This is about a week old I think, but I’ve just found it on the Google Blog, they have just added analytics to YouTube. How is that important to anything? Well, SEO is all about SEM really, meaning that marketing is a great part of SEO efforts, and knowing what your target audience is is very important. Also, monitoring SMO campaigns is made easier with this tool (and getting to know where your traffic comes from, maybe you made it too US-centered).

Although it only offers a small views graph this is useful to determine user trending, and sync it to whatever you have done in that period. Analytics is very important when it comes to knowing what works and what doesn’t…

The service is called YouTube Insight, and here’s a screenshot from Google:

It needs no activation or anything, just log in to YouTube and go to your videos,and there click on the about this video button on the right, and that will simply display the graphs. Simple and effective. Usage is pretty straightforward, but if anyone needs it, I’ll post a comprehensive article on it.

As always, don’t forget to subscribe because this content gets updated every day and it would be a shame for you to miss stuff.

PS: WordPress 2.5 is out, make sure you upgrade, it’s great

As I said yesterday, many companies enter the web without a clue of why they do it. Some enter so customers can find them, some to show off products and add pretty pictures of them in a vain hope that the customers don’t know how to use a camera, some even to cope with people always losing service manuals and CDs. But very few do it to connect to the customer in this new age and in this new field.

People tend to think that traditional marketing and online marketing are one and the same. And while it is understandable (many people still do not understand what good the internet is for business) it is in no way acceptable. It’s like going to rob a bank with an 9th century mace, you’re going to get your head blown off… Methods are antiquated and media is changing. The so called new media is making up ground to the old school mediums. Radio is dead, TV is dying and newspapers are used to mask cars for paintjobs. The world is changing, and as pointed out in a million cases so far, the choice is change or die.

Let’s take TV for example. With the advent of modern technology, digital TV especially, you would expect TV stations to begin offering clients more features for their TV, like choosing which episode to view, and at any hour, as many times as they want. However, all that TV does is give you half an hour of ads, then a fragmented movie from 1996, and follow it with bland sensationalist news to wash off the ads. So what happened? TiVo happened. A true revolution for the American market, TiVo put content in the hands of the viewers, and with legal backing (timeshifting is now legal, as it should be) it gave the networks a scare. Why? Because people did what they wanted to TV. They could record shows, skip ads and even download content off the Internet to view it on the TV. They took control, and made TV what they wanted. So now networks are pissed off and can’t do anything about it. However, take TiVo, and now compare it to the PirateBay… There is no doubt in my mind that more shows are downloaded every day from trackers than there are shows recorded to all TiVos in a week… And what that means is that TV is dying. Even with timeshifting, you can’t beat the simplicity of Internet downloading. And why pay when you can get them for free…

The Internet is the future, no doubt about that. The only thing the will remain of traditional TV will be the big screen. Otherwise centralized content providers should rethink their strategies fast…

But forget TV, let’s think of a regular company. Say I have Joe Inc. who sells hot dogs on the corner of 2nd and Main. He heard that everyone is now building themselves websites, to let customers know where his HQ is and how to email him for an order. While this in itself is quite pointless for poor Joe, he feels he needs to because everyone else is doing it. And this is perhaps the most common marketing error possible. And costly. So Joe made himself a website, and it went ok. The blackberry he used to keep track of emails cost a bunch and the web design services, hosting and all that cost a bit, but he did have customers say they came to buy hot dogs from him because they found the website. He even got some buzz since it was a freaky idea. But pretty soon others copied the idea and Joe’s site started costing more than it made. And if anything, this heightened competition around him. Also, Joe didn’t have the time to maintain the site so it pretty much died down, since he didn’t want to pay outrageous fees for the site.

Enter SEO. Now, if Joe had given the website a moment of thought beforehand, a lot of costs would have been reduced. Firstly, he could have thought what advantages the website brings him in the first place. He’s in a neighborhood with good business and clients are loyal. His products are of a good quality, and he gets many referrals. He just heard that the Internet can bring him more money but ended up diving into his profits. Also, because he failed to read his email one day he had a very angry baseball coach arrive at his stand expecting to pick up 75 hot dogs, when there were none waiting for him, just a long queue and a buss full of hungry kids. So, in a sense the extension complicated Joe’s business and created dissatisfied customers.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean Joe did a stupid thing, only that he should have thought about it. The website with the contact info is always a good thing, but he should have adopted an SMS form rather than an email form, which would have produced smaller costs in the end and a more reliable measure, keeping email only for casual conversations. Also, Joe could have created a brand, since that’s how the Internet works, you need a strong brand to become at least a little famous. Make it Joe’s Dogs, the traditional experience. He could have opened a dialog with his buyers, encouraging them to tell him what they like and what they want, help him build a house of quality to determine what he should invest in next. He could have written a blog about hot dogs, funny facts, stories, and all the things he deals with every day, make the customers feel more connected to the story of the place, not only the products. That’s what makes good marketing. And then, he could have hired an SEO to make all these show up when people search for main hot dogs, or hot dogs funny, and establish a brand that is tied to that field, make people know Joe’s is the way to go, and have a connection to the place.

Too many companies in this age of globalization have bland, boring messages (or none at all) targeted at their customers and we need a story to feel attached to any of them. Apple is the big company it is because it sometimes listens to customers, makes interesting things (although not that unique - just designed better visually) and because it has the whole “think different” approach. The Macbook air is NOT the world’s thinnest laptop. There have been at least two other attempts which have been thinner and probably plenty which were just a bit less thin. But they made the whole manila envelope thing, and people were astonished. It’s no longer a thin laptop, it’s a laptop thin enough to come from an envelope. Think of all the hours of showing off at the office when you drop the envelope on the table and pull the laptop out. Apple has created more than a laptop (and not a very good one at that - they forgot a few bits…), a product worth discussing.

