Why JC Penney Got Burned Buying Links

The SEO (search engine optimization) community has been abuzz this week over an article entitled “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search” that appeared in the New York Times about how J.C. Penney had been found to be purchasing links to their website for competitive search terms. J.C. Penney hired a search marketing firm that ran a link building campaign for them targeting keyword phrases such as “little black dress.” The large number of paid links to J.C. Penney’s website pages gave them artificial importance in the eyes of search engine spiders. They were at the top of the organic (non-paid) search results for many popular retail-related keyword phrases all through the crucial holiday shopping season.

J.C. Penney also spends a huge amount of money on paid search results. Did this help improve their organic results? It’s hard to tell. The way I see it, buying links is a widespread practice and J.C. Penney’s main problem was that they were caught doing it. But it shouldn’t be this way. Buying links isn’t ethical and promotes the growth of  lousy sites that are nothing but unrelated links or possibly normal sites with links that don’t seem to belong and make you doubt the credibility of the site.

Google is clear on what they think about paid links. Here’s what they have to say: “[Some] webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.” And they mean it – the NY Times article outlines the impact of Google’s wrath against unethical SEO.

Link building is the most painful part of search engine optimization. The best way to build links is to provide great content that people will link to spontaneously. This can be a very slow process and some sites lend themselves better to this than others. However, we improve link building by making sure that your site is widely published in directories, some free and a few paid. We can also use other honest ways to build links, like requesting them from reputable sites or leaving links in blog comments. We also try to offer valuable content online in the form of press releases or articles for others to use with relevant links back to your site. Link building is an ongoing process that takes work and doesn’t usually offer instant results, but the way we do it lets us sleep at night.

BAM! Google Instant Doesn’t Waste Time.

Not sure if you’ve noticed quite yet, but Google is a-changing. As of yesterday, you can now experience Google Instant. Once you start a search, Google will suggest results to you as you type. In other words, it predicts what your search will be and displays the results of that search instantaneously. It intends to allow for immediate feedback on your search, giving you the opportunity to edit or adapt to the search results you want to see. The new feature claims to save you time (between 2-5 seconds a search), narrow your searching more accurately, and predict results to help guide your search.

Marketing Implications

As much as we love Google, we had one major red flag. Would Instant change search engine rankings? What would it mean for SEO efforts up until this point? Lucky for marketers everywhere, Google Instant does NOT affect current rankings, which leaves our SEO efforts in tact. Phew!

Is it Necessary?

I do have to question Google Instant’s necessity. The reason many people love Google is for its simplicity – think of its clean, white front page. I’m not sure that the promise of “saved time” is enough to really make it worthwhile. Does it really benefit my searching? Does seeing the results appearing as I type really help me better tailor my search? On the other hand, it is cool and clearly displays Google’s ability to pioneer new technologies. I can’t say I’m not impressed.

Personally don’t like it? Don’t worry, they won’t take too much offense. You can shut it off in your preferences to go back to old-school Google, or “OSG” as I like to call it.

What do you think?

Will Google Instant help you search better? Or do you think that it is an unnecessary add-on that is just a flex of Google’s genius muscle?

The Benefits of Advertisements, Years Later

Do you ever wish you could get more out of those old advertisements for which you paid so much money? They were so darn expensive, and now they are just sitting in storage, collecting dust! Once again, social media is here to the rescue. Here are some great reasons to put your old ads online:

