JD Rucker

Company: Dealer Authority

JD Rucker Blog
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JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Suddenly Everyone’s an SEO Pilot with a Team of Experts at their Arms

Catch Me If You Can

There are always going to be those who are real experts offering real products or services with proven strategies and the ability to make changes to their techniques as the market and industries change. There are also always going to be those who put on the uniform, slide on the aviator sunglasses, and pretend like they know how to pilot a passenger jet. Sadly, the latter is starting to outnumber the former, particularly in the world of search marketing.

It happens in many industries, particularly ones where things get easier. For example, owning a custom computer shop was a nice, tight niche just a few years ago. Now, you can drop a paper airplane off a building and have a 50/50 chance of hitting someone who can build a custom computer. It isn’t that they are faking. It’s that the modular design and cross-compatibility of computer hardware components has made building custom computers as easy as building a LEGO house.

The arena of search marketing is different. In both PPC management as well as search engine optimization, there has been a tremendous influx of experts and services filling the ears and inboxes of prospective clients. It’s not that it is easier than it was in the past. In fact, it’s harder today than it has ever been in the past, particularly with the complexities, risks, and quality needs of SEO. The reason that it’s growing is because the pitch is easy. Search is obscure. It’s super easy to fall for the wrong pitch because they’re all starting to sound the same.

In Catch Me if You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio‘s portrayal of the infamous Frank Abagnale Jr. was an example of what I’m seeing more and more of today in the search marketing world. It’s a matter of being able to talk the talk and winging it when it comes to walking the walk. Everyone says the buzzwords. Unique content. Targeting competitors’ cities. Market coverage. Link building. Social signals. I’ve heard pitches from people who can barely spell “SEO” that made them sound like their services were rock solid until you asked them detailed questions or demanded more than one or two example of successes.

Therein lies the two biggest problems. Those who are buying SEO don’t know the right questions to ask or what the correct answers should be. More importantly, every vendor in the industry has at least a couple of examples of where their clients are ranking well even if they had no hand in making it happen. This happened to me first hand this week when a site that I had optimized to rank well two years ago was used as an example of search dominance by their website provider. Their rankings had fallen in the two years since we had optimized them but they were still good enough to be an example of this web provider’s excellence.

There’s really no way to fight this, unfortunately. For my own company, I’ll be collecting dozens of examples of SEO domination to give to the sales team, but what about the smaller companies that are doing it right? If they have a dozen clients and they’re all doing very well, they still look bad compared to the giant company with 2000 clients that has 8 examples of good performance. Is there a solution? Is there a way to wake up the industry and show them how to tell the difference between aggressive, solid search marketing and the type that isn’t worth a buck, let along hundreds or thousands a month?

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

2266

3 Comments

Eric Miltsch

DealerTeamwork LLC

Oct 10, 2013  

Love this post JD. It is ironic - the harder this segment gets, the more people there are claiming to be experts. Thanks for sharing.

Brian Pasch

PCG Consulting Inc

Oct 10, 2013  

SEO strategies have to continually involve and require customized solutions for them to be effective so smaller agencies will always have the upper hand.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013  

Brian - #ABSOLUTELY! Eric - I had a guy call me about doing SEO for our company. I asked him a couple of questions about links, in which he replied, "SEO is all about what you do on your website. Meta-descriptions, htm..." I hung up before I could hear any more.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Titles Affect Blog Traffic Instantly

There are all sorts of tips, tricks, and techniques to drive more traffic to a blog. They usually involve either paying for it in some way, improving an avenue such as through search engine optimization, or building subscribers. The reality is this – all of these things take time. What doesn’t take time other than the effort that is required to make it happen is writing better blog post titles. The right titles can increase blog traffic. The wrong titles can desperately hurt it. This is an immediate effect.

More and more businesses are starting to blog today. They are syndicating, optimizing, promoting, and doing all of the best practices that the gurus are giving them. Still, they are only seeing small increases in traffic if at all. Every now and then, they see a post that spikes. Was it amazing content? Possibly. Was it shared by the right people on social media? Probably. Did it have the right title? Almost definitely.

It blows me away when I see so many titles that simply suck. Yes, they suck. They aren’t attracting anyone.

The title in the blog post above attracted people. It was wildly shared. It was blogged about on other websites. It made an impact. Despite being wildly popular and talked about around the web for weeks, the story itself wasn’t that interesting. It was good, but not good enough to make it the talk of the blogosphere for as long as it was. The title, however, was brilliant.

