Bharati Ahuja

Twitter Testing New Advetising Platform - Beta Stage

WebPro News interviewed David Szetela ofClix Marketing who is one of the few advertisers included the Twitter’s beta program for testing Twitter’s Ad. Platform. In his interview he mentioned that the program had similarities to the Google and Facebook Ad. programs but with some differences. Twitter some time back had introduced the concept of Promoted Tweets and is testing the Twitter Self- Serve Ad. System before going with it in a big way. it is a self-serve program with a little difference to it as currently you cannot start your ad. campaign on twitter like anybody and everybody can you do it on Google . In order to become a part of the Twitter Ad. Platform one needs to contact twitter to get embedded in the Twitter Ad. Program.

View The Interview:

The Ad. Program is based on the concept of the promoted tweet, where the advertiser can tweet something then contact Twitter to promote it when someone searches something related to that or he can also have somebody influential retweet that tweet and the advertiser can promote that retweet. How will Twitter Measure The Cost Of Advertising or Promoting The Tweet/Retweet:David Szetela said that the payment for the advertising will be based on a new metric called he Cost Per Engagement (CPE) and the engagement will depend on the following factors:

Retweet Of The Sponsored Tweet

Reply To The Sponsored Tweet

Click On A Link Of A Sponsored Tweet

When Somebody Favourites The Sponsored Tweet

If any of these actions take place the advertiser pays the agreed amount to Twitter. The second metric will be engagement rate (ER), which is similar to click-through-rate (CTR). According to http://www.emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R=1008194 “Promoted Trends is seeing good traction in the marketplace, which gives us cautious optimism for Twitter’s fledgling ad products,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of the upcoming report “Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook.”

Let’s see how this paid scenario picks up on Twitter and will we have a so called Organic Engagement V/S Paid Engagement on this Social Media for SMM like we have a SEO v/s PPC on the search engines for SEM? But one thing is for sure Twitter is growing.

Google's Algorithmic Change To Prevent Content Spam Is Live Now

Matt Cutts had mentioned earlier this month on http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html - “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”

He confirmed on his personal blog http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/ that the Google Algorithm has been updated and live now to prevent content spam.

Matt Cutts has also posted about this update on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2152286

Before this announcement also there were many SEOs who were discussing about the effect on the SERPs http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4258897.htm

Google / SEO - 01/29/2011

Using Google Webmaster Tools Appropriately For SEO

I have been using the Google webmaster tools since time immemorial now, but using them appropriately for analyzing the website from the SEO perspective is always an ongoing learning process. Google keeps on adding valuable features to the tools and keeps on making it more useful to webmasters and SEOs.

Maile Ohye – The Developer Programs Tech Lead from Google explains this very clearly in the following video.

The Webmaster Tools features she has explained in the video are summarized as follows:

Sign Up For Email Forwarding In Webmaster Tools in Message Centre
Check For Search Queries
Use Keywords To Target Content
Reduce Duplicates Through HTML Suggestions And URL Parameter Handling
Diagnose Crawl Errors
Prioritize Content Through Internal Links
Verify Access Through Fetch As Googlebot
Use Site Performance To Improve Speed

View the video for a detailed explanation 🙂

SEO - 01/28/2011

The Highlights Of Conference Click Asia Summit 2011- ‘The Power Of Digital And Mobile Marketing In Asia’

Last week I had the Opportunity to participate in the largest marketing event in Asia delivering Digital, Social and Mobile marketing solutions – Click Asia Summit 2011. It was a 3 day summit with a focus on ‘The Power Of Digital And Mobile Marketing In Asia’.

The highlights of the conference:

The conference started of with a very inspiring keynote by Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne . It proved a point that in order to be successful in the digital world one does not need a string of degrees and qualifications attached to his name but a focused approach , dedication and hard work. Gurbaksh’s session encouraged the entrepreneurs to take failure also as an opportunity and go ahead with more positivity rather than getting bogged down.

