the way of knowledge dispersion, and this is no exception. Google must be able to strike deals with knowledge owners to include their data in search results. As the on-again off-again marriage with Twitter shows, it can be a messy business.
• Technical: There are technical challenges in becoming a Knowledge Engine. When it comes to things like extracting insight from social data, sentiment analysis is hard. Machines must be able to understand context and meaning from small bits of data like a 140 character tweet, parse the nearly infinite ways people have in talking about things, and present it all in a comprehensible way. While the technology has made steps forward in this regard, it is still imperfect.

Thinking Beyond The Present-Day Google

The thing about using a product for a long period of time is that it can sometimes be hard for users to conceptualize what life might be like if constraints holding it back from evolving were lifted. For many, online search has always been a page of links, more recently evolving to include the Knowledge Graph; but with years of use, we have been conditioned to think about search within the confines of its limitations.

Here at Conductor, we thought it would be fun to set aside those limitations and think about what online search could be. In doing so, we set aside both the business limitations and those technical limitations we thought would be theoretically solvable in the near to mid-term that currently prevent it from becoming a true knowledge engine.

Our Four Categories Of Google Search Changes

We used the Google SERP for the movie ‘Wreck It Ralph’ as a starting point for our newly designed search results page, both because it has a Knowledge Graph entry and because it is a query that is timely. The changes we made fall into one of four categories:

• Social Sentiment: We’ll dive into more details on the specifics below, but one key aspect we added to the SERP was deep insight into what and how people are talking about the query. We created a mechanism for searchers to get both a broad view of social sentiment, and a more detailed view of actual commentary on the query.
• Social Discussions: We also added a section that highlights the most talked-about links relevant to the query and a view of what people across all major social networks are saying about it.
• Email Search Integration: Google has previously demonstrated a willingness to add email to their search results, and we thought if they were going to evolve into a knowledge, rather than search engine it makes sense to include email as one data source. Users who prefer not to include it, could, of course, easily turn it off.
• User Interface: While the focus of our thought experiment was geared more toward re-imagining Google without the limitations described above, than a complete visual redesign that would be better left to professional design firms, we made some user interface adjustments such as moving Knowledge Graph elements from the right column to the top.

click to enlarge

Social Sentiment Meter

One of the key improvements in our new SERP is the addition of social sentiment insight into the query. For example, in this case, we want to see on the SERP itself what people thought of the movie. We want to know more than just ‘like-dislike’, we want insight into the wide range of responses people might have to a movie such as ‘Loved-it,’ ‘Hated-it,’ ‘Laughed,’ ‘Cried,’ etc. (the categories would be dynamic based on the query type). And, we want the analysis to be platform agnostic, mined from all social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, and even LinkedIn when applicable to the query.

Social Share On The URL Level

We also want to know what is being said on the social networks about the links on the search page. For example, in the callout below, clicking on the tweets icon under Disney’s trailer site will show the most popular tweets that include that URL.

Social Conversations Featuring External Data Sources

The social conversations section of the SERP will give us the most-talked-about conversations about the query in question. Google could leverage the major social networks, but also other sources such as Reddit, Quora and others.

In an example that leverages an outside data partner, the “Most Talked About Links” could be the links from a reliable data source such as bitly’s realtime project that aggregates the most-talked-about links about the search term.

The Future of Search Might Be Closer Than We Think

Now, we know not every innovation will work out for every query type. But hopefully, this article will spark some thinking around what online search could be if many of the business and technical hurdles are overcome.

(It may not be as far off as we might imagine. Technology is making progress and many business issues are surmountable, given the right motivation. There was a time when nobody believed Steve Jobs could get the music industry to shift to selling their music electronically.)

This may be the tip of the iceberg of what Google could be as they evolve into a knowledge engine and if they are successful in not just thinking outside the box, but throwing the box out entirely.

This may be the tip of the iceberg of what Google could be as they evolve into a knowledge engine and if they are successful in not just thinking outside the box, but throwing the box out entirely.

Imagine if we thought about the search results with no restriction on data partnerships. What would transactional query SERPs look like? How about navigational? Taking it a step further (while it’s understandable that, at the end of the day, Google is a business, and they are interested in emphasizing their own properties when possible), what if they treated all data sources in the SERPs — whether social networks, shopping sources, etc. — as equals and just asked ‘what is uncompromisingly the best experience for the user?’ How would the SERPs change?

