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Which SEOs Does Google Search Suggest Love Best? And Why?

January 17, 2012 By

Searching for Jill Whalen’s recent article about Rel=Author, I typed her name into Google and discovered that Google likes her! They really really like her! They even have her photo in the Search Suggest box!

Of course, now I wanted to know whether Jill and Google were going steady … was she Google’s special someone? Or was Google playing the field, keeping their options open? Was Google (gasp!) seeing other people?

You already know the answer.

Yep, they’re fickle. I searched for some other SEOs, people I’d seen at SMX Israel just a couple of days ago; lo and behold, Google’s giving them special treatment too. Sorry Jill, just like we always knew … you can’t trust Google to stay faithful.

I’m not the first to notice pictures showing up in the Google Suggest box  … Danny Sullivan wrote about Britney Spear’s results last week.

However, now I’m curious why some well-known people in search marketing get their picture as a Search Suggest and some don’t.

Barry Schwartz does.

barry schwartz

But Olivier Amar doesn’t.

Olivier Amar

Charlie Kalech does.

Charlie Kalech

But Branko Rihtman doesn’t.

Branko Rihtman

Sam Michelson does.

Sam Michelson

Miriam Schwab doesn’t.

Miriam Schwab

Dixon Jones does.

Dixon Jones

Marty Weintraub doesn’t.

Marty Weintraub

Michael King does (but Google thinks he’s someone else, so he doesn’t).

Michael King

My first thought was that you only get a picture if you have a Google+ page. But Miriam Schwab has a page, and so does Marty Weintraub, and Branko Rihtman … yet Google’s showing them no love in the Search Suggest box. Any ideas why that is?

How about you? Are you basking in Google-love when you type your name in the box?

Oh, me? Funny you should ask.

I don’t.

Andy Levy-Stevenson

 

Filed Under: Google+, Search Suggest Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lessons from Medical Informatics

November 9, 2011 By
Medical Informatics and SEO

Medical Informatics and SEO

Introduction

For the past 2½ years, I’ve worked as the CTO at Five Blocks while also studying epidemiology and biostatistics at Ben Gurion University, and applying that knowledge in the Clalit Health Services Research Institute in Tel Aviv. Being involved in multiple fields at the same time has given me a great opportunity to integrate different areas of knowledge and apply lessons and experiences across disciplines. While reputation management and medical research might seem completely unrelated at first, I have found many interconnections in the work that I do; I believe the cross-pollination has been fruitful.

Different Work Cultures

Medical research and internet startups have extremely different cultures. Medical research is very conservative – most researchers use software that is very old. Few engage in explicit methodological innovation; the methods are mostly taken as a given and applied to new research problems.

In the world of online business, by contrast, things change fast. Nobody wants to be using last years device, operating system, software, or SEO tactics. There is a recognition that if you are working the same way you did last year, you are falling behind more innovative competitors. This leads to agile business processes that are constantly being refined and made more lean and efficient.

But while medical research lags in efficiency, it has much to teach the reputation management and marketing communities about scientific rigor. The culture of peer reviewed research and formal modeling of variables is far ahead of what passes for “analysis” in the online business world. Most of the “evidence” used for internal business analysis would be considered hearsay by the readership of a medical journal.

Common Challenges

One area that I have found to be common between both fields is the importance of proper data management. When I learned about computer science in college, the main focus was on programming, either procedural or object oriented. Since then, the scale of data available to even the smallest business has skyrocketed. The problem of how to maintain order in all that deluge of data has become very significant. Whether looking at the problem of a brand’s reputation across the internet, or at a medical research question that impacts a large population, the data collection process is much more substantial than one might think. Furthermore, the management of that data, once it has been collected, becomes a task unto itself. It is impossible in real-world conditions to keep data rigidly structured, and thus coping with heterogeneous data becomes another major challenge. As we use different technologies at Five Blocks from those used at Clalit, I’ve had the opportunity to see how different toolkits are used to address these issues.

Another important commonality is the need for visualization. It might be obvious that busy executives, especially those who are not strong on math, would prefer charts over raw numerical data. But I think even career statisticians and math nerds also share the same need. In our information-rich environment, the ability to summarize reams of data points into an intuitive chart is extremely valuable. Ultimately it reduces the cognitive load required to perceive the meaning implied by the data.

