10 Unique Ways Small Businesses Can Win at Link Earning (Part I of II) by @DholakiyaPratik

We’re seeing the industry shift now that massive corporations finally understand the value of online marketing. Enterprise level SEO is becoming more prominent. This is a great opportunity for SEOs who can appeal to clients with that stature, but it presents a problem to SEOs and small businesses who have limited resources.

In a world of massive promotions and big budgets, how can small businesses and local search optimizers set themselves apart? Here are first five strategies you can leverage to grab that much needed attention in the online sphere.

1. Host an Event
Events can be an incredibly powerful way to capture links that would otherwise be impossible. It’s so effective that any local event of sufficient size is bound to attract some links. That said, you can really up the ante and pull in a huge amount of SEO value if you optimize the event for online benefit.
First things first; you’ll need an event page on your site. Without a page, you’ll miss out on a tremendous amount of SEO value. This is the page you want to promote through all of your online and social media channels.

If you’re selling tickets, keep the ticket sales page separate. If you use Eventbrite to set up ticket sales, you can get a followed link out of it. Same goes for Brown Paper Tickets. Meanwhile, you should be able to get your event listed in tons of event listing directories and local newspapers. These are relevant directories that people actually use, so they make for perfect links. Yes, you should take advantage of listings even if they’re nofollow, assuming there’s any real traffic potential (and there always should be when you are manually building links).

In addition to local event sites, you should also take advantage of national ones like Meetup, Eventful, and Events.org.

Since odds are high you aren’t the first business to host an event in your area, there’s also nothing wrong with scoping some of the other local event pages with Open Site Explorer to see where they’re getting their links.

I hope it’s obvious that your event should be more than a tool to get links from event sites. You may need to hire a contractor to set up the event (preferably one who links to their clients), and you should certainly put a great deal of thought into how to monetize the event, or at least make it pay for itself.
Be sure to capitalize on the local features of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Foursquare to reach as many people as possible. Your link building efforts shouldn’t stop there either. Do some outreach and, if possible, work with some local micro-celebrities to capture as much attention as possible.
Assuming you have a local location to promote, be sure to get your business address attached to as many of your links as possible. Those citations are solid gold. Even if the event is hosted somewhere else, there’s no reason you can’t say something along the lines of: “For more information, get in touch at…”
Also be sure to cash in on Schema.org markup to get rich snippets in the search results.

2. Sponsor a Charity
Have a cause you care about? There’s no shame in getting some SEO value out of it while also using it to help improve your reputation. It would be beyond cynical, and unlikely to pay off, if you tried to use charities for SEO alone, but there’s no reason not to make the most of it when you do. Local businesses are the biggest contributors to charities, and they can be a great opportunity.

The most obvious bit of SEO value is a link to your site from the charity as one of their sponsors. Many charities do this simply by default, and many that don’t will still be happy to send a link to return the favor.
Causes and charities also tend to spread through social networks more readily than just about any business message. If you embrace a cause and promote it on social networks, this can be a great way to expand your reach.

Be careful when mixing promotion and charity work, however. Business involvement in social causes is often viewed with skepticism, and if you blatantly capitalize you may end up getting shunned. Only embrace those causes that you sincerely believe in. SEO and other marketing efforts should always come second.

3. Build a Tool
We’ve been mentioning tools frequently as of late, and with good reason. The most popular sites on the web are all tools, not what would traditionally be called content sites. Tools naturally attract links because they are inherently more engaging than passive content.

While a content-driven strategy certainly does require a great deal of creativity and skill, tools arguably require even more creativity. Content at least obeys a preset format: blog post, video, infographic, white paper. It may take creativity, research, and ingenuity to figure out what the content should be about and the best way to put it together, but at least you have some idea of what the end product is going to look like.
Tools are very different. Google, Facebook, and Twitter were like nothing that had come before them. Tools are designed entirely around the problem they are meant to solve, and take on completely novel forms every time they are created.

For this reason, it’s difficult to give advice on how to create a tool for SEO value. You’ll need coders, graphic designers, and a spark of ingenuity. Beyond that, the sky’s the limit. The most linked to sites on the web don’t lie. Tools that people find useful or entertaining grab more links than anything else on the web.

4. Get in Your Local Newspaper
Why go for small time blogs when you can get listed in the most reputable publication in your area? Local newspapers are hungry for content just like bloggers, and there’s nothing stopping you from getting an entry in your local paper if you put your mind to it.

Making the paper is all about one thing: being newsworthy. The rest is window dressing. If you can bring something to the table that they haven’t reported on before, that will interest their readers, then you’re already halfway there. It’s all about the “inside scoop.” What can you reveal to the press that will intrigue them?