The delegates had to keep choosing the options of the sessions available , trust me it was a tough one as whenever you made a choice somewhere you felt that you are missing out on the other session which was equally informative.

The sessions onMobile Web: The New Mass Media byMahesh Narayanan, Google India and There's an App for That! By Neil Burton, Web Spiders – UK proved that mobile marketing strategy has to be a part of your digital marketing strategy if you want to future proof your online presence for the long run as statistics and data proved that more and more people are switching on to their smart phones to surf the web and downloading more and more Apps. For their smart phones.

But I think that as smart phones become smarter and internet connectivity becomes better and cheaper for the handsets there will be no need to download Apps. But the handsets will be used more like we use our laptops today. We discarded our desktops for laptops, now we shall discard our laptops for smartphones and that will literally put all the power in the hands of the people as people will shop surf more online due to the ease and accessibility always available in their hands.

The presentation on Metrics-Analysis-Action! And the Day 2 Keynote on Digital Analytics By Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz focused on the following points:

No analytics signal is a signal in itself
Data is not information and reporting is not analytics
Always dive deeper and track to find answers to how the offline and online advertising is lifting each other
Data is not analytics – As just having a car is not sufficient you need a driver to drive it – Just data is not enough you need to analyze it and decompose the metrics to get answers which will help you to take corrective actions and right decisions.

Gillian’s informal way of speaking and reaching out to the audience for questions attracted everyone’s attention and made a dry topic like analytics very interesting.

The sessions on :

Advanced View on PPC vs. Organic by Jeff Adelson Yan, Levelwing

Search Engine Marketing - Dead and Buried? (PANEL) by

Milind Mody, eBrandz

Navneet Kaushal, PageTraffic

Raghavendra Satish Peri,IBM

Best Practices: Online Marketing Vivek Bhargava, Communicate2

They all focused on the importance of having a marketing mix of SEO, PPC, Local Search with a focus on Google Places. They also stressed on the fact on how one marketing strategy helps on leveraging the other sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. As these topics a very vast in themselves the extent to which they were discussed was not sufficient and satisfactory.

The first day concluded with a refreshing session by Mr. Anupam Kher touching the human side of technology and baffling everyone with a down to earth talk and chat on how success has made him more humble and how failure and adversities in life can make you a better person.

On day 2 the following workshops:

Ecommerce In India: Opportunities & Challenges (PANEL)

Dirk van Quaquebeke, Brandmile Ptd. Ltd.

Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal India

Digital Marketing, Lead Nurturing and Social Media for B2B Enterprises

Neil Burton, Web Spiders - UK

Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT

Mobile Marketing & Brands in the Mobile Web Environment

Naveen Tewari, InMobi

Rajiv Hiranandani, Altruist-Mobile2Win

Clearly stated the emerging of the mobile web and the current trend of mobile Apps. Kunal Bahl described the ABCD of Indians as A for Astrology, B for bollywood, C for Cricket and D for discounts. and went ahead to discuss the success of Snapdeal India . The key factor for any ecommerce site to be successful is to give a predictable experience on the site to the visitor was the main takeaway.

Dirk van Quaquebeke, Brandmile Ptd. Ltd. Mentioned that the India is fashion conscious, Indians have disposable income and are early adapters to e-commerce and deals and discounts work well in the Indian market.

Neil Burton, Web Spiders – UK and Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT spoke about lead nurturing and Social media in a B2B scenario . The importance of content for lead nurturing was highlighted .

The content should be remarkable and ignite conversations. The main takeaway - Content provides the context for conversations in social media. In a B2B scenario for social media forget about the image supply as much as information as possible. The main ROI for a B2B campaign is lead generation and building relationships.

B2B is different from B2C
Create a strategy
Talk business from start
Talk numbers , statistics and data
Build a community

The session on Twitter for Business by Pradeep Chopra, Digital Vidya was a runaway hit with a very individual style of conducting the session Pradeep Chopra immediately connected with the participants and I am sure convinced everyone to start tweeting.

The # tag for the conference #cas11 surely became the trending topic.

