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What Does Google’s Knowledge Graph Mean for Marketers?

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Tom Lynch

Google took a major step this week in bringing to fruition a concept they have been working on for some time now. The release of Google’s “Knowledge Graph” is Google revealing to the public how it will be computing data by entities in the future, rather than by keywords and information strings.

Looking at today’s search results all I can get to come up in the area designated for the knowledge graph is the Google+ results (which have already been displaying). See the example here. And no I was not spending time at work checking sports scores, really…

So, for lack of a live example, I’ll use Google’s example from their Inside Search knowledge graph introductions:

For part of the backstory, In July of 2010 Google acquired MetaWeb in part, for its free, open database appropriately called Freebase.

The idea behind Google’s interest in Freebase in particular is that such a database could act as the foundational warehouse for the information that Google currently indexes in order to serve up links, and could allow instead for the serving up of contextual relationships by associating those pieces of information. This is also the major premise behind the larger Semantic Web movement which can loosely be defined as common formats, by data sets, for pooling together information based on entities (people, places or things) which allows for intelligently-generated knowledge groupings. Instead of a string of information it can be thought of as a ball of yarn, or better yet a cobweb of information.

Some of the previous steps Google has taken to get to this point include integration of rich snippets, Universal Search results, Google+ search results and Schema.org guidelines.

How does this impact your online marketing efforts? Well, everything Google does affects your digital marketing efforts and this impacts every area of your marketing where content has a role. Contextualizing all existing content in order to draw associations means that the lines between your SEO, social media, local listings and paid search are being blurred daily. The solution of course is nothing new: see our previous post on the Google Venice algorithm release.

Gord Hotchkiss and Venice Agree: Content is the Way Forward

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Tom Lynch

We have been advocating to our clients for a long time that it’s not enough to simply optimize only towards SEO goals, or only towards Local Listings goals, but that each digital effort needs to address the user experience and each step along the customer’s path to purchase. That message is resonating across our industry more loudly than ever before with a number of Google’s recent algorithm changes.

For example, Google’s Inside Search blog described the recent Venice update as:

Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal.

This change provides a more fluid integration of localized content into the search results, taking Universal search local. It also makes the organic search results more customized than ever before based on the location of the searcher.

Building on this industry shift, a recent post by Gord Hotchkiss, a well-respected veteran to the our industry, summarizes the current state of search results as something that is in flux but has clearly developed into an amalgamated content experience as opposed to the previous format which was a segmented directory or results. Here’s my favorite part of Gord’s musing:

“What this does, in terms of user experience, is make the transition from search page to destination more critical than ever. As long as search was a reference index, the user expected to bounce back and forth between potential destinations, deciding which was the best match. But as search gets better at unearthing useful destinations, our “post-click” expectations will rise accordingly. Whatever lies on the other side of that search click better be good. The changes in Google’s algorithm are the first step (of several yet to come) to ensure that it is.” Read more.

Really there is nothing new here that hasn’t been well known in the industry since 2010 and even prior to that. Content is King, and it matters above all else in marketing, particularly in SEO. What all of the hoopla is about with these recent algorithm changes is that this time Google is serious. Bear with me here on this analogy but, if Google was your Mom telling you that you had better do something or else… then now would be the time where she says, “That’s it, I’m going to count to three and if you don’t come over here by the time I reach three you are in trouble”. So,take your content strategies seriously and listen to your mother before she reaches the dreaded number three and whatever the heck it is that comes with reaching that number!

What ICANN’s gTLD Expansion Means For Your Brand

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Tom Lynch

The expansion of the generic top level domains is upon us and the debate as to whether or not one should attempt to acquire or not acquire has intensified. The basic premise behind ICANN’s (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers) gTLD expansion is that the nature of the current digital landscape calls for a more brand-centric approach in order for it to continue to grow. In layman’s terms, the world is running out of .com’s, .org’s, .net’s, etc. and so we need new options for domain names. In ICANN’s own words:

“ICANN has opened the Internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today’s decision respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN.

And so it is an endeavor to better mankind and serve humanity… [insert vinyl record scratch noise here]. Really? Well let’s look at some of the facts from both point and counter-point, and see if altruism is really what’s behind the movement.