1. Search Engine Optimization - Adding content to social networks can do wonders for your search engine optimization.  For instance, when we add pictures to Flickr or video to YouTube, we make sure the content is tagged with the right keywords. We also make sure that descriptions and titles include the brand name, keywords and links . All of these things increase the amount of content a company has on the web, and therefore increases the search engine optimization.
2. Another way to reach your audience- Just because there are 240 million Facebook users doesn’t mean you should focus all of your attention on that medium. Yes, uploading multimedia to Facebook is an great way to provide your friends and fans with content, but plenty of people use flickr and YouTube on a daily basis.
3. Increase online footprint- The more content you are putting out on the web about your brand, the more users are going to find you, and the more comfortable they will be with your product or brand.
4. Provides opportunities  for two-way communication – Uploading multimedia is great way to incite commentary and get feedback. Having imput can help brands track the success of their marketing efforts. Knowing that your customers think “This commercial is hilarious,” or “This ad stinks” is valuable knowledge. And unless you are sitting on the couch next to millions of TV viewers, you can’t get that kind of feedback with traditional advertising.  In addition to getting feedback, sites such as YouTube and Flickr also allow opportunities for brands to join the conversation, by talking with viewers or answering their questions.

Robert Andrew Salon & Spa, a client of The Cyphers Agency, has a  Flickr account that we set up for them.  As you see circled in the screen shot below, the brand is mentioned several times for one picture. We have hundreds of pictures uploaded to the Robert Andrew Flickr account. With every single picture tagged and described appropriately, viewers are exposed to the brand name more frequently. The particular set of pictures featured below was viewed more than 40,000 times!

If you’re thinking that 40,000 views is measly compared to the millions of views you can get through advertising on television, you’re right–if you’re just comparing the numbers.

People are opting into the brands message, they are actually interacting with the content (instead of sitting on the couch with glazed eyeballs), and you (the brand) can speak directly to them. Their comments also give you insight into your target audience, and their behavior (clicks, time spent on page, what sites they came from) is highly track-able which also contributes to further understanding of your audience. You don’t get any of that with a TV ad. Unless it’s that old TV ad that you just uploaded to YouTube

How to Use “The Google”

The phone book is dead. It’s a sad truth phone directory publishers might not tell you, but we can’t remember the last time we used a phone book for anything other than kindling for a fire or a booster seat.  Today’s digitally conscious consumers are plugged in 24/7 and research shows they prefer to go online for research. Additionally, it is a fact that consumers are increasingly turned off by most forms of advertising – they despise being sold to, and see it as a monumental waste of time.  So how then, if traditional media such as phone books aren’t working, do you make sure that people can find you or look you up? One of the most important and cost-effective ways is through Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

SEM is defined by Wikipedia.com (you didn’t think I was going to pull Webster’s dictionary off the shelf, did you?) as a set of marketing methods to increase the visibility of a Web site in search engine results pages (SERPs). In plain English, it’sall the stuff you do to get to the top of search engines where people will see you.

Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet for conquering SEM. It’s a complex process that has lots of complexities; however, conquering two main categories (or paying a professional to handle it) will get you started:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of adjusting the makeup of your Web site so that it comes up high in organic (unpaid) search listings. Much of this is done as the Web site is being built – in copy, page titles and meta tags. But increasingly, it’s crucial to improve site navigation, name pages and images properly, and increase relevant outbound and inbound links. It’s a constantly evolving process and usually requires monthly maintenance and tweaking by a professional to maintain high rankings.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising can be wildly successful and very cost effective. It involves purchasing keywords and phrases that people use when searching online for your product or service so that you come up at the top and to the right of unpaid search listings. These are extremely effective because unlike traditional ads, these are directly related to the needs and wants of the consumer. The challenge is determining which keywords and keyphrases are going to get you the best results for the money you’re willing to spend. Through PPC advertising, you can achieve qualified leads, and you only pay if your ad entices someone to click through to your site. New technologies available to agencies like ours even allow us to target geographically and track phone calls from Web sites.

So next time you’re preparing your yearly marketing budget, ask yourself whether you’re taking advantage of this crucial new medium that’s helping customers everywhere find exactly what they’re seeking. If not, perhaps you should consider dumping some of those print ads and phone book listings and writing SEM into your plan. Get on the bus now, before your competitors beat you to it. “…it’s all the stuff you do to get to the top of search engines where people will see you.”