Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff, whose book Groundswell (co-authored with Charlene Li) is one that I’ve gifted more than once this year, blogged a few days ago about a bad experience with a Blue Cross Blue Shield robocall soliciting information. Bernoff has some good points about robocalls – they’re invasive, inhuman, and (after a history of misleading robocalls in the past few national elections) they are not inherently trustworthy.

Bernoff suggests that BCBS should email instead.

Here’s where things get tricky. First, BCBS is trying to identify Medicare recipients — many of whom are senior citizens, a majority of whom are not very tech savvy or trusting of email. Second, BCBS reports that the call initiative is converting well. Email is not going to give BCBS the same ROI. Not every BCBS customer has email; not every BCBS customer that has email opted into email from the company; not every BCBS customer that has email that elected to receive email from the company is going to open it – in fact, a good number are going to delete it or relegate it to the spam folder.

I hate to play Luddite’s Advocate here but, in this case, emailing isn’t going to guarantee either of the following:

1. The brand responsible for the email will be more human in its interactions, which is what the customer wants.

2. Increased customer response, which is what the brand wants.

As someone who lives with a foot firmly planted IRL and the other firmly planted in the blogosphere, I understand the attraction of a service I use or a store I shop at or a friend of mine that I like to talk to being online and accessible to me. I’m guilty of being that guy who tries to talk people into Twitter.

I’ve been trying, for instance, to get my comic shop to establish a Web presence for awhile now. The owner, a friend of mine, just doesn’t see how it benefits his small, local business to invest in a site. I don’t think that’s him being wrongheaded or stubborn about Web 2.0 as much as it is me trying to get him to conform to my individual habits.

I think that’s exactly what’s going on with the Blue Cross robocall fiasco. It’s very easy to think that, as a social media strategist, analyst, or what-have-you, that your personal taste is the right answer, but that’s not always the case. Social is a channel for communication and traffic/lead generation, not the entire answer, and neither is online (unless your business is only e-commerce, and in this case it’s not).

As always, ask “Why?” when confronted a compulsion to set up a new outpost or take an existing initiative in a new direction or to a new format. If the answer is that “it’s cool,” or “because the kids love it,” or whatever, then at the very least you need to do some more research (or get an expert opinion – and here’s where I’ll plug the eBiz Insider forums and gently nudge you to subscribe to our blogs).

Here’s to SEO in 2009!

When it comes to SEO, using an integrated approach can often yield the best results. When an SEO campaign is executed well, it can often:

1. Bring traffic to your site
2. Increase your visibility
3. Manage your site’s reputation
4. Make way for other integrated marketing strategies

Now, in order to get the best results, you want to utilize as many options as you can manage (site architecture, content, link building, social media, blogging, etc.) Think of it as a buffet. When you go to eat, do you only pick one entree? Making a full plate of SEO techniques can give you a full belly and can even make you a few friends at the dinner table

First off, let’s start with content generation.
Well written content is important for three primary reasons:

1. Engages the reader
2. Increases search engine rankings and traffic
3. Promotes the likelihood of quality links from other sites

Creating SEO-friendly content is by no means an easy task. In basic terms, content is anything that appears on your site. In order to optimize, you need to conduct keyword research and generate clear, concise pieces of content that utilize a keyword several times throughout naturally. This can be done in articles added to your site or in section pages. When done correctly, your site visitors are presented with useful information, your search rankings can rise, and your traffic may increase. The important things to remember are to write for your reader and to avoid unethical practices. Remember, real people, not search engines, are reading your content. What you put out there reflects the overall view of your business. Try to tailor your content and your keywords to relevant products or services that your site can offer. The more general your approach, the more difficult it will be to rank. Also, content writing can be difficult to master. You may need to consider working with an SEO Specialist to manage your campaign.

Next, there’s link building.
Defined by SearchEngineWatch.com as “The process of getting quality Web sites to link to your Web site, in order to improve search engine rankings,” link building is a very important part of your overall SEO strategy. In addition to raising rankings, link building can add to your credibility and drive traffic. Link building techniques can include buying links, reciprocal linking, or entering barter arrangements. To get started, connect with blogs, forums, or sites that can offer related services or information that your consumers can utilize. Figure out what approach works best for trading links. It may be as simple as writing a blog post for their blog or sending a link request email. The key is to choose quality sites that can offer something to your visitors. For example, if you’re a wedding favor site, connect with sites that offer planning tips, catering services, floral designs, or even invitations. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box!

