If you are an SEO, I bet you get a little tired of making titles out of keywords like “mobile application development” and “business process improvement”? I sure do. While keyword optimized titles are legit SEO-wise, it can be challenging to create an interesting title out of dull keywords.

Back in my more regular blogging days (3-5 per week) one of my most ridiculous blog titles was, “Rich Internet Application Database Development: Project Crescent” Keyword stuffing anyone? I was obviously tired after writing the article, and just took the easy (and boring) way out with the title.

If you read the content/news-aggregator Huffington Post, you know that they have great titles for their syndicated content. I visit often and usually make several tabs of articles I want to read, simply because the titles are so interesting and make me to want to know more.

Because Huffington Post is an aggregator, they have the luxury of having both a title that is optimized (coming from the actual news source) and a vanity title (that they ‘rename’ the content, this is the one you see and click on). This means they can focus on pure draw with the headline.

Here are a few examples:

Unfortunately, we’re not all aggregators and cannot have vanity titles for our own original content. There is however a lesson in this; about breaking the mold on conventional titles.  In the ever-evolving world of SEO, Google Panda and changing user relevancy algorithms, creating less keyword-stuffed, more interesting titles will serve us better rankings and popularity-wise.

How to Create Interesting Titles for Content:

Limit keywords: Fit in a keyword if you can, 1-2 maximum. We know sometimes they have to be there, but do not keyword stuff.

Leave them asking questions: “How did she change it all?” “How was the Cain Train rocked?” Make readers want to answer the question that comes from the title.

Put away the thesaurus: Try to use smaller words; big words do not register as easily with readers.

Test Different Things: Test a sensational/goofy/alluring title once-in-a-while to see if it works.

Take some time to think about it. Many of us rush titles because it’s the last thing we think about; but it’s really the price tag on your product. How will your title entice people to act?

Soldier On SEOs!

Honestly, initial engagement around this news leads me to believe people are not understanding how significant it actually is. Time (and search results) will certainly tell – but in the spirit of helping companies do all the right things to get and keep high search engine visibility – here’s some quick insight:

What’s Schema and Why Should We Care
Schema is a collection of new HTML tags that help search engines more accurately index relevant content within web pages.

Since the collaboration and roll-out of this new tagging system was coordinated by the three leading search engines, everyone should be looking at Schema (schema.org) as a new standard for making web pages as search engine friendly as possible.

Note: I appreciate the arguments about how The Big Three have dictated this change, essentially skipping organizational/open review processes often associated with creating “standards.” But what’s done is done – so in the spirit of Heartbreak Ridge, it’s now time to improvise, adapt and overcome.

What You Should Do
Start by making sure your webmaster or whomever is handling SEO/search engine visibility for your web properties is on this. I’d recommend proceeding as follows:

1. Get oriented on why and how: The Schema site FAQ is a good overview of the purpose and reasoning behind the big change – but the real meat of what and how to implement the new markup language resides within the Getting Started documentation.
2. Get familiar with the Schema vocabulary applicable to your web pages: This begins to get technical, but the Getting Started document provides a good understanding of how information within your web page can be structured through “types” and “properties.”Even without being technically-minded, you can look at the full list of item types to get a quick idea of the kind of web page attributes which can now be indexed via the new standard.
3. Create a Schema plan: Conduct an audit of your web pages/sites to match applicable content with the Schema item types. You have numerous options for documenting how you will go about making changes, depending on how detailed you want to get. A spreadsheet might be the most helpful for organizing items types and properties by page, content sections, etc.
4. Make the Changes and Test Your Results: Google promises the Rich Snippets Testing Tool will soon support testing of the new Schema tags to ensure you have an opportunity to see how your content is parsed/displayed in the search results. I would recommend implementing your schema plan regardless of how long it takes for this tool to be ready for prime time. As always, keep an eye on your analytics to see the results of your changes.