Why Not Bing?

A final thought.

Until now, we have been mostly talking about how Google could take some mighty steps forward to evolve more fully into a knowledge engine. But, a Slate article on Microsoft’s recent ‘Scroogled’ campaign makes some cogent points about why Bing has been stuck at 16% market share, making little headway against the incumbent Google:

The problem with Microsoft’s online service offerings isn’t that their TV campaigns are lame. It’s not even that the products are bad. But they’re not wildly better than Google’s search and email and so forth. Most people are just incredibly lazy. It’s easy to forget, but it took Google Search and Gmail a remarkably long time to rise to dominance during a period when they wiped the floor with the competition on the merits. Now, Google has that change-aversion and laziness working in its favor. To beat them, you have to crush them on quality. And Microsoft’s not doing that. No ad campaign can overcome the basic reality of human inertia.

And John Gruber’s comments on this over on Daring Fireball:

That’s the core problem with a lot of Microsoft’s products, like Windows Phone and Surface. They’re good products, but there’s no holy sh%$! in them. When you’re an upstart in any market, you need a disruptive product. That’s what happened with the iPhone and iPad for Apple, and with web search and Gmail for Google.

If Microsoft is, indeed, serious about giving searchers a reason to shift to Bing maybe they should be the one to craft their own data partnerships, make headway on the tech limitations, build their own true knowledge engine and create their own holy sh&*! moment. They are up against a competitor whose brand has become a verb for searching the Web; so, the argument that they will need just such a motivator to induce switch would seem to have merit.

Dreams Are The Starting Point For Innovation

At the end of the day, it’s easy to play armchair Product Manager. And, I know that ultimately, Google, Microsoft and any potential data partners are businesses with an end goal of revenue growth and shareholders to satisfy; but, a guy can dream.

Let us know in the comments what you think of some of the changes we proposed, awesome data partnerships you would love to see Google or Microsoft forge, or other ways you’d like to see them evolve toward becoming a Knowledge Engine.

A version of this article originally appeared in Search Engine Land on March 7, 2013.

…And that’s exactly what’s missing with most marketing folks who want to join a startup. You have to know (nearly) it all. You don’t have to be good at everything, but you have to have enough exposure and experience at all levels of the marketing “stack” to be able to make good calls on how to spend your time, money and other startups resources in order to maximize the value you bring to the table.

I think there are some interesting parallels between the kind of well-rounded Marketer an early stage startup needs and the skillset an SEO professional needs to make them most likely to succeed. Arguably, this is true to an even larger degree in the SEO industry than in the startup world.

[...] there are some interesting parallels between the kind of well-rounded marketer an early stage startup needs and the skillset an SEO professional needs to make them most likely to succeed.

In a traditional job, a worker is usually very specialized. I work in Marketing, or I work in Finance, or I work in IT, and within my chosen field I typically have a fairly specific specialty, like search marketing or events coordination. In a startup, things can be more diverse, with employees often spanning across multiple specialties but not across disciplines (e.g. a Marketer who is involved in all aspects of Marketing, but not other disciplines such as Tech).  More from the Geekwire article:

“If you are a marketer working at a startup, today you might be strategizing about a new campaign, and tomorrow you’ll have to go open Adobe Illustrator and change the copy on a flyer that you’ll send to be printed at Staples later. In the morning of the next day you might be trying get ahold of the editor of the lifestyle section of the Seattle Times and in the afternoon you are creating seven ad variations for a Google Adwords campaign, and that same night you and the CEO will be having dinner with the VP of Marketing of a large consumer company and you’ll be discussing a two-year strategy roadmap and bringing product vision ideas back to the team the next morning.”

The SEO Professional Skillset is Both Specialized and Broad

An SEO professional’s skillset, however, must span across both the specialty (e.g. Marketing) and across disciplines (e.g. Marketing + Tech). Brian McDowell, Director of Search Intelligence and resident SEO guru at Conductor, talks about the unique nature of the SEO role and describes him or her as living at the intersection of Technology, Marketing, and Sales. By that he means that the most successful SEOs operate with one foot in Technology – working with XML sitemaps, sourcing technology solutions, etc. -, another in Marketing – promoting content, researching keyword terms, etc. – and a third in Sales–evangelizing SEO in the organization, recruiting guest posters, etc.

