New Video - Advanced Google Options for Personal Branding

As part of our super secret new site launch, we have created a really cool series of videos on technology and its impact on branding, building your business and creating your character. Today is the first video we are releasing to showcase some of the powers that are now in your hand. This video is all about the Google and how recent changes in its search results can impact your online brand and how people get information about you, your company or your brand online.

And here is that mean opt in form to join the 3 Days - 3 Actions Video Series I mention at the end. It's a really cool series where I think you are going to not only learn a lot, but also take the knowledge and put it into action to help propel your brand or company.

If you would like a sneak peak at RockStarLifestyleDesign.com, you can check it out here. A full post on what is going on will come soon. You can also learn about that 3 Days - 3 Videos series by clicking this blatant link to it here.

Please leave some feedback on both the video and the new site. I know there is some recycled content on there, we wanted to put some of the best posts from here over there as well as test out some of the formatting. Original stuff is coming soon, promise.

-Greg

Innovating Search at Warp Speed

When I got into search and SEO a few years back, the focus was on creating a great web page or site and to build that up over time through links, conversions, improving copy and promoting the hell out of it.

Today this is the last thing that I would recommend to a new site. The reason is we are focused on the now, or rather on time. Let's take the recent Iran election as a quick example. If I typed in "Iran elections" into Google, what do you WANT it to return?

You want Google to tell you what is going on in real time over in Iran. You wan the latest news stories - even yesterday's news is really irrelevant due to how fast things develop. If a site that had been optimized over the last few years for the key phrase "Iran election" came up at the top of the rankings, you would be disappointed and would need to keep looking.

Knowing this, Google, and more than a handful of new search applications are moving to a real time web. Perform that search for Iran election (even though as I type this it is now a few days old) and you will see blended results:

(Click the image to enlarge)

(Click the image to enlarge)

The top photo shows recent Google News selections. These are time updated and crawled to show you the most up to date news on the key phrase. You can also see that organic results from Wikipedia display headlines for the 2009 election. The number one result from Boston.com is from June 15th, 2009 and #2 The Guardian is from June 14th. This gives the searcher the most relevant "new" information on the topic.

The bottom photo shows you blog posts that are being spidered for the terms and are also fresh posts. Lastly you see related searches. These terms are derived from searches that others are making in real time on Google.

Now take into consideration all the Social Media stuff and ways to search topics and keywords on these sites. A Tweet from yesterday, even if super powerful and helpful, is no longer relevant. An article that hit Digg's homepage on Monday is long forgotten by Friday.

How does search keep up?

One cool thing that Google has done is given its searches "search options." On Monday I am going to be giving you guys an awesome video that walks you through Personal and Company branding implications for these "search options." Sorry to make you wait, but the video is awesome and has some cool backend stuff.

What about other engines?

One of the most relevant search engines in today's world is Twitter Search. Josjua Odmark from Search Engine Journal wrote this about Twitter Search yesterday

We all know how important keywords are in content thanks to Google. Twitter is teaching us how important these keywords are in our Tweets. Relationships are created via the keywords that are in the Tweets and people are finding Tweets based on those keyword searches.

He also listed some problems with Twitter search, some that can even be implied into other engines:

• Punctuation - not returning results that have ! and ? at the end of words. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
• Absolute Matches - Singular and plural forms of words are counted as not the same. Although a trick would be to search for the plural and the singular would be returned as it is part of the plural word. Thus searching for iPhone will not return iPhones but a search for iPhones will return iPhone because it is part of the root.
• Word recognition and typos - Twitter search does not make the distinction between health care and healthcare being the same. It is not getting Google smart and showing "did you mean" when you mispell a word.
• Timing - While you want relevant searches, Twitter only returns the Tweets based on phrase and time. Spammers are taking advantage of this, by putting keywords and phrases into Tweets while promoting affiliate products and the like.

Where do we go from here?

So Twitter Search is certainly not the answer (yet) as the web has so much going on outside of Twitter - videos, photos, news, products, articles, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I found a real time social search engine courtesy of my trusty old source Mashable yesterday - Collecta. This shows results in real time for stories, comments, updates and photos. This gives you a good picture of what is going on right now on the web. Here is a sample search for Gen-Y. You can see it picked up 23 results in the last 2 minutes.

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What about Bing?

So I am not going to say I have played around in Bing like I live in Google, but I did a few searches and here's what I saw. I performed the search for Iran election and below is the screen shot.

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You can see that the related searches on the left seem relevant. The news results at the top are very real time (indexed only between 1 and 2 hours prior to this search). The organic results show a mixed of long time trusted links and new sites. The one I find interesting is IranElection.org. They are a new Meme tracker that popped up during the election process. I think this is a great real time source for information.

Not bad Bing, not bad. (I feel like I am talking to Chandler from Friends everytime I talk about Bing).

So Where Does This Leave Us?

Honestly, for the average person - not much of this is relevant today. The search engines do a fairly good job of displaying a mix of "real time" data and highly optimized content (you know - old school organic, great content and on page stuff, incoming links and Google trust factors). For the techie and geek people, we can expect more experimentation from the Search Engines and new applications and add ons to enhance our user experience.