If you don’t think you have the writing skills to make the cut, there’s a fairly simple solution for that as well. Hire somebody who’s made it into the local paper before. Ask them for feedback on whether the idea is newsworthy, and let them take it from concept to published article. A one-off job is worth the money if it means a link from an established publisher.

A word of caution here, however. Make sure the content is actually going to make it to the web. Many local newspapers only published half of their content online, and many of them delete it as time goes by. Don’t bother working with a paper unless you know the content is going to make it online and stay there. Unless, of course, the paper would bring so much exposure that it would result in natural links from secondary sources.

5. Befriend the Mom Bloggers
I’m generalizing a bit when I say “mom” blogger. They don’t need to be moms, or even female. The point is, small blogs with tightly knit communities are some of the most powerful forces to be reckoned with on the web. These small communities have tremendous influence on social networks. The community members tend to know each other very well and have developed a great deal of trust.

There are undoubtedly “mom” bloggers in your area. They keep online food diaries, review products, share design inspiration, and dominate Pinterest. Get these people on your side and you won’t just see links with SEO value, you’ll see referral traffic that doesn’t quit.

Conclusion
Expanding your reach doesn’t have to involve making connections with widely popular influencers. Sometimes the smallest influencers are the most truly influential. Make friends with these people, maybe even hire them. The rewards are incredible.
(More 5 strategies to come in the 2nd part of this post)
What are your thoughts on these strategies? Got anything to add?

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PPC Tracking and Goals – You May Be Getting Them Wrong by @JCorriganSEO

What makes up a paid search account? Of course you have your website and your account manager platform(s), most likely AdWords and Bing Ads. You also have your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, & ads. But are you forgetting your tracking, and are you creating appropriate goals?One too many times I have had clients who have either missed the boat on tracking implementation or have designated goals that are not relevant to the reason why their site was created in the first place. It’s extremely important that you understand the possible fallacies of each particular paid search characteristic in order to ensure that you are running a successful paid search account.

In this post, we’ll explain why and how to use the Google Tag Manager to plug holes (and improve accuracy) in your tracking, and we’ll explain how to set up actionable goal reporting in AdWords and Google AnalyticsUse the Google Tag Manager for TrackingThis one seems simple: no tracking, no data. So get tracking and you will get data. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Before you go and drop pixels all over your website coding, be sure you are aware of all of your options.Because new pixels keep showing up from various sources, it would be best to implement or have your development team implement the Google Tag Manager. This will give you more control on all the pixels, also known as tags, within your site if you don’t deal with the coding. If you do deal with the coding, then this will make your job much easier and keep your pixels together.The Google Tag Manager just creates one pixel for you to add. Once the container tag is added, you can manage all other tags within the Tag Manager. The container tag can also speed up your loading time for your pages. This isn’t because fewer pixels are firing, because there shouldn’t be fewer pixels firing, but because the container snippet executes asynchronously.
The tag manager also has two features that I am a huge fan of. The first is the preview mode. This allows you to review how your tag will work to make sure it is firing correctly. The other is that it gives you the ability to create rules and macros to tell the tag when to fire. This option provides a lot of flexibility, as you can create rules/macros based on URLs, referrals, events, and other custom values such as how much a user spends.The advantages to implementing the Google Tag Manager snippet are endless. But just to review what we went over, here is a list of the benefits of using the Google Tag Manager:Don’t need to bug your development team to keep adding tagsOrganizes all of your tags in one location for easy managementCan speed up the loading time of your siteCan create rules and macros to tell the tag when to fireCan use the Tag Manager for Google & non-Google tagsPreview mode enables you to ensure tags are firing appropriatelyThe container tag snippet should be placed on every page within your site at the top of the opening body tag. The only exception is that if there are any variables that the container snippet should use that fire on the page load, the container snippet should be placed underneath those variables but still within the body tag. And while you implement the container snippet, be sure to remove those existing pixels that have been added to the tag manager. Otherwise you will be double-counting.If you are not using the Tag Manager because your site uses few pixels, be sure that you are recording the most accurate data. For example, if you are recording registrations, be sure that you have a page that only shows up when the user has registered, such as a thank-you or confirmation page. Here’s a scenario where loose recording can complicate things:There will be people who, by force of habit, click through a paid ad even though they have already been to your site and registered. When they do this, depending on where your pixel is placed, it will cause the pixel to fire again even though they have already registered. In this scenario, it is usually the branded keywords that are inflated.While you may have some third-party platform that accurately records conversions, the scenario still creates a few problems. The first is that it makes data-gathering more tedious and more time-consuming. The second is that because there are extra steps in gathering data, this increases the likelihood of errors. And the last problem is that not having accurate data in AdWords pretty much rules you out of using any neat features that Google comes up with, such as the conversion optimizer.Set Up Smarter Goal ReportingThere are many actions that can be tracked through Analytics. It is a great tool that should be used when evaluating data and patterns of your audience in order to optimize your site. And AdWords allows you to import your Analytics’ goals. (If you do this, be careful that you don’t double-count the data by assigning a goal in Analytics that resembles a conversion in AdWords. You can find more information on how to link Analytics & AdWords here.)GOAL FLOW IN GOOGLE ANALYTICSWhile all of this is helpful in developing strategies, it is easy to overlook the overall goal. Here’s a good way to break it down:The overall goal, such as registrations or sales, should be tracked in AdWords if you are buying into paid search.The steps before and after the overall goal should be tracked in Analytics.Let’s say you have a site that has four different ways a user can convert. One of those conversion types is getting a user to pay for a type of membership. The others are registrations, calls, & downloads. AdWords can track all of these but data behind their actions isn’t accurate because AdWords groups them all together. You can segment the conversion types, but then it gets complicated when dealing with the metrics.If you know which conversion is the most important, it would be best to just track that one conversion in AdWords and track the other actions in Analytics. This will make more sense when it comes to optimizing for a stronger CPA, ROAS, or any other metric. Plus, this will give you more options to use AdWords’ features like the Conversion Optimizer.After setting up your goals in Analytics and syncing with AdWords, you will be able to develop strategies on your landing pages. The strategies will be based on more information than just your conversion rate. You can see what is working and what isn’t within your pages. Leverage all of this data when coming up with new strategies, but make sure all of the data is being collected accurately and in a helpful and easy-to-read way.


