Social media marketing presents us with opportunities every day, we just need to be cognizant of them. Something simple can become a major boon, and sometimes it pays to go over the top a little bit, because if you don’t, a competitor might.

This played out last week after a joking Facebook post went viral. A man named Thomas Cook posted on the Facebook wall of the Thomas Cook travel agency. He wrote, “Seeing as I share the exact same name as your huge company, and because of this I have been ridiculed for as long as I can remember. I think it’s only fair that you help compensate for this by giving me one of your lovely holidays.”

The global travel agency politely declined. This might have been the end of it, but for LowCostHolidays.com. They saw the message and replied to Thomas Cook (the man) with this, “Here at lowcostholidays.com we completely sympathise with your suffering and if your name was “lowcostholidays.com” we would certainly have accepted your request to be sent away on a weekend in Paris. … So how about we send you on that weekend in Paris?”

And they did.

And the story blew up.

It’s been featured on most major news outlets and no matter how whimsical the story, it still ends up as a lot of great publicity for lowcostholidays.com, more than they ever could have gotten from spending the relatively small price of a weekend in Paris on advertising. Thomas Cook (the company) isn’t getting bad press, but they missed out on the opportunity for some GREAT press.

The takeaway? When you’re in a competitive field, sometimes it pays to be willing to go a little further than the competition. Keep tabs on their social media as well as your own, and capitalize on their mistakes and missed opportunities. Just make sure they can’t do the same thing to you!

Original article about Thomas Cook social media posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Thomas Cook’s Vacation.

I’m often getting request from clients to take a look at specific area of their website, where for some reason they may not be getting as much traffic as they would like. There are many great search engine optimizationstrategies you can use for single pages or sections of your site but thinking this way neglects the more important fundamentals of SEO.

Diagnosing an SEO problem can be tricky and often looks like throwing darts with a blind fold on. Usually you can draw on past experience and try to make an educated guess on what’s wrong. This makes it a little easier to narrow down the problem but it always ends up with trying something and then having to wait and see if Google reacts. If nothing happens you’ve at least ruled out a few things and can narrow your focus but it can be a repetitive process.

So if you’ve found a problem on a section of your site, it can be easy to fall into the rut of “well let’s try that thing that worked last time,” rather than investigating and getting to the root of the problem. It can be easy to get fixated on a symptom and lose sight of the real problem that’s actually causing that symptom.

Any time you have a problem with one section of your site it’s important to do a full checkup. Search engines take into account your entire site when ranking it, so if something is wrong in one section it could still seriously affect another completely separate section.

Original article about diagnosing SEO problems posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Diagnosing Your SEO Problem Properly

Most businesses understand the benefits of search engine optimization, but many miss out on easy opportunities. Building backlinks is common, but social link building is often overlooked. Social link building enables you to build links that will spread organically, making your site more popular and bettering your position on search engines.

Wikimotive has written a limited-edition eBook called ‘Social Link Building’. This eBook gives you an overview on how to build links that will be popular on social networks and gives you some ideas to start you off. This is a great affordable and easy method for increasing exposure and finding opportunities.

eBooks—for those who are unfamiliar—are short, downloadable booklets that exist in digital PDF form. In ours, you’ll learn:

• The value of links
• The three C’s of good content
• How to attract more attention to your brand on social media
• How you can boost your visibility by making guest blog posts
• What kind of blogs get the best readership
• And More

If you want to know how to use social link building, or if you already use it and just want some more ideas, then you’re in luck! Follow this link to get your free copy of our ebook.

Original article releasing the Social Link Building ebook posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Wikimotive Ebook: Social Link Building

Google has been taking a lot of heat lately for some alleged shady business practices. We told you last week about the FTC's plan to file an anti-trust case against them, now it seems the non-profit organization SEMPO is trying to get their licks in as well. SEMPO is a professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing. They mainly do research and education in the fields of search, digital marketing, and social marketing.

SEMPO has appealed to the FTC for a review and possible revision of the guidelines for search engine disclosure and transparency, specifically regarding paid advertisements in search results. These guidelines were put in place in 2002 to regulate search engines and keep search engine marketing and paid search advertising on the up and up. The FTC has not officially announced their intention to review the guidelines as of yet but with all of the action surrounding Google recently you can bet they will be looking into it at the very least.