For SEO types and site owners, the formula is the same, but magnified. If people are looking for content in real time, you need to produce content in real time. If someone wants a video on gardening, that is less than 4 minutes long that was made in the last week, well if you are a gardening site, you need to have content to match that. It means more work if you are going for organic rankings.

Don't panic or go on a content rampage, but some things to consider may be:

• Instead of releasing 10 videos in the same day, spread them over the next 2-3 weeks so you always have fresh videos.
• Properly tag, title and describe things. Tell the search engines what your stuff is about.
• Look in your analytics and see when search engine, twitter and social media traffic is coming to your site. If you see a lot of Twitter traffic coming in the early morning, it would be wise to Tweet at those times with your keywords.
• Get on a regular schedule. Makes it easy to manage.
• Build stronger brand awareness. This way they are doing branded keyword searches rather than generic searches. Much easier for someone to buy from you when they search for "your company name" vs "what your company dies."
• Give your clients/customers/web viewers ways to share your content. Even on static or product pages, let your people share your videos, content, etc and Digg it, embed it and email to a friend.

Search is getting smarter and in turn you need to get smarter too. There is much to gain from search and social media traffic and they are quickly blending together.

Question to ponder:
What do you think of the current state of search? What would you like to see? How is social media effecting your traffic from search engines?

Remember to check back on Monday where we have an awesome video on using the new Google stuff for Personal and Company branding. I think you are going to like it.

-Greg Rollett

Why Record Labels Should Not Create Ads

I started another new site, Gen-Y Rock Stars, to promote a few music marketing e-books that I am launching. (Ahem, cheap plug, 1st ebook is coming on Monday and its ahem, free).

Anyway, I am monetizing the site and I was happy that Google is giving me image ads in AdSense vs. their traditional text ads with a mere 3 posts on the site. What I came across this afternoon was an ad for a musician's new single and I know he won't go Google bankrupt anytime soon.


The ad in question is missing at minimum:

• Name of the artist
• The name of the single
• The name of the album

I had no idea who this guy was, staring at me on the Interweb.

Upon clicking the ad, I came to the landing page that was built with Social Media in mind. With a mini site widget from Gydget, a link to a Facebook page, Amazon link and picture slide show, RCA is thinking viral. Only its for an artist that may not be reaching the tech-savvy younger demographic. The singer-songwriter crowd may be better suited for a different type of campaign. I could totally see RCA artist Scary Kids, Scaring Kids utilizing this type of Social Media techniques.


To go back to ad creation, I think the record labels understand the importance of visibility, search and the power that Google has to create traffic. I also think they know that they need to assist with building a buzz for their artists. What they need to do is remember that while a "call to action" is extremely important, it is also imperative that web surfers know what they are clicking on.

When launching any ad or AdWords campgin for a musician remember to try and include the following:

• Artist name
• Current single
• Album
• Release Date
• Upcoming tours
• Featured guests
• Call to action
• Website, blog or (so last year, but) Myspace page

Hopefully RCA will see their return (or lack thereof) on investment and start creating not just "cool" visual ads, but ads that create band and brand recognition.

Oh and how did I know this way RCA and not Ray LaMontagne himself? It has a little logo on the ad itself and links to and RCA Records landing page.

Better luck next time.

-Greg Rollett

Google Knows Music...Or Do They?

I might have really missed the train on this one, or maybe I am really observant and smart. Either way, this is powerful stuff for musicians and marketers to think about when working within Google and inside of keywords.

First, how I got there: I was writing an article on Girl Talk and Illegal Art Records for SkatterBand when I Google'd Girl Talk. Results below.


What was this I though. So I clicked through.

Wow. What information. Google sorted Girl Talk into their releases.

With the tabs on the left I could then:

1. See all tracks from all albums.
2. Buy "Unstoppable" on Rhapsody.
3. Buy "Secret Diary" on Rhapsody or eMusic (Google is totally using an Affiliate link too)
4. See all websites affiliated with Girl Talk (actually just links back to the initial Google search results)
5. See the latest news on Girl Talk via Google News
6. Get Girl Talk pics from Google Images
   
7. Talk about Girl Talk in already formed Google Groups

Not bad. All this information on an indie artist from an indie label. And this was returned as more relevant than their official website, Myspace page, YouTube videos and so on.

What happens if you look for a "bigger" band?

I chose Blink-182 and Linkin Park for the experiment. Same results. More information. Both Google versions came before official sites that have been online and building deep links for years.


With Blink the initial results page was even divided into 3 sections. One with the Google Blink-182 landing page, the official site, Wikipedia and a YouTube clip, the second featured Blink lyrics, and the 3rd had more search results from that good 'ol Google algorithm. See the image below.


One last observation was the terrible ads these landing pages displayed. Girl Talk had singles ads and Linkin Park had one for the official Lincoln car dealer site.


Google step your ad displaying game up! This comes after I read an article on Google displaying terrible results inside of Myspace.