Depending on your style of business and blogging voice, here are some quick examples of blog post styles. This is a very basic sampling. You can do better.

  • Emotional StatementThe Biggest Reason Your Blog Traffic Sucks
  • Numbered List7 Reasons Why Top 10 Lists Still Work
  • Play on Common Phrases - Why Good Guys Really Do Finish Last in Sales
  • Contrary Statement to Common PhrasesGood Guys Finish First if They do These Things
  • Big Time PromiseCut Your Blogging Time in Half While Doubling Your Posting Frequency
  • Three Worders (use sparingly)The Blogger’s Conundrum
  • Nonsense Titles (that make sense)The Best Blog Titles Work Best if You “Backwards Them Write”

Again, there are plenty of other types of titles out there. The key is to check out the right sites. See how other blog posts are being written and what titles they’re using. Just because it’s a business blog doesn’t mean that it has to be bland and boring. Titles drive traffic quickly. Make them count.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

5869

1 Comment

Eric Giroux

DealerSocket

Oct 10, 2013  

Great points and examples here, JD! I also work in Internet publishing outside of the automotive industry and I have found that post titles are a much larger part of the equation than one might think. As you mentioned, they not only increase CTR, but they also increase social sharing by leaps and bounds. Here are a couple other good examples people may want to try out: - Tell the reader they don't want to click. "Reading this might upset you." or "Don't look at this if you..." - Tell the reader they don't know something. "8 things about Honda you didn't know." - Sensationalism. "12 Unbelievable Pics of Cars Exploding" or "The 6 Absolute Best Vehicles On The Market Today." People love those "epic" titles and intriguing lists. The only thing to note is that you don't want to be "the boy who cried wolf." Don't say you have a gallery of 14 Insanely Beautiful Foreign Cars if the pics aren't insanely beautiful. You will lower your chances of retaining readership. Happy blogging!

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Titles Affect Blog Traffic Instantly

There are all sorts of tips, tricks, and techniques to drive more traffic to a blog. They usually involve either paying for it in some way, improving an avenue such as through search engine optimization, or building subscribers. The reality is this – all of these things take time. What doesn’t take time other than the effort that is required to make it happen is writing better blog post titles. The right titles can increase blog traffic. The wrong titles can desperately hurt it. This is an immediate effect.

More and more businesses are starting to blog today. They are syndicating, optimizing, promoting, and doing all of the best practices that the gurus are giving them. Still, they are only seeing small increases in traffic if at all. Every now and then, they see a post that spikes. Was it amazing content? Possibly. Was it shared by the right people on social media? Probably. Did it have the right title? Almost definitely.

It blows me away when I see so many titles that simply suck. Yes, they suck. They aren’t attracting anyone.

The title in the blog post above attracted people. It was wildly shared. It was blogged about on other websites. It made an impact. Despite being wildly popular and talked about around the web for weeks, the story itself wasn’t that interesting. It was good, but not good enough to make it the talk of the blogosphere for as long as it was. The title, however, was brilliant.

Depending on your style of business and blogging voice, here are some quick examples of blog post styles. This is a very basic sampling. You can do better.

  • Emotional StatementThe Biggest Reason Your Blog Traffic Sucks
  • Numbered List7 Reasons Why Top 10 Lists Still Work
  • Play on Common Phrases - Why Good Guys Really Do Finish Last in Sales
  • Contrary Statement to Common PhrasesGood Guys Finish First if They do These Things
  • Big Time PromiseCut Your Blogging Time in Half While Doubling Your Posting Frequency
  • Three Worders (use sparingly)The Blogger’s Conundrum
  • Nonsense Titles (that make sense)The Best Blog Titles Work Best if You “Backwards Them Write”

Again, there are plenty of other types of titles out there. The key is to check out the right sites. See how other blog posts are being written and what titles they’re using. Just because it’s a business blog doesn’t mean that it has to be bland and boring. Titles drive traffic quickly. Make them count.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

5869

1 Comment

Eric Giroux

DealerSocket

Oct 10, 2013  

Great points and examples here, JD! I also work in Internet publishing outside of the automotive industry and I have found that post titles are a much larger part of the equation than one might think. As you mentioned, they not only increase CTR, but they also increase social sharing by leaps and bounds. Here are a couple other good examples people may want to try out: - Tell the reader they don't want to click. "Reading this might upset you." or "Don't look at this if you..." - Tell the reader they don't know something. "8 things about Honda you didn't know." - Sensationalism. "12 Unbelievable Pics of Cars Exploding" or "The 6 Absolute Best Vehicles On The Market Today." People love those "epic" titles and intriguing lists. The only thing to note is that you don't want to be "the boy who cried wolf." Don't say you have a gallery of 14 Insanely Beautiful Foreign Cars if the pics aren't insanely beautiful. You will lower your chances of retaining readership. Happy blogging!

