by Mike Fleming

We're taking a look at how the "average position" metric lies to you (or more accurately, is misunderstood by you). In part one, we studied the reasons behind this and why distributions in Google Webmaster Tools is your sweet release for truly understanding your organic search position listings.

Let me wrap this up by showing you how to examine distributions in your AdWords account, as well. This is really important because, if you believe campaign/ad group/keyword/ad performance equals "My click-through rate/conversion rate/cost per conversion is at an average position of 3," you're not getting the real story. Plus, an average number is not actionable. But, if you segment positioning into distributions, you can now see performance differences in different positions on the page, draw some conclusions and take some action.

With your PPC ads, there are two places that provide you with this distribution data.  First, in the AdWords interface, you can segment by Top vs. Other ad positioning...

This allows you to see how all of your metrics distribute across top-of-the-page positions (those that show above organic search results) and other positions (to the right or below organic results). Why is this important? A couple reasons...

1. The average position metric you see is not segmented.  So, if you have an average position of 1, that doesn't mean you showed in the first spot at the top of the search results above organic listings. It means you won the first spot in the auction every time. The difference? You could have been the first ad listed on the right side of search results because no ads earned a top listing. That's right, the average position is the auction position and doesn't tell you anything about actual position on the page. For that, you have to use the segmentation feature. But, even then, it only shows you top vs. side and not a breakdown, position by position.
2. It's all about the money. Of course, top positions cost relatively more than others. While they get the majority of the clicks, this doesn't necessarily mean it's the best place for you to be. If you look at the screenshot above closely, you can see that the campaign shown has more conversions in less clicks and for less cost in side positions than in top positions in Google results.  That's good to know, right? So far, lower positions are better for this advertiser.

One other place to see an even more detailed look at position distribution is in your analytics tool. For example, in the advertising section of Google Analytics, there's a Keyword Positions report that looks like this...

When you click on each keyword in the list (I have #3 highlighted), you see where your ads have shown in terms of position on the page.  But, every good Web marketer knows that you can't look at lonely metrics. There must be context! See the drop downs at the top of the columns? You can change metrics to give context to performance. You might get most of your visits at the top, but how is bounce rate or conversion rate or per-visit value! Now we're learning something. Now we can place our ads where they'll make the most money. Brilliant!

While average position can certainly be used for general comparisons on the surface levels, it's no good for actionable insights. But, now you know and can manage your campaign better.

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by Todd Bailey

I haven't been in Google back-rooms.  I have never met the Penguin personally.  But I can make observations.  It seems the pursuit of truth and honesty is one of the underlying messages taken from the ordeal.

I have discussed the recent update with many web masters and business owners and seen sites hit by the update.  Both for the reasons stated in all the recent press surrounding Penguin as well as sites that do not fall within the filters criteria.  Many result pages show empty sites and spam sites still.  I think we are on to something here.

And the Penguin update name doesn't just come from another cute black and white bird, but is more closely related to a penguins sense of smell.  Algorithmically, the filter uses its "sense of smell" to associate authority (or lack their of) related to the site much like penguins use their sense of smell to identify their partner or offspring.  As we know of the penguin, they set off into the ocean in search of food to feed their partner when they return.  How does a penguin find its partner, navigating its way through the masses of spam when it returns, with it's sense of smell.

The Market of Google
The 'market' of Google houses regulations. There are particular 'ways' in which Google wants advertisers to use its 'marketplace.'  The resulting abuse is not a surprise; it's natural for advertisers to test limits when it comes to making money.  However, those who decided to go too far were penalized.  There is such a thing as 'too' far; and, there is an associated level of expectation for people to adhere to 'the lines.'

Did Yahoo's Scott Thompson adhere to the lines?  One can argue for the 'not entirely' side.  To be blunt, he lied about his schooling.  He danced around the lines to get the job.  Did he have 'bad intent' toward any entity?  It's very unlikely; but, smearing the lines is an offense in itself.   Despite apologies, Thompson was ousted from Yahoo.

Another high-profile person is in the news this weekend too.  Roger Clemens, the great retired pitcher of the major leagues, was on trial in the US District Court for lying to Congress in 2008 regarding conversations related to steroid usage.  Another gentleman says he saw Mr. Clemens use steroids on several occasions.  Mr. McNamee states he injected Clemens with hormone-influencing drugs in 1998, 2000, and 2001.

Mr. Clemens is not the only baseball or sports star of this generation to be accused of using illicit methods to physically produce satisfying sports results.  The desire to perform well is not uncommon.  However, the desire to produce must adhere to the regulations hosted by professional sports.  Otherwise, the players are making transgressions and must be dealt with accordingly.  Penalties not only punish transgressors but send message to others.  It reinforces the integrity of the lines.

The Philosophy of the Penguin
The Penguin's philosophy is not as terrorizing as the sentiment of lost rankings, resources, and money.  We need lines.  Otherwise, there would be no structure or order to allow for success or failure; without the lines, there would be no direction for the notion of progress to follow. 

Are those, affected by Penguin, malicious souls?  Is Scott Thompson a horrible person? Should those who cheered for Clemens as a player, now jeer the man who may have lied about steroid usage, about evading the lines?

