Bharati Ahuja

The Next Big Evolution Of The Web : The Data Explosion And Open Data

In one of our previous articles http://blog.webpro.in/2011/03/game-dynamics-and-influence-layer-of.html we spoke about the influence layer of the social scenario on the web. The next big concern is the volume of personal and general data which is being shared across the social media sites and other platforms on the web.

In the following videos Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) speaks about the availability of data about each person on the web. Its pros and cons and how it can be used to make the web a better place and how it can be used efficiently and more effectively.

Today your personal records, health records, financial health,the personal choices you make on the web, which sites you visit, with whom you interact,etc. is all being recorded on the web. The questions who owns this data, who can use this data and how it can be used are all valid questions cropping up because of easy access to someone’s personal data and preferences.

He also adds that You may think that the U.S. leads in information collection. But the most ambitious project in the world is happening in India. Its government is gathering demographic data, fingerprints, and iris scans from of all its 1.2 billion residents. This will lead to the creation of the largest, most complex identity database in the world.

What To Do When Your Content is Being Copied ?

Google can do a fairly good job of knowing the origin of the content but incase your content has been uploaded by someone else by manipulating the time stamp then :

1. Send a warning email telling them to remove the content.

2. Send A DMCA Notice.

3. Do A Spam Report.

4. Write a blogpost and share it on Social Media.

What Is DMCA?
The DMCA is a United States copyright law which implements two 1996 WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) treaties. It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services that are used to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as DRM) and criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, even when there is no infringement of copyright itself. It also heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

What Is DRM ?
Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. To some extent, DRM overlaps with copy protection, but DRM is usually applied to creative media (music, films, etc.) whereas copy protection typically refers to software.

What Is IP Delivery And How You Can Use It?

IP based delivery is serving content to users based on their IP address. Serving different content to users from different countries or locations is not cloaking and is very much a white hat technique. Cloaking is showing different content to users and different content to the search engine bots which is not as per the Google guidelines.

The reason for varied content targeted based on IP address could be to display region specific Ads, varying costs for shipping as per the location, change the language as per the location or even different discount rates as per location.

The following 2 videos explain how Google handles this aspect of IP delivery.

India Wins The ICC World Cup 2011

Wankhede Stadium Mumbai India witnessed the magnificient shot played to hit a six and make India win the World Cup.

Great team spirit, hard work and determination and a humble captain made it all possible. Of course the support of the whole country which is mad after cricket and movies cannot be ruled out.

This was also special for coach Gary Kristen as it was his last day as Indian coach.

Thank You Team India For Making Us Feel Proud And Happy:

The Wise Words By The Captain :

The Team Sentiment :

+ 1 Recommendations : Google’s Way Of Offering The Facebook Like Button

Google has always focused on the relevance factor of the search results. It adds that relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages.Google has gone a step ahead on the social scenario by adding a +1 button to the search results which enable you to recommend a search result right on the SERPs itself.

The +1 button will appear next to each search result

If you cannot see the +1 button then visit Google Experimental, where you can select an option to force it to appear in your searches.

When you click +1 you publicly give something your stamp of approval or recommend it. Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

SHOW +1's

In order to +1 things, you first need a public Google profile. This helps people see who recommended that tasty recipe or great campsite. When you create a profile, it's visible to anyone and connections with your email address can easily find it.

Your +1’s are stored in a new tab on your Google profile. You can show your +1’s tab to the world, or keep it private and just use it to personally manage the ever-expanding record of things you love around the web.

View The Video For More Details :

With this Google I think has added the influence factor of game dynamics to search results.

These + 1 buttons may soon be available for websites too.

Game Dynamics And The Influence Layer Of The Social Scenario On The Web

Seth Priebatsch spoke about’ The game layer on top of the world’ on ted.com last year.

He says that the last decade was the decade where the social network was built, this decade is where the Game Framework will be built.

The Game Framework according to him is the motivation tools that influence behavior. The loyalty schemes on websites and other techniques used to influence the people to take certain decisions are actually game dynamics in action.

One of the following slides that he shared was as follows:

It says that the last decade was about connections which was enabled by the Facebook Graph whose construction has reached a peak and a saturation point. The next decade will have a focus on the influencing behavior for which the construction does not have any set foundations and the work has just begun.

I totally agree to this point. If we correlate it to our SEO and other SEM campaigns for websites we can see a clear climb to this next evolutionary step.

When we work on our landing page dynamics to make a person take a decision to buy a certain product – we are try to influence his decision.

When the search engines integrate the social results in the SERPs it is kind of influencing the decision of the visitor.

When the most retweeted post becomes the most read post , it surley says a lot about the influence factor.

When we talk about posting a tweet, a blog post or a comment at the right time so that we have a maximum reach by keeping in mind all the continent time zones (Like the best time to post is when there are maximum users online i.e when people from Asia, America And Europe are online together) and thereby achieve the set goal we are working on having a better influence.