On day 3 there were two specialized workshops to choose from, one was on Advanced SEO and the other one was on Social Media Marketing.

The SEO workshop was conducted by Bill Hunt, Back Azimuth Consulting and Benedict Hayes, Communicate2

Rajiv Dingra, WAT Media spoke about the importance of blogging.

They were full day workshops covering the following topics:

Time	Advanced SEO Workshop	Social Media Marketing Workshop
9.00 am - 5.00 pm	Bill Hunt, Back Azimuth Consulting Benedict Hayes, Communicate2 Rajiv Dingra, WAT Media	Gaurav Mishra, MSLGROUP Asia Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz
	Introduction SEO Factors Architecture Content Authority The Algorithm SEO Campaign Strategy	1. Real-life social networking game How do we connect with others on social networks around our passions? How do connections lead to conversations, collaboration and community? How can brands connect with people around their passions?
	SEO for Complex Websites The Challenges The Specific Challenges for Large Sites What to Avoid in, Large Sites Especially How to Rope in Stakeholders How to Maximize your Search Shelf Space How to Centralize your Efforts The Downstream Impact How to Maximize Searcher Stimuli	2. Community-centric integrated marketing How is the social web changing integrated marketing and the role of agencies? How can brands create a series of integrated marketing campaigns that build upon each other? How can brands leverage owned, paid and earned media into their integrated marketing strategy? Pepsi Refresh case study.
	Managing Complex Search Programs How to Effectively Deliver Search at Scale Key Focus Areas for an Enterprise How to Integrate SEO in the Workflow Roles and Responsibilities within the SEO Team How to Make a Page Search Friendly What are Organic Search Diagnostic Metrics? What are Organic Search Performance Metrics?	3. Social web strategy for business impact How can brands leverage conversations, campaigns and communities for business impact? How can brands build online communities to organize and energize their evangelists? How can brands measure business impact, platform influence and program engagement? Dell case study.
	The Dynamic Issues in SEO Spidering About URLs Indexing Optimization Listing How to Manage Keywords Understanding the Intent of the Searcher	4. Social web strategy in the B2C context How can brands use contests to build high-engagement communities? How can brands use communities to drive retail footfalls? How can brands create cause-based communities to connect with their stakeholders? Starbucks case study.
	How to Manage Complex PPC Keywords Creative Development Google Quality Score Optimizing Landing Pages	5. Social web strategy in the B2B context How can brands use communities to strengthen relationships with partners? How can brands use communities to attract and motivate talent? How can brands use communities to establish thought leadership? Microsoft case study.
	How to Measure the Success of a SEO Campaign Reporting Executive Dashboard Search Health Report PLP Scorecard Search Effectiveness Metrics Integration Metrics How to Build a Business Case	6. Strategy on a post-it note game What are our brand values and business objectives? Who are our brand evangelists and what are their passions? What is our core platform and program strategy and how will we measure success?
	Searcher Intent Modeling Searcher Intent Modeling Overview Searcher Intent Modeling Steps Integrating Paid & Organic Search Keyword Arbitration The Challenges The Keyword Conflicts How to Allocate Keywords
	Link Building Digital Asset Optimization The Challenges A Checklist The Best Practices
	Enabling Success in a Large-Scale Global Search Marketing Program The Burning Issues Fundamentals of Search marketing Search Organization Audit Enterprise Search Ecosystem
	Managing a SEO Process Managing a Team Managing the Keywords Managing the Technology Managing the Performance Managing the Priorities

Conference Pics :http://www.flickr.com/photos/64046153@N03/sets/72157626961170824/

Content marketing. / SEO / SEO Events - 01/24/2011

SEO Though a Subset Of Internet Marketing Has An Edge Over Advertising And Marketing.

The larger goal for SEO and PPC campaigns is the same – To gain search engine visibility, get targeted traffic and thereby business enquiries or online sales. A well managed SEO or a well managed PPC campaign have the potential of achieving these said goals.

Whenever we talk or discuss about organic rankings we discuss about how the search engines are improving their algorithms for churning out quality results as per the ranking factors which mainly revolve around the content and other quality factors of the website.