It's a philosophical question I can't answer for everyone; but, maybe it's better for us to separate the crimes from persons and to understand the 'crimes' stemmed from desires to do well, to prosper.  Those desires are not wicked.  However, the notion of bending, stretching, and ultimately dismissing the lines cannot go unnoticed or punished.  Otherwise, we tamper with the intrinsic value of success, why the 'desires' to do well exist in the first place.  In theory, the Penguin secretly champions those playing within the lines.  The Penguin's philosophy is a righteous and needed one.

The Reunion of Friends
And with the return of the penguin from the ocean I am mostly reminded of animated features with happy endings of reunions between partners.  Hollywood loves a good reunion and rewards it by publishing it when they read the script.  But what of the lost penguins who are affected by the masses?  What of the sites that have been plagued by this update?  Are we that far off from an Occupy Googleplex with chants of "No Taxation Without Representation?"

Hold on, let's not get ahead of ourselves.  The Google I know is a for profit company looking to provide its users with the best content in its results through its continued inovation.  Although the Penguin Update doesn't look at content on a site, only the sites linking to it.  

So we await the next refresh (likely) of the penguins adventure out to sea and when he returns to find his mate this time around we can anticipate one of those animated classics.  Lets just hope it's not another Final Fantasy flop.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Nick Stamoulis

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

Pete and Repete were walking on a bridge. Pete fell off. Who's left?

Repete? Ok, Pete and Repete were walking on a bridge. Pete fell off. Who's left?

Repete? How about we just move on...

In marketing, when something works it gets repeated and repeated again and again. Never letting a good campaign go to waste, imitators will jump on board and drive it into the ground until it's no longer effective.

We've seen this with the Got Milk? campaigns. It wasn't long before we started seeing imitators touting got sand, got rice, got mold, got Jesus and even got poop! (Like, who doesn't?)

The same thing happens with TV and movies. Someone breaks an "edginess" barrier and it's soon a race to see how soon it can be topped without losing advertisers or getting crushed by the FCC. It's hard to believe there was once a time when it was taboo to say "damn" in a theatrical movie, or that depicting a married couple in the same bed was just not something you did on TV!

It's inevitable that yesterday's "big thing" is today's normal thing.

What's new is old again

Remember reciprocal link pages? Mass article submissions? Mass directory submissions? Comment spamming? Link wheels? These are all but virtually dead, dying or soon to be declining link-building strategies that have been used, abused and discarded in the cyber junkpile of once successful SEO strategies.

All this shows the danger of jumping on any single "trick" when pursuing the holy grail of SEO: search engine rankings. These tricks often turn into nothing more than short-term gimmicks, and sites fall down just as quickly as they rose up in the search results.

In online marketing, there are many paths to the same goal. Many will work for most, some may work for all, and others only work for a period of time. Many business owners find one strategy that works and they stick to it, even long past its usefulness. Not every marketing strategy works 100% the time. Those that put all their marketing eggs into a single basket find themselves with egg on their faces when that one strategy comes crashing to the ground with the changing tide of online marketing strategies.

But I get it. We do what we are comfortable with and venturing outside of that is the unknown. The unknown means taking risks and possibly experiencing losses. But it also means possible rewards, and that's what businesses need to be looking at.

Developing long-term strategies that get results

Focusing all your marketing efforts onto a single avenue of growth can be effective for a time. However, marketing diversification gives you more opportunity to be even more effective.

If you're limiting your marketing efforts to one or even two avenues, it might be time to branch out. Look at other successful marketing avenues and see how you can venture out a bit. Look at specific tactics and campaigns and see what makes sense for both short and long-term success.

Sometimes it takes trial and error to find strategies that work. Your first attempt isn't always the best attempt, and it should never be your final attempt. You can always piggyback on what others are doing, just don't mimic exactly. Use others' success to build successful campaigns unique to you.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Todd Bailey

Have you lost sight of a well-loved service or product? People are creatures of repetition. Usually we commit when we find a service or product we enjoy using. Recently, Ryan Buddenhagen wrote a post on brand ability to bring back old services and products.

The notion is not very novel. Blockbuster movies enjoy reviving old heroes and comics. Food producers sometimes reintroduce a retired food or beverage. The Eagles once did a "Hell Freezes Over" tour... Speaking of music, you may catch sight of modern-day hipsters wearing vintage CBGB shirts. The East Village club, opened from 1973 to 2006, was a bastion of punk-rock music.

Investors now plan to reinvent the club, starting with a music festival, then plan on finding a new NY location for the old club at a downtown locale. "We're going to recreate a moment in time," admits one investor. The four-day festival is planned to start on July 5 and host over 300 bands. The spread of the festival is vast, spanning more than 30 locations.

I'm looking forward to tracing how the reinvention of the CBGB sentiment and club fares. The story and Ryan's post introduce interesting points. Why not bring back coveted services and products of old?

It could be a great branding and marketing operation; or, it could fall flat on its face. Here are a few things to consider if interested in internal re-introductions:

Why Retire?
What was the reason for retiring the service/product? Was it due to consumer disinterest or a new internal direction? The latter choice may have been a mistake. It's okay. All businesses make them. Sometimes businesses make decisions and then find more intelligence is elucidated after the fact. Think about revisiting former decisions.

Re-sample
Most run tests before fully introducing a service/product to the market. Don't concentrate on how a former product/service fared then. Think about if something can work well into your business model now. The decision could be a good idea; but, you don't want to reengage with full force.

Ask Them
There's never been an easier time to ask consumers questions and get feedback in real time. You may think a former product/service reintroduction; yet, when asking consumers, none of them agree. It's about them; never forget that. A brand can simply write a Facebook post, blog post, or tweet to consumers, asking their opinion on a reintroduction. Even if they don't like the idea, they'll appreciate your brand thought enough to ask them.