In case you're interested here is the letter from SEMPO to the FTC in full compliments of searchenginewatch.com:

October 15, 2012

Jon Leibowitz

Chairman

Federal Trade Commission

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20580

Dear Chairman Leibowitz:

We understand that the FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau is now looking closely at the issue of search labeling transparency and is strongly considering a formal review of compliance with the 2002 guidelines for search engine disclosure concerning paid advertisement appearances in search results, as well as a possible revision of the guidelines. SEMPO believes that this review and revision would be positive steps to take, and not merely in light of recent media coverage of this subject.

Should the FTC undertake such a review, in addition to signifying the understanding that recent extreme antitrust claims against Google search practices lack merit, it would also be taken to mean that the FTC perceives the benefits of taking a broader, industry-wide approach to search labeling and transparency – a positive position.
As we have publicly stated previously, the search function is not a government-run utility, established by law and thus subject to bureaucratic oversight, but a service provided to consumers and businesses by private companies, which have set up their operations using their own principles, proprietary technologies and algorithms. We feel strongly, for a host of reasons, that regulating individual companies' search algorithms is undesirable.

Nonetheless, we believe that a level playing field should be ensured for search as a whole – both for the protection of consumers and in furtherance of fair competition within the search industry. Consumers and search engines are both better off when consumers have full transparency about why they are seeing which results on search websites. If the present FTC guidelines on paid placements are being widely flouted, or if certain industry segments – such as vertical search sites – harbor particular practices that mislead consumers, result in fraud, or offer unfair competitive advantage to their commercial customers, the public and the business community deserve to know. And they also deserve to have steps taken to protect them in future.

The 2002 search engine disclosure guidelines were helpful, but the world has changed since then. Updated guidelines would eliminate the need for more prescriptive regulation of search website results, which we believe could be harmful. The fact that not all sites, particularly vertical/specialized search sites, follow current guidelines indicates that it's time for a fresh look at the guidelines, perhaps starting with a workshop or industry-wide conversation about the issues.

Here is where we believe we can offer assistance. SEMPO stands in a unique position. Our membership includes the leaders and experts in the Search Engine/Search Marketing industry, with all the knowledge that they possess, yet as a non-profit association we function collectively as an unbiased third party, working from the principles of fairness and equity. Our leadership team and membership community are already assisting the U.S. government: for example, we are currently working with the Department of Labor on the classification of job roles. We also compiled and submitted thoughtful and informative communications to the Senate and the House of Representatives concerning the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation, and we mobilized others to do the same.

Therefore, we respectfully suggest that we could provide valuable insight and background to the Consumer Protection Bureau, both on the topic of a search engine guideline compliance review, and in presenting considerations for the transparency policy development process that might result after such a review.

SEMPO would be eager to contribute to any conversations or workshops on these topics. If tapping our expertise would be useful to you, please contact [redacted], to discuss further how we might help.

Very truly yours,
Mike Grehan, President
Chris Boggs, Chairman
Rob Garner, Vice President
Mike Corak, Treasurer
cc:
David Vladeck, Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection
Laura Sullivan, Advertising Practices
Deborah Matties, Attorney Advisor to Chairman Jon Leibowitz
Chris Renner, Attorney Advisor to Chairman Jon Leibowitz
Chuck Harwood, Deputy Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection

Original article about SEMPO and the FTC posted on wikimotive's blog under the title SEMPO Takes Aim At Google.

Did you catch the presidential debate this week? It was of the more intense events from any recent election. The candidates appeared as though they might drop the mics and go for blood any second. Luckily, it didn’t come to that, but there was another group waiting in the wings, poised to pounce at the first opportunity. Of course we’re talking about the cyber-snipers, the people who watch national events just waiting for phrases with viral potential to drop, so they can exploit it for marketing with Facebook and Twitter. They got lucky this debate, because when Romney said “They brought us whole binders full of women,” a star was born.

The phrase was used innocuously, but it was taken out of context and spread around the web like wildfire. Grabbing this kind of phrase while it’s hot is a marketing dream, beneficial to pretty much any business. Don’t believe it? Let us show you a couple examples.