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Don’t Forget to Mix Up Your Post Formats on Facebook and Twitter

Relevant Questions

During a discussion with a potential client, something came up that surprised me. It shouldn’t have considering the types of information that are floating around the internet and being spread by “gurus,” but it did.

“I post pictures to Facebook and links to Twitter,” she told me.

That was the sum of their strategy. In a way it sort of made sense – rather, I can see how someone can make sense of it – but it’s not a proper strategy and definitely isn’t the way to take full advantage of these networks.

Yes, Facebook likes images and Twitter likes links. That much is clear. The challenges are many, but the most important ones can all be summed up in one word: fatigue. People get sick of seeing variations of the same themes over and over again from a page or profile they follow. It’s easy to see that a picture of a hot classic car can get a ton of engagement and it’s even easier to fall into the trap of constantly posting hot classic car pictures from that day forward. Unfortunately, it doesn’t leave room for business-relevant posts and it turns your fans and followers off.

There are four primary Facebook post types (not including special post types like Offers):

  1. Pictures
  2. Text
  3. Links
  4. Videos

Now, there are variations that go along with some of them. For example, pictures can be broken down into albums and each album plays differently with the algorithm based upon posting source, success of previous posts in that album, posting frequency, etc, but those are the four basic types.

Twitter has even more distinct options:

  1. Pictures
  2. Text
  3. Links
  4. @Replies
  5. Pure Retweets
  6. Quote Retweets
  7. Vines/Videos

Dealers must mix it up on both networks to find the highest level of success.

 

On Twitter…

A Twitter account that posts nothing but links will be the most unfollowed account type out there. When you mix it up on Twitter, you’ll reach more people. Many don’t even look at any posts with links in them, preferring conversations. In fact, text posts (particularly those that properly use hashtags) are by far the most engaging.

Pure Retweets give your Twitter profile itself a look of diversity, as do @Replies. When people visit your dealership Twitter page and see that you have Retweeted others and that you’re talking to other users, they’ll be much more inclined to follow you and engage with you.

Pictures and videos go inline, so posting them directly to Twitter (or through tools that allow native embedding – Buffer does, Hootsuite does not) allows people to see the content without clicking away from their stream. This gives the content more exposure than simply posting a link to it hosted elsewhere.

 

On Facebook…

There was a time not too long ago when images ruled completely on Facebook. They’re still the most prominent today, but not in how the algorithm treats them. They run a close second to text posts, the content that gets presented the most to people in their news feed.

Does that mean you shouldn’t post links or videos? Of course not. You just have to use those types sparingly. I do not believe in posting formulas or generalizations, but if I were forced to give a baseline frequency of post types, I’d recommend 50% images, 30% text, and 10% each for links and videos. Again, this isn’t a standard or even a best practice. It’s a starting point from which you’ll be able to find the formula that works best for your dealership.

Everyone has different strengths, different fans, and different personalities. Finding the right mix is about testing, retesting, and then re-retesting. The key is to have a mix. Don’t go stagnant. Go bold. Do it right. Find success.

* * *

Article originally appeared on AutomotiveSocialMedia.com.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

2124

No Comments

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Don’t Forget to Mix Up Your Post Formats on Facebook and Twitter

Relevant Questions

During a discussion with a potential client, something came up that surprised me. It shouldn’t have considering the types of information that are floating around the internet and being spread by “gurus,” but it did.

“I post pictures to Facebook and links to Twitter,” she told me.

That was the sum of their strategy. In a way it sort of made sense – rather, I can see how someone can make sense of it – but it’s not a proper strategy and definitely isn’t the way to take full advantage of these networks.

Yes, Facebook likes images and Twitter likes links. That much is clear. The challenges are many, but the most important ones can all be summed up in one word: fatigue. People get sick of seeing variations of the same themes over and over again from a page or profile they follow. It’s easy to see that a picture of a hot classic car can get a ton of engagement and it’s even easier to fall into the trap of constantly posting hot classic car pictures from that day forward. Unfortunately, it doesn’t leave room for business-relevant posts and it turns your fans and followers off.