A couple of other thoughts that come to mind with this change pertain to how we’ll begin seeing search results adjust due to those taking advantage of Schema vs. those who are not. Other than our own clients’ search results, we’ll of course be watching organizations like SEOMoz to see what they come up with in terms of research to validate the predicted significance.

I’m also curious about how the use of Schema might effect quality scores on landing pages used in conjunction with pay per click marketing. I can only guess that search engine ads driving traffic to pages that leverage schema will have a greater likelihood of higher placement and lower cost per click.

As Marshall Kirkpatrick stated yesterday, “This will change the way people design websites, it will change the way people do search marketing, it will change a lot of things. It should be very, very interesting.” I agree. How bout’ you?

Fear of the Social

We constantly hear from people who think that getting into the world of social media is a terrifying leap from the traditional media they are used to. It doesn’t have to be scary when you slowly integrate what you are currently doing with a bit of the online world. And remember, trying this doesn’t mean the commitment to a million-dollar media buy.

I’d like to highlight some campaigns that have caught my attention by doing a great job of integrating social media with print, radio, TV, or websites.

Beginner

I noticed a Toyota Sienna commercial last week that finished not with their website, but with their youtube site. What’s great about this is it drives consumers to a site that is the consumer’s, not Toyota’s, “safe zone”, making it feel much more comfortable.

Intermediate

Using navy.mil as the jumping off point, the Navy utilizes various social media resources, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, RSS feeds, podcasts and Flickr. These resources allow them to effectively manage and communicate with multiple constituent groups, a process that could be confusing and nightmarish to manage given that their constituents range from enlisted men to the media to worried mothers. Specific organizations have specific social media accounts, so if you need to find information about your friend in Amphibious Force Seventh Fleet, you can easily find the fleet’s feeds here.

Expert

Old Navy, who has been using mannequins as a central focus of their traditional media campaigns, started the Supermodelquin Search, which solicits a significant amount of interaction from users, both offline and online:

• Users take photos of themselves and upload them to a website
• The best pictures bubble to the top through user voting
• Users can share what they like through easy share buttons on each page
• The campaign has been neatly integrated with the existing Old Navy Facebook page
• 7 of their modelquins have Twitter accounts, where they share amusing information, push the contest, and promote the brand

So. Any good (or bad) examples that you can think of?

At the risk of paraphrasing, she basically indicated the importance of optimizing web pages is going away. If you consider how referral traffic is migrating from search engines to social networks, I’d say it’s easy to agree.

Of course, what we are seeing is search engines staying relevant by indexing social content. Case and point: I do a quick search on Google for “iPad” – and what do you know: My friend and business partner, James Clark, shows up on the first page of the search results.

Wow, over 48 million results, and his mug comes up on the first page? Yes, because Google is now recognizing and leveraging the relevance of social connections.

And although the optimization of web pages may be bearing less weight, I’m not throwing out the baby with the bath water (ugh, I used that phrase). Keywords, for example, remain foundational to online visibility from both a topical search, and monitoring perspective.

There is a great deal more to the social search discussion recently written by Brian Solis. One of our (Room 214’s) responses has been to create a formal Social Search Optimization program for our customers.

What are you doing to optimize for social search?

Five years ago, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising were only beginning to take shape as legitimate lead generation and marketing strategies. At the time, SEO and PPC were cutting edge marketing strategies – many brands and companies had heard the buzz surrounding SEO and PPC, but were unable to pinpoint strategy or purpose behind it.

Today, SEO and PPC have evolved into common marketing strategies for brands to place their marketing budget. Companies understand the huge opportunities that exist within search marketing for return on investment. Social media, conversely, exists much like SEO and PPC did five years ago. Companies and brands are keen to explore the social media space, but are often unable to define social media marketing success or execute a defined strategy.

Within our niche in the industry, we execute both search marketing and social media marketing for clients. As such, there exists a unique opportunity to take learnings and success from search marketing efforts and transition into the social media space. This is what happened with an opportunistic client of ours.