When we discuss about PPC campaigns,conversations and discussions get focused on the bid amount and how the search engines are working on reducing the click fraud rate. This basic difference itself tells us that PPC is pure advertising but SEO is about getting ranked for quality results.

A SEO campaign helps you:

To establish an online brand
Have a good online reputation
Gain maximum visibility all over the web
Helps you work on the website to making it more rich in content and error free HTML
Solve Cannonical Issues
Eliminate Duplicate Content
Add more meaning to the images of your website
Work on many other technical aspects of the website like HTTP headers, 404 pages, 301 redirects etc.

The SEO efforts put on a website continue to pass on the benefit of all the footprints created by the SEO campaign even if you stop working on the SEO after say about 1 – 2 years but, the PPC benefit gets terminated when you stop paying for the listing. Though there are situations when PPC can give the immediate return needed but SEO is something that cannot be ignored by any business owner having long term goals and plans for tapping the online market and establishing and online presence in the long run.

SEO has the same objectives like the other online marketing campaigns but in addition SEO also helps the website owner to establish an online brand by reaching out all over the web for making a presence of the site being optimized via social media, local directories, other topical sites and communities where the site can get links and have a platform to speak out the company ideas, values and goals.

Moreover, SEO relates to optimization for all the search engines not Google alone. Hence, any good SEO campaign will focus on all the search engines which have their own index and try to get maximum visibility on them. We know that Google is synonymous to search and has the maximum market share but you never know which search engine might just get bigger and bigger and start being used for search. For example Bing is gradually gaining popularity though at a very slow pace .

A genuine SEO campaign does not only help the website owner to get the high SERPs for the targeted keywords but also contributes in helping the search engines deliver quality and relevant search results.

The search engines time and again offer webmaster guidelines, tools and other help forums to help the SEOs with the search results. The following link tells us Google wants the SEOs to follow certain ethical guidelines in order help in the quality search results as an SEO campaign also has the ethical factor woven into its functionality.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

Hence, if your SEO campaign is a genuine SEO campaign rather than only a Google Optimization programme then you sort of future proof your search engine organic presence.On the other hand paid listings and other marketing campaigns give you a very short lived visibility for your site.

SEO - 01/09/2011

Why User Generated Content Will Be More Important In the Future For SERPs

As we all know that the social signals are a part of the search engine algorithms for determining the SERPs. Social media gives an equal platform to each and everyone to voice their opinions, views, thoughts and in various ways using whatever media they are comfortable with – images (Infographics), videos, text, etc. All this is giving an exponential increase and impetus to the UGC – User Generated Content on the web.

This UGC and the links on such content which add value to the content has the potential to push the SERPs up or pull the SERPs down of the links mentioned. Content has been the king on the web world but the UGC does not only have the plus points of the content but also has the power of the intent added to it. Hence, it has the potential to push or pull in the positive or negative direction.

User generated content may be in the form of:
• Reviews
• Comments
• Feedbacks
• Testimonials
• Ratings
• Blogposts with a focus on a certain product or company
• Tweets on Twitter
• Posts on Facebook
• Wikis

All that is voiced on such platforms about a certain company, product or service generates a WOM which creates an online reputation of the company . Hence , it is the user who has to be focused on in the whole campaign of promoting a website. The UGC will depend on the user experience the visitor has on the website .

The co-relation of the other metrics like the time on site, bounce rate, the goals achieved, the number of new and repeat visits and other such metrics from the analytic reports and the UGC will determine the popularity and the purpose of the website which will in turn affect the rankings and over all visibility of the site.

Well this is my perception, only time will tell as to how all this gets more and more incorporated in the search engine algorithms and how it is reflected in the search results.

SEO - 01/06/2011

Ecommerce, Magento And Your Online Store

With the growing increase in online sales taking your store or business online is the most sensible and logical decision. Businesses which do not offer products or services online stand a risk of losing their online market share to their competitors.