Choosing the right mode of data analysis for the job is another important job that applies both in medical research and in reputation management. Medical researchers speak about randomized controlled trials. Web marketers are familiar with A/B testing. But these are essentially the same study design. Business people know about automated data mining for sales optimization, while epidemiologists are more comfortable with manually built regression models. Knowing how to use the full range of analytical tools available gives us many more choices and ensures that we can select the right one for the task at hand.

Ultimately, I think that the science and art of collecting, storing, analyzing and presenting data is really a field unto itself. For this reason, we can learn a great deal from how it is practiced in different fields of application. Often, within a particular industry there is an echo chamber effect, where the same methods and tools are used by all practitioners. By exploring how other industries address similar challenges, we can enrich our perspective and diversify our toolbox.

Filed Under: Reputation Management Tagged With: , ,

Editing the Wikipedia Entry about your company

October 16, 2011 By

A client recently asked us about editing Wikipedia articles about one’s own company,

Wikipedia discusses it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations

Am I allowed to edit articles about myself or my organization?
An important guideline here is our guideline on conflict of interest. You are discouraged from writing articles about yourself or organizations (including their campaigns, clients, products and services) in which you hold a vested interest. However, if you feel that there is material within an existing article which is incorrect, or not neutral in its tone, please point this out on the article’s talk page. Likewise, if you have content which you think should be added, please discuss this on the talk page. Editing articles that you are affiliated with is not completely prohibited; you may do so as specified within the COI guideline, but you must follow our policies. You are expected to allow other editors to revise your contributions as they see fit. If you follow our basic rules, your edits should be accepted by the community. If you don’t, however, your edits may be reverted and you may end up blocked if you attempt to insist on your version or otherwise thwart the collaborative efforts of the community to reach a version of the article based on the consensus of the community.

In short it’s not completely prohibited, but seems to be strongly discouraged.I would limit direct edits to the content to correcting factual errors in cases where the facts, once corrected are backed up by a credible source.
If one does edit a Wikipedia article their IP Address and/or username are recorded and can be seen by others.So it is generally not a good idea to edit Wikipedia pages about one’s own firm.It is important to check if there is an active community involved in editing and updating Wikipedia entries pertaining to your company or industry. If so, any edits could trigger alerts to the various interested parties.For this reason editing done on your behalf should include a focus on adding relevant positive content rather than on removing negative content.In terms of our role, editing Wikipedia pages is something that we can do for clients, always focusing on emphasizing positive content that may have been missed and correcting mistakes.In some cases we will soften or remove negative content – when we feel that doing so is within the realm of what Wikipedia’s suggestions would accept.We feel that being too aggressive in editing of Wikipedia entries could backfire and cause more harm than good.Andy lastly, if your company is in a crisis or could be soon, it’s not the right time to create a brand new Wikipedia entry. The day that the crisis arrives you can be sure that someone will be “kind” enough to update your Wikipedia page to make it current.

Filed Under: Reputation Management, Wikipedia Tagged With: , ,

As attention spans shrink, the need for reputation management grows!

February 1, 2011 By

patienceThere’s no doubt that Google (and the other major search engines) have made it extremely fast and easy to get accurate (and sometimes less accurate) information. Do you remember those arguments about important issues like why we need to call it tomato ketchup – are there other types of ketchup? (there are actually…) With Google and nearly any cell phone you can know the answer instantly.

This ability to get immediate information that answers our questions has been largely positive, though it means that we me often scratch the surface (get the right answer) without getting much depth.

We are now even more impatient than we once were. We want the answer instantly and if we don’t find it, we move on – immediately. The most popular button on the internet is the ‘Back’ button (or the ‘Next’ button). Nothing to see here… Keep moving!

Once people figured out they could search anything online and get an answer instantly  – “people searches” became fair game as well. Almost no one enters into a business agreement without first Googling (or Binging…) their prospective partner first. Let’s make sure they have a good track record, that they are not a scam artist, that they are who they say they are.

Incredible! Now all of us can be saved from scams, bad doctors, and substandard hotels! But the ease with which information is retrieved is reflective of how quickly it can be created. That means it’s not terribly difficult to bad-mouth your competitor online.

In comes online reputation management – with the goal of giving a balanced or accurate picture of the best side of the client’s reputation. So a restaurant that  has mostly god reviews may want those ones to rank higher in Google or Yahoo than the few negative ones. The Hedge fund that was investigated by the SEC a few years ago – has put that in their past, they’ve moved on – but you wouldn’t know it if you Googled them.