The latest which I just came across Man Proposes to Girlfriend via iPad 2 Engraving so you have boyfriends influencing their girlfriends online in a geeky way to say “I Do”

View the video to learn about :

1. How to build the game (Influence) layer ?

2. 4 Game Dynamics which help you to create that layer.

3. Appointment dynamics

4. Influence And Status (Influence Through Social Pressure)

5. Progression Dynamics (You move thru progressively in a granular fashion eg. Linkedin)

6. Communal Discovery (Everyone has to work together to achieve something . The communities which build around a blog are a classic example)

Its all about mind share and influencing people and getting influenced by people once you are on the social scenario of the web. Klout.com which analyzes and rates your Twitter account measures and determines ‘The Standard For Influence’ and scores accordingly. So, we surely are at the infancy stage of the influence dynamics which is used in Games .

Points To Ponder…

Is life becoming a Game
Or

Life has always been a game but we are learning to play it now more efficiently , effectively and globally?

The Importance Of Creating An Online Brand

Your brand online or offline is one of the most important building blocks of the whole business and marketing strategy. The brand is the reflection of the image that your products and services create after adding the promises that the company makes about that their products.

The brand is an inseparable component of your business which makes you stand apart from your competitors. Online this is very important especially at the intitial stages of establishing an online presence of your company as people online search for products and services on search engines and other platforms on the basis of keywords that are product oriented or services oriented and thus land on your site where they get information about your company.

If the logo, brand name , tag line , color combination are catchy and leave a lasting impression on the visitor then the foundation of a brand is set as all this will have a recall value.

For example: Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Nike, Reebok, etc do not convey anything about their services from their brand name but we relate to the services offered by these brands the moment we come across their logo anywhere. In a way your brand name becomes synonymous to your product.

“There are so many parity products out there that the only way to

differentiate yourself from the others is to create an aura, an image,

around your brand. Consumers need a road map; they need to find

a way to get from their need to a product purchase that’s simple,

easy, not full of a lot of noise, and most brands get lost somewhere

between the shelf and the consumer mindset.”

—Karen Benezra, editor of Brandweek

Branding creates an image, an identity, carves a niche for your company presence in that industry and makes you stand apart from the rest . Branding has the potential of generating these benefits for a company, product, cpmmodity, group or a person.

Creating an online brand image for your company is no easy task. It requires a lot of planning and people propagating the online presence need to create a certain mindset to put forward the brand image on every platform the company has an online presence on, the search engines, the social media, the domain name, the website, the forums they interact on etc. so that, though there maybe innumerable companies online offering the same products and services as yours , your company stands out from the rest. Just like Coca-cola and Pepsi both are colas but have their own identity.

The 3 main components of establishing an online brand are :

Advertising
Marketing
Public Relations

Advertising + Marketing + Public Relations = An Online Brand

Advertising:

Advertising is the first step that every company needs to take in order to present an individual identity and inform its users about its existence in that industry.

Marketing:

Marketing is the strategic decisions taken to reach out to the users i.e whether to start a PPC campaign or to start with the SEO campaign is a marketing decision . Although advertising and marketing may be the same in some aspects, there is a charateristic difference between advertising and marketing. The main goal of both is to enhance consumer awareness of a product or service and to form loyal target customers and increase sales.

The options of creating an online presence are many and what will be the optimum fit for your business type shall solely depend on the nature of your business, the online advertising budget, the willingness and the knowledge of your marketing team.

There are various platforms available on the internet , for presence and promotion on the web. Some of them are as follows:

• Search Engines

• Email Campaigns

• Advertising Networks And Affiliates

• Web Directories And Portals

• Press Releases

• Social Media Sites

All these options when use should have a brand image and brand personality set by using the same logo, tagline, color combination and should deliver the same message for the product as only then with the constant presence and promotion of the product online an online brand will be established.

Public Relations:

The main tool for online PR is the social media presence of the company. The PR helps you manage your digital assets ( your brand image is one of them) created by advertising and marketing. That is possible only if you have a voice on the media where your target audience is available and keeping in mind the current trend it is the social media sites mainly Facebook and Twitter. The beauty of these social media sites is that they can be used as a marketing and advertising platform as well as for PR.

Social media used for public relations is a very powerful medium as it has an exponential reach and helps in establishing a WOM which gives a positive boost to branding.

As Dharmesh Shah CEO of HubSpot had mentioned in one of his conferences that “Brand is what people say about you after you’ve left the room.” Hence branding and WOM mouth also go hand in hand.

The role of PR is very subtle but very important as what is said about you is more valuable than what you say about your self but what others say about you mainly depends on the quality of your product or service, the way you advertise and market it and the way you discuss it on social media.

The PR activities have a very wide reach on the web and if it is positive it will boost the organic search engine presence too hence if advertising, marketing and PR are simultaneously managed and implemented then each activity will supplement the other in return and in the process help you develop a brand which will have a long lasting impression on the online users or visitors. A good SEO campaign in return will focus on building a brand presence for the company with every off page effort it makes to boost the rankings.