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How Traditional Guest Blogging Practices Will Change After Next Major Penguin Update

The most popular way of building back links right now is guest blogging. Why is it so popular? Simple, it’s so effective at driving up keyword rankings – when it’s done consistently and when those guest posts are published on authoritative domains that are relevant.

It’s been in the back of my mind for some time now, actually since the first iteration of the Google Penguin update, that guest blogging may become a target of Google. I believe that guest blogging will still continue to be effective after the next major Penguin update, however the way in which you build links through guest blogging will change.

This is how I think guest bloggers will be impacted:

Devaluation of Websites
Sites that have the majority of their outbound links pointing at a single website will eventually be tagged with a penalty. Google likes it best when you link to lots of different websites that are authoritative. When you write, find ways to naturally work those types of links into your content.
Websites that do not create pages that have substantial content or that create non-relevant content are going to be tagged with a penalty. If they aren’t tagged with a penalty then at the very least the links within their content won’t pass much authority or weight.

Bloggers who make a habit of regularly publishing non-relevant links and content together will have their blogs significantly devalued.

When you research your list of potential candidate websites to guest blog for, you want to short list those that do not link to low quality websites and that are very relevant to the site you intend to have linked to within the post you will write for them. Don’t be afraid to link out within your guest blog post to other sites which you have no vested interest in but that offer value to the reader or contribute significantly to the content of your post.

Devaluation of Back Links
Using a keyword rich text link in the first paragraph of your guest blog post? Those links will likely carry less weight soon.

Rehashing older previously published content and re-publishing it with embedded links? Those types of links will also not carry as much weight in future. They’ve already lost some value over the past year. This trend will continue.

The links that you acquire within the author bio section of your guest blog posts no longer carry the same weight as they did previously. In future it is possible and likely that those links will offer even less weight and value than they currently do. Google will be a lot more selective about whose links receive more or less weight.

Don’t waste your time with techniques that allow you to easily and quickly acquire links in bunches. Put more emphasis on building value into the content you create. Creating fantastic content will garner links from people that naturally want to link to your content. If that sounds like deja vu to you, that’s because you’ve probably been told this numerous times before.

The Rise of Co-occurrence As a Ranking Factor
Traditional signals that influence rankings: keyword placement, anchor text, links and authority – have long been a staple practice when trying to get a website to rank high. Over the past several years there’s been a trend of citations emerging to improve local rankings and to date I think that we’re witnessing more co-occurrence of words, phrases and links within search queries and textual content having more of an influence in rankings. Anchor text will likely still play an important role and provide signals but soon Google will be looking at links and anchor text in a totally different way.

You can see examples of co-occurrence in play anytime you look through a Google results page for a query and find sites ranking high without the presence of authoritative links, relevant anchor text back links, the search query in the HTML title and a sprinkling of query occurrences in the document body.

