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Cindy Krum

SMS: Is the .mobi domain extension completely a dead issue with the iPhone and the “one web” approach gaining traction?

Cindy: The dot-mobi domain was conceived to help companies who wanted people to be able to reach very limited versions of their site on a mobile phone. At the time, the phones could only render very simple text websites, and then only if the website was coded in a language meant specifically for mobile phones called WAP. Even before the iPhone, mobile browsers had improved to the point that the separate domain and coding language were no longer necessary.

In the United States and Europe, I think the dot-mobi is pretty dead, though in Asian countries, I think it will be slower to die. The culture around mobile phones is slightly different, but in the long run, I think it just won’t make sense for most companies to maintain two versions of their website.

SMS: In your presentations, you also talk a lot about the need for a device-independent design. Please explain what the concept means and why it is becoming so important.

Cindy: As we move into the future, more and more devices will be web-enabled, and they will all have different screen resolutions, and different input devices. Soon enough, not just phones, but all MP3 players, game systems, and GPS units will be web-enabled too. We will not be able to develop a new programming language or protocol for each web-enabled device, and we won’t want to. The overhead to create and maintain just two sites that do the same thing is too high. Instead, it will be important to create web content that works well across a whole host of web-enabled devices.

SMS: If you do take your main domain onto the mobile environment, what options can you suggest in terms of site architecture that can help if its appearance is less than desirable on the mobile platform?

Cindy: The most important thing you can do is code your site in XHTML and use an external style sheet for the styling on the site. Both of these things will minimize the amount of code the phone will have to render, and eliminate many snags that can cause mobile browsers to render a page poorly. Also, be very careful if robust drop-down JavaScript navigation will have to render on a mobile phone — the navigation could display in full, pushing all the valuable information on your page down very low and causing usability issues.

(To Be Continued in Part 3) …

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Cindy Krum is the Chief Executive Officer of Rank-Mobile, LLC. She brings fresh and creative ideas to her clients, speaking at national and international trade events about mobile web marketing, social network marketing and international SEO. Cindy also writes for industry publications, and has been published in Website Magazine, Advertising & Marketing Review, Search Engine Land, ODG Intelligence, and quoted by many respected publications including PC World, Internet Retailer, TechWorld, Direct Magazine and Search Marketing Standard.

Cindy also served as the co-chair of the SEMPO Emerging Technologies Mobile Web Task Force, and is an active member of the search community. Cindy is passionate about bringing creative online marketing solutions to clients, and working with clients to develop high level mobile and international marketing strategies.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Mobile Marketing Maven: An Interview With Cindy Krum (Part 2 of 3)

According to their data, from March 3^rd – March 9^th “…more than 284 top search terms have been attacked by more than 6600 malicious URLS.” And that is just with Google. Top search terms are defined as terms that are getting the most traffic at any given moment. The ever popular Google Trends page displays these terms, and top news stories are usually the main focus of these terms.

SonicWALL also discovered that “…up to nine of the top 20 search terms are under attack at any one time.” Two examples here were searches for film producer “Elinor Burkett” and the Oscar winning short film “The New Tenants.” These terms were highly searched in the days just after the Academy Awards due to the rather abrupt interruption of fellow producers Roger Ross Williams’s acceptance speech by Ms. Burkett.  SonicWALL has shown that 96 unique malicious websites appeared within the top 30 search results for these two terms on Google within 24 hours. While there is an on-going fight to remove these sites as soon as possible, sometimes within just a few hours of going up, these numbers really show that more attention needs to be put on this.

Some common tips for users to avoid these types of sites have been provided by SonicWALL, but the problem of black hat SEO tactics needs to continue to be addressed by the search engines. Further refinement of organic listings and the speed at which a site can gain a positive ranking needs to be administered. The search engines have done a good job keeping these sites out of their paid listings, but some more diligent work needs to take place with the natural search arena. Black hat SEO is a powerful and dangerous set of tools. It takes both user and search engine defenses to fend off the malicious intent behind them.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Black Hat SEO And Popular Search — The New Danger Zone

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Cindy Krum

SMS: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Cindy. You are an outspoken advocate for mobile marketing and a frequent speaker at major industry events. Please tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into this field, and some of the things you’re working on right now.