There are four primary Facebook post types (not including special post types like Offers):

  1. Pictures
  2. Text
  3. Links
  4. Videos

Now, there are variations that go along with some of them. For example, pictures can be broken down into albums and each album plays differently with the algorithm based upon posting source, success of previous posts in that album, posting frequency, etc, but those are the four basic types.

Twitter has even more distinct options:

  1. Pictures
  2. Text
  3. Links
  4. @Replies
  5. Pure Retweets
  6. Quote Retweets
  7. Vines/Videos

Dealers must mix it up on both networks to find the highest level of success.

 

On Twitter…

A Twitter account that posts nothing but links will be the most unfollowed account type out there. When you mix it up on Twitter, you’ll reach more people. Many don’t even look at any posts with links in them, preferring conversations. In fact, text posts (particularly those that properly use hashtags) are by far the most engaging.

Pure Retweets give your Twitter profile itself a look of diversity, as do @Replies. When people visit your dealership Twitter page and see that you have Retweeted others and that you’re talking to other users, they’ll be much more inclined to follow you and engage with you.

Pictures and videos go inline, so posting them directly to Twitter (or through tools that allow native embedding – Buffer does, Hootsuite does not) allows people to see the content without clicking away from their stream. This gives the content more exposure than simply posting a link to it hosted elsewhere.

 

On Facebook…

There was a time not too long ago when images ruled completely on Facebook. They’re still the most prominent today, but not in how the algorithm treats them. They run a close second to text posts, the content that gets presented the most to people in their news feed.

Does that mean you shouldn’t post links or videos? Of course not. You just have to use those types sparingly. I do not believe in posting formulas or generalizations, but if I were forced to give a baseline frequency of post types, I’d recommend 50% images, 30% text, and 10% each for links and videos. Again, this isn’t a standard or even a best practice. It’s a starting point from which you’ll be able to find the formula that works best for your dealership.

Everyone has different strengths, different fans, and different personalities. Finding the right mix is about testing, retesting, and then re-retesting. The key is to have a mix. Don’t go stagnant. Go bold. Do it right. Find success.

* * *

Article originally appeared on AutomotiveSocialMedia.com.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

2124

No Comments

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Using Facebook Ads for Others Makes Your Page More Powerful

Bonsai Tree

There’s a challenge associated with Facebook advertising that isn’t as important when it comes to Google Adwords or similar advertising platforms. With Adwords, as long as your ads match well with the page that you’re advertising, you can maintain a high quality score and keep your ads working well. On Facebook, there is a much tougher audience than the Google algorithm that you have to win over. With Facebook, your ads fall under the scrutiny of the audience and if they don’t like what you’re advertising, they can hurt your current and future exposure.

When you advertise on Facebook, your posts get much more visibility. If the content that you’re advertising gets a good amount of negative sentiment in the form of reports and hides, it isn’t just the post itself that gets hurt. Your future posts will feel the wrath of the algorithmic damage that you do. It isn’t just negative sentiment that hurts, either. If your post is viewed by many people in their news feed and gets ignored, that too is damaging. When people see your post and don’t engage with it, Facebook’s algorithm recognizes that and will be less likely to present future posts to them.

Thankfully, the opposite is true as well. Facebook ads can be used to help future standard posts find the light of day by accumulating a high percentage of positive engagement. In the balance between conversational and conversion posts, focusing some ad dollars on the former can help the latter appear more prominently in news feeds. One of the easiest ways to do this is to highlight what the company is already doing in the real world – helping in the community.

“It’s important to keep a mix of community posts, conversation posts, and business-relevant posts,” said Louie Baur, social media manager for KPA. “The only thing worse than fan fatigue is spam.”

At first glance, the image above would appear to belong to a horticulture page or perhaps an arboretum. It’s a bonsai plant, something that you don’t see every day on Facebook but interesting enough nonetheless. When people see it in their news feed, there’s a good chance they’ll look at the description to see what the post is all about. That’s when it hits them. This is a post by a car dealer. They are supporting an event in the local community by posting it on their Facebook page. They even sponsored the post.