My initial thoughts:

• They are making money from selling your music through affiliate links - not terrible but read number 2
  
• They are taking clicks away from your website, Myspace page or whatever, where you are serving ads and selling your own products
• They have created these pages with no confirmations from the bands themselves, obviously, but have missed albums from Girl Talk and I'm sure plenty of others
• They are serving disastrous content based ads on these pages

Google, this may be great in theory, but let's work out the kinks before we go further with it.

What are your thoughts, concerns and opinions on Google taking over music search?

-Greg Rollett

Using Google To Sell Your Blog

I am always looking at ads that people make on AdWords for their products and sites. Today I was scanning the ads on my site when I came across a Millennial marketing his personal blog through AdWords.


Not too strange I thought.

Intrigued I clicked through to the site, Millennial Life. The landing page was the homepage of the blog. A common trait of AdWords users. The problem I see is that you want to take people to your best stuff. If your latest post is just a photo, or an update or something of no value to a first time reader, you may turn that reader off before they hit the subscribe button.


We'll put that fact to the side and get to the reason for this post. If he monitored the AdSense ads that were appearing on his site, he would notice that he is inadvertently advertising for his own site on his blog. In fact, Google thinks this is the most relevant ad to his site.

I would like to think that BT, the bloggers screen name, would still be breaking even on the deal, as he would be getting paid through AdSense for hosting the ad and the click, and paying out to AdWords for the user making the click.

All of this nonsense just to being the viewer back to the very same home landing page.

I think its great that Millennials are marketing their blog and spending some money to get more readers. And why not use Google? They serve up the most ads and let your earn some quarters on the back-end with AdSense. Just be sure that you are monitoring stats from both accounts and also your own site. You can block ads from certain advertisers, and that may very well include your own ads from appearing on your own site.

BT, I hope you see this and your Millennial Life blog gets some traffic from the Google ads. We do not need to lose you as a Gen-Y blogger due to losing funds and bad marketing tactics.

Gen-Y question of the day?

How are you advertising your Gen-Y blog? AdWords, StumbleUpon Ads, Facebook Ads, WOM Marketing, the Brazen Careerist network, nothing? This will prove noteworthy to all Gen-Y bloggers looking to expand their network!

-Greg Rollett

Twitter with me. You know you want to. All the cool kids are.

Myspace joins Google’s OpenSocial. So what?

It has been driving me crazy with the amount of words being poured into this Myspace vs. Facebook, Microsoft vs. Google and whatever other rivalries you want to throw out there. All that matters at the end of the day is the users and their experience on the site.

With Google’s new evil empire that includes Myspace, LinkedIn, Six Apart, Orkut, Salesforce, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle, all these networks are going to have the same Apps made by the same developers that are competing for the same poor kids who could care less. Where is the user uniqueness? Facebook almost has it, Myspace should have had it but would rather be a Video network than a social network. Myspace's improvements have been lame and still don’t address the major problems like bad servers, SPAM, and realistic advertising that doesn’t involve….shoot Paris Hilton in the face and win a prize.

Facebook has received all the press in the last few months and received a hefty sum based on a bogus $150 billion evaluation. Google on the other hand has had their stock hit $700 a pop and bought every social site they can get their hands on. Their announcement of the OpenSocial platform comes on the heels of a losing battle to get a stake in Facebook.

This is bringing the tech media to hype up a Don King style “Only in the Internet” match up between Facebook (the 0-8 Dolphins) and Google (Tom Brady leading the Patriots). Only problem is, no matter what season it is and the records of the teams, its going to be a battle and both teams will live to play another day.

Remember, this is only the beginning, but the user needs to be Google’s major focus or they will lose. Myspace still has the numbers and is making changes, albeit a little late. I think that they remain relevant in the entertainment market until Facebook jumps on the band bandwagon. Google is going to do what Google does and unfortunately everyone will follow. Why do we have to play be their rules? Who gives a rat’s ass about page rank?

I know I’ve made the switch like many others to GoodSearch and while the results aren’t always quite as good as Google, at least I’m playing by my own rules. (If you don’t have a charity in mind, how about Rock For Hunger?)

So go ahead app builders, make you app on 100 different platforms, I would. Get that advertising and VC money while they continue to throw it at ya like rats after a hat trick. And Social Networks go ahead and clone each other and still do numbers like fans at a Florida Marlins game. Just remember the major players and why they are the major players; community and communication. Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, etc are running things because of the community and the people that interact within the community. The best network platform in the world doesn’t do anyone any good if there are only 100 people in the social graph.

And Facebook, give Scoble some more friend requests. That way he can stop ranting about it every other post. (I’ll still keep up on Scoble even with his ranting, I get his Tweets every 20 minutes.)

That’s all for today. Maybe I’ll start writing some real posts again soon, but right now I’m going to get ready for Gym Class Heroes in Orlando, FL at UCF tonight. BTW, they are doing an amazing marketing campaign with Verizon Wireless and are hosting an in store at the Waterford Lakes location as we speak. Pretty smart marketing there! Somebody get that up on Flickr or Twitter for me.

-G-Ro