Social Media Infrastructures - Blog

16 Reasons NOT to Use Google Analytics for Inbound Marketing

Sun, 08 May 2011 14:24:18 -0500

I know, I know. . . This is considered blasphemous to many of you die hard Google Analytics fans out there. This post will certainly get me more enemies than fans, but that’s ok because it’s true – Google Analytics is not a good tool for inbound marketing. Many of you who find this post offensive have probably never even consistently used a different analytics package. Moreover, if Google Analytics is your analytics package of choice you probably aren’t even doing inbound marketing, but rather Internet marketing. (See Internet Marketing or Inbound Marketing – Is There a Difference?)

Admittedly, I use Google Analytics a few times per week. However, I use it sparingly and to double check trending data. It's always nice to have a second opinion. Instead, I use HubSpot for all of my analytics in lieu of Google. If I just used Google Analytics I’d be forced to manage multiple online sales funnels (i.e. website, social media, email, microsites, PPC, etc.). With Hubspot the data seamlessly flows together, is identifiable, labeled and tracked through a CRM. Besides, you can brag all day to a CEO about how many visitors you got to their website, but what they really want to know is how many leads did you produce, are these leads actionable, and how many leads turned into customers? Google Analytics doesn’t tell you that. . .

Why I Don't Use Google Analytics for Inbound Marketing

1. You can’t track IP addresses easily (requires a programmer and lots of work – makes it virtually impossible to do properly).

2. You can’t assign people to IP addresses.

3. You can’t assign companies to IP address.

4. You can’t track leads easily.

5. You can’t track prospects easily.

6. It gives you no data on your competitors.

7. It only reports on backlinks that have been clicked on.

8. Tracking your lead nurturing campaign is nearly impossible.

9. It has no integrated keyword tool.

10. It provides no link grading or scoring.

11. It can’t integrate with a CRM.

12. Your traffic source categories are limited. (i.e. direct, referral, search, etc.)

13. Does not report on links generated from blog posts.

14. Provides no social media clout/reach measurement. (Google and Bing have recently announced that they do indeed look at a person's social media "clout" as they tweet and post on Facebook links to your website)

15. Provides no graphical sales funnel.

16. Provides no advice or recommendations based on the data it reports.

If you don't use Google Analytics for inbound marketing let us know what you do use and why. We're always interested in checking out new technology.

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk

This post was originally published Tuesday, December 9, 2010 on Brand & Capture, the Kuno Creative Inbound Marketing Blog, and republished with permission.

What J.C. Penny’s Black Hat SEO Means for the Future of Search

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:31:53 -0500

It was recently reported by the New York Times that J.C. Penny engaged in black hat link building tactics for SEO. Upon hearing this Google swiftly crushed J.C. Penny in its SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). Today the shockwaves are being felt across the SEO world. It is important to note that J.C. Penny’s link building was considered black hat because the links resided on very spammy shady websites that were unrelated to J.C. Penny’s products.

Unfortunately, this incident may have a frightening effect on companies that are considering hiring legitimate SEO agencies. Most SEO professionals approach their profession with the highest levels of integrity while deploying only white hat tactics. The New York Times article doesn't do a very good job of highlighting this. So, what did this article teach us about SEO, link building, black-hattery and more importantly Google?

Google's Algorithms

The key take-a-way from this is that Google is not very good at detecting spammy link building when done “under the radar.” Meaning, as long as the links aren’t created too fast it’s harder to detect. If Google sees a large spike in links that reside “X” deviations from their defined algorithmic mean a red flag is raised. That is how a website would get caught for spammy link building. However, Google did not catch J.C. Penny, the New York Times did. That gives black hat SEO’s a good idea of what that “X” value might be. By going into Yahoo’s Site Explorer and examining the spam links a good SEO should be able to determine a potential threshold for staying under Google’s radar.

Increase in Spammy Link Building

The New York Times story potentially could lead to a spike in black hat link building activities. If I were a shady black hat SEO person I’d feel much more confident in my crooked link building activities because of the lessons learned from the New York Times article. Companies that knowingly employ or may employ these shady black hat SEO agencies may feel more comfortable because this new information sheds some additional light on Google’s algorithms. However, if this is the result of the J.C. Penny story it pales in comparison to the below likely scenario.

SERP Sabotage

What is to stop a company from employing a black hat SEO agency to build massive amounts of backlinks to their competitor's website so they can report it to Google and have the website banned? Answer – Nothing! This breaking story has potentially opened up a new market for the black hat SEO’s – SERP sabotage. The SERP saboteur could anonymously report the bad link building activities to Google too. It could be reported using social media, forums and even press releases. I’m sure there are plenty of hungry journalists out there that would love to break the next J.C. Penny SEO story.

