Geolocation - Really?

Take Away:

Get ready for local

It’s about mobile

Smart phone penetration is projected to be 50% of the US market by the end of this year – closer to 80% by the end of 2012.

Smart phone users access the internet through their phone just as much if not more than desktop users.

Smart phone users have the internet in their pocket and they are getting more comfortable with using it on the go.

It’s about location

If you use a smart phone you’re already aware of apps that ask to use your location.

If you search using your smart phone your location is submitted (unless turned off) as part of your search criteria

Google and the others have already tweaked their search algorithm to give greater weight to location in search results.

It’s not about being the Mayor

Location data is relatively new and people are still figuring it out.

Sure it’s nice to be the mayor of your local Starbucks on Foursquare or the Duke of the Townhouse on Yelp but what is the benefit to you, the business owner?

The more activity that surrounds your business as a location, i.e. – the more people that interact with it, check in, comment, review on Yelp, Foursquare, Google places etc., the better your business will do in search results – particularly for mobile customers.

What to do?

Make sure your business is registered on the big three:

https://google.com/places/

https://foursquare.com/business/

https://biz.yelp.com/

Once you are registered you can incorporate your local profiles into your content strategy as part of your overall marketing effort. If you don’t know where to start, raise this with me in your next session.

How Google Works

Take Away:

Updating Your Site Improves Your Visibility

Google’s mission statement is to “organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a search engine, Google’s job is to read the entire web, receive a request from you, and then decide which single page across the pool of the fifteen billion best matches your search. This is a tough job, and Google can only do as good a job as we (those in control of website content) do.

There are two basic parts to the search engine, the bot and the indexer, and they have a bee and hive sort of relationship. The bot is the bee, and it spends all its time reading the internet. It makes no decisions, but simply trolls the internet and collects information. The bot then feeds the indexer (the hive) all the data it has gathered, and the indexer then decides which results should be shown for which searches.

The first step in SEO is ensuring that the bot is interested in reading your site. Since the bot is responsible for reading the internet, it has to make decisions as to where its time is best spent. If you put a new site live today, and the bot indexes it tomorrow, then again in a week, then in three weeks, and then six, and if, each time it visits, it sees that your site has not changed, it will begin to visit your site less frequently.

How Google Works

Take Away

Updating Your Site Improves Your Visibility

Google’s mission statement is to “organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a search engine, Google’s job is to read the entire web, receive a request from you, and then decide which single page across the pool of the fifteen billion best matches your search. This is a tough job, and Google can only do as good a job as we (those in control of website content) do.

There are two basic parts to the search engine, the bot and the indexer, and they have a bee and hive sort of relationship. The bot is the bee, and it spends all its time reading the internet. It makes no decisions, but simply trolls the internet and collects information. The bot then feeds the indexer (the hive) all the data it has gathered, and the indexer then decides which results should be shown for which searches.

The first step in SEO is ensuring that the bot is interested in reading your site. Since the bot is responsible for reading the internet, it has to make decisions as to where its time is best spent. If you put a new site live today, and the bot indexes it tomorrow, then again in a week, then in three weeks, and then six, and if, each time it visits, it sees that your site has not changed, it will begin to visit your site less frequently.

Your Website is Not a Chicken!

…or a Ronco Rotisserie Showtime special for that matter.

Oh I know – you paid enough money to have it look good and have the copy all “SEO’d” and everything, and yes, your designers have made it really easy to add content and even talked to you about a content strategy, but you're busy - and now that it’s done can’t you just Set it and Forget it?

NO!

Well – you could of course, but then after 6 months you won’t have generated any leads and you’ll have confirmed your inner suspicion that this whole blogging content stuff is nonsense and you'll go back to spending money on feel good marketing that doesn’t work – but you’ll feel better.

Don’t believe us?  Just ask Eric Smilay of Smilay Properties who started a content strategy on his website a year ago – his year on year figures are up over 500% - page views per month have moved from the hundreds to the thousands – did he Set it and Forget it?  No!

We'll be chatting to Eric in the next couple of weeks and will post about how he overcame the inertia that often kills the execution of a small business content strategy.

It’s not just about the blog posts

Yes – the core of your content strategy is going to be writing new posts – adding new video, images etc – and yes you’re going to be thinking about who the audience is and what they want to hear.  However, there is something that is even easier to do and often time more effective

Recycle and improve your existing content

When you look at your weekly stats (you do look at your weekly stats don’t you?) you’ll notice that there are certain pages on your website that always seem to get traffic.  Could be that post you wrote about the decline in the Bolivian talcum powder industry or that insider’s look into the world of extreme Lego.  Whatever – there are people out there who are regularly finding that article and are enjoying it.