Updates
To steer the concept in another direction; don't dismiss profits which can come from a presently popular service or product. Think about Apple's iPad; it's on its third iteration. Apple continues to make upgrades and improve its product. As referenced, people are creatures of habit. Sometimes an upgrade to an existing product/service is better than an entirely new entity; because, consumers may already have emotional connections to the original. There's no reason to interrupt that connection.

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by Mike Fleming

I wouldn't call the "average position" metric pointless, but it's definitely lying to you.  Most people approach this metric with a natural misunderstanding. It's natural to think, "This is the average position that my organic listing or paid ad shows up at in a search for this keyword."  Sorry, but no.  How could a tool just flat out lie to you?  Well, the tool isn't lying to you.  It's your understanding of what that metric is communicating that is lying to you.  In a recent article titled, "The big lie of AdWords average position," light is shed upon this subject.  But, this goes beyond AdWords to organic search and many other applications in life as well.

The temptation to use averages goes along with the fact that we really like to have one number that will represent overall performance.  It's easier.  The problem is that averages don't really tell you anything about what's going on.  There are a few reasons for this...

1. We use mean averages - These averages take a total and divide it by the number of participants.  The reason this is suboptimal is that you could get an average position of 3, but you don't know if you showed up in position 3 every time or split equally between positions 1 and 5 or any other combination of possibilities.
2. Only impressions are calculated - Let's say there are 3 searches on your keyword.  In the results, your listing shows in positions 1, 5 and 15 respectively.  What's your average position? 1+5+15 = 21/3 = 7.  Your average position is 7.  But, this isn't the number that you see.  You see an average position of 3.  Why?  Only impressions count in the calculation.  In the third search in our example, the searcher never went to the 2nd page.  So, even though you earned a position of 15, it wasn't included in the calculation.  To get a true average position, your impression share would have to be 100%.  If it's not, then all the times your listing or ad came up in search results but was not seen by the searcher are not figured in.
3. All listings are counted, not just your top listing - If there's one search, and the searcher views your ad or organic listing on the first page and then clicks through to the 2nd page and sees a different ad and/or a different organic listing on that page also, that's one search with multiple impressions.  If you were in position 1 and then position 11, your average position would be 6.  This is why you might see that number in Google Webmaster Tools or AdWords for a keyword, even though when you do an organic search you see your listing in position 1.  Of course, it's never that way because, much of the time, only your #1 listing is seen and not your #11.

The Solution

Instead of looking at averages, look at distributions.  This is where the insights are found.  Let's take a look at organic listings in this post and then we'll review how we find the solution for this for paid ads in the next post.

If you're looking at the keywords your site has shown in Google Webmaster Tools, you'll see something like this...

For the search term "pole position," our average position is 14, but if you click on the term, it takes you to this page...

What you see here is a distribution of your impressions by page and by position in search results for organic listings.  Even better would be if they let you click through the page and gave you a distribution for each specific page as well, but of course you can assume that your top page for impressions is the one ranking the highest in results.  So, you can see in my example that, even though my average position for the term "pole position" says 14, my true rank for most impressions is 6 to 10.  That's a big difference; especially when we're talking about the difference between being on the 1st or 2nd page of results.

In fact, we've got a client right now who's average position for their top keyword says 4.3.  But, this is deceptive.  They're actually #1 for this keyword, but other pages also show up in the rankings as searchers go through them.  So, instead of spending our time and energy trying to reach the #1 position, we've moved on to other priorities.

Now that you know what's truly going on, you can better strategize for improvement.  By taking a look at exactly which pages are ranking where and who's right above you in results that you need to overtake, you can look at comparative metrics of your closest competitors and set goals accordingly.

Next time, we'll look at how to get the true story about your paid ads when it comes to positioning.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

The number one key to your business growth is crafting a message that speaks to your audience. Having the right message builds up your strengths and helps you overcome any deficiencies you might have.

McDonald's doesn't make the best hamburgers in the world, but they do have a great bit of messaging that speaks to their target audience. It's that message, not the hamburgers, that makes Micky D's the number one fast food restaurant in America.

While substance is important in order to have a great message, the message itself helps establish the perception of your substance. Much to my chagrin, my kids would rather go to McDonald's over Burger King or Wendy's. They don't love the food as much as the box the food comes in, and not even close to as much as that toy inside the box.

McDonald's has the right message for my kids. But I'm the wrong audience for that message, though I'm a sucker at giving my kids a fast-food treat of their choice! So, McDonald's has a different message for me. Primarily, it's a message to give my kids a fast-food treat of their choice!

The audience matters as much as the message

Several years ago, I wrote a letter to my U.S. Senator expressing my disapproval with his position on a particular issue. About a week later, I received a letter thanking me for expressing my support for him on this issue. Huh?!

The letter went on to list out all the reasons why "we" were right about the issue. The problem is, I didn't think "we" were right. I was, he wasn't!

If you own or market a business, you may feel you have the right message. And maybe you do. But that may be the wrong message for someone else who is, say, skeptical about doing business with you.

My Senator may have been able to convince me I was wrong, but because he gave me the wrong message, it fell on deaf ears. If his message was right, he went about it all wrong for the audience of me.