This does a few things. First, it does the most obvious thing – helps to promote a worthwhile community event. This is the most important thing it does and as long as the intentions are sincere, the benefits will be real. Second, it gives a piece of content that will resonate with a different set of people than standard content posted to the page. They are a car dealership and they post a lot of information about cars, of course. Mixing in a picture of a bonsai and connecting that to the community and the dealership itself is a strong maneuver from a strategic perspective.

Finally, it is a strong aid for future posts. Fans will interact. The beneficiary, in this case a local arboretum, will likely interact. As people like, comment on, and share the content, more local people will see it. This is where the magic can happen. The combination of strong organic interaction, paid views, and viral views can combine for a very powerful little campaign.

In this case, the total cost  of the campaign will be $5. The value of the thousands of views of the message and branding (for both the beneficiary and the business itself) will be priceless.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

1808

No Comments

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Using Facebook Ads for Others Makes Your Page More Powerful

Bonsai Tree

There’s a challenge associated with Facebook advertising that isn’t as important when it comes to Google Adwords or similar advertising platforms. With Adwords, as long as your ads match well with the page that you’re advertising, you can maintain a high quality score and keep your ads working well. On Facebook, there is a much tougher audience than the Google algorithm that you have to win over. With Facebook, your ads fall under the scrutiny of the audience and if they don’t like what you’re advertising, they can hurt your current and future exposure.

When you advertise on Facebook, your posts get much more visibility. If the content that you’re advertising gets a good amount of negative sentiment in the form of reports and hides, it isn’t just the post itself that gets hurt. Your future posts will feel the wrath of the algorithmic damage that you do. It isn’t just negative sentiment that hurts, either. If your post is viewed by many people in their news feed and gets ignored, that too is damaging. When people see your post and don’t engage with it, Facebook’s algorithm recognizes that and will be less likely to present future posts to them.

Thankfully, the opposite is true as well. Facebook ads can be used to help future standard posts find the light of day by accumulating a high percentage of positive engagement. In the balance between conversational and conversion posts, focusing some ad dollars on the former can help the latter appear more prominently in news feeds. One of the easiest ways to do this is to highlight what the company is already doing in the real world – helping in the community.

“It’s important to keep a mix of community posts, conversation posts, and business-relevant posts,” said Louie Baur, social media manager for KPA. “The only thing worse than fan fatigue is spam.”

At first glance, the image above would appear to belong to a horticulture page or perhaps an arboretum. It’s a bonsai plant, something that you don’t see every day on Facebook but interesting enough nonetheless. When people see it in their news feed, there’s a good chance they’ll look at the description to see what the post is all about. That’s when it hits them. This is a post by a car dealer. They are supporting an event in the local community by posting it on their Facebook page. They even sponsored the post.

This does a few things. First, it does the most obvious thing – helps to promote a worthwhile community event. This is the most important thing it does and as long as the intentions are sincere, the benefits will be real. Second, it gives a piece of content that will resonate with a different set of people than standard content posted to the page. They are a car dealership and they post a lot of information about cars, of course. Mixing in a picture of a bonsai and connecting that to the community and the dealership itself is a strong maneuver from a strategic perspective.

Finally, it is a strong aid for future posts. Fans will interact. The beneficiary, in this case a local arboretum, will likely interact. As people like, comment on, and share the content, more local people will see it. This is where the magic can happen. The combination of strong organic interaction, paid views, and viral views can combine for a very powerful little campaign.

In this case, the total cost  of the campaign will be $5. The value of the thousands of views of the message and branding (for both the beneficiary and the business itself) will be priceless.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

1808

No Comments

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Knowing Why Google Embraced Social Will Help You Understand How It Works

Orkut

For the last 7 years, I’ve been watching Google very closely. Sure, they are in the news all the time so it’s not something that’s exactly hard. What has been more challenging is keeping up with their long-standing obsession with social media and understanding why it’s so.

They have some big wins (YouTube, Google+) as well as dozens of losses (Orkut and just about everything else that they’ve touched that smells social). They looked at Facebook before Microsoft jumped on first. They took a long, hard look at Digg during the social news site’s heyday, then suddenly bailed out the moment they opened the books and saw the duct tape coding underlying the site.

Google knows two things very well about social media:

  1. If they have any chance of truly transcending beyond technology to gain a true understanding of intent and desires, they need to get a ton of social data.
  2. They haven’t been able to crack into the type of data that Facebook has about people.

Google+ is similar to people, but does not hold the attention of its users. It will get there. It has to. It’s Google’s last, best hope for getting this data.