The ability to get a quick answer (is this person worth doing business with?) instantly on most any person created the need for online reputation management. It also means that owning the top 10 Google results – fashioning them by creating accurate, relevant, positive content  and promoting those results – secures your online reputation.

At the moment, attention spans don’t seem to be getting longer – so what people see in that quick search of your name, your brand or product name, is critically important to your success.

Filed Under: Brand Reputation Management, Reputation Management Tagged With: , , , ,

‘Disgusting Dominos’ Tops Dominos Searches

May 10, 2009 By

One of the great things about Online Reputation Management is that it includes more than just creating some blogs or generating links. It’s a lot about the perception of searchers. How they view your company, what frame of mind are they in? What can you do to change impressions, etc. The variety of tactics we utilize in repairing online reputations is constantly evolving. Eighteen months ago we hardly touched twitter, now it’s a staple. Google’s personalized profiles are also a new development – allowing any user to grab the profile page for their name (shows up instantly just below the Google top ten with a picture!)

In this fast-paced environment we make sure to see and evaluate what happens a week or more after a crisis.

The Domino’s Test

On April 21, 2009 our company decided to run Google Ads in order to gauge the longer-term effects of negative publicity from Domino’s Pizza’s now infamous “disgusting video”. Our test took place more than a week after the release of the famous employees YouTube video.

Aside from over 25,000 impressions, coming primarily from ads appearing on YouTube, we measured over 3,000 searches for the broad term ‘disgusting dominos’.

Dominos themselves evidently realized that this would be the ‘best’ keyword to capture the crisis and decided to make their YouTube response title: “Disgusting Dominos People – Domino’s Responds”. This was probably at the urging of their SEO expert. While the best way to rank a YouTube video for a keyword is to start the title of the video with your keyword, I would argue that the negative aspect of having the CEO’s picture under the title “Disgusting Dominos” is a reason to veer away from this tactic. Iinstead I would have recommended “Dominos CEO responds to Disgusting Dominos People Video”. The actual video file should probably have been called “Disgusting Dominos” as we have seen empirically the effects of the file name itself outweighing the video title. Using the keyword as the title of the video file is very helpful in making sure the video shows up in YouTube for your keyword.

Disgusting Dominos – the Top Keyword for the Dominos Crisis in Reputation Management

We noted that throughout our test, Domino’s Pizza themselves did not seem to be running any Google Ads – possibly a missed opportunity to reassure searchers that Dominos is aware of the issue and is proactively dealing with it.

 

Note: Dominos is a trademark of Dominos Pizza. This site is not related to Dominos in any way.

Filed Under: Brand Reputation Management Tagged With: , ,

Domino’s Pizza Retrospective: Why PR Must Own the “Google Top Ten” in Today’s Era of Online Reputation Management

April 27, 2009 By

This piece was written by David Goldman of RepRelations (Now Five Blocks) and originally appeared in the Daily Dog on April 27, 2009.

PR firms are responsible for their client or company’s reputations. Similar to the Domino’s fiasco, if a negative video or blog reaches into the top ten of Google search results for a client’s brand name, it’s called a “PR problem.” So why aren’t PR firms called on more often to fix the problem with their client’s online reputation?

One answer is that most people assume that Google search results are like the weather. We have the tools to measure them and possibly predict them, but we can’t change them. Fortunately, the situation isn’t that bad. Experienced online reputation management (ORM) firms working in tandem with PR firms can control a client’s search profile. The best way to get rid of negative results on Google is to take control of your reputation online. Another answer is that online reputation management should belong to the client’s SEO firm. This is a missed opportunity for PR and oftentimes untrue.

Progressive agencies are taking ORM seriously, partnering with firms or making internal hires to accommodate the growing need for bridging their traditional and even online efforts to ORM services. They realize that PR firms are competing with SEO companies to provide these services and understand the strategic as well as the financial sense in getting there first. Agencies should understand that they are often creating the message and image of the brand while SEO firms are technology people.