How is Google going to handle this new potential reality? I don’t know the answer, but I hope they figure it out soon before companies find themselves victimized by SERP Sabotage.

Image Credit: Goddess of Chocolate

This post was originally published Tuesday, February 15, 2011 on Brand & Capture, the Kuno Creative Inbound Marketing Blog, and republished with permission.

Net Neutrality, Wikileaks & the Struggle for Power

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:07:25 -0500

Being passionate about the Internet marketing business and an equal opportunity hater of politics and both political parties this post has been a long time coming. Rather than write a dissertation and citing every article under the sun, I'm just going to lay out my opinion on the struggle for power I see happening and what this potentially means for you and I in the most succinct way possible. If you want specific sources or would like to dig deeper I recommend starting with Google.

What is Net Neutrality?

The principle advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication.

What is Wikileaks?

Wikileaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks.

The Struggle for Power

Who are the players?

Players	Goals
US Government (All branches, both political parties and the FCC)	Expanded revenue and control over content.
US Military	More freedom to deploy cyber attack tactics for war & clandestine ops.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs)	Expanded revenue by charging website owners and regular customers for equal access.
Large Corporations (Fortune 500, Communications, Media, and many others)	To deploy cost barriers to entry on the Internet so to eliminate competition.
Foreign Governments	To eliminate embarrassing content from sites like Wikileaks and to have an example to follow in order to deploy similar regulations.
Website Companies	Want a fair playing field free from regulatory barriers. Maintain innovation.
Bloggers	To protect their 1st Amendment Rights.
Regular folks like you & me	We want unfiltered content that is free from government or corporate slants.

What are the stakes?

Intent	Excuse	Results
Listening/Eavesdropping	National Security, to protect children	The elimination and censorship of content and dissent.
Tax Revenue	Deficit	Stifling innovation, more regulation and policing.
Regulation	To protect children, small business, citizens, innovation	Handing over the Internet to large media conglomerates, News Filtering, Corporate Donor Quid pro quo, 1st Amendment Rights Violations, Stifling of innovation.
Censorship (Wikileaks, etc.)	National Security	Corporate Donor Quid pro quo, Inter-Governmental Quid pro quo, 1st Amendment Rights Violations, The elimination of online organizing.

Our government has slowly been grabbing a little more power and authority over the Internet since the Patriot Act. Upon taking office the current President included taking over the Internet as part of his war time powers and created the United States Cyber Command ran by our military.

Our government has been under pressure from large corporations for years to regulate the Internet. The Internet removes those traditional barriers to entry for people to publish and distribute content in the form of news and entertainment. Just look at what is happening to newspapers, magazines and television. They're all dying on the vine because they can't compete with the low overhead and ease of distribution the Internet provides. It also allows for anyone to compete directly with large companies in a free and open market. Your neighbor can compete directly with Wal-Mart by using the Internet because it is so cheap and easy. Regulation, taxes, censorship, active listening and legal data mining will make the Internet like television and radio - a content distribution channel for the elite only.

The pressure our government has been under from large corporations pales in comparison to the new pressure they feel because of Wikileaks. Wikileaks threatens every military, national and international politician in the world. The drum beat of regulation is greater than it has ever been and the Internet as we know it is under attack. I implore everyone to take interest in what's happening, educate the people around you, and let your Senators and Congressional Representatives know how you feel. . . before it is too late. . .

Internet Marketing Has Come a Long Way Since 1996. . .

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:36:03 -0500

While working on a website audit presentation I decided to take a look at some old school websites from big brands way back in the mid-90's. I was actually going to discuss the Saturn.com debacle from 1999, but The Wayback Machine would only load one half of the images on the old Saturn website so I couldn't use it. Instead, I uncovered an old Clorox.com website. What a nostalgic piece of work it is. . .

While looking at these old websites I made note of my first impression (design), whether or not they followed web conventions, usability (UX, UI), and whether or not they converted visitors in some way via a CTA or UVP. I purposely ignored search engine friendliness (SEO) and social media readiness (SMO).

For example, the Clorox.com website does a good job at first impressions. Given that this site is from 1996 it doesn't look to bad and is not garbled down with fancy distracting graphics. It also does a good job maintaining some of today's web conventions. As you can see they have a logo in the upper left hand corner and use well known navigation elements like "products" and "employment."