The reason they want it so badly is because just about everything they rely upon (search, advertising dollars, fulfilling the hopes and expectations of their customers, just to name a few) as a company would be exponentially improved by understanding true sentiment. They have all of the data that people want. They just don’t have an easy way to perfect the delivery and usage of this data.

With this understanding, it’s much easier to anticipate what Google will do with their advertising platform as well as their search engine. They are close to perfecting the latter, believe it or not. Most will point to the rapid pace in which Google makes changes to their search algorithm, but that’s not an accurate characterization. They made major changes with Panda and Penguin. They made a minor (and completely overblown) change with their recent Hummingbird update. What we see now is close to the end game. Now, all they need to do is tweak it and wait for the next breakthrough.

They have achieved at plateau. Rather than major algorithm changes, they are now in the mode of perfecting the results by turning knobs rather than making the major changes that have hit every year since 2007. The holistic view of Google search that allows optimization to be broken down into the three major components (content, inbound links, and social signals) will not change until the reach a tipping point of understanding social data.

What’s the point of all this? That part is harder to explain. For years, I’ve been reading and experimenting the best ways to market on Google. Now that they’ve reached a plateau, the anticipation game has changed. Those of us who try to stay on top of current algorithm trends while looking ahead to the changes can sit back for a while. What we see is what we’re going to get for a while. It’s all about the three components. However, there is one thing that hasn’t manifested itself yet that technically changes everything.

The primary reason that Google wants to understand social data and personal sentiment is because they are on a quest for quality beyond the empirical data itself. The data is as good as it’s going to get through pure technology. They cannot advance the understanding of sentiment any further until a breakthrough.  Today, the great search marketer will be doing two things:

  1. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals to improve rankings today.
  2. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals with the understanding that once they achieve their goal of understanding sentiment, the quality component will make the search rankings soar.

As you can see, it’s an approach that will kill two birds with one stone. There are challenges with the data that Google cannot reconcile today. For example, if someone wants to find a phone number for a business, they might search, click through to a website, find the number, and leave. This takes seconds and technically from Google’s current perspective this wasn’t a successful endeavor, especially if the searcher then clicks back to the search results and goes to a different site. Even though the mission was accomplished by the searcher, Google will count this as a bounce and a short time on site.

On the other hand, someone might be looking for something in particular, land on a page from a Google search, click around trying to find what they wanted, get frustrated when they can’t find it, and leave. From Google’s perspective, this was a good visit. From the searcher’s perspective, it was an utter failure.

This is the type of sentiment that Google wants to understand. They want to know if you like what they presented to you. They want to know if their information was useful to you. They want to know if a website they “recommended” by having it listed first in the search engine helped you achieve a goal. Today, they can only guess. Tomorrow, they may be able to find out with a near certainty. At that point, we’ll see the next major upgrade in search. One might even call it “quantum search” since it would probably take a quantum computer for them to make sense of all that data.

Thankfully for them, they’re building a quantum computer right now.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

1427

No Comments

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Knowing Why Google Embraced Social Will Help You Understand How It Works

Orkut

For the last 7 years, I’ve been watching Google very closely. Sure, they are in the news all the time so it’s not something that’s exactly hard. What has been more challenging is keeping up with their long-standing obsession with social media and understanding why it’s so.

They have some big wins (YouTube, Google+) as well as dozens of losses (Orkut and just about everything else that they’ve touched that smells social). They looked at Facebook before Microsoft jumped on first. They took a long, hard look at Digg during the social news site’s heyday, then suddenly bailed out the moment they opened the books and saw the duct tape coding underlying the site.

Google knows two things very well about social media:

  1. If they have any chance of truly transcending beyond technology to gain a true understanding of intent and desires, they need to get a ton of social data.
  2. They haven’t been able to crack into the type of data that Facebook has about people.

Google+ is similar to people, but does not hold the attention of its users. It will get there. It has to. It’s Google’s last, best hope for getting this data.

The reason they want it so badly is because just about everything they rely upon (search, advertising dollars, fulfilling the hopes and expectations of their customers, just to name a few) as a company would be exponentially improved by understanding true sentiment. They have all of the data that people want. They just don’t have an easy way to perfect the delivery and usage of this data.

With this understanding, it’s much easier to anticipate what Google will do with their advertising platform as well as their search engine. They are close to perfecting the latter, believe it or not. Most will point to the rapid pace in which Google makes changes to their search algorithm, but that’s not an accurate characterization. They made major changes with Panda and Penguin. They made a minor (and completely overblown) change with their recent Hummingbird update. What we see now is close to the end game. Now, all they need to do is tweak it and wait for the next breakthrough.