The right message for me would have been to acknowledge my viewpoint, sympathize with it, find areas of common ground and only then make the case for the merits of the issue. That message would have had a higher chance of persuading me.

How to craft the right message for any audience

How, when and where you communicate your message plays a significant role in your company's success. Web businesses have a number of unique communication opportunities to get their message out: website, telephone, emails, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. Each can play a significant role in your company's success.

When you communicate to your customers, potential customers or even skeptics, you can easily craft the right message, only to find that it's the wrong message for that particular segment of your audience. Current customers need to be addressed differently from prospective customers. Interested parties should be addressed differently from those who are not interested, but can still be convinced.

Each marketing forum provides a unique opportunity to get your message out to a different audience. Whichever forum(s) you use, target different segments of your audience with language that reaches them specifically. In business communications, the one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't work. I'm sure you've got THE right message, but in reality, you need the right message for each target audience.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Nick Stamoulis

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Todd Bailey

Recently, the entire Web community has been abuzz about Pinterest.  Although the upstart social network is still in the open beta testing phase, it has overtaken LinkedIn as America's third largest social site, according to Experian Hitwise.  At present, Pinterest is reaching millions of worldwide users per month and since January, has held the distinction of being the site to break ten million unique hits in the shortest timeframe.  Pinterest is a social networking phenomenon that shows no signs of diminishing, but is there long-term viability within the Pinterest brand?

Pinterest does provide a unique approach to image sharing and could potentially give businesses a forum to display their products.  Thus far, some companies have already attempted to utilize the site for this purpose, but some are still skeptical about investing much time or money into Pinterest-specific marketing efforts.  As a marketing tool, Pinterest could prove useful on a long-term basis if the company is willing to embrace the concept. 

Some users are concerned that advertisements within Pinterest's aesthetically pleasing design may interfere with the layout, which is one of the site's strengths.  However, as with Facebook and Twitter, the implementation of "sponsored pins" could generate substantial revenue for Pinterest, while giving companies more incentive to advertise on the site without compromising its design.

Only time will tell if Pinterest has considered advertising and marketing offerings as part of their five year plan.  The network is likely to evolve, similar to its competitors.  Perhaps Pinterest's greatest asset is the "organic" feel of the site.  Browsing through the online pinboard is enjoyable for its users.  It also creates a "sticky" environment, which keeps users on the site for longer periods of time.  Sticky pages are desirable for online marketers and advertisers, as they typically ensure greater ad visibility.  Pinterest could definitely become a great long-term investment for Internet marketers, if the company is willing to utilize them and the profitability they will offer.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Nick Stamoulis

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Fleming

For many businesses, a major benefit of outsourcing their web marketing strategy to a company like ours is the fact that they get the knowledge and skill of a whole Web marketing team for what most of the time amounts to the cost of one (maybe two) employees.  Depending on the nature of the business, that can be hard to beat. But, along with it comes a challenge - communication. We fought with this hard for a while. We sat in meetings and brainstormed realistic ways to communicate better with clients while balancing the hours we spend doing this with formulating and implementing strategies to get results.

Proactive Communication From Agencies

Like a lot of client-agency relationships, clients pay for a certain number of hours, and we use those hours to try to maximize their results. Clients, as many of you know, don't always have a sense of how the amount of time they purchase is used because they're not tracking it. But, of course, we do because we're accountable to use that time wisely enough to ensure fair results for their investment.  With this kind of pressure and time being limited, the temptation exists to spend all available time on strategy and recommendations while leaving out time to closely communicate about the relationship, condition of the client's company, insights into results, clarification on recommendations, etc. 

Our experience has been that simply feeding recommendations without having discussions is sub-optimal for getting results. First, because companies don't fully understand many recommendations (which is why we're here, right?), they fail to grasp the importance of implementing them. When we email or add this to a spreadsheet - "You need to get rid of duplicate content on your site here, here and here" - they don't take the implementation quite as seriously as when you talk to them about it and stress why it should be done and the consequences of not doing it (especially if you can communicate in dollars lost). For example, we had a client roll out a brand new site and ignore all the recommendations we gave them. And they paid us for those recommendations! Needless to say, their results suffered.

Second, without regular communication, companies get distracted by lower priority items. We make critical recommendations to their search marketing strategy, and nothing happens. So, regular communication has helped us provide not only strategy, but also accountability. Our discussions allow us to regularly update them on their implementation progress. Regular communication seems to encourage action.

Communication Helps Get Results

What we've seen from this is a huge uptick in client activity for their campaigns, and results have improved. The point? With the time we have, we were worried about taking away from analysis, strategy and recommendations in favor of communicating more. But, it seems that the overall ROI has been there. Our recent experiences have communicated to me that communication is almost -if not just as - important as analyzing, formulating and implementing strategy for results.

Proactive Communication From Clients

On the flip side, if financially more advantageous to your company to outsource your Web marketing campaigns, you need to know that there's ROI for you to also be proactive in your communication. Your agency is analyzing, strategizing and making recommendations based upon what they know about your business. If they aren't on site daily, naturally their knowledge is going to be limited. While it is their job to learn about you, there are many things they just may not think of to ask. Also, what about changes in the life of your business as time rolls on? I'll give you an example.

I run PPC campaigns for a client, and I was starting a new ad test. One of the most important factors in buying this client's product is the speed at which the customer will receive the product if they order online. So, my new ad's headline said, "Product - Fast." About a week after I started the ad test, it comes to my attention through a co-worker that they were out of the product! The thing is, we initiated the conversation. If we wouldn't have, we likely would not have known about the situation. I had sent the information about the test to the client with the new headline but never heard back from them about their situation with the product. Needless to say, customers weren't exactly going to get the product fast.