Cindy: My background is in search engine optimization and web marketing; I have always been fascinated by communication, and what makes ideas or suggestions compelling to different people. I became interested in mobile marketing when I was doing some research and realized that no one was really talking about it. Before the iPhone was even a rumor, mobile marketing seemed like an immense opportunity to me.

I have been speaking for the past three years about mobile marketing and mobile search engine optimization — I am very passionate about both subjects. At the end of last year, I left the interactive agency I was working for to start my own company, Rank-Mobile, and focus more on mobile marketing. My goal with Rank-Mobile is to help companies effectively integrate mobile marketing into their existing marketing initiatives. I am also working on a book for Pearson Publishing, called The Truth About Mobile Marketing. It will introduce a lot of available mobile marketing strategies and tactics.

SMS: There has been a lot of talk about online/offline integration in the past year or two. We even ran a cover story on conversion attribution and the difficulties marketers face when measuring the impact of offline campaigns on search. In the past, you’ve mentioned that mobile devices could be used to bridge that gap when it comes to collecting and measuring data. What are some of the ways you believe that mobile can be used to help integrate online/offline marketing?

Cindy: Attribution is one of the most difficult parts of a marketer’s job, whether they are working online or offline. In a down economy, where marketing budgets are being cut left and right, attribution becomes even more important. Mobile marketing is a great way to make offline marketing — previously static and untrackable — interactive and trackable.

If you think about it, marketers can have a very difficult time determining the effectiveness of TV, radio, and outdoor advertising. In most cases, all you have is a visibility statistic that tells you, in general, how many watchers, listeners, or passers-by were exposed to your marketing message, but that doesn’t tell you anything about how engaging those people found your marketing message. When you allow people to respond to your advertisement through their mobile device, it becomes interactive and trackable. You can actually get real information about how well your offline marketing is working, and you can further engage people who are interested in what you have to say.

There are a few companies doing a great job integrating mobile marketing into their outdoor posters and billboards in subway stations, at bus stops, and in airports. These are excellent locations to integrate mobile marketing because people are frequently waiting around and open to any type of brief interaction that will help pass the time. You must be careful, however, to stick to places that have good cell reception, which can be a bit tricky in subways and bus stations.

I have also noticed that some companies are doing a good job using mobile to learn more about TV and radio audiences. It is simple enough to encourage participants to text in to participate in a contest, cast a vote, or make a comment that can be aired live on a TV or radio program. You can also offer more long-term value by offering to send SMS alerts when a favorite show or song is about to air, or to remind you of special events the station is sponsoring.

QR codes have not taken off in the United States, but I believe they will soon. QR codes, otherwise known as 2D bar codes, are small, square dot groupings. These codes can be scanned by the camera in a mobile phone in order to enter a phone number, web address, or bring up a text or picture message. I believe these will be a very important way that marketers will track the success of their offline marketing campaigns in the future. They can be used in signs, as well as in newspapers, magazines, and flyers.

(To be continued …)

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Cindy Krum is the Chief Executive Officer of Rank-Mobile, LLC. She brings fresh and creative ideas to her clients, speaking at national and international trade events about mobile web marketing, social network marketing and international SEO. Cindy also writes for industry publications, and has been published in Website Magazine, Advertising & Marketing Review, Search Engine Land, ODG Intelligence, and quoted by many respected publications including PC World, Internet Retailer, TechWorld, Direct Magazine and Search Marketing Standard.