They have achieved at plateau. Rather than major algorithm changes, they are now in the mode of perfecting the results by turning knobs rather than making the major changes that have hit every year since 2007. The holistic view of Google search that allows optimization to be broken down into the three major components (content, inbound links, and social signals) will not change until the reach a tipping point of understanding social data.

What’s the point of all this? That part is harder to explain. For years, I’ve been reading and experimenting the best ways to market on Google. Now that they’ve reached a plateau, the anticipation game has changed. Those of us who try to stay on top of current algorithm trends while looking ahead to the changes can sit back for a while. What we see is what we’re going to get for a while. It’s all about the three components. However, there is one thing that hasn’t manifested itself yet that technically changes everything.

The primary reason that Google wants to understand social data and personal sentiment is because they are on a quest for quality beyond the empirical data itself. The data is as good as it’s going to get through pure technology. They cannot advance the understanding of sentiment any further until a breakthrough.  Today, the great search marketer will be doing two things:

  1. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals to improve rankings today.
  2. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals with the understanding that once they achieve their goal of understanding sentiment, the quality component will make the search rankings soar.

As you can see, it’s an approach that will kill two birds with one stone. There are challenges with the data that Google cannot reconcile today. For example, if someone wants to find a phone number for a business, they might search, click through to a website, find the number, and leave. This takes seconds and technically from Google’s current perspective this wasn’t a successful endeavor, especially if the searcher then clicks back to the search results and goes to a different site. Even though the mission was accomplished by the searcher, Google will count this as a bounce and a short time on site.

On the other hand, someone might be looking for something in particular, land on a page from a Google search, click around trying to find what they wanted, get frustrated when they can’t find it, and leave. From Google’s perspective, this was a good visit. From the searcher’s perspective, it was an utter failure.

This is the type of sentiment that Google wants to understand. They want to know if you like what they presented to you. They want to know if their information was useful to you. They want to know if a website they “recommended” by having it listed first in the search engine helped you achieve a goal. Today, they can only guess. Tomorrow, they may be able to find out with a near certainty. At that point, we’ll see the next major upgrade in search. One might even call it “quantum search” since it would probably take a quantum computer for them to make sense of all that data.

Thankfully for them, they’re building a quantum computer right now.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

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JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Oct 10, 2013

Chevy Should Get Loud About the New Corvette Stingray

2014 Corvette Stingray

When something is as hot as an iconic automotive legend hitting dealerships across America, it often doesn't need very much additional buzz created for it. Some would say that this is the case for the new Corvette C7 Stingray, just now landing at showrooms.

I think they're making a mistake by not blasting this machine out there to everyone in the world. It's that cool, but you wouldn't know it if you're following them on social media.

There are two possible reasons for this. It could simply be a corporate thing. Social media departments at large companies are often disconnected from the rest of the company. You can usually see this when a Facebook page is dominated by feel-good stories, customer experiences, nostalgia, and the occasional advertising. Most of the time these types of posts were pre-approved by the legal and marketing departments well before the posts went out and the results are good, not great, but at least they're safe.

The other possible reason is that they simply do not believe that the car has enough mass appeal to hit their social media presence prominently. This is a huge mistake, an amateur one, really, if that is the case. Social media is not about general appeal. It's about what's hot. It's about what's amazing. There's a reason that Ferrari has a more prominent social media footprint that Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, or any of the other major brands. It's not that more people drive Ferraris. These people that are liking the pages aren't going to Ferrari club meetings, nor do they have one sitting in their garage. This is social media and in many ways it's a reflection of our desired lifestyle rather than our real one.

If Chevrolet wants to really get people's attention and make a splash on social media, they need to take advantage of this monster of a car. It truly is an amazing piece of machinery, different and better than previous Corvettes. They need to drive this beast into the ground and ride it for as long as they can in order to take full advantage of the algorithmic benefits it would create.

The Corvette can go viral. The Cruze cannot.

Some Chevy dealers are getting it. Here's one video from Holiday Automotive that gives the right amount of attention to this machine. They aren't trying to sell it. They don't need to. Everything they have allocated is already sold. That's not the point. The point is that it's hot and they understand that.

If only their manufacturer understood as well.

JD Rucker

Dealer Authority

Founder

1546

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