So as business owners/executives, you must remember to communicate the goings-on of your business with your outside team. You're paying them. If you don't communicate, you are just wasting a portion of your own money.

Communication is an Investment

Bottom line: communication is important in ALL our relationships in life, personal and professional. The #1 cause of conflict in relationships is misunderstanding. It causes unnecessary fractures in relationships that don't need to be fractured. Don't think of communication as an inconvenience that slows things down, but rather as an investment in getting good results.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Todd Bailey

If you were a small startup, suddenly becoming hugely popular, would you align with a bigger brand or keep the startup momentum churning?  It's somewhat akin to the decision some high school or in-college athletes face when approached by major-league teams.  Do you carry on with your innocent talent or do you join the ranks of the bigger and better experienced, hoping to maintain that initial spark?

The Instagram duo played impressively, to the point the performance made Zuckerberg desire Instagram on his 'team.'  Was it a good idea?  Strictly thinking in monetary terms, with the deal culminating at $ 1 billion (30 percent cash, 70 in stock), it's a no-brainer question.  However, there are some looming considerations.

"I hope they didn't agree to this deal because of Facebook's valuation on the secondary markets.  It's still unclear whether there's a strong correlation between pricing on the secondary markets and the public market," says a former Google exec.

Facebook, expected to open its financial doors to the public next month, is estimated to value the IPO at $104 billion.  The New York Times observes this number is aligned with what Facebook is trading for on the secondary market (shares are selling as high as $40).

It's understood the secondary market 'helped' Instagram execs wrap their head around the Instagram/Facebook deal.  If the IPO goes as expected or better, the Instagram team could enjoy some extra benefits.  If the IPO is less than grand, the proceeding sentence does an about face.

This is just another story of anxiety.  There's no way to know for sure how it will all go until it all happens.  What will happen with the Instagram duo?  Surely, both young men could retire due to the fruits of their limited labor.  Was that their original intention?  Were they playing for the love of the game or for the love of the spoils of the game?

Mark Zuckerberg seems to be a player.  I'm wondering when Facebook does go public, how he will act; I'm growing bored of speculation.  There's no doubt a bit of 'freedom' and 'independence' is lost once a player enters bigger leagues.  Zuckerberg explains the Instagram deal is more about improving the quality of Facebook than the quantity of its revenue.  "We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all.  But providing the best photo-sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook, and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."

Hopefully the exchange of funds goes well for all parties involved.  More so, I hope all parties involved in acquisitions and IPOs, are well compensated in intrinsic value, being satisfied with their decisions.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

One of the complaints I hear most frequently from new and prospective clients is that they have no idea what their previous SEO was doing for them. As the owner of a Web marketing firm, I quickly realized that even if a client is getting results, communicating those successes to them is as important as the results themselves.

One of the great things about working in an online industry is that you don't need to exclusively have local clients. In fact, most SEO firms such as mine get contracts from all over the country and even overseas. However, because of the distance, I don't often get to meet clients in person; however, because it's good communication, I find that doing so helps a great deal.

Being distant from clients has disadvantages. Because you can't "swing by" the client's office, or easily schedule time to get together, it creates an additional burden in the communication process. We have to double our efforts to make sure efficient methods of communication are in place.

Open Up Your Communication Options

I think they can all be valid forms of communication, although none is exclusively the "best" method. How you communicate can be different for each client. In fact, they can all be used, depending on a particular need at a particular time. Find out which communication methods work best for you and your clients and go with that as much as possible.

Phone: This is clearly the more traditional approach, but no less effective or important. We find that email can be cumbersome or require lots of back and forth; sometimes it just helps to pick up the phone and hammer out details. Phone calls are much more personal and can really help when handling sensitive concerns.

Skype: Skype is great, especially if you are using the video and screen-sharing options. The downside with Skype is we often have poor connectivity issues that lead to sound or video loss. To combat this, we use Skype in conjunction with a phone call so we never lose audio even if we lose video. Skype is the best way to meet with clients "face to face" without traveling. It doesn't eliminate the need to meet with clients in person, but it does provide an added personal level.

Email: There is a big push right now for companies to eliminate email for internal communications. I'm not so sure about that. Email is a great way to communicate on your time and allow someone else to respond on their time. Email is great with clients for the same reason. It allows a conversation to take place at the best time for each party involved so everyone stays as productive as possible.

Instant Messages: We don't use IM a lot for our clients but we do internally. While it can be great to make instant contact, it is also the most interruptive form of communication and can lead to reduced productivity if you get too many IMs too often. Used properly, however, it can be a great way to have a quick conversation to answer urgent questions without the delays of email.

Social Media: I would never rely on social media to communicate with clients. It's far too spotty to be an effective means of communicating anything of importance. If your clients choose to follow your Twitter, Facebook or RSS feeds, great, but I wouldn't rely on a Facebook message to communicate with a client. Social platforms are great for pushing out good information that anyone, including clients, can choose to read or ignore. Anything important needs to be handled through other methods.

Can You Over-communicate with Clients?

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that you can't over-communicate. But each client is different and the level of communication they need varies. It's important to find that place between what the client wants and what they need. Give them more than they want and never less than they need! After a few weeks or months of working together, you'll get a feel for what is appropriate for the work being done.

