Today's search engine marketing news and opinion: Yahoo Rejects Microsoft: Worst Decision Ever?; Optimization by Numbers; Black, White, and Blue All Over; and more.

Today's search engine marketing news and opinion: A Seat at the Table for Web Analytics; Giving Links Away; SEM/SEO Events to Attend; and more.

Today's search engine marketing news and opinion: About Face(book): Microsoft Feels Out Social Network Acquisition; Why PPC Lead Gen Campaigns Miss Volume Targets; 100 Million Theoretical Dollars; and more.

Matt Cutts, a senior software engineer for Google, says that piling links onto a competitor's site to reduce its search rank isn't impossible, but it's extremely difficult."

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I saw his last night its now on slashdot and search engine land.

Google Vs MS

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I guess this is the official reason

In summary:

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by Mack Collier

All week we've talked about the elements that make a great company blog.  Now let's conclude the What Makes a Great Company Blog series by looking at some of the best company blogs.

The first element of a great company blog we talked about on Monday was content.  Kodak's 1000 Words blog is an excellent example of a company blog that just nails the content.  Instead of focusing on Kodak's cameras, 1000 Words instead focuses on photography.  This is the difference between using your blog to promote yourself, and to create content that your readers can find value in. 

The second element of a great company blog is posting schedule.  The Fiskateers Blog is one that has an excellent posting schedule.  New blogs appear almost daily, and most days have multiple new posts.  As you'll note, many posts also receive dozens of comments.  A consistent stream of new content via new posts is a great way to build your blog's readership and community.

The third element of a great company blog is comments.  I love how OpenHouse's bloggers handle comments.  The bloggers make a point to respond to almost every comment individually, and to refer to the commenter by their first name.  Also notice that the commenters also refer to the writer's by their first name.  This might seem trivial, but that small personal touch is definitely resonating with Openhouse's blog readers.

The final element of a great company blog is the sidebar.  A company blog that has an excellent sidebar is, believe it or not, Wal-Mart's Checkout blog.  The Checkout blog includes one key element on its sidebar that most blogs total overlook:  pics of all its writers, and links to their bio.  This is HUGELY important, but again most blogs, even most great ones, totally forget to add pics and bios for its writers.  The blog also has Flickr pics, a section explaining what the blog is about (another key sidebar component that's often overlooked), categories, and a search box right at the top.  It also includes a robust blogroll featuring many NON Wal-Mart blogs/sites! 

Other examples of great company blogs includes Dell's Direct2Dell, LinkedIn's blog, Patagonia's The Cleanest Line, and Innocent Drink's Daily Thoughts.

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by Mack Collier

The sidebars of your blog are a great chance for you to not only give readers information they need, but to also shine the spotlight on them!  In Part Four of my 'What Makes a Great Company Blog' series, I'll look at how superior blogs utilize their sidebars to attract and grow their audience.

There are three main areas you should concentrate on when crafting your sidebars:

1 - Your contact information and bio

2 - Feed subscription options

3 - Putting the focus on your readers and other bloggers

First, your contact information is a must.  I must know who you are and how to contact you.  You can even get creative and put this information in the header, check out the header for the
Corner Violin Shop's blog:

You should also have a picture up of every writer the blog has, as well as either their bio, or a link to their bio.  This makes it much easier for us to trust and be comfortable with the writer, if we can see what they look like.  Wal-Mart (of all companies) does a great job of this at their Checkout blog.

You also want to make sure you have the standards such as categories, archives, and a search button.  But also make sure that you have plenty of options available for letting your readers subscribe to your blog's feed.  Also, where you place the subscriber buttons can affect your subscriber totals.  If the buttons are placed at the top of your blog's sidebar, you'll likely get more new subscribers than if it's placed at the bottom. 

Also make a point to focus on your readers.  You can do this in several different ways on your sidebar, perhaps the easiest is to create a blogroll.  Sure you can add your company's site to the blogroll, but also highlight the blogs of your readers, as you begin to notice readers commenting, see if they have a blog, and if so, add it to your blogroll!  Also, if you discover that certain blogs are popular with your readers, consider adding them as well.

Another way to put the focus on your readers is to add a section highlighting the most recent comments left on your blog.  This is a great way to not only put the focus on your readers, but to also encourage them to comment more often, so they will show up on your sidebar!

As with the other elements of your blog, view your sidebars as a way to provide information that your readers are looking for, but also as a way to put attention on them.  Consider it a way of saying 'thank you' to your faithful readers by shining the spotlight on them!

Tomorrow I'll conclude the 'What Makes a Great Company Blog' series by looking at some of the best company blogs!

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by Mack Collier

If great content is the #1 trait of a great company blog, properly handling comments is #1-A.  Great content pulls in readers and if you can use that content to encourage comments and then reply to the ones left in a proper manner, you'll convert readers into a community.