Social media optimization is also extremely valuable to your campaign. Social media sites are based heavily around user participation and user-generated content. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, and Del.icio.us allow for you to increase your visibility as a brand. In this arena, don’t spam your network using constant sells. Contribute valuable information. Participate in debate. Make comments. Remember, these networks are centered around users, not companies. Behave a like a person and offer up useful discussion, not sales pitches.

Finally, blogging should be included into your tactics. Most blog readers are shoppers, whether its for products or information. Like content, it’s important to write blog posts for the reader, however, don’t stuff keywords into your posts. Keep your blogs simple and streamlined, easy to read and of course, relevant. Blogs can create a personality for your site and can offer a very human connection for your traffic. Use blogs to post relevant information, articles, or even opinions that relate to your site. Remember, the writing has to be good, otherwise, your readers will leave disappointed. Like content writing, this can also be difficult to master, but with practice and by keeping up with the latest techniques, you too can become a great blogger.

The bottom line: an integrated approach will yield the best results.
However, don’t fall prey to a cookie cutter strategy to SEO. Each site is unique and will require unique tactics. Don’t be afraid to try different avenues of connection, blogging, link building, and content generation to get the results you’re looking for. Keep up on the latest SEO resources. Listen to customer feedback. Test the waters in social media. Break out your best writing skills. It’s going to be an adventure.

I work alongside some of the most ambitious people I’ve known. I appreciate the universal attention to detail that the whole Internet Marketing Department pays to each account. Sometimes I wish our clients could be flies on the cube walls and see how much their success means to us. Alicia’s ability to supremely shine amongst all these stars is truly an accomplishment. She brings wit and wonder to every day – a quality too many ‘adults’ forego for the serious nature we’ve been told to adopt. This ability to accept an idea that may be just a twinkle, or to implement an entire departmental restructuring, without so much as a “maybe this won’t work”, leaves us all more ready to accept that change is good, progress is better, input is essential, and tomorrow will be awesome.

Oh yeah…and sometimes she’s a penguin

Image courtesy of SafetyTechnology.com

I’m sitting in my apartment drinking a glass of Cherry 7 Up, which I currently can’t get enough of. Why? I have no shame in admitting that my recent adoration of Cherry 7 Up lies in its color: a very festive pink. It’s the perfect color for a holiday beverage, and although I’ve never been much of a 7 Up fan in the past, I’ll more likely than not be buying 7 Up again, long after the holidays are over.

And 7 Up most likely knows this. They know consumers will be attracted to the color and taste of Cherry 7 Up during the holidays, those same consumers will rave about it, creating a wave of people who will now be attracted to the 7 Up brand after the holidays. Take a hint from 7 Up and do the same for your site throughout the 2009’s holidays and seasons, such as:

• Add a holiday themed banner, or a little something to spruce up your site’s logo. For example, during Valentine’s Day, add a few hearts around it if that suits the personality of your site.
• Two months before the particular season or holiday, focus on seasonal keywords in your SEO campaign. This way, you’ll have a better chance of propelling holiday themed searchers to your store, who will remember your site even after they make their holiday purchase.
• Have a contest or promotion, and spread the word through social media sites. This hook getsgcustomers interested in your store, just like the Cherry 7 Up. It gets customers interested in your brand and keeps them coming back for more.

Don’t be afraid to introduce a dash of something new in your online store to help reinvent your site. You’ll pique the interest of new shoppers who may just become come loyal customers!

Below are my thoughts, but I’d love to know yours! Maybe it’s because I’m so social

Restrictive Rules Reap Social Fools

The beauty of the new frontier, so to speak, is that the players and rules that came before you are few and anything but cemented. To be actively engaged at the beginning of something permits an unprecedented opportunity help forge its path – to be part of the unofficial committee that dictates what flys and what dies. It even gives the opportunity to say, “There are no Rules”, and allow the medium to move forward rather freely, developing into as untainted a thing as possible. This is what I hope for.

It’s like being the free-spirited parent who lets their kids choose their own outfits for school. Sure, they may end up wearing turquoise pants with a hot pink t-shirt, but it’s a no harm, no foul situation. They chose what worked for them, and allowing them to take an aspect of control over their young life can bear myriad positive effects. In the prophetic, poetic words of Bob Dylan, “…don’t criticize what you can’t understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, for the times they are a-changin’…”

Let go of the rule that there has to be rules. Make a rule to let it go, in fact. And if Social Media is going to grow up to be the most well-rounded child she can, that’s the only rule you can afford to enforce.

1. Free

2. Guarantee

3. Really

4. Very

5. That

6. A Lot

7. Opportunity

8. To Be

9. Synergy

10. Drinkability

If you want to know the reasons why, read up on the MSNBC article, but if you’re a copywriter, you should already know the drawbacks that are associated with using these words in a headline or in copy. Copywriting is becoming more difficult with the growing use of technology, new formats and jargon, so don’t expect to know all the rules just yet. Getting your word usage down takes time and practice, but here are a few ways that you can hone down your word usage without sacrificing your message’s meaning.