What works for one may be different than what works for another, but if you find the best way to communicate with each client, you're more likely to be sure they stay happy. If you have no clear ways to communicate with clients, establish internal guidelines that will provide the framework for consistent and effective communication moving forward.

Silence can magnify frustrations and inhibit results. But good communication covers over a multitude of frustrations and magnifies the positive. The time it takes to open up the lines of communication is far more valuable than the time itself, even if it is taking away from "important" work. Perception is everything and good communication improves the perception of your success.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Nick Stamoulis

Ask any marketing professional and they will most likely tell you that the key to online marketing success is great content. Content is what compels people on your website to buy; it's what the search engines use to properly index and rank your website, it's what helps you connect with you target audience, build your online brand presence and authority, drives your social media marketing campaign and more. In short, without great content you're pretty much dead in the water.

However, producing great content on a consistent basis is no easy task. Even if you are keeping the physical writing in-house to keep the budget under control, you have to factor in the sheer amount of man hours it takes to develop, implement and sustain a strong content marketing campaign. Plenty of site owners think content marketing is "free," but just because you don't have to pay for equipment or hardware (aside from Microsoft Office), that doesn't mean that there isn't some cost associated with content marketing. And if you have an employee investing X hours of work each week writing great content, of course you are expecting some return for their effort.

Let's say you do luck out and have a fantastic in-house writer that is a content marketing machine--churning out really good blog posts, articles, white papers, webinars and more on a regular schedule. Even if they create the most brilliant blog post ever written, it's entirely possible that you won't benefit from it. It's a hard pill to swallow, but a lesson that every marketer and site owner must learn: even great content can go unnoticed.

There are plenty of blog posts out there that tell you the secret to content marketing success is to write great content. And it's true. Great content is much more likely to get the attention of your target audience and other industry professionals. People want to share great content, so it'll get a lot of love from the social networks and other bloggers. This benefits you because your site gets a lot of quality inbound links and you build a bigger online brand presence. But there is one thing that many posts about content marketing forget to say: just because you created a great piece of content, that doesn't guarantee that people are going to care.

Think of it like this--if you are heavily invested in a content marketing campaign, it's probably safe to assume that your competition is as well. Right from the start your great content is going head to head with their great content (they know the secret too!) for readers, shares and links. If you arrived to the content game a little late, you've got quite the uphill battle ahead of you because it takes a long time to fully develop a business blog (which in my opinion is the most important component of a content marketing campaign), find your niche and voice, understand the kind of content your audience is looking for, earn readers' trust and loyalty and become a respected source of information. That kind of success doesn't happen overnight (it might take years depending on how crowded your niche is) and you'll need to be publishing great content every step of the way. That's a lot of content that is going to get overlooked/overshadowed.

It's very easy to get discouraged with your content marketing after a few months of hard work and little to show for it. Many sites abandon their blogs after a few months because other projects pop up and writing gets pushed to the back burner, they stop searching for guest blogging opportunities because they mostly hear "no" from bloggers (if they get any response at all) and the newly engaged customers aren't flooding their website like they had expected. Like anything else in life, either personal or professional, it's hard to give it your all when you feel like no one is acknowledging your work.

Creating and maintaining a strong content marketing campaign is one of the most important things a marketer or site owner can do for their online brand, but it's not an easy task. Consistently creating great content is hard enough, but learning to accept the fact that some of your great content isn't going to get you anywhere is even harder. For site owners struggling with their content marketing campaigns, my advice is to just keep plugging away at it! Online marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, and the longer you keep at it the more reward you'll get in the long run.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Todd Bailey

With the inevitable GOP nod going to Mitt Romney, now that former PA Senator Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race, it is mission critical for Romney to get his Social Media act together.  A conflicting, and sometimes confrontational, social voice as well as the limited social reach he currently maintains are just a few of the inadequacies the campaign needs to address.

Since Obama re-wrote the books on campaigning in 2008 with his extremely successful Social Media campaign - capturing 66% of voters 29 years of age and younger using his ability to leverage social media and organize local events, as well as volunteers, garnered unprecedented numbers of engagement and followers.  Social Media has become an integral part of any candidates chances at being elected.

Goals of Social Media in Political Campaigns

1. Share Ideas & Messages - accomplishments and Behind the Scenes
2. Engage Followers - respond DIRECT to followers and ask for input or Q&As from voters
3. Convert followers into volunteers - Having them engage by location and spread the word 
• Remarketing your conversions to share/retweet the candidates message expands its social reach and is in itself a personalized endorsement

Be Careful of the Voice
The election is quite different now that it is evident that Romney will get the nod, so the Romney campaign really needs to polish up it's message and positions and begin to publish them more frequently and with clarity.

Discovering your social voice is important in gaining followers and having those followers willing to share your content messaging and overall goals.  Personal attacks and siting downsides of opponents is only targeting a segment of your audience and most users are not receptive to these online mentions.

Social Media is an amplification of sound bites that can be used by an opponent, the media and the general public.  As important as Romney's messaging and social voice is, equally as important (if not more important) is the voice of what other people are saying about the candidate.  Currently Romney's immediate social network is 1/25^th that of President Obamas:

• Facebook
• Romney - 1.5 million Fans
• President Obama - 25 million Fans
• Twitter
• Romney - 400k followers
• President Obama - 13 million followers

Note:  Keep in mind; in 2008 Facebook had just 100 million users compared to 800 million users in 2012

We expect Romney's social numbers to dramatically increase as we come closer to the convention and general election.