The overall value of acquiring a Top Level Domain has been questioned by experts in the field of marketing. Some of those who strongly advocate pursuing one of the expanded gTLD options contend that it will completely change the integration of offline branding with online marketing efforts due to the broad brand recognition it provides. Advocates also speculate that the expansion into the new .brand, .category, .anything domain structure additions would be the ultimate game changer in organic search results, nudging the algorithms drastically in favor of the new gTLD’s for searches on the applicable keyword you have chosen to trademark.

Those who advocate not engaging in the application process and subsequent purchase of gTLD’s contend that only the mega brands will have the necessary resources to pursue and win their desired .brand or .category gTLD. Antagonists also speculate that there is a distinct possibility that the search engine algorithms will adapt (or be forced to adapt) to these new gTLD’s in order to limit the preference shown toward the gTLD’s over the traditional .extension domains. These contentions have increased lately and some of the foundation for their contentions are based on the current climate of class warfare rhetoric, and increasing government regulation on free market activities. Google could come under heavy scrutiny for favoring only the very wealthy should they allow the new gTLD’s to dominate the top organic search results as ICANN is anticipating they will. Antagonists contend that this type of scrutiny would only add to the current legal battles that Google has been encountering from both the FTC as well as competitors for favoring its own properties and results over those of its alleged competition.

Location3 Media contends that by purchasing the right gTLD for your brand you could see enormous lift in organic search results for the chosen category, brand or keyword. However, with the current cost limitations, and with the many unknown elements involved, the potential for large-scale engagement in purchasing gTLD’s in the first round will likely be somewhat limited. Engaging is a gamble, and an extremely expensive gamble at that. Consequently, for those who do engage in the application/purchase process you must ensure that you have the necessary asset fluidity to be an early adopter, and must ensure that the potential for gain outweighs the potential risks involved.

Should you have interest in pursuing ownership of your own gTLD you may apply for the direct brand name, or you may also choose to apply for a product name, or a category (ex.: .signs). Assessing whether or not to engage in the application process for a gTLD should include feedback from, and inclusion of, your legal team, digital marketing support team, board of directors, etc. A decision must be reached on what gTLD to apply for and how it will be used.

If you choose to move forward with your decision on acquiring a gTLD your team will need to delve into the areas of discovery, assessment, recommendations and orchestrating the application preparation work which is extremely lengthy. The deadline for submission is a four month window which began in January and goes through April of 2012, with the next anticipated submission period coming somewhere near 2015 to 2016. If you were approved for your Top Level Domain it would publish sometime between 2013 and 2015 depending upon the level of interest and/or complications ICANN is encountering.

Objections or string contention issues may arise concerning the gTLD you are applying for. When those objections arise you will need to have your responses carefully crafted to validate why your brand is the most deserving and well-suited brand to own the particular gTLD it has applied for. As contentions arise it will cost you money to respond to those contentions and if another party has applied for (or objects to your application for) the same gTLD then a bidding war ensues.

Costs for initial application are in the neighborhood of $185,000. After that you must pay annual registry operation costs in the neighborhood of $100k to $350k per year; the first three years of registry costs must be “proven” up-front meaning it must be readily available or the credit amount must be verified.

Your brand gTLD would act as a trademark and should be protected as a trademark would be. Over 1,000 gTLD’s are anticipated to be acquired in the first application round so if you do wait out this initial first round then you will in all likelihood miss out on many of the .category gTLD’s you have interest in acquiring. Many .brand TLD’s may still remain available for future application periods but you may have had to file your own contentions throughout the evaluation process in order to have retained their availability.

So, in an attempt to present an unbiased viewpoint on the benefits of acquiring or not acquiring a generic top level domain I hope that you now feel somewhat more informed. Regardless of which way you decide to go, I think we can be assured that when some sort of initiative is launched to actually better mankind, usually it doesn’t come with such financial strings attached.

Some additional reading resources:

http://searchengineland.com/what-new-icann-domain-names-mean-google-rankings-seo-82468

http://socialmediatoday.com/bernard-martin/428764/social-media-2012-how-icann-has-changed-universe-gtlds-or-not

http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/icann-gtld-will-not-work-ten-reasons-0129226

http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30356

http://marketingland.com/for-most-brands-new-top-level-domains-offer-annoyance-more-than-opportunity-3104

http://newgtlds.icann.org/en

Navigating Facebook Places in a Franchise World

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Tom Lynch

Facebook Places in its current state is a work in progress. They seem to be taking the approach of launching first and seeing where things lead. This practice is of course one that has certainly served Facebook, and others, well in the past; and in fact in the SEO world the practice of acting now, analyzing, and then forming your hypothesis is often how the best breakthroughs are discovered. However in the case of Facebook Places the learn-as you-go strategy has made things a bit challenging for us in terms of keeping our clients in-the-know in this area.