Looking at this in a slightly different way, by comparing SEO to other online Marketing disciplines, SEO spans across departments in the organization involving Tech, Product Management, Communications etc. while other disciplines such as Paid, Email Marketing, etc. do not, or at least not to the same degree.

SEO Success Relies on Cross-Functional Abilities

A close look at responses from Conductor’s recent joint survey with Search Engine Watch of 616 search marketers suggests that SEO professionals themselves are very much aware of the unique cross-functional intersection they occupy. When asked about their top natural search goals for the coming year, responses were spread widely across the spectrum with a broad representation of goal types across Marketing, Technology, and Sales, and little separation between the top responses.

What Does it All Mean for You?

There are definite benefits to developing yourself into a ‘full-stack SEO’. If you are a small operation, you will be able to easily pivot from one element of SEO to another. If you are in the Enterprise and have specialized SEO professionals working for you, you will be better able to prioritize their efforts, giving you the maximum value from what they do. And a broader skillset and more intelligent resource allocation will equip you to better respond to algorithm changes.

If your mindset is not already geared toward developing yourself as a ‘full-stack SEO,’ consider making the adjustment to do so. Start by shifting your thinking and then focus on the vast educational resources the web has to offer, from understanding the business of SEO itself to learning what other goals and challenges other SEO professionals face. And, don’t be afraid to tinker with new techniques and tactics that you pick up—the best way to learn is by trying. The benefits of being a well-rounded SEO professional will surely bear fruit in the long run, both in your strategic and tactical practice.

A version of this article appeared in Search Engine Watch on February 26th, 2013.

So, if you want to do better than your rivals, competitor SEO analysis should be an integral part of your SEO strategy. When you identify your standing in the industry, you can reinvent your SEO campaign and emerge stronger than your competitors.

How do you define competitor SEO analysis?

To begin with, you need to define your competitors. Cutting it down to basics, you can assume a competitor to be any related website that ranks higher than you on SERPs. Based on this definition, you can proceed to analyze the competitive landscape.

Comprehend the landscape

Understanding the competitive landscape involves finding answers to three basic questions:

• What is my competitor up to?
• What is he doing that I am not?
• Is what he’s doing working for him?

Carry out this analysis even before you begin researching keywords, creating content, building links or optimizing on social media.

The groundwork involves analyzing your target competitors, identifying under-optimized segments or keywords in your niche, calculating costs and preparing budgets, setting goals, and formulating a robust implementation schedule.

Identify metrics of analysis

Spend some time analyzing keywords so that you know your biggest competitors. You might discover several of your previously unknown competitors scaling the SERPs. So, instead of focusing on preconceived companies that you think are your competitors, make keywords your basis for analysis.

Define channels of competitor SEO analysis

The SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis forms a very important part of competitor SEO analysis. The biggest rule of competitive SEO analysis is to never assume anything. Base your SEO campaign on hard facts obtained from three main channels:

First, consider the data channels available to you to analyze the competitive landscape such as Google Adwords and Soovle, a website that queries multiple search engines ‘Suggest’ function simultaneously. Excel can be your friend in allowing you to pivot large quantities of data and mine for trends.  And, advanced SEO platform tools can automate competitor analysis and discovery, deepening your insight into your competitive landscape.

Second, you have off-page and on-page analysis. This involves studying your competitor’s backlinks, anchor texts, social media strategy, tools used, content and page by page traffic figures.

Third, you need to analyze your competitor’s marketing strategies including past and present marketing programs, change in website traffic before and after implementation of marketing programs as well as the most fertile marketing grounds.

Although there is effort to invest in initially developing awareness of your competitive landscape, remember that competitive analysis is an ongoing process that should be completed on a continuous basis since the SERPs are highly dynamic.

The benefits of competitor SEO analysis

Performing competitor SEO analysis in an ongoing and deep way can give you a competitive advantage not only in your SEO efforts, but also in developing insight into your core business. An advanced SEO technology platform such as Conductor Searchlight can be a weapon in your Marketing technology arsenal that can give you a distinct competitive advantage  in your industry.

Want to learn more? Download our how-to guide for competitor SEO analysis.