So What's New for Social Campaigning?

• Ann Romney's growing Pinterest profile has become a great experiment on a new social platform at targeting the female demographic
• Continued E-Mail blasts and viral videos will be apart of campaigns
• QR Codes on campaign literature, signs and other political advertisements
• Direct partnerships with social platforms as President Obama recently announced a Live Town Hall with Facebook and other partnerships with Twitter

Expect to see Romney shift his messaging on social platforms to solidify his voice and attract followers and fans from other GOP candidates that have dropped out.  Without the important social votes Romney stands little chance of penetrating President Obama's influence in the young vote.  Without a larger audience in the social arena the Romney campaign can not garner the traction required and will need to rely on his bank account for traditional media buys.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

At least we’re saving money at the gas pump. That seems to be the takeaway from the latest monthly read on American sentiment, which moved to a "less gloomy" setting.

The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will offer buyouts this summer to nearly all of its 45,000 mail handlers, part of a plan to consolidate operations at 140 mail-processing facilities in the next year.

With individual investors losing hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook’s IPO, experts say the bungled offering could increase the disgust many of us feel for the stock market.

Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs. Top-paid CEO David Simon got a package valued at $137 million.

According to data released last week, the worst effects of the housing crisis are beginning to wind down. But some of the largest U.S. cities continue to lag behind the rest of the country.

The cost of a luxury automobile does not end with its purchase price — it begins there. The true ownership costs are often much greaters than what customers perceive, after repairs, insurance, interest and other expenses are taken into account.

Each week, TODAY real estate expert Barbara Corcoran looks around the U.S. to see what home buyers can get for their money.

Josh Hutcherson of "The Hunger Games" picked up a home rich in Hollywood history, Oprah Winfrey is listing a home she never lived in and Leonardo DiCaprio is looking for a renter for his Malibu home.

For two months late last year, entrepreneur Eric Simons toiled -- and squatted -- at the Palo Alto campus of America Online: eating, exercising, showering, laundering his clothes, and sleeping in dark nooks, all while trying to keep his life habits a secret.

The weak economy continues to have a harsh effect on access to health insurance -- not necessarily because workers aren’t offered it but because they can’t afford it. 

Online spending may be increasing, but the venerable catalog is doing anything but fading away. In fact, it is still an important part of business for retailers.

As some of our regular readers have guessed, yes it is true. Digital Web Magazine has ceased publication. For the reasons cited in Time To Change, it was clear to us that what we had was no longer working.

We called upon both our staff and readers for ideas on what we could change. We received a lot of good feedback. One thing that resonated with me was that out of all of the ideas that had the most potential to solving our current problems, none of them were about insignificant changes to what we have.

It doesn’t make sense to take what we have here and try to change it into something it is not. It makes more sense to simply start something else that is new. For this reason I feel that Digital Web Magazine will always be what it is; an online publication about the web industry.

So, today, I am sad to say that Digital Web Magazine has officially ceased publication. The site will remain in place with all of its articles hopefully far longer than their value is recognized.

I will continue to curate the site, maintaining it so it remains online and fixing broken links and typos. Most of my effort and time, just like the rest of the former staff, will be put into other projects, other websites and other publications.

I want to take a moment to personally thank each and every staff member, editor, designer, photographer, illustrator, information architect, database developer, web developer, web programmer, contributing writer, columnist and last but perhaps most important, each and every reader who ever read our publication. We couldn’t have made it this far without you. I genuinely mean that.

If you want to respond with your thanks and appreciation, feel free to leave a comment here, post to twitter, post on Facebook, or you can always email me directly. If you prefer to say something in person, find me and the rest of the staff at SXSW Interactive. Thanks again everyone! Last one out turns off the lights.

As 2009 comes to a close and we enter our annual winter hiatus I am proud to present our 500th article, Time To Change, written by yours truly. With every year that passes we look back at the year and all of the things we have accomplished and then we set goals for ourselves for the year to come. This article is not unlike that. Digital Web Magazine is about to undergo the most significant change in its ten-year history as a publication and we want your input. This is your chance to influence the future structure and focus of Digital Web. Please take a moment to read this week’s issue and weigh in with your thoughts. Thank you for a great year, and a magnificent past ten years.

After a great two years with the magazine, I’m afraid the time has come for me to step down as Editor-in-Chief here at Digital Web. It has been great fun and very rewarding, and I have met some fantastic people both online and in person, but I have decided that I want to spend more time next year on both personal projects and watching my children grow up. My thanks to Nick Finck for giving me this opportunity, and to Tiff, Walker, and the other staff for all their help — without our dedicated volunteers, the magazine would not be able to keep churning out such great content each week.

Keep an eye on this news feed for a special announcement from our founder, Nick Finck, on where Digital Web will be heading in 2009.

We at Digital Web Magazine want to say thanks to our readers and authors for their dedicated patronage. As some of you may know, today in the U.S. is Thanksgiving day. To celebrate and say thank you to our readers and contributors we are going to be giving away a gift certificate for free hosting and domain name (you pick it if its available) for one year at Media Temple.

All you have to do is comment on this blog post, tell us how you first found out about our publication and why you feel its different than the other sites out there. We’ll hand select the best answer. This doesn’t need to be a book in length, a simple paragraph or two will do. Make sure you include your name, email address, and URL otherwise we won’t know how to contact you to send you the gift card.