I also write for the marketing blog Daily Fix, and one of the writers there, Ted Mininni, always has several comments to his posts.  Notice that his most recent post currently has 28 comments.

But also notice that 14 of those comments come from Ted himself.  Ted does an excellent job of making a point to reply to each commenter, and thank them for adding their 2 cents.  Since Ted has a reputation for replying to every comment, readers want to comment on his posts, because they know that he will respond. 

And you should keep that in mind when receiving comments on your blog.  Readers leave comments because they want to have a say, but also because they want you to respond.  They have done you a favor by leaving feedback, and you can say 'thank you', by replying back.

Of course the added benefit is that as your post gets more comments, it means that readers are more likely to read the comments section to see what discussion is happening! 

Look at your blog, do you see any posts with only 1 comment?  If so, why didn't you answer that one comment?  How many readers didn't leave that 2nd comment, because they saw that you didn't reply to the first?

Get in the habit of making every effort to answer every comment left on your blog.  If you can do this, you'll likely find that your readers get in the habit of leaving more comments!

Tomorrow I'll look at the sidebar elements for a great company blog.

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by Jackie Baker

This week we're looking at an e-commerce website for educational toys, Brainwaves Toys. I met the proprietor, Karen, at Small Business Marketing Unleashed last month. She's having a blast with the site because she's passionate about what she sells, but she's new to website marketing and looking for ways to improve.

As always, I asked three questions that are critical to guiding website analysis:

1. Who is your target audience:  Mothers, fathers, grandparents, other adults who care about a child's development. Homeschoolers, teachers, preschools.
2. What is your unique selling proposition: One stop shop for hand-picked toys and games that enhance a child's learning, sense of play and educational development. Great resource for homeschoolers and teachers. We can gift-wrap many toys before shipping.
3. What is your main website goal: Online purchase.

The current Brainwaves site has done many things well, especially usability of the shopping cart and checkout process. However, it needs a little help with design and navigation to get visitors to that point.

Navigation: Which one do I use and where in the world do I start?
Research shows that confusing navigation is the number one way to lose customers. If people have a hard time finding their way around your website, they're just going to give up and leave. And when you have great products that really sell themselves like Brainwaves does, you don't want your navigation to get in the way of a sale.

When you enter on the Brainwaves homepage, there are three different ways to navigate the site. There is a global horizontal bar organized by age group. There's a global vertical bar that's not particularly organized at all and mixes functional (shop by price, age) with topical. And there's another featured section in the middle that is also organized by topic, some of which are in the left sidebar and some that aren't. The housekeeping links such as about us and contact are buried in the footer. While they need to be there, they also need to be more prominent "above the fold" (visible without having to scroll).

With the variety of toys for sale on Brainwaves, I like the idea of having two sets of navigation: one for age and one for toy category. It seems sensible that people would use one of those two systems to browse. However, they should be kept entirely separate from each other.

Research also shows that users scan web pages, and won't bother to look at lists with more than 5-7 links. If you have more than that, break them up into categories and subcategories that are logical and easy to scan.

Always keep your customers in mind; organize your navigation in a way that makes sense to them, call each link what they would call it ("educational toys" takes visitors to the home page, so call it "home"!), and make it easy to scan and browse. If you aren't sure if your organization or labeling (words in the links) make sense to your customers, test it! Find a friend who is in your target market and ask his/her opinion.

Design: Use the header to say who/what you are and draw people in.
There is so much going on in the header of this website, that the main message is getting lost.

 
There are two items that should be in the header of every website:

• Company/website name
• Tagline/benefit statement.

Tagline
The header is your chance to tell visitors what this website is about and why you are unique. It needs to be the first place people look. And be sure to create the tagline as html, not in an image. Search engine spiders ignore images, and a strong tagline that says what you are about and uses your primary keywords help search engines and people to classify your site.

This particular tagline "Educational Toys for Gifted Children," uses a primary keyword and states simply what visitors will find on the site. But it doesn't tell visitors why this site is unique. And I'm afraid the phrase "gifted children" will turn a good portion of visitors away. It really needs to be re-worked to include the unique selling proposition. For example:

"Hand-picked educational toys that enhance learning, development, and sense of play"

It says exactly what you'll find on the site, (toys to enhance learning, development, and sense of play), includes a primary key phrase (educational toys), and says why the site is unique (hand-picked).

Images
Use the header to display images that target your audience and draw people in. While the Verified Merchant and GeoTrust logos are good to include on the site somewhere, they aren't important enough to take up such a prominent location, and can go below the fold or in a sidebar. I'd love to see an image of a child playing watched by a parent or a grandparent ... something colorful that screams "for kids."

Keep in mind that the header should be consistent on every single page of the website. Remember, on average only 5% of your visitors will enter at the home page anyway (and that's a good thing!).