However, there use of the word "environment" in the navigation confuses me. As a navigation element it doesn't do a good job communicating what information I should expect to see there. The website also misses the one of the most common web conventions of today. Rather than using "About Us" they use the word "company." Also, by making the word "company" and "products" red it tells me that they are the most important navigational elements on the page.

To this point Clorox.com isn't doing to bad. Now lets gage the website's marketing effectiveness via conversions. The website itself offers no coupons, calls to action or conversion forms anywhere. The closest thing it has to a conversion is the email address in the footer. Clorox.com failed to recognize or implement a website's ability to drive sales and build brand advocates. Lucky for them that was 15 years ago. They're doing a much better job today.

Thought Leader or Follower - A Blogger's Checklist

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:36:52 -0500

Over the years I've communicated to thousands of people about the power of blogging for inbound marketing and business. These discussions have all focused on three key principles - content is king, building a personal brand, and becoming an industry thought leader.

A blog is the most robust content publishing platform on the Internet today and is a required tool for becoming an industry thought leader. Blog authors can walk the walk, but ultimately it is the blog's readers that define the author as a thought leader or not. However, if any of the below describes you or your blog you're probably not considered an industry thought leader. . .

You may be a thought follower if any of the below describes your blog

You scour over blog after blog looking for something to write about.
You write blog posts once per week or less.
Your blog article topics are spread out over several non-related topics.
Your blog is over a year old and your content doesn't get shared much.
You plagiarize other's blog posts.
You rehash your old blog posts on a regular basis.
You just pull in other blog feeds to make them appear as your content.
You regularly write blog posts in reaction to other's blog posts.
You never follow the E.L.E.E. & T.H.A.R.G. principles. (Engage, Listen, Educate, Entertain & Transparency, Honesty, Accountability, Reciprocity, Gratuity)
You rarely receive comments from visitors to your blog.
You've invited others to guest post on your blog and they've all refused.
You've never been invited to write a guest blog post.

Well, what's the verdict? Are you a thought leader or follower? If you have a new blog or write for several different blogs and tend to neglect one (I'm in this category) use this list on your most popular blog.

How Hiring a Social Media PR Firm Can Ruin Your Public Relations - .gov Edition

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:09:09 -0500

I recently learned that my hometown and former residence, Fort Wayne, IN has ponied up over $72,000 to bring in a social media PR firm for the purposes of training and teaching city employees on how to use Twitter, Facebook and other interactive forms of social media. On the surface this looks like a great idea. In fact, I’m proud of my hometown for recognizing the power of social media and its ability to open up lines of communication with the public. Social media is much more powerful than the standard website because it allows for real-time two-way communication and collaboration as opposed to merely pushing out public information.

How this decision backfired. . .

1. The city government hired a social media PR firm from another city and state – Chicago, IL. Five years ago this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. However, given today’s economy, sending out contracts for work that can be done by over a dozen local firms isn’t a good idea. Not only that, but angering the truly skilled social media professionals in your own city has the potential of ruining that city’s online reputation and the reputation of the out-of-town social media PR firm very quickly.

2. The city, politicians and contracted firm now have dozens of social media, Internet marketing and blogging experts picking apart their online brand and search engine reputation. Any perceived mistakes or bad practices will be highlighted. Once the negative blog posts are written and optimized for the search engines they will quickly be distributed across several social media channels and the internet at-large.

This has the potential of creating a major search engine reputation management problem for the City of Fort Wayne, the politicians involved and the social media PR firm in Chicago. When the PR firm's future potential clients do their due diligence on Google they will be confronted with lots of negative comments and posts. Thus, hurting the social media PR firm's chances at future business. Don't let this happen to you. Here’s important information about search engine reputation management you should know.

3. The process of choosing a vendor appears to be classic cronyism. It is well known that the City’s new Deputy Mayor used to work for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. While working for the City of Chicago the same social media PR firm was contracted. The Deputy Mayor reported that there were no local Fort Wayne social media PR firms for her to contact. The only way that could be true is if she used the Yellow Pages to look them up. I know of over a dozen local social media consulting firms that could have done this kind of work.

It looks like the goal of improving public relations with social media by the City of Fort Wayne will have to wait while they dig themselves out of the PR nightmare. Dissing dozens of social media experts makes for a bad start.

Photo Credit: Northeast Indiana

First 40 Days as Director of Social Media & Search Marketing

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:32:33 -0500

What a ride it’s been for my family and I since mid-September! Not only have I embarked on a new and rewarding career path, but my family and I packed up an entire house in Indiana and moved it to an apartment outside of Cleveland – we’re still unpacking too! Aside from the pains of moving, the last 40 days have been packed with new and exciting Internet marketing lessons learned.