Cindy also served as the co-chair of the SEMPO Emerging Technologies Mobile Web Task Force, and is an active member of the search community. Cindy is passionate about bringing creative online marketing solutions to clients, and working with clients to develop high level mobile and international marketing strategies.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Mobile Marketing Maven: An Interview With Cindy Krum (Part 1 of 3)

And even though the number of search queries was down across the top five search properties overall by 5 percent, with post-holiday sales now finished, this is probably to be expected. It’s a huge number anyway — 14.5 billion searches in February. Information from another study, this one just released by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat on consumer behavior, reveals that “97% of consumers now use online media when researching products and services in their local area.” The study is an ongoing tracking study of consumers that shows that among those surveyed, 90% use search engines, 48% access IYPs, 24% visit verticals, and 42% use comparison shopping sites. Interestingly, the study also indicates increasing fragmentation of consumer focus, as the number of research sources used when shopping locally has risen to 7.9 from 6.5 in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008.

Surely local businesses need no further evidence than this to convince themselves that it is time to ramp up their online presence and look into the variety of ways they can have a presence there — through a standard website, using social media, participating in online communities, investigating hyperlocal opportunities, etc. As BIA/Kelsey Director of Research Steve Marshall pointed out, “The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity. The data suggests we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.”

But what do you do if you want an online presence to try to capture just a tiny piece of that traffic as your own, but you don’t have the first idea how to go about it and have neither the budget nor the time to invest in learning how or hiring someone else to help you? Are you doomed to sit on the sidelines and watch the monthly comScore figures on search engine traffic, sigh over the huge numbers of searches, and watch as your competitors post online coupons and set up forms for their customers to make appointments online? (The BIA/Kelsey/ConStat report also indicated that 58% of those responding had used an online coupon locally last year and 19% had made an appointment online for something other than a reservation at a restaurant — such as appointments for car service, doctor visits, hair/tanning salons — in the last six months.)

Not necessarily. Even if you cannot or don’t want to invest money online, you can and should at least take the time to claim your Local Business Listing at Google. This is a free business listing that allows you to provide detailed information (even photos) about your business that will help Google present your business when people are searching for products or services in your business category online. It’s quick, easy, and did I say it’s FREE? And if you’ve already set it up, be sure to keep it updated if your hours, contact information, products, etc. change. You do need a Google account, but that also is free and takes just seconds to set up.

Of course, there are other free ways that you can increase your online presence — even if you don’t have a website — but the Google local business listing is one of the easiest and most effective. Given the overwhelming presence of Google as the search engine of choice, taking advantage of easy ways to improve the possibility that your business will show up for a search about your products or services is a no-brainer. It also ensures that the information that Google DOES display is accurate and stays accurate through updates you may choose to make in the future.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Google Is Still On Top But Has Local Passed The Tipping Point?

My intent here is not publicly humiliate small business advertisers, but to address a fundamental and costly problem many small businesses face – understanding their core competency and — by doing so — focus on those things you do well as a business. If you’re a builder by trade, let’s assume that your core competency is building homes. If you are a business professional, let’s say an attorney, where is your time best spent? I’ll venture an educated guess that your time is not best spent trying to build a leads-focused website or doing keyword research for your pay-per-click campaign.  Plainly said, it’s better to take an honest look at your business strengths and outsource the parts that are not core to your business – even digital marketing.

Who Do You Contact To Outsource Your Digital Marketing?

Small business have several appealing options for outsourcing their digital marketing:

1.  Traditional Online Directory Companies

If you have been in business more than a couple of years, you more than likely have talked to a yellow pages sales representative. Most yellow page companies are slowly making the transformation into local leads companies that offer a broad assortment of digital and print advertising products.  They generally resell services from national local leads companies like Yodle, Marchex, WebVisible, and Web.com to name a few.  Also included in the mix are video products, online directory inclusion (adding your business to a premium location on the online directory’s search results), website creation and hosting, and maybe some low-end SEO (search engine optimization) products and reputation management services. Actually, if the cost is competitive, advertising in print yellow pages directories can be a good source for leads.  Despite a slow decline in usage, traditional print directories still have a large user base.  An additional benefit is having a sales representative that you can actually talk to in person. There are two major downsides to outsourcing your digital marketing to a traditional online directory company. First, you are often dealing with someone with limited knowledge about the digital products because (1) they are probably new to the company, and (2) they have to learn such a broad array of products that they generally don’t have the time and the training to become real subject matter experts, as you may find at companies with more focused product offerings. Second, because most traditional online directory companies tend to resell products rather than develop them internally, the products tend to be more expensive due to additional fees in the selling process, or the products may be slightly less effective, due to product cost controls, than if purchased directly from a local leads company.

2.  Local Digital Marketing Agencies

Local digital marketing agencies can come in a couple of forms, but the most common form is a local agency that focuses on search engine marketing (SEM) and website creation. There can be a wide range in the actual ability of these firms, some are one-person shops and while other local agencies may actually have up to 10-15 staff members.  You can find real local experts and often at very competitive prices, but you’ll need to ask for references and do your due diligence before hiring a local digital marketing agency.  Because many of these companies operate on thin margins, they tend to go in and out of business frequently, so try not to prepay for more than a month or two of services if you can help it.

3.  National Local Leads Companies

Finally, as the economy tanked in the last two years, many small businesses reevaluated their marketing mix and decided to make the switch to search engine marketing  (SEM), which tends to provide one of the most cost-effective lead generation options available.  This is especially true when coupled with a call tracking phone number and an effectively designed website that has marketing-focused content.  A well-executed campaign matched to an easy-to-use online reporting system can yield invaluable lead information and make the return on investment (ROI) evaluation much easier for small business advertisers.  There are a number of national local leads companies providing these offerings at reasonable prices.  The chief consideration points here are: (1) national local leads companies typically do not have local sales representatives, so you’ll have to do all of your communication by phone or email, and (2) the product offerings tend to be narrowly focused on SEM and websites only.

In the end, you need to think about your core competencies and take an honest look at how much you really know about the success (or lack thereof) of your current advertising solution. Then assess your needs in terms of the three basic outsourcing capabilities detailed above and begin investigating available choices for your business type and advertising needs.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

When Should A Small Business Outsource Their Online Digital Marketing?

Over the course of the three days I was there with a group of top Internet marketers, I was able to find a couple of guys (Ron and Jack) that I seemed to connect with. The first guy said to the group, “Anyone that needs help with anything, let me know.”

I told him I needed MOTIVATION.

“Oh, you need an accountability partner?” he said.

Hmmm…

I guess that is what I need, and I committed to get an e-bBook entitled: “How to Become Enlightened,” just launched on Click Bank.

So Ron, Jack, and I agreed to meet once a week for an hour or so on the phone to help each other with brainstorming and getting past the blocks that keep us stuck in our day jobs.

Wikipedia defines mastermind as: “A small club of like-minded advanced talents who meet periodically for mutual brainstorming/accountability sessions. First defined by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich.” From the book itself:

“The “Master Mind” may be defined as: “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”

No individual may have great power without availing himself of the “Master Mind.” In a preceding chapter, instructions were given for the creation of PLANS for the purpose of translating DESIRE into its monetary equivalent. If you carry out these instructions with PERSISTENCE and intelligence, and use discrimination in the selection of your “Master Mind” group, your objective will have been half-way reached, even before you begin to recognize it.

So you may better understand the “intangible” potentialities of power available to you, through a properly chosen “Master Mind” group, we will here explain the two characteristics of the Master Mind principle, one of which is economic in nature, and the other psychic. The economic feature is obvious. Economic advantages may be created by any person who surrounds himself with the advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group of men who are willing to lend him wholehearted aid, in a spirit of PERFECT HARMONY. This form of cooperative alliance has been the basis of nearly every great fortune. Your understanding of this great truth may definitely determine your financial status.