The Domino’s Case Study—Timely ORM Tips to Consider

Just over a week after the Domino’s “PR Nightmare,” many communications professionals are asking two questions: What can the brand do to salvage its reputation after the fact? And what can we do to prevent our clients from a similar crisis? Here is how our firm would work with Domino’s PR to clean up the mess:

There are at least three things that Domino’s Pizza should be doing now to clean up their online reputation. Although the buzz around the infamous video will continue to wane, the postings and marketing articles about the incident have the potential to linger for months, possibly years, unless the brand takes action. If you’re Domino’s, here’s what you need to do today:

1. Tweet to a stronger presence online. A company that is such an important part of American culture should be actively creating positive buzz online. Domino’s didn’t even have a Twitter account until after the crisis broke.

Pizza Hut recently posted a job offer for a summer intern to work on their Twitter account (see the posting here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10223100-71.html). That’s the type of planning that helps soften a social media crisis when it arises. With 125,000 employees at their disposal, Domino’s could easily distribute an internal memo advocating that employees open Twitter accounts and post positive comments about the work environment and the company. Twitter is one of the fastest ways to have a positive impact on a brand. Domino’s employees have a real interest in making their brand popular and keeping it strong. This will not only help supplant the negative content from the top search results in time, but help prevent a future crisis as well.

2. Develop and execute a video strategy. Currently, most of the videos that appear on YouTube and video-sharing websites for the keyword “dominos” are not about Domino’s Pizza. Had Domino’s occupied the ten top spots in YouTube for the keyword “dominos,” the effects of a rogue negative video would have been greatly mitigated. There was a lost opportunity as the millions of searchers for the keyword “dominos” could have also been exposed to positive messages from the brand in the form of videos.

In addition, the brand’s TV commercials should be systematically reposted and optimized so they occupy the top spots for video searches of the word “dominos.” Management should also ask employees to create YouTube videos promoting the brand, empowering the employees to feel like they are part of the solution, not only the problem.

3. Go “deep”—leverage mini-sites. Domino’s probably thought that by having a consumer-focused website and a corporate homepage they had their bases covered. In truth, their Web presence is shallow.

Creating mini-sites on a few important topics can garner excellent PR while protecting the brand’s online reputation. Some topics Domino’s could consider for mini-sites: a) Passion for Pizza (the Internet is the perfect medium for expressing the passion you have for your product or service), b) Domino’s and the Environment (focusing on recycling or other green initiatives), and c) Domino’s Scholarships (or Domino’s Community Projects). Each of these mini-sites can occupy a top spot in the Google results if created and optimized by ORM experts.

The Bigger Picture—Why PR Must Own ORM

All of these suggestions are facets of a full-service online reputation management program. When ideas like these are implemented together with a program of reputation management focused on positive articles and links, a negative situation can be transformed into a reputation-building opportunity.

Although Online Reputation Management (ORM) has existed for several years, today the need for this service is more relevant than ever. It isn’t a question of whether companies need and seek this type of service anymore. The real question is: To whom will they turn?

We have met with many PR firms in the U.S. who offer a “blogging strategy,” creating and maintaining an optimized corporate blog for their clients. While this is an excellent first step, online reputation management requires much more than one well-run blog. These firms often subscribe to outside services in order to track their client’s reputation online, but rarely do they offer a solid measurable solution.

So what is the better model? Answer: Stop offering blogs and start offering “search profile optimization.” A search profile is essentially what someone sees when they search for your client’s brand or product name; it’s the “Holy Grail of Search”—the Google top ten. Today, there are several ORM firms with whom agencies and consultants can partner—offering a white-label solution to their clients to improve their search profiles. The ORM firm provides charts and graphs that track the progress of their work for the PR firm to merchandize back to the client with their ‘look and feel.’

There are methods (especially for clients who are vulnerable to the “Domino’s Effect”) that can greatly reduce the collateral damage of a scandal before it takes place. By “owning” the Google top ten before a crisis breaks out, PR firms can effectively prevent a catastrophe. On a brand’s marketing team, only the PR firm knows when the bad news is coming. Whether it’s layoffs, a poor earnings report or a discrimination lawsuit, this knowledge can be used to minimize damage to the brand by securing the Google top ten in advance of the negative announcement.

Providing ORM services for clients is a way for PR firms and crisis communications professionals to stay vital to their clients and gives clients another reason to stick with their agencies. In this uncertain economy, every PR professional should be finding new ways to increase revenues and retain their clients. Offering ORM services allows PR firms to do both.

 

 

Filed Under: Brand Reputation Management, Public Relations Tagged With: , , , ,