The first is the Binders Full of Women group on Facebook. It was snatched up quickly last night and it flourished while imitators failed. The page already has 346 THOUSAND likes and is using it’s reach to shed light on issues relating to women’s’ rights. It must have a noble owner, as most people would use that intensive reach for personal gain, which brings us to…

BindersFullOfWomen.com. The domain was purchased by a Democratic super PAC roughly two minutes after it was uttered in TV. As you can see, the site is already very active and very anti-Romney.

Whoever won the debate, the democrats won the viral-marketing battle (as they so often seem to) and they’re using Romney’s strange phrasing against him, to great effect.

Is there a lesson in this? We think so. Sure, you probably couldn’t have grabbed the binders domain or Facebook because you don’t have a team of guys standing by, but you CAN monitor for opportunities to jump on in your own industry. It just shows that paying attention to what’s trending is important, and figuring out what’s trending BEFORE it trends is money in the bank.

Original article about viral marketing in the Presidential Campaign posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Romney’s “Binders Full Of Women” Goes Viral.

These days a lot of businesses are trying to decide if they should handle their own SEO or hire a company to do it for them. In today’s economy everyone is trying to save money but when it comes to SEO sometimes when you think you’re saving money you could really be losing money. Handling your own automotive SEO can be a difficult undertaking so you have to ask yourself: do you have enough time to devote to it? And do you know what you’re doing?

First of all, at a bare minimum you need to be able to work with simple HTML. Proper SEO can require some more advanced knowledge sometimes, but in general you at least need to know how to make bold and italic text, and how to build a link. Changing formatting, renaming images, and working with javascript can also come up, and if your site isn’t SEO friendly you may have to learn to do a lot more.

Optimizing a site to be search engine friendly can be extremely time consuming. Does your site have 100 pages? 200? 500? More!?! All those pages will need individual attention and uniquely optimized content. You need to do a no nonsense assessment of the time you have available and really ask yourself if you have the time to devote to all this.

As I said in my earlier point all the pages on your site are going to need individual attention both in the backend and with unique, optimized content. If you aren’t a skilled copywriter this can be a very arduous task, not to mention you could hurt your company’s image with poor writing or typos. Writing optimized content isn’t just about throwing in some keywords here and there, you need to be able to compel people to read on and/or take action while naturally weaving in some keywords.

You also need to remember that SEO is not a once and done activity. It is a constant struggle to keep up with search engine algorithm updates and changing technology. Doing proper SEO for a company can absolutely be a full time job and depending on the size of the company it can require a team.

With all of this in front of you you have to ask: What is you time worth per hour? Which option would really be more cost effective? Are you prepared to commit to educating yourself on everything you need to know to successfully run an SEO campaign?

Original article about the difficulties of SEO posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title So You Think Your’re Ready To Do SEO On Your Own?

We all want to manage our online presence, especially when it comes to search engine optimization. Unfortunately, due to the very nature of backlinks, it’s often out of our control. Until now, there hasn’t been an official solution for when you’re bombarded by poor quality links, leading some people to use such links as a tool for negative SEO. With this week’s updates to Google, websites have a powerful new tool to fight bad links.

During yesterday’s PubCon keynote, Google’s engineer and mouthpiece--Matt Cutts-- announced that they were finally rolling out a disavow links tool. The tool will allow you to disavow links you want Google to ignore. Essentially, you're telling the search engine that these are sites you believe to be untrustworthy.

The tool is incredibly easy to use. Simply go into your Google webmaster’s tools, select a website, and then you choose a text file that contains the links you want to disavow. You’ll be greeted with several warning messages before you’re able to actually block any links though. Matt Cutts says several times in his video that this is a last resort tool, and Google encourages you to take down the links you can, and write to people to take down the ones you can’t. Once you’ve done that, then it’s time to disavow.

If you aren’t sure if you need to disavow, you probably don’t. Really, you only want to consider it if you have received a message from Google telling you they have found low quality links.

Original article about Google Disavow Tool posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Google’s New Disavow Tool.

The United States FTC is looking into the possibility of pursuing an anti-trust case against search engine giant Google. Sources close to the FTC say that four FTC commissioners "have become convinced after more than a year of investigation that Google illegally used its dominance of the search market to hurt its rivals." A decision to file a law suit against Google could have major implications for the future of Search Engine Optimization SEO and the search industry in general.