The psychic phase of the Master Mind principle is much more abstract, much more difficult to comprehend, because it has reference to the spiritual forces with which the human race, as a whole, is not well acquainted. You may catch a significant suggestion from this statement: “No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.”

Yanik Silver is having a seminar called Underground this month in DC that costs $3,400 to attend. Wow! Who would pay that? Well, first of all, ALL of the people there are in mastermind groups with others in the group, small assemblies of 5-7 people with different points of view that share ideas, contacts, and resources. Yanik is also having a young entrepreneur’s event where he will have young Internet entrepreneurs under 25 all together, not so he can help them become business people, but so THEY can show how they have already EACH made over $1 million dollars in Internet marketing. Yes, it is possible.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

The Mastermind Group Approach To Online Marketing

When the issue was published, Enquiro was offering a PDF version of the book for a discounted price of $19 (the print version is still available at Amazon for $39), but now the PDF (unsurprisingly titled “The BuyerSphere Project”) is available at no cost through Enquiro’s site. (You can get a free sample download if you want to look before you buy without having to deal with the entire book download.)

A great chance to get this seminal piece of research for nada, nothing, zip! I don’t know how long this special deal will last, so take advantage of it now.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

The BuyerSphere Project (Online Buying Behavior) PDF Now Available Free

The Google site performance chart shows a site's average page loading time over time, which can be used to track improvements and issues

Hurry — Or Lose Your Rank

From a webmaster’s perspective, having a fast site always makes sense since it will provide an overall better user experience, enticing more clicks and page views and less abandonment of shopping carts by frustrated users. From Google’s point of view, more page views equals more advertising inventory for its AdSense program, while more conversions for its Google-Checkout-connected sites equals more transaction fees. Each ultimately leads to more Google revenue and a rising stock price.

Since it’s hard to argue against the benefits of a speedier site, Google rewarding snappy sites might look like a no-brainer and a win-win situation for all involved. This isn’t the first time Google is considering speed as a relevant metric for search. If you’re an AdWords advertiser, site speed should already be part of the optimization process, as it’s a factor in the Quality Score algorithm that ultimately impacts paid search campaign performance. For organic results, however, it’s a new concept. Some will argue that it will create an unleveled playing field between larger and smaller sites and businesses, due to increasing web hosting requirements.

What About The Little Guy?

The big question is how page loading time will be implemented in the organic ranking algorithm. For example, smaller sites run by local stores or niche specialists might be highly relevant for a competitive user query thanks to good work on traditional SEO (such as link building and content), but due to small budgets, these sites are many times served by relatively slow shared hosting solutions. In comparison, their larger competitors (with all other SEO being equal) with bigger budgets that can afford super-fast dedicated local servers, could gain an edge in the rankings. In this instance, if site speed becomes a large determinative factor to rankings, the end-user may also lose out, if they ultimately would  prefer a slightly slower site but more relevant information.

However, considering that site speed will only be one out of several hundred other factors that determine the natural rankings, it’s not likely to become a “small site killer.” One method to possibly avoid this would be if Google weights site speed more heavily for sites and queries where it matters to all stake holders. For example, for a site with AdSense — where increased page views are key to driving revenue for Google and the site owner — the speed factor could be up-weighted, compared to pure informational sources where an acceptable speed range perhaps isn’t going to make as much of a difference to either party or the end-user.

Site Speed Optimization

Page loading speed isn’t merely about hosting, but only one step in the site speed optimization process. Before considering an upgrade, it’s important to take a closer look under the hood. A poorly optimized site with bloated code, browser resized images, and poor caching is likely doing more harm to loading speed and user experience than cheap hosting.

A good starting point is the aforementioned Webmaster Tools functionality which benchmarks your site against a large sample, and indicates the site’s relative performance and page-specific issues. At the moment of writing, this is the only indication available to guesstimate if the site is likely to be impacted by a speed-bound ranking factor (at least negatively). If you’re running a blog or a smaller site (for which there’s no PPC and speed haven’t previously been considered in-depth), you might be in for a surprise on the benchmarking point, since perceived loading time can be very different to what the Google crawler is recording in comparison to the competition.