Once you decide to take your store online the most logical question is : which is the best platform for developing the ecommerce site with user friendly built in features for a shopping cart, e-payments, CMS and site administration.

There are quite a few options available but we recommend Magento for an online store as Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store.

Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Designed to be completely scalable and backed by Varien's support network, Magento offers companies the ultimate eCommerce solution.

You can read the FAQs related to Magento on http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/faq

Once you have an online business its not the end but the beginning for establishing that business. As the online competition , marketing and management are also issues which have to be given attention to.

Advertising the URL is crucial initially till you gain a substantial WOM (Word Of Mouth). Locally you may be a brand and quite famous but when you go online you need to establish that brand as you in real time when you first started your business.

Most of the people will find your store via the search engines – Hence, optimizing your site for the search engines is something which cannot be taken lightly. Next is to generate a good online reputation so that it generates a favorable WOM is important.

Social media presence helps you to have a voice on the web. You can start engaging with your existing clients via social media which in turn will help you to get additional genuine fans and followers and help you have a wider reach.

Encourage existing regular customers to buy online so that they can share their user experience (UX) with their friends and followers via reviews, emails and by posting on their social media profiles. Make all these options available on the site itself so that they can send the message easily online.

Create a blog which gives you the platform for sharing your ideas, promos, advice, etc. thereby helping you to establish an online brand image and persona.

The online market scene is no different than the real time market but the online markets help you to have a faster and wider reach.

Think Local And Act Global is the latest mantra of the online world which substantiates that Marketing is active storytelling , PR is reactive storytelling - Internet marketing is real time, active and reactive and has a local And global reach.

SEO - 01/02/2011

Why SEO Is More Relevant And Important Today

I don’t think anyone needs any introduction to what SEO stands for. Everyone who is serious about online business is very much aware about the importance of Search Engine Optimization. Every year as the year comes to an end there are blog posts on – SEO IS DEAD – Butas always again the importance and the need for SEO bounces back on the online scenario with more added life energies.

As we offer SEO services and myself am an advocate for organic search , when I read posts predicting the end of SEO I get more motivated to write about why it is more important than ever before.

Yes, SEO in 2011 is for sure much more than just rankings. The juvenile definition of SEO which mentioned only about getting high rankings is no longer applicable. The SEO fraternity who have been promoting websites online since the time when the term SEO itself was not coined surely know what I am talking about.

We have come a long way since 2000 where individual submissions in the search engines was the main task for SEOs. SEO in 2011 is not only about getting high rankings but about building a brand for the business that you are promoting. It is about helping the client establish his goodwill online and have a true online persona for himself and his business.

This is possible by helping the business create relevant and right footprints on the web and also by helping the client to rectify any faux pas which might have created unwanted footprints.

As the search options go on increasing and the social fabric gets woven more and more into search the guidance and training of how to use the social media effectively is also one of the SEO deliverables today.

As many people think that if they are tweeting about what they are eating or where they are going they are engaging in social media and this should help them with their search engines presence also. But, if you are not engaging with the people on twitter about your focus area of work or the discussions are not topical then I think you are just wasting your time. As non-focused discussions will not help you create the social link graph needed to help your SERPs soar.

Of course, as it is social media so a proper balance and blend of work discussions and casual chats (which help you to project your true personality) should surely help your professional and personal profile be projected in the right way so that people know who you are and what work you are involved in.

Today, SEOs guide their clients about creating blogs and focus on subject matter about what they want to associate themselves with on the web. This also is a way of projecting your personality and sharing your views and opinions about the concerned topics , products and services. If blogging is done with a focus and a purpose in mind and if your blog offers knowledge and information thereby attracting regular traffic then again the blog content helps you to establish the online persona which has become a part of the SEO deliverables today.

The blogosphere is showing an increase in the no. of personal blogs as people want to blend their social and professional personalities and create an individual presence along with the online industry they are associated with.

Hence. SEO is more relevant, has a wider meaning and involves much more understanding about the web world than just on page tweaking of the website for meta tags and content.