We are hoping that this post will act as the most current status update for our clients as well as for those of you who visit our blog regularly. So, hopefully you find this update helpful but stay tuned because by the time I finish writing this post things will have likely changed again.

Currently, through our relationship with Facebook we update our clients location based information including description, address, city, state, phone number, hours of operation and vanity URL. We are also actively managing check-in deals for our clients.

The way that Facebook Places is currently structured, any data that is managed via an overall Parent/Child page association strategy will replace any data that had previously been submitted by an individual franchisee or SMB. Those previously “claimed” Z/SMB pages then become a part of the overall enterprise level group of locations.

When running FB Places check-in deals on a national level any check-in deals that a franchisee or SMB has been running on their own would also be supplanted by the national, or enterprise level, check-in deal.

So how does this affect your franchisees as a whole? From our experience the percentage of franchisees that are currently managing their own Facebook Places pages and/or running check-in deals is pretty low in the aggregate, but that percentage does change depending on which vertical the client is involved in. Because of the overall low percentage of Z’s we’ve seen as being actively engaged in this area it still makes sense to get all of your ducks in a row at an enterprise level, and the earlier the better.

However, if a particular client or company has an unusually large percentage of franchises who are actively engaged here, and have claimed their own Facebook Place pages, then the only course of action presently available for preventing their efforts from being usurped by your enterprise level efforts is to run manual searches on every location in order to compile a list of place pages that are being actively managed. Once you compile your list of “active” locations you can then remove those from your overall management efforts prior to launch.

Outside of the aforementioned idiosyncrasies, there are some additional points of interest regarding Facebook Places:

We do currently report on Facebook Places activity for clients in bulk form.
The format in which they present their check-in deals has changed drastically in the past couple of weeks concerning how and when the check-in deals can be seen.

Overall, when working in the Location Based Services realm, be very careful as to how you approach your efforts as they could have long-standing repercussions. Working to make all parties happy can be a slippery slope and it’s important to give adequate control to franchisees while maintaining enterprise level control for brand autonomy and quality standards.

Until next time…

LinkedIn is the New Number Two Social Network

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Tom Lynch

MySpace, it was fun while it lasted

“Who does number two work for?” If MySpace.com was the Robert Wagner to Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil character (who of course represents Facebook), then LinkedIn.com just became Rob Lowe; or something like that anyway. The parallel may be a bit of a stretch considering LinkedIn did not go back in time to younger and hipper years. However, MySpace has left themselves in a proverbial time-capsule while LinkedIn has recognized a need for a more professional environment for seeking job opportunities, new business relationships, online resumes and business promotion.

LinkedIn understands that if you are not growing and adapting then you are conversely diminishing. They have become more than a resume housing resource and have joined with major players like Twitter, Amazon and Box.net. They have integrated search engine technology with their massive information database to create an environment that can house vertically focused news and share that news with everyone that runs in the same professional circles.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that LinkedIn.com has overtaken MySpace.com considering the trending of market share in unique visitors even just in the past year.

Companies that were once online behemoths such as Yahoo! and MySpace seem to be proving that mergers and cash influxes alone cannot make up for a lack of direction and innovation. With Justin Timberlakes’ involvement in the MySpace Specific Media purchase, Oscar Wilde’s notion that, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life” is resonating. It would seem that Timberlake’s role as Sean Parker in “The Social Network” has given him new insight into the huge potential in social networking and has provided motivational buy-in toward the new MySpace vision. If MySpace can indeed forge ahead, perhaps creating a better social community where artists, record labels and consumers can all play nicely together for mutual benefit, then we may witness a MySpace resurgence; if not then Twitter or someone else will be waiting in the wings to make the next jump and push MySpace further down in the food chain.

So, it seems that “Who does number 2 work for?” can be answered by whomever can provide the greatest need to the most people for the longest duration of time; well, for the second longest duration of time to number one of course.

Location3 Under the Agency Spotlight

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Tom Lynch

This week finds Location3 Media under Marketing Mine’s Agency Spotlight. Marketing Mine highlights top agencies in their specialty areas with this week’s niche focusing on digital.

Corporate marketers looking to improve upon their current efforts particularly in PPC and SEO can click through from the MarketingMine.com homepage to view Location3′s sample client portfolio as well as a highlighted client creative piece.