And here is why I try to use the word SEO less frequently. It has become a target word for people not understanding what we do. It’s been attacked, and it’s been defined in a million ways. The seo is bullshit guy even went to compare SEOs to lawyers, and well, there’s more to SEO than SEO if I can say so. Online marketing however, is a different thing. It’s knowing what to do when Joe makes that website. It’s knowing how to pitch it and to who and through which channels. There’s no point in having a flash game designed by Ernst and Young, their clients don’t have time for games. But a Vista sidebar widget for stocks, that would be a nice idea. Target the proper client.

As for my last disparate idea, it’s about using the right tools for the job. The Internet is a new medium, and therefore requires new marketing tools. I was having a discussion a few weeks ago to the brand manager for Procter&Gamble Balkans (responsible for about 13 countries or so for the Pampers brand) and talking about what SEO can do for them. As a result to this, I examined the Pampers website which is out of 1980. It uses frames, it has cluttered text, and a very very busy homepage, not a very clear structure of the navigation, and basically is ancient. They don’t even have an email address for contact. And this got me thinking, how in the world can a brand so large, with millions of dollars in marketing budget, not have a decent site? Can’t they afford to pay 5000$ for a amazingly awesome site? Yes they can. Can’t they afford to spend some time devising some online content? Well, they can hire people. Don’t they realize that this is destroying their brand, making them look antiquated and outdated? No. We also discussed the other side of SEO, damage control, where basically people get screwed over by the company and they get pissed off and start a crusade against it. And they’re still using posts on forums for that. They’re P&G, they have money to buy all the hits for a search term and all they do is post on forums. Not taking control over the forums, not making your own centralized forum where you can assess this instantly and reward it.

I’m not sure you know the x box story, where a gamer sent an autographed console for repairs and when he got it back the signature and artwork was washed off. And instead of ignoring him, like Microsoft could have done, they didn’t. Bungie, creators of the game, sent him a bag full of goodies, including a helmet signed by most of the guys there, and Microsoft responded too, by sending him a new x box, signed by all of the guys at the department, and even freaking Bill Gates. That is the Internet, connection to people, making your customers feel ecstatic through small gestures that cost you less than damage control. And see, now I’m making the Microsoft and Bungie brands grow by writing this, and it’s at no cost to them. All they spent was an x box and some time, and now look at it, it’s an internet phenomenon…

So online marketing is a big thing, and many people still don’t use it. And of those, many use it improperly. It’s incredible how in this age marketing isn’t everywhere, and how big companies squander away their brand by not investing in it…

If you’ve liked this marketing report, or if you’re interested in SEO tips and tricks, make sure you subscribe, so you won’t miss out on anything.

There have been some comments from the opposers of SEO that it’s only a trend, that it’s going to fade because it’s artificial. But there are two arguments against those opinions.

The first is that SEO is definitely not artificial. Actually, I’m not sure if you know this but SEO aims to create ORGANIC search results, whereas the artificial way is the old interruption marketing way… SEO aims to build content and make it popular, make websites soar through simple tactics that require lots of skill. In a sense SEO is like a blacksmith in our days. It doesn’t take the most imaginative person to think and even learn how to pound on metal, but only a professional can make a sword… It’s finesse and it’s knowing how to step on a minefield and it’s making sure the people who search for you find you…

As for the second one, that is actually the object of this article. The SEO trend. The phenomenon that has recently picked up momentum and is a web site’s worst enemy and best friend at the same time. Why? Because SEO is the trick up the sleeve of small businesses to outperform millions of dollars of ad campaigns by corporate giants. Some don’t care about their website, some don’t know SEO even exists, but the point is many people are missing out on the web, and there are people like myself who aim to put them on the right track.

But enough advertising, look at the graph below:

You can clearly see how the SEO phenomenon is rising, it’s becoming more and more significant, and you can see that it really picked up in 2008. Also, on the lower part of the graph is the news volume, and you can see that has increased as well. SEO is a field of promise, and the fact that it’s picking up speed is proof that it’s good stuff.

Also, as the field has grown, the number of jobs in that field has also grown. Just take a look at the graph below from indeed.com:

It’s been a long steady growth here as well. And it keeps growing, a trend unbeatable. The market is still young and there are still many many new customers out there just waiting to be asked about SEO.

The truth about SEO is that many customers don’t know what it’s for. There are innumerable firms out there which build a website just for the sake of it… And in a sense it’s ok, have people search for you online… But rather than enter the web without a clue and mess up your brand image I say stay offline and call yourself traditional. The web is an exciting medium, a medium of much promise and potential, but there is also a lot of damage that can be done.

More about this tomorrow

Go ahead, subscribe, keep up to speed on the articles here, who knows when you may need to know this stuff… It’s free you know

It’s amazing how a partnership between giants sometimes creates wonderful things…

In a breaking news bulletin on both the Google.com and Apple.com websites, the two firms announced a new design for Google’s homepage, more human oriented and with a sleeker, neater look borrowed from Apple’s years of outstanding design work. The new design is powered by simplicity and is amusingly called Googapple. It keeps most of the Google.com functions, adding some extras and giving the whole website a different experience.

But without further ado, here’s the first official screenshot of the new website, click it to get the full high-res screenshot:

It looks great Google announced they would be rolling it out to select customers at the end of this month, with all of us getting it by the end of April 2008. Steve Jobs himself is said to do a keynote on the subject later this week, and the media will probably go beserk on this…

What do you think?

Subscribe to the feed to learn more about the changes to come