SEO - 01/01/2011

Why Setting Up Of Targets Is Important For Business Performance

Every journey starts with a destination and time frame in mind. If there is no destination then that is called wandering. Business is also a journey which you embark because you want to achieve something – money, fame, knowledge, satisfaction for something done with the best of abilities, etc. When you set up targets at the beginning of the year you get a direction for the future and you get a chance to analyze and look back at the plus points and the minus points of the past year.

Once you set realistic and smart targets it is possible to chalk out a plan for achieving them. Hence , they give you a direction and you start thinking of how to make them real. Some of the things which get included in the plan are:

What resources you need to achieve the target?
What strategies you need to set to achieve the target?
What is the financial implication for achieving the target?
What improvements are needed in the existing structure of the organization?
What would be the KPPs – The Key Performance Parameters?
What attitudinal changes are required in the organization - as the first step taken in order to hit the target is to set a positive frame of mind that it is achievable and possible?
The whole team has to have that positive spirit?

The answers to these very questions give you the direction and you start seeing the path ahead. But, the targets should be smart , realistic , achievable and time bound as only then responsibilities can be assigned and valuable resources like time and money can be allocated. I believe that brain storming to set the targets on the basis of past performance and the future trends is a must at the outset of every year . The periodic review of the targets set surely give a clear idea about where the business is heading to and if inspite of a lot of effort and planning the targets become difficult to achieve then those situations tell you a lot about the market conditions and hence again you can gear the direction accordingly.

Education / Others / Social Media - 12/30/2010

Ecommerce & Mobile Web 2011 – Time To Take Your Store Online If you Want To Future Proof Your Business

The latest buzz on the gizmo gadget scene is that Smartphone usage is set to increase dramatically with the sales volume forecasted to rise from 174 million in 2009 to 500 million in 2014 with a CAGR of 16.28%.

News is also dominated by headlines like :

Smartphone sales jumped by 34 per cent in third quarter of 2010: IDC India
"Overall, Indian smartphone sales are expected to touch 5.96 million units by end of 2010," says Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, Mobile Handsets Research, IDC India.
"The propensity to adopt feature phones and smartphones is greatest amongst the youth and business executive segments, whose purchase decisions are often driven by peer group influence and workplace usage patterns, as well as larger disposable incomes and willingness to experiment with new technology platforms," Anirban Banerjee, associate vice-president, research, IDC India mentions in an official communiqué.

The phones are being used more like laptops . The desktops were discarded for laptops and now smartphones are being seen replacing the laptops in increasing numbers.

With more and more Apps. Being available for smartphones the ease with which you email, communicate, connect to social media sites, play games or even surf websites on these phones is making people use the phone more than their laptops.

According to John Shen, the Lab Director at Nokia Research Center, the smartphone of 2015 will go even further: You will be able to link phones together to form a cluster where a group of phones provides PC-like processing capability.

In short the web is becoming more and more mobile . This is backed by the statements made by the people in the online industry during this season on online sales:

Daily online sales exceeded $1 billion on six days this season, which was twice as many days as a year ago, said Michael McNamara, a vice president at SpendingPulse. The growth meant online sales grabbed a larger share of the season’s total sales, he said.
“Today eCommerce accounts for a much larger share of overall retail sales compared to a few years ago. And during this holiday season, it registered double digit growth for 6 out of 7 weeks,” Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, said in a news release.

The main point to be noted is that the chidren of today get their first phone by the age of thirteen and are also used to the mode of cashless payments.

Hence it is very important to note that the teens and twentys of tomorrow will be more accustomed to online buying, if your store is online and has a wide presence on the web then your business has a future else there is a full possibility that you lose the online market share to your competitor who might have gone online and mobile before you.

The web removes the geographic boundaries and offers you the option to target the local and the global markets depending on your online strategies.

As the smart phones become smarter we also have to become smarter to adopt the revolutionary and evolutionary changes and learn how to balance our virtual and real lives at the same time benefitting from the benefits of the online world .

Mobile - 12/30/2010