I have said it many times but will mention it again that:

SEO is what you say about your company, the social media voice is what other say about your company and when both these versions ar in sync a brand and credibility is established which has a lasting impression on the minds of the users.

Yahoo announces Search Direct. Yahoo Describes It As "A Simpler Way To Find Answers Fast"

When we were about to talk about Yahoo as a search engine in the past tense, Yahoo announces Search Direct. Yahoo describes it as "A Simpler Way To Find Answers Fast"

This new feature (currently in beta) taps into Yahoo!’s unique opportunity to combine content and structured data and to provide a rich search experience. Search Direct predicts search results as fast as a person types, character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a list of blue links. Search Direct rolls out in a public beta to Yahoo! users across the U.S. today, and will be available in other Yahoo! products and markets later this year.

With Search Direct, Yahoo! content is combined with information from the Web to provide rich answers, not just links, and to give people the option to immediately engage or continue to a traditional search results page. In this beta release, coverage includes top trending searches, movies, TV, sports teams and players, weather, local, travel, stocks, and shopping categories now available at search.yahoo.com.

Yahoo SVP of Search Products Shashi Seth says that Google Instant and Search Direct are different products:

“We’re focused on providing answers, not links. Google Instant is focused on providing more links, faster. Not answers. We believe the next generation of search regardless of whether it’s on the web or mobile, they’re looking for answers, not links.”

For more information and a demo video of Search Direct from Yahoo!, visit search.yahoo.com

Traffic Sources And Significance From The SEO & Web Presence Perspective

The Google Analytics Usually has the following 3 main metrics for Traffic Sources:
· Direct Traffic
· Referral Traffic

· Traffic From Search Engines

Usually when the SEO discusses the site performance with the client the no. of visits from the search engines are the focus factor as that is the key parameter on which the SEO campaign focuses on. But, keeping in mind the holistic nature of SEO it is very important that all the above 3 metrics should be monitored and all these three metrics should show an increasing trend.

Every source of traffic has got its own significance and shows a mark made for presence in that niche.

Direct Traffic

Direct Traffic signifies the repeat visits or visits as a result of people keying
in the website URL in the browser and visiting the site.

Direct Traffic comes from people who already are familiar with the brand, know about your site, are regular visitors to your site, have come to know about your site through WOM or as a result of some real world advertisement campaign where you promoted the URL of your website.

An increase in the direct traffic over a period of time implies a good improvement in the WOM and brand awareness. Usually people do not bother about monitoring this metric and hence miss out on this aspect of web presence and web visibility.

If its an ecommerce site direct visits and repeat visits prove that the people are showing interst in the site and are buying again or intend to buy which if delved further can give a much richer insight about the site.

Search Engines:

Usually only the traffic from the search engines is kept a track of and monitored as that is how the success of an SEO campaign is usually measured and drilling it down further it is the no. of visits from Google that are focused and chased as a priority as most of the SEO campaigns cease to be search engine optimization campaigns and become Google optimization campaigns. Sometimes due to the client perceptions and some times due to the narrow perceptions of the SEOs themselve.

No doubt an increase in the search engine traffic from varied keywords will tell you volumes about the SEO work done on your site but just giving importance to search engine traffic will isolate your presence only to search engines and if this traffic gets affected due to some reason or other then your site is left stranded and loses web visibility.

If the SEO campaign is just focusing on Google and not considering traffic from Bing and other upcoming search engines then things get more narrowed down and in future if other search engines gain more market share the SEO campaigns will have to be reworked then. Hence over all importance and focus needs to be given to other search engines also, especially Bing, Ask and Blekko.

Referral Traffic:

Referral traffic is the visits your site gets as a result of the clicks on the URLs of your websites on other external sites on the web like the social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Linkden, etc., the sites on which you are running affiliate programs, directory listings, industry portals, online memberships, blogs,etc.

These visits signify the presence of your site on the overall WWW which again should show an increasing trend in the analytics as this spreads the presence of your website on the web beyond search engines and adds a certain element of quality if the referrals are from authority, quality , topical , trustworthy sites as this is directly related to your inbound links too.

Each traffic source has got its own importance and adds to the aura of quality web presence. Hence traffic from all the sources needs to be monitored and measured and necessary steps to be taken improve and increase the traffic from all these sources.

This cannot be done only by the SEO. The website owner or atleast one person from the company needs to take active interest on the visits from the direct and referral source in co-ordination with the SEO .

SEO is becoming more holistic in nature and demands a quality web presence on the world wide. If the website owners want a continued quality web presence they need to adapt to the evolution taking place on the online scenario and act accordingly .I think that the ideal break up for traffic sources percent wise would be
Direct Traffic : 33.33%

Referral Traffic : 33.33%

Search Engines: 33.33%

Which signifies an optimum overall presence and such a site will face less harm from the vagaries of traffic coming from one source in case of any sudden changes due to algorithmic change or whatever the case maybe.