Digital Web is headed into our winter break—we take December off to gather our resources and review the year past. But before we hibernate, we have a holiday season present for our readers. It’s a bit of a departure, but we’re thrilled to have Chris Wright join us to ask a light-hearted question, Is The Web Really Helping Us Find New Music?.

Naturally, we have our own motives—this article represents an op-ed piece. It’s not a how-to, or new trick, and it’s definitely not an adventurous CSS idea—we’re thick-skinned around here, but the flamewars around our recent CSS pieces have been a new hurdle in the history of the magazine. So let’s all take a new outlook for the holidays and enjoy what we have.

We’d like to hear your reaction to op-ed-style pieces, too—please leave a comment in response to the article, and in response to its style. Have a happy winter holiday!

The folks over at Sitepoint are giving away a free PDF of their book, The Art & Science Of CSS (co-written by one-time Digital Web columnist and all-round nice guy, Jonathan Snook). All you have to do to bag a copy is follow them on Twitter — full details can be found on Twitaway.com.

We have a very interesting article this week from new contributor Steve Heffernan, who brings us RESTful CSS. Our last few CSS articles sparked quite a row in the comments, so I hope the same audience takes a long look at Steve’s proposals, even if web app languages like Ruby on Rails isn’t your day-to-day forte. CSS management is a growing issue as we make even greater advances in CSS techiques, JavaScript support and enhancement and rich interactions like web apps.

Digital Web is happy to bring you another quality “twofer“—a two-article issue to get you through November. First up is returning contributor Andrew Stevens who reviews the new book Website Optimization by Andrew King on O’Reilly—the nighthawk book as it were. King looks beyond code optimization and examines optimizing a website’s full web presense, from search results to SEO to website responsiveness.

Leona Tomlinson returns from her recent article on accessibilty to ask a new question: Are Accessibility Statements Useful? Leona examines recent thinking on accessibility statements and where they can still be a benefit to users.

Digital Web is happy to feature a chapter from Paul Boag’s new book Website Owners Manual, entitled Know Your Site. Paul Boag is a well-known podcaster and web guru, with a lengthy resume throughout Headscape and Boagworld. His new book is a primer for website owners, and poses excellent questions for both web geeks and owners alike.

In addition to Boagworld’s book, last week Digital Web asked a timely question of our readers, “Does politics matter to web professionals?“? Our readers weighed in over the week leading up to this evening’s historic election in the U.S. And we’re happy to publish the results here in our news blog—Your views on politics and web design.

Last week we asked you how politics affects the jobbing web designer, and many of you responded with your thoughts. It was gratifying to see that, in the main, our readers are politically aware and realize the effect that national politics can have on their day-to-day lives — but what specifically do web pros need to consider? Adam Conrad says:

Politics has yet to affect my day-to-day life finding a job, doing my work and making the web a better place. However, at the end of the day, who is in office will directly affect many aspects of my work, which many in the industry fail to account for. If my taxes go up or inflation increases, then my per-hour wage may have to jump more than my clients can comfortably afford, and I could either lose business or money by taking on cheaper/less jobs. If our country goes to war, gas prices go up and it costs me significantly more to drive to a client’s home/business for a consultation, often a price I do not include in the contract. It’s simple things like these that, as I said, do not add up in the moment, but trickle down from big events that eventually affect everyone.

Brian Warren sees a more direct effect:

As someone who owns his own business the current political climate is extremely important to me. Health insurance alone is a huge pain for us. We pay way too much for way too little coverage. If you have a pre-existing condition then you may as well forget it. We constantly feel as the odds are stacked against the independent professional. The health insurance industry is completely built upon the framework that giving healthcare coverage to people who need it is not profitable. Knowing that Obama, and Democrats in general, are going to do something about that gives me hope for my family’s future.

And Brandy Reppy notes that: “trying to justify the expense of a well thought-out and maintained web presence to an organization or business that is struggling financially because of poor political decision-making is an uphill battle at best.”

There are also factors closer to home about which readers are concerned. Tristan Louis:

In this election cycle, things like open access, a high speed internet network architecture, and first amendment rights on the internet will be affected by who ends up in the White House as a result of this election.

Nathan Steiner took a closer look at the candidates’ technology positions, and writes:

Just for fun, compare the first google results for “Obama on technology” vs. “McCain on technology.” Obama’s result leads to his own page on the subject, which includes three clear and important priorities: net neutrality, broadband for everyone, and grants for research. McCain’s result leads to a third party site listing his positions on technology, most of which reveal a generic focus on financial and taxing issues. I don’t believe that either candidate would be considerably better or worse on issues directly related to web developers, but Obama has shown an understanding of the power of social networks and how to hook-up a grass-roots financing campaign into the web with unprecedented success. It seems that the health of the web as it relates to US business interests would greatly benefit from a president who understood it as clearly as the Obama camp does.

Finally, spare a thought for this guy:

I currently work for a company that relies pretty heavily on large enterprise customers and government agencies. So how those organizations’ spending is affected by the policies set by government, and however directly or indirectly by the person sitting in the Oval Office does affect my company, my job, and any rewards I may earn as a result of our success. So ironically while I am very politically liberal in beliefs and in how I vote (I’m a Green Party member who votes Democrat), my company may benefit from policy makers who benefit large corporations, which I am generally opposed to.

Thank you to everyone who responded.