In 1998 a similar lawsuit was filed against Microsoft alleging that they abused their monopoly position. If Microsoft had lost they may have been forced to split into two parts. They ended up settling for an extremely large sum of money and, although they did not get convicted, they still lost. Many believe the case forced Bill Gates to resign as CEO and the company has never been the same since.

According to sources close to the FTC, it appears likely that they will pursue a case against Google. They won't have to work very hard either, to come up with a good reason. They've been inundated with complaints about how Google is conducting itself. A lot of complaints have to do with Google favoring their own properties in vertical search results, but surprisingly that may not be what the FTC chooses to go after. One source said the FTC commissioners have given weight to... "complaints that Google refuses to share data that would allow advertisers and developers to create software to compare the value they get on Google to advertising spending on Microsoft's Bing or Yahoo. In a related issue, the FTC is looking at Google's handling of valuable patents, which are determined to be essential to smartphones. The agency is trying to determine if they are licensed fairly and whether patent infringement lawsuits are used to hamper innovation."

If the FTC does decide to go after Google for anti-trust violations you can bet on one outcome with absolute confidence: Google will never be the same. And that will almost certainly mean a massive shake up in the world of SEO and digital marketing in general.

Original article about Google's pending lawsuit posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title The FTC Looking Into Anti-Trust Case Against Google.

If your company does a lot of mass emailing as part of your automotive internet marketing strategy, it’s important that you’re careful not to fall into the “spam” category. It can be difficult to walk that line between what is acceptable and what is annoying, but it’s important that you’re able to distinguish between the two. When in doubt, you should consult the CAN-SPAM act, a document containing rules from the government on how to mass email in a courteous and legal way.

1. Be honest with your header. This means that you should use accurate, transparent information when sending the email. Don’t try to disguise your FROM address or domain to make it more palatable.

2. Use descriptive email subjects. This one is self-explanatory. If you’re writing about a sale or a product, try to include that in your subject.

3. Limit your disguise. If what you are sending is an ad, make it an ad. You can get yourself in trouble if you try and pretend the recipient has won a contest or some other ploy.

4. Include a physical address. This one seems strange, but you’re much less likely to run into trouble if somewhere in the email body you include either a street address or a post office box.

5. Include an opt-out. It can be in the footer of the email, it just has to be there. It’s not the responsibility of the recipient to figure out how to get off the list if they don’t want to be on it. They have the right to opt-out and you are obliged to make it simple.

6. Act on opt-outs. You must honor all opt-out requests within ten days of them being made. If you don’t, you’re technically breaking the law. Even if you aren’t concerned with the dubious legality, once someone tries to opt-out, what good are you doing your company by continuing to harass them?

7. Control your own brand. Hiring another company and letting them spam on your behalf doesn’t help you out much. If you contract someone and they violate the CAN- SPAM act, you BOTH are legally responsible.

These are the main takeaways from the CAN-SPAM act. Sure, you can ignore them and probably won’t get in much trouble, but you won’t make any friends either. Following these rules makes the internet a better place, and even if they opt-out, your audience will think more of you for following them.

Original article about the CAN-SPAM act posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Seven Tips For Spam-Free Email Campaigns.

Google’s Matt Cutts just recently announced an update for the Page Layout algorithm, which originally came out in January. This algorithm is designed to reward websites who place their content above their advertisements. In a tweet on the subject Matt Cutts mentioned that 0.7% of English language queries will be affected. This may seem like a small number but in reference to Google search it means a lot of people will have to change their website and search engine optimization.

When the Page Layout algorithm first launched google explained who it might affect: “Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”

Google offers a great tool to help you make sure your site is setup with in the guidelines of this new algorithm. It’s called the Browser-size Analysis tool in Google Analytics and it should help you figure out how much content vs. ads show up above the fold on your site for different browser sizes.

If you’ve been affected by this update Google says as long as you change your page layout and get your site re-crawled you should be all set. This process tends to take a long time, sometimes up to a few weeks depending on crawl frequency, so don’t be alarmed if your site doesn’t recover right away.

Original article about Google Page Layout algorithm posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Google Updates Page Layout Algorithm, Significantly Affects 0.7% Of Queries.