We were initially hired to restructure The Client’s AdWords account and increase conversion volume. They had managed their PPC efforts internally, and reached out to us to take their account to the next level. After much research and testing, we were able to determine what converted within their account – what calls to action best resonated with users, what keywords and themes were most effective, and what landing page variations were most conducive to converting. We branched out their PPC efforts into Yahoo! and Bing with continued success. Eventually, The Client began asking, “what next?” – their PPC accounts were converting in record numbers at the lowest cost per conversion yet.

Moving forward, we thoroughly researched The Client and their presence online and saw a huge opportunity for them to improve their organic search rankings. Therefore, our next step in their overall strategy was an SEO overhaul. We were able to construct an SEO blueprint based upon their PCC successes and laid out a clear strategy with actionable goals. This SEO strategy is still being executed, but we have already seen important gains in organic search results for several search terms. Recently, The Client again asked “what next?” with their sights set on entering into the space of social media.

The next phase in the overall strategy for The Client was taking the business intelligence learned from successful PPC and SEO implementation and applying it into the space of social media. Sometimes, depending on what industry you are looking to engage with, simply setting up a Facebook page or a Twitter handle is not a priority for a client. After all, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole. With The Client being in a niche industry, there simply was not enough chatter or interest on Facebook or Twitter to warrant developing a strategy. Therefore, we researched alternative, more relevant opportunities in the social media space for The Client to engage with.

After meeting with key stakeholders and discussing goals, we were able to conclude that the next logical step was for The Client to begin a blog. A blog strategy presented the best opportunity to base conversation in the social media space around learnings from search marketing. Why? Because through search marketing, we are able to pinpoint what inspires potential customers to engage with the company. The Client will be able to create engaging conversations based around these learnings through a blog. They will be able to reach their target audience, reach industry influencers who act as information-hungry word of mouth propellers,as well as comment on other niche blogs, message boards and forums.

As it was with search marketing five years ago, social media marketing today poses a conundrum for brands – they realize that they should probably participate in the space, but are unclear how to enter in and achieve success. For a company like The Client, calculated steps and a logical progression from search engine marketing to social media marketing proved to be the best strategy. The calls to action that have worked best through SEO and PPC now act as a road map for content creation we know will be relevant to prospects, customers and influencers in the social media space.

Has anyone else had success transitioning learnings from search engine marketing into social media? Have any questions or comments? Leave them here!

It seems not that long ago (middle of this decade), I was writing quite a bit about how relevant search results had evolved through Google’s PageRank concept – what Peter refers to as Search 2.0.

And now here we are talking about Search 3.0 – relevance based on personal networks and the filtering of data through online social graphs, ultimately strengthened as more people connect with each other via the web.

When you consider the technology (RSS) supporting the distribution of information or updates within online social networks like Facebook and Twitter – I think we actually began seeing the infancy of Search 3.0 nearly two years ago through Google’s Universal Search algorithm update (see basics of how Google’s indexing changed in image below).

Another glimpse of Search 3.0 could be recognized with Stanford’s 2008 Study on (Delicious) social bookmarking. Three highlights from the study included the following:

• 25% of posts through Deicious are pages that have yet to be indexed by search engines.
• 35% of URLs submitted are first-time submissions (roughly 120,00 URLs submitted per day).
• Tags are considered 93% relative to associated content.

What does it all mean? People, not search engines, are assigning relevance to content. Whether they know it or not, it’s their keywords, their descriptions and their opinions that are making the impact.

Now consider how your opinion is shaped to people you are actually connected (networked) to online. Granted, some connections are stronger than others (Peter refers to three kinds of online connections in his Ad Age post) – but all are still highly relevant because they are ultimately chosen by you.

Bottom line: Marketing and PR folks need to get what this is about – and if you are a “social media expert“, then you really need to be on it.