Revisit it – can you improve it – can you make it read more easily, add an appropriate image, should you offer a translation, what can you do to make the experience for the reader better?  Not only that – can you add a link to another relevant article on your website, do you have a service or product that would be useful to people who like this kind of content?

It’s a living thing

The days of Set it and Forget it are long gone and even though there will always be hour long infomercials on products that you really don‘t want but that seem too good to pass up at 3 in the morning – switch that shit off and go and look at your website.  If you're not treating it with a little love and content, you'll lose any benefit it might have provided.

In the immortal words of Jeff Lynne:

It's a livin' thing,

It's a terrible thing to lose

It's a given thing

What a terrible thing to lose

When You Don't Want Your Video To Go Viral

You're an attorney, a Pizzeria owner or perhaps you run the local bike shop, doesn't matter what your market is, you're looking for new customers.

Your Social Media Guru has told you that you need to “get into video” so you’ve bought your flip camera, a gorilla stand, you have a basic understanding of lighting and editing and you’re ready to go viral

Stop for a second and consider

There are 35 hours of video loaded to YouTube every minute - the competition for eyeballs is insane.  People latch onto the latest meme: Evian babies, the Old Spice dude, Rebecca Black’s dignity, that amazing VW super bowl ad.

Viral videos are funny, surprising, unorthodox and generally entertaining.  They’re passed around by people as little gifts of humor and interest to one another; when they’re good the views go through the roof.

What if your business is inherently unfunny?

What if you're the best personal injury attorney in the State, what if you know more about accident re-construction than anybody else?  Should you try and inject a little humor as you jokily relate how that poorly constructed armature sheared off your previous client’s arm?

We’d advise against this – sure you might go viral but you’re unlikely to land any new clients.

Non-viral content

When you’re landing a new client you want to present video content that is not funny, not surprising and often times not terribly entertaining.  We’re not saying it should be boring but when people are making decisions about their well being, their wallets and their future, they prefer to get their information served straight up.

Video on your website should actually be the exact opposite of what makes up a viral video.  Once you get your head round this it is a huge relief and makes the job of producing video content for your business a thousand times easier.

Yes, you should get into video

A video of you explaining, with compassion and brutal competence how you do what you do, is worth a thousand images (and remember – they’re worth a thousand words so you just saved yourself a crap load of writing!)

Video content is not about you being a YouTube superstar; it is about you representing your business in the stickiest way possible.

If you’re not sure where to start with a Video content strategy, give us a shout and we’ll show you how to get started

Image Credit: Alone at the Taj - Stuck In Customs - Flickr

Website Translation - Part 3 - Licensing

If you have professional photography on your website you will be familiar with the concept of licensing creative product.  Although on reflection it makes perfect sense, I was initially surprised to hear that it works the same way for a creative translation.

Here Nath Schon of  Office Magenta  takes us through the basic differences and what you should watch  out for:

What is the difference between buying a translation and licensing a translation?

Translations not involving creation (mostly technical translation) are sold to the client. After payment, he/she can use it freely as often as he/she wants.

In the case of creative translation (subtitling, literary, artistic, advertising translation...), the translation is not sold but the client gets a licence to use the translation.

So does this mean you can get royalties?

Laws are different from country to country. In France, a translator is paid for the actual translation plus he or she gets royalties as an author for each use of the translation: for example; if I subtitle a film and it is broadcast on TV on 2 occasions and published on DVD, I'll get royalties for the TV broadcasting and the DVD.

What if I want to change the translation - or make edits?

Subtitles can't be changed without the translator's authorization, which makes sense because their name is attached to it. Usually the client submits the changes to the original translator for approval.

How does it work in the US?

In the USA, the translator has less control and recognition. A lot more is left to individual negotiation. I ask my name to appear at the end of the subtitles and for final approval if the subtitles have been modified.  I had a few proofreaders ruin my translation by changing a joke so that it missed the target age group - the joke was intended for a 15 year old target group, the proofreader's change lowered the age to 10. Ouch!

Another proofreader changed a slang word, meant to reflect the language used by the Miami mob in the eighties, into a slang word used in France by local gangsters in the fifties or by today's steel factory workers to address the boss. These changes can in the worst case scenario ridicule a text/video (and a translator's reputation).

So, now you know - if you have any questions on how to go about getting your website translated into another language - give us a shout

Website Translation - Part 1

Website Translation - Part 2

Image Credit: Translator by Jeremy Brooks - Flickr