At Kuno I’m surrounded by lots of very talented traditional and digital marketing minds. Not a day goes by when I’m not awed by the sheer creativity of the staff. This experience alone will make me a much more rounded, successful and creative marketing thought leader. However, being supplanted with so many creative marketing folks represents only a small portion of the many benefits I’ve uncovered as Director of Social Media & Search Marketing.

Below is the top 10 list of things I’ve learned in the first 40 days at Kuno Creative:

Studying, preparing and passing the HubSpot Certified Partner exam isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Although I was a first-time-go, it took dozens of hours to complete the exam successfully.
Internet marketing is not the same as inbound marketing. (follow up post on Kuno’s blog to come)
Lead nurturing closes the loop between sales and marketing.
Traditional web design and development companies sell Internet marketing NOT inbound marketing.
No matter your experience level - ALL CMS’s have a learning curve.
The need to know some HTML never goes away.
Leverage the talents of your designers every chance you get.
In social media your personal brand and the company’s brand are always connected. Success and synergy comes from leveraging the two brands. By neglecting one, you are neglecting both.
Instill competition in your bloggers. Make them compete for page views, comments and Tweets.
Google Analytics is great for experts to examine, but irrelevant to clients. Clients need to know how many leads, opportunities and new customers were obtained from your campaign, where their website ranks and any significant trends.

Undoubtedly, the above merely represents a small inventory of lessons learned. None the less, they are all very important lessons learned and I hope they help you as you traverse the world of internet marketing. As my career progresses, there is no doubt that this list will fill a book or two and I plan on sharing all of it. For more on the above topics continue to follow my blog and hop over to the Kuno Blog – Brand & Capture, one of the hottest inbound marketing agency blogs in the country!

Top 10 Quotes - If Glengarry Glen Ross Were About Internet Marketing [REPOST]

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 10:29:39 -0500

I started my career in Internet marketing in a unique way – sales. That’s right, I went from website sales professional years ago to Director of Social Media and Search Marketing today. What a ride it’s been too! You can learn a lot in sales and the first thing I learned was that Glengarry Glen Ross is the best sales movie EVER! If you haven’t seen this movie I highly recommend you get it ASAP. For those that have seen the movie – I present to you the top 10 quotes from Glengarry Glen Ross if it were about Internet marketing.

Blake: These are the new analytics. These are the Glengarry analytics. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for converters.

Blake: We're adding a little something to this month's email contest. As you all know, first prize is an all expenses paid trip to Blog World. Anybody want to see second prize?
[Holds up prize]
Blake: Second prize is a new keyboard. Third prize is you're fired.

Blake: Your name is "you're wanting", and you can't play the man's game, you can't convert them, and then tell your wife your troubles. 'Cause only one thing counts in Internet marketing: get them to click on the call to action and make them fill out a form.

Blake: A-B-O. A-Always, B-Be, O-Optimizing. Always be optimizing, always be optimizing.

Blake: What's the problem, pal?
Dave Moss: You -[correcting him]
Dave Moss: You're such a hero, you're so popular, how come you're coming down here wasting your time with such a bunch of bums?
Blake: You see this Facebook page? You see this Facebook page?
Dave Moss: Yeah.
Blake: That Facebook account is worth more than your house. I made 1.2 million fans last year. How many you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't care. Good father? Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - convert! You think this is abuse? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get in the SERPs? You don't like it, leave.

Blake: You got email lists. Mitch & Murray paid good money. Get their email addresses to convert them. You can't convert the email addresses you're given, you can't convert, hit the bricks pal, and beat it, 'cause you are going OUT.
Shelley Levene: The email lists are weak.
Blake: "The email lists are weak." The email lists are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business fifteen years...
Dave Moss: What's your name?
Blake: @ChrisBrogan. That's my name.
[Moss laughs]
Blake: You know why, mister? 'Cause you have 120 Twitter followers, I have over 155,000. THAT’S my name.

Blake: Put. That coffee. Down.
[pause]
Blake: Coffee's for Bloggers only.

Blake: You call yourself an inbound marketer? You MySpace user.

Blake: You want to know what it takes to search engine optimize a website? It takes BRASS BACKLINKS to search engine optimize a website.

Blake: Get out there - you got the click-throughs coming in. You think they went to the website to learn how to get out of the rain? A guy don't surf a website lest he wants to convert. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their email addresses. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it?

The above are my top ten quotes and I would love to hear yours. Please leave your favorite Internet marketing adjusted Glengarry Glen Ross quotes as a comment (keep it clean though). If I get enough I may have to do a sequel to this post - Bring 'em!