You have to subscribe to that e-mail list in order to see this article (it's in the archives), but here's the gist of it.

On Sept. 6, Dave posted a blog entry about Hewlett Packard: Dunn follows in Fiorina's footsteps as HP implodes yet again. This business story includes links to related postings by three other bloggers: Valleywag, Paul Kedrosky, and Robert Scoble. He found these related postings with a simple Techmeme search — but for non-tech topics, more general feed aggregation services like Technorati would work just as well.

The Payoff: Dave wrote, "While I was sleeping, top blogger Robert Scoble was reading through my article and then updating his own blog entry to include a link back to mine: 'UPDATE 2: Dave Taylor, who worked at HP with both Hewlett and Packard, [gives us the historical context] behind why this can be traced back to Carly Fiorina¹s time running HP.'"

Links from A-list bloggers inevitably bring lots of traffic to a site or blog. They also help build constructive relationships with more established individuals, communities, or organizations. Plus, linking directly to related posts or sites positions your contribution to the public conversation as a resource, not a mere pontification. That means that content probably will attract more links and more traffic over time, since it serves as a gateway to an array of information, or to the historical record.

Dave also notes: "The ''trackback' system is supposed to let bloggers know when others cite their works, but many blog authors — myself included — ignore trackbacks. If you're really eager for a link back from an authority, it might be worth sending a two line email message notifying them of your article and inviting them to read it at their convenience."

He's right about trackbacks. — on all my blogs, I've gotten so overwhelmed with trackback spam ("spings") that I've just turned off trackbacks. I hate it when a good conversational tool gets co-opted and trashed by spammers, but that's inevitable.

He's also right about e-mailing bloggers to let them know you've linked to them. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do that right now…. Yo, Dave…

• Forces the search engines to choose which page is the most “authoritative” or relevant to that subject on your site.
• Creates additional competition for rankings – you’re vying against yourself for position in the SERPs.
• Dilutes the potential ranking ability of a single phrase by spreading link power, keyword targeting, and anchor text on your site across multiple pages.

Speaking of keywords, an interesting new service called HitTail was recently brought to my attention. This free service (for low to medium traffic sites) tracks every search hit that leads to your site and then pulls out the keywords. The underperforming, or long tail, keywords are given to you as suggestions to incorporate in your editorial content, such as blogs. The idea is that the collective demand for the less popular keywords (the long tail) can exceed the most popular terms added together. By using these under performing keywords, you can help out your natural search results and bring more qualified traffic to your site. These less competitive long tail keywords could also be very beneficial to a PPC campaign and likely result in a higher click through rate, lower cost per click, and more pre-qualified traffic.

Of over 2,300 people surveyed:
1. 62% of search engine users click on first page results, and a total of 90% click on results within the first three pages.
2. 82% begin a new search query using the same search engine if they don’t find what they are looking for with the first search term used
3. 41% of users who continue their search after not finding what they were looking for will change their search term and/or search engine if they don’t find favorable results on the first page.
4. Now here is the BIG ONE: 36% believe that company websites that are ranked in the top search results are at the top because they are leaders in that field.

Point number 4 is interesting indeed, suggesting that over a third of the population believes that search engines somehow determine who are industry leaders – and then rank them accordingly. Wow. Any companies out there willing to take advantage of this proven perception? No wonder SEO services continue to be a larger part of marketing budgets across the board.

Sitemaps also give you an array of valuable statistics such as how Google crawls and indexes your site, and problems Google may be having accessing certain pages. You can also learn which search queries drive traffic you your site and the keyword terms used in external links pointing to your site.

Search Engine Watch highlights some of the new features in Google Webmaster Central such as the ability to choose a preferred domain and improved crawl/sitemap error reporting. By keeping your website fresh and offering valuable site stats, this free service is a great complement to any well rounded SEO plan.

Be sure to check out the video tutorials section of our website in the upcoming weeks for an easy step-by-step guide on how to create and submit a sitemap to Google.