Twitter is Down just as Google releases it’s new +1 Feature

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Tom Lynch

Google announces the release of their +1 button, perhaps feeling the heat from the vast reach Facebook’s Like button has achieved. Oddly, Twitter happens to be down just as the release news comes. Coincidence… perhaps, but what if it’s not?! Dunh, dunh, dahhh…

Are social media giants Facebook and Twitter collaborating somehow to stifle the news about the search giants’ attempt at fighting back? Probably not…but would it surprise you if it were the case?

Now we all know that Twitter goes down often and that this is probably one on those high volume, server crushing days; or maybe the news of Google’s new +1 feature generated so much buzz already that it caused the crash. But it’s fun to imagine that there is something strange afoot…

Google Hotpot Bookings Feature and Implications for the Hotel Industry

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Tom Lynch

With all the talk about Google Hotpot and what it means for improving capabilities to proactively address both positive and negative reviews, perhaps the greatest resonating impact may actually be in the hotel vertical rather than the restaurant vertical. Maybe we are feeling this way because both Location3’s President and CEO have been speaking at the hospitality and travel focused conference, PhoCusWright, all week; but I don’t think that’s the only reason.

The booking capabilities that Hotpot has added to the Places pages looks to be in line to siphon pretty substantial amounts of traffic (and more importantly reservations) away from the hotel websites and toward the travel aggregator sites. See dropdown option shown below:

Within the dropdown option, Google does provide the ability to book directly through the hotel itself, but as you can see it is only as a fourth and final option. The travel sites have what looks like both sponsored as well as non-sponsored priority options for booking reservations here. It’s almost akin to someone hijacking your Places page, redirecting leads away from you, and then making you pay for those leads when you would have received them yourself in the first place. Well, that may be a bit dramatic but nonetheless it is a significant change and this does shine a little more transparency on Google’s plans for better monetizing the local listings and justifying the potential loss in PPC revenue they could incur because of the new Places results format. See previous post: http://www.location3.com/local-search-places-results-has-google-really-thought-this-one-through

And incidentally, is it just me or does anyone else keep thinking that Hotpot is a typo that we’re going to see Google correct to Hotspot at some point in the near future?

Local Search Places Results, Has Google Really Thought This One Through?

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Tom Lynch

Let’s talk a bit about what everyone in the industry is thinking regarding the new search results view for searches that Google perceives as having local intent. Has Google really thought this one through (they must have…right?) or are there some grandiose plans in the mix to drastically minimize Google’s Sponsored Listings as a primary revenue generator? Or conversely, are there some grandiose plans to drastically monetize the local listings other than Tags and Boost? Tags and Boost seem to be geared towards small mom-and-pop ad budgets so it seems that it wouldn’t be worth diluting the revenue and success of the sponsored listings for these small fish.

Since PPC is still the most quantifiable marketing option for advertisers and it is still the proven champion for driving online sales at an acceptable cost per acquisition, why mess with it so drastically? We can start with the age old argument, “Does anyone even look at those sponsored listings, because I only look at the organic results?” This can be a somewhat valid argument, but I think most marketing decision makers have seen the light regarding this argument by now. The last number I saw regarding share of sponsored versus organic click-share was around 30 percent versus 70 percent in favor of organic. Google doesn’t typically make money from organic clicks and I’m pretty sure the little company that we know of as “we are not evil” Google is doing pretty well for itself financially so that 30 percent amounts to a whole lot of people who are indeed clicking on the sponsored listings. This is especially true when the user is looking to make a purchase instead of doing research. So does that mean that for searches with local intent Google is simply abandoning the model? Have sponsored local search terms been so poor in performance since universal listings began appearing that monetizing the local results is Google’s best hope?

The primary reason for all of my contemplative barfing is because the new Places results in particular seem to bury the sponsored listings, which causes concern. If you scroll down just past the top three paid listings the map floats along with you and already you’ve missed the fourth, fifth and sixth paid listings because they’ve been mapped over.

We’ve already seen efforts to monetize the local listings, and it’s only logical since even under the past iteration they take up so much valuable SERP space. But how much can you monetize results that are organic in nature (and are based largely in part on proximity) before they become tainted and are no longer looked to for finding the nearest whatever? So I’ll leave it up for discussion and hopefully we get some brilliant comments and insights as to what the what Google might be thinking.