Marketing: You've got a great personality, so use it!
The best way for a small business to compete online with the big guys is to let their personalities shine through. I've met Karen, so I know first-hand that she's got a vivacious, passionate, knowledgeable, and endearing personality. She's incredibly passionate about educational toys that foster creativity and learning. She's a mom who has raised three children. She surfs the internet and hand picks every one of the toys that she sells through Brainwaves. What parent wouldn't connect with that instead of a cold, distant corporation just looking to make a buck?

There are ways to leverage a great personality both on and off site. I'd love to see a letter from Karen and/or a bio on the about page. She could really play up that Brainwaves is a "mom and pop" shop run by a mom who is passionate about learning. Adding her voice to the copy and using her personality as a main selling point would definitely boost trust and interest in her target market. I'd even include a picture of Karen and her family. On the contact form, say that visitors are contacting Karen directly, not just a help desk. In the product descriptions, incorporate the "hand-picked" unique selling point by saying why each item was chosen.

This is the kind of situation where I would definitely recommend that Karen start a blog. She's a good writer, passionate about her product and site, and has a lot to say. Her blog could feature cool new products as she finds them, talk about child development and learning, and share personal stories of raising her three kids. A blog would showcase her personality and knowledge, build trust, and drive links and traffic to the Brainwaves website.

She could also build relationships by sharing her expertise and passion by leaving comments on other blogs and getting involved in parenting and education forums. Remember, you must always contribute relevant information to the discussion; these ARE NOT place to sell your products or just link to your site. 

Usability: An easy checkout process is key to sales.
The Brainwaves website does a great job of making it easy for users to buy:

• The view cart, checkout, and submit buttons are large and easy to find.
• The process is as simple and clean as possible.
• Errors are clearly marked and easy to fix.
• Visitors can easily go back a step to make changes to their cart or personal information
• There are short explanations of the process on each page.
• The steps in the process are well-labeled at the top of each page and indicate where you are in the process.

A few general issues I noticed:

• The site-wide font size is way too small. One of the primary targets is grandparents, but there's no way they'll be able to read the site with decreasing vision. Bump it up at least two sizes.
• The checkout page asks you to log in or register. However, the username and password are not required fields, so it is possible to checkout without actually registering. This needs to be explained, or have separate options for "returning users," "create an account," or "go straight to checkout." Some people will be more likely to buy if they know that registration is optional.

• There's a thank you page after submitting a message through the contact form. However, it should provide links back to key content as well as saying thank you.
• There's too much happening on the homepage. It needs to include just a few sentences (with keywords!) overviewing the site, and then drive visitors to deeper content.
• Pull the customer review section up under each product so that it is one of the first boxes under the product description. When a customer makes a purchase, ask them to come back and review the product on the confirmation page/email and include the link back.

The general structure of the Brainwaves website is good and the product descriptions are strong. With a few key changes to the navigation, adding some personality, and re-focusing the header, this site could really stand out. 

Thanks For Your Submissions
I was overwhelmed over the past week by the many website submissions for review in this column. If you submitted your site, it may be a while until I get to it. I will email you a heads up the week that I review your site.

If you are a small business and would like to submit your site for review in this weekly column, email your URL and the following information to jackie@sitelogic.com:

1. who are your primary and secondary target audiences?
2. what is your unique selling proposition (what makes you stand out)?
3. what is your main goal for your website (sales, leads, page views)?

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by Sage Lewis

Sage addresses the failure of Microsoft's attempt to buy Yahoo!. The winners and losers of the whole ordeal are brought to light in an article by Andy Beale at Marketing Pilgrim, in which, ironically, Google comes out top winner, despite Yahoo!'s successful acquisition of Fast Search. Google also takes center stage with their artist-driven iGoogle themes that are now available, and the art of web development has a new resource thanks to Danny Dover at SEOmoz who came up the "The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet."

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by Sage Lewis

Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier's article "Worst Example of a Company Twittering?" exposes DirectTV's bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools "as the rest of us do." The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter's tweet about the company's presence, is filled in with his article "Why DirectTV is Losing My Heart (and Quite Possible My Business)," and then ends with another tweet about the company's immediate response to his customer service issue.

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Post about the rise of strategic content development for marketing.

A bunch of interesting marketing and SEO related links from the past week or two.

Google, which has arbitrarily forced its will to use nofollow on the web (and declared link buyers and sellers who do not use the tag as spammers) is buying a PageRank 7 link from SEMPO.org.

Over the next month, I will be working on making some major changes to SEO Scoop. I have decided to change from the ColdFusion blog script I have been using, to a more standard one - WordPress to be exact. This will be a somewhat major undertaking.

Happy New Year! May your rankings be top 10, your conversions be 90%, your ROI be over the top, and your coffers be full. May your life be easy, your family and friends be healthy, your time be unlimited, and your heart be at peace.

Well, today is my birthday. Man, the years sure go by quickly. I'm off to go look at some land that I may be interested in buying. With age, comes the desire to get out of the suburbs and into the country. The number one requirement, however, is