Two other great tools to use are Google’s Firefox page speed plugin and WebPagetest.org to hone in on specific areas that need improvement work. Many sites will be able to quite drastically improve their performance by undertaking some standard optimization such as consolidating CSS files, minimizing Javascript code, sorting out redirects and DNS lookups, and other techniques that only cost knowledge and time – just like traditional SEO.

These tools can only help with what’s visible from a client-side perspective. If there’s inefficient server-side code such as an old Wordpress template, a boatload of widgets that pulls fresh data for each page view, or poor database structure, site owners will need to use traditional developer tools to debug and optimize.

Now is the time to consider your options and do the ground work, and in the process you will create happier site visitors.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Google’s Got A Need For Speed

But we also publish a Calendar of Events in each issue of Search Marketing Standard print magazine and, once the magazine has been mailed, we post a PDF version of the Calendar online so you can download an extra copy to print out or pass a copy along to friends and colleagues. That way you don’t have to tear pages out of the magazine to put the calendar in a handy spot on the wall!

The Calendar of Events from the Spring 2010 issue of Search Marketing Standard magazine is located here.

If you don’t yet subscribe to our print magazine, more details are available here on how you can get a one-year subscription for $29.95 ($10 additional shipping for international orders).

P.S. The Calendar also has details of two special deals for Search Marketing Standard readers for SES New York (March 22-26) and ad:tech San Francisco (April 19-21).

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Download Free SEM Conference & Events Calendar

1.  Seven Steps to Building a New PPC Campaign — ClickZ always has good stuff (especially for beginners), and this article is no exception. Julie Batten lays out a straightforward strategy for approaching the building of a PPC campaign in seven steps, adding step zero (understanding the competitive marketplace you are in, relative to search). This isn’t actually a step-by-step, “press this and click this” for a program such as Google AdWords, but more of a planning guide for the thought process of PPC.

2. 8 Tips for Optimizing In-House PPC Campaigns — OK, I seem to be on a kick about PPC campaigns    Jeff Taxdahl (on iMedia Connection) does a great job of providing tried-and-true tips you can use if you have just been given the task of running your company’s PPC campaigns in-house. The advice works whether it’s something brand-new to your business or a task that used to be handled by an outside agency and is based on Jeff’s own experience over the last 2 years of managing his company’s PPC campaigns in-house.

3.  7 Widely Believed Myths of SEO — if you’re new to SEO, you’ve probably wondered if the advice you are reading online is true or not. Like most things, SEO tactics change over time, so some things you’ve read may or may not still be relevant. Christopher Holland’s post at Daily SEO Tip covers 7 items that still get top billing as SEO “techniques,” yet should not necessarily be believed (at least not without some caveats). An added bonus to this post is the number of comments made that point out differing points of view as well as additional wisdom.

4.  One Dead Simple Tactic for Better Rankings in Google Local – this one requires a little familiarity with the Local Business Listing set up in Google, but as long as you know how to find your business in Google Maps, you can follow Rand Fishkin’s step-by-step (with screenshots!) to improve your ranking there. Excellent look at competitor research and making the most of free online business listing sources you can sign up with to improve online visibility from SEOmoz.

5.  What Every Google AdWords Advertiser Should Know About Quality Score – The Ultimate QS Improvement Guide — RedFly Marketing’s Dave Davis posts an incredibly detailed explanation and analysis of Google’s Quality Score — what it is, what it’s based on, the difference between QS on the search and content network, how to improve your score, and troubleshooting QS problems. The concept may seem a bit daunting to beginners, but it is crucial to effective use of paid search today, so stick with it and devour this information.

For more search marketing insights, visit Search Marketing Standard.

Beginner’s Luck: Recent Highlights In Search Marketing Tactics