Originally posted at: Brand & Capture - Kuno Creative Blog - Inbound Marketing Agency
Authored by: Chad H. Pollitt - Monday, October 11, 2010

10 Reasons Why SEO Purists Should Never Work for a Fortune 500 Company

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 10:20:01 -0500

Internal SEO + Fortune 500 = #Fail

Prior to accepting my new position as Director of Social Media and Search Marketing at Kuno Creative, I briefly entertained the possibility of going to work for a very large Fortune 500 company with over $4 billion in online revenue as an internal SEO consultant - the keyword here is 'briefly.' The company did what you'd expect in the recruiting process: plush hotel, expensive meals, meeting high level execs, etc. I'll admit, I was pretty impressed at first, until I got to meet the managers of the multiple teams that make up their web department.

They're not interested in the TRUTH - just interested in what sounds 'true' while being politically acceptable.
Deny, deny, deny - In order to cover their behinds, department heads deny their mistakes. (I found some pretty elementary mistakes too - no meta data. . ?)
The left hand doesn't know what the right hand, fingers, legs or toes are doing.
Marketing decision making power is concentrated in IT. (huh???)
Microsites are 'branding' tools only and aren't considered as the SEO powerhouses they can be.
SEO is just another spoke in the wheel (other spokes include: SEM, copywriters, PR, strategists, programmers, designers, social media, email marketing, etc.) with the site being the center and the website manager being the surface of the wheel. The problem with this structure is that SEO is a vital part of all of the spokes and if the role is not integrated within the structure with some authority it becomes a glorified internal lobbyists role. This structure is doomed to fail. Consider SEO being the surface of the wheel and the website manager being the axle.
It is 'sacreligious' to even consider utilizing keyword rich domain names outside of a subdomain.
Websites tend to be massive 'Frankensteins' that have been added-to and thrown together over years and years with no SEO considerations. To properly optimize a 'Frankenstein' website would be a massive undertaking that would require buy-in from the development team.
On-page SEO is a wreck! Within five minutes I discovered their primary keyword phrase was 'view all.' (I'd be remised if I didn't mention that these large bloated sites tend to have tens-of-thousands of backlinks).
SEO takes time. For highly competitive search phrases I'm uncomfortable with anything under 12 months. Fortune 500 companies want instant results that can be measured quarterly at a minimum.

9 Reasons Why I'm Moving to Cleveland Ohio

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:09:54 -0500

I'm Moving to Ohio because. . .

I hate Michigan football too.
Someone needs to replace LeBron James.
Weekly visits to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Doors exhibit.
Living in a city named after General Moses Cleaveland (<- this isn't a misspelling) sounds better than a city named after General "Mad" Anthony Wayne.
Foosball tournament purses are bigger in Cleveland.
Trading up from Lake James to Lake Erie.
Can now officially stalk Jim Kukral, author of "Attention! This Book will Make You Money."
To harass Buckeye fans with all my Indiana University gear.
I love pierogies and kielbasa!

Making tough decisions. . .

Seriously though, I've lived in Fort Wayne Indiana my whole life (except for college - Bloomington, IN 5yrs, and war - Balad, Iraq 1yr) and have been fortunate enough to carve out a pretty good internet marketing career for myself in Northeast Indiana. My family and I have Digital Hill Multimedia to thank for that.

Life is exciting around Digital Hill these days. Their product TabSite is exploding as a top international Facebook application and has been mentioned in TechCrunch and by Facebook star Mari Smith. The staff at Digital Hill has been a joy to work with too. Mike Gingerich is really starting to make a name for himself in social media marketing and Jeremy (ZombieYeti) Packer is a highly sought after illustrator working on international clothing lines and album covers. I will miss working with everyone at Digital Hill and will continue to be an evangelist for TabSite.

New position, new challenges and new experiences. . .

Starting Monday, September 20th, I will be the new Director of Social Media and Search Marketing for Kuno Creative, a Certified HubSpot Partner and one of the hottest inbound marketing companies in the country. This role will permit me to dedicate my internet marketing efforts to developing strategy, executing tactics, tracking and adjusting campaigns, eBook and white paper development, and blogging.

Being partnered with HubSpot will allow me to have a greater share of voice nationally and internationally in the internet and inbound marketing arena and very soon I will be a HubSpot certified professional.

Even though my family and I are moving to Cleveland, I fully expect to not only maintain, but continue to grow my Hoosier network of internet marketing and social media professionals. Expect to see me around the state speaking at seminars and conferences sharing my SEO, inbound marketing and social media lessons learned.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - Know anyone that wants to buy a house? Send them my way. . .