1. Improve Your Vocabulary

   A large vocabulary gives you more flexibility when it comes to choosing the right words to fit the meaning. Try boosting your word knowledge by learning a new word per day, visiting FreeRice.com, or by making an effort to look things up when you don’t fully understand.

2. Read More

   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the more you read, the better you write. However, to improve word economy, try to read things that are known for smart writing. The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, National Geographic, and other similar publications can offer some great insight. Also, start making Copyblogger.com a habit. Check it frequently. You’ll find talented bloggers posting helpful tips on how to become a better writer.

3. Try Twitter

   Want to see economy of words at its finest? Twitter is the microblogging platform that tests your ability to convey messages by only allowing you to use 140 characters. Use it regularly. You’ll notice a difference in your writing style as you “tweet.” Also, use Twitter to monitor the writing styles of your followers. Sometimes they can offer a different approach to communicating a sentiment that you share.

4. Write More

   Practice makes perfect. The more you write, the better you become. It’s that simple. Challenge yourself to tell a story in as few words as possible. Hone down your entire message to three words or less. Experiment with new methods.

5. Suggested Reading

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White

Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide To Creating Great Advertising by Luke Sullivan

The Associated Press Stylebook (latest edition)

On Writing by Stephen King (for aspiring authors)

Last spring, I found the first issue of a small press comic book called Helen Killer.  I liked it so much that I gave it to some friends to read, and then powered up my laptop and blogged about it.  About two weeks after doing so, I got this email:

Hi Jeff,

I found your review for the first issue of Helen Killer your blog, and thought that you might be interested in checking out an advance of the second issue. I’ve attached – hope you enjoy the read!

Best,
Heather

It’s short, sweet and to the point.  The agency didn’t try to buy me or beg me for a link, but they (and this is where I’m showing the principles from that last post put into action) gave me something of value that I could share with my readers.

One of the reasons link building is so difficult is that SEOs aren’t defining value in the broadest, most valuable way.  I know that my link to the comic’s website is going to benefit their rankings, but the bigger picture takes in the qualified traffic my endorsement will send to them and the word of mouth power that might result in a few additional sales.

Long story short, the best way to get links is to simply believe in your product enough to let other people talk about it.

SUBJECT: link exchange offer

Hello Webmaster,

My name is [REDACTED]. I am doing link exchange for one of my client. I visited your website and interested in Link Exchange on your site.

I will add your website link on quality websites. I have more than 200 websites for link exchange.

If you are interested, please send me a list of your websites.

Best Regards,

[REDACTED]

I’ve removed the name of the SEO who sent me this, but emails like this are exactly why link building is the most challenging part of search engine optimization. Of course, it’s not just spammy, depersonalized and error-rife emails that are to blame. Webmasters are increasingly aware of the value that search engines place on links (value that’s already trending downward as more and more people try to game the system, depending on who you listen to), and ego-driven bloggers can wildly overvalue their own worth when haggling over compensation for a link or media placement.

But we can’t control that; we do have power over the communication that we send out to bloggers and webmasters, though.

The sad truth about snagging really valuable links is that it isn’t free. You have to invest – sometimes just time, but also product where appropriate. The best way to generate links, hands down, is to give someone something worth talking about and let them do so. That benefits you and your brand, and it benefits the people linking to you, as well – they’re going to get traffic, some free swag from you, and a shot at gaining a few links of their own. Everyone wins.

Maybe more importantly, bother to know something about the person you’re contacting; maybe their name, the topic of a recent post, etc. Prove that you understand why their site is relevant to yours and not just chosen at random because of its PageRank or Alexa data. As the Web gets more social, the payoff for real, human contact is only going to get greater.

Bounce rate, for the analytics unsavvy, is the ratio of visitors to your site that leave after a single page view. Bounce is a reliable metric for measuring user engagement and overall user experience, but not one that’s received a lot of discussion in terms of organic rankings. Obviously, it would stand to reason that a page with a low bounce rate is more likely to be linked to and more links should equal better rankings, yes? But SEOBlackHat (which we don’t endorse, so we’re not linking to them) noted some striking correlations between bounce rate and Google traffic, which seems to indicate that bounce rates are part of the ultra-mysterious Google algorithm and not simply something for your conversion analysts to watch.

Which means that the answer to “What makes good content good content?” is likely to be bounce rate and/or conversion rate and not simply keywords and links.