In a very brief way it can be explained that co-occurrence is about the presence and frequency of terms that tend to co-occur on the same pages without being hyperlinked. The concept of co-occurrence and the theory behind how it works and how Google may be using it is extensive. More extensive than what we are covering here in this post. Here’s a better and more in-depth explanation of what co-occurrence is.
Your take away from this: Don’t think it always necessary to link back to your website from inside of your guest blog post. Create useful and engaging content that educates readers. You can make a mention of your company without hyperlinking to your company, if it’s appropriate to do so. Rarely is it appropriate to mention your company in a guest blog post outside of the author bio section, unless you’re linking to content that substantially adds knowledge and support to your guest post.

Author Rank
Author rank is Google’s way of seeing where on the web you publish your content. If you stick to a regular schedule of publishing fantastic content then Google will soon begin placing more authority and weight on your content.

Conversely, if you continuously publish low quality fluff and filler content Google will be tracking that too and you’ll find many of the links in those types of content devalued in time, regardless if your content is published on a high authority domain or not. In short, Google won’t just be devaluing websites and links, but also devaluing authors too.

Going forward you need to be very choosy with the content that you publish. If you want to learn how to write good quality content read this post. Personally, when I write a piece of content I’ll often hammer out my thoughts into a document, save it and then come back to it in 24 hours and refine my message. I edit with two criteria in mind:
Does this content make sense from start to finish or does it sound confusing?Am I providing significant value to the reader or am I about to publish a piece of rubbish?Social Media Signals

Most of you will know that the more often your content is shared, voted on and liked socially the better that content may perform in Google. While this has been the case for some time now, some content creators, publishers and website owners have been gaming the system by paying people and organizations to create social shares, votes and likes in mass quantities for their content.

What’s likely to happen after the next major Penguin update rolls out is that Google will probably pay less attention to the volume of social shares and pay more attention to who is sharing that content. If your content is shared socially by a person with a network of 300 or 400 influencers following their social media accounts, that will likely have more weight in Google than if your content were shared by a person with 50,000 to 100,000 bot created social media accounts. If this isn’t the case presently you can bet it will be soon.
It’s also probable that Google will look at your own social media accounts to determine if you are sharing your own guest posts on your own social accounts.

Write content that you wouldn’t mind having your name associated with, content that you’d have no problem sharing on your own social profiles.
Start building relationships with influencers who have a large following on their social profiles. If your content is worth sharing then those relationships you’ve built will come in handy and they may decide to share your content with their followers when you write a great post and ask them to share it.

In Summary
Some of the things that I predicted above may not in fact take place when the next major Penguin update rolls out, however they will likely be a part of Google’s algorithm in the near future.
How many other ways do you think traditional guest blogging practices will need to change after the next major Penguin update rolls out?

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Is Tumblr Worth as Much as Overture to Yahoo? by @lorenbaker

The Tumblr acquisition by Yahoo is smart in so many ways, from an advertising perspective to a “let’s be relevant again” perspective. And pair the Tumblr news with a relaunch of Flickr, and we’re looking at an end result of Marissa Mayer dominating a market where Google has a major weakness — photos.
(Anyone use Picasa lately?)

So as I was digging through the news around the acquisition announcement over the weekend and this morning, I wanted to look deeper into Yahoo’s other social media acquisitions, and the value / life expectancy of each.

Here’s a short list :
Flickr : $35,000,000 : Alive & well.Del.icio.us : $20,000,000 : It’s kind of become a Pinterest copy.MyBlogLog : A precursor to Google+, dead.Blo.gs : Integrated into Yahoo 360, which died.Upcoming.org : Part of Yahoo Local

While reviewing the list of Yahoo acquisitions, one really caught my eye. Back in 2003, Yahoo bought Overture .. the mack daddy of paid search, which powered Yahoo and MSN Search paid results at the time (along with a lot of other search engines, toolbars and parked domains).
Overture was also Goto.com; the FIRST paid search engine, and held the patent rights to paid search (which a court of law decided Google must pay Yahoo/Overture in order to keep AdWords running). At the time, Overture also owned Altavista.com and AlltheWeb search engines.
[Here's a great write up by Danny Sullivan back when he used to run Search Engine Watch ... note to Incisive, might want to update Danny's avatar].

In 2003, Yahoo purchased the juggernaut of Overture for $1.6 Billion.In 2013, Yahoo purchased Tumblr for $1.1 Billion.

Is one undervalued while one is overvalued, or did Yahoo get an absolute steal back in 2003 after the bubble burst?



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Pinterest Gets New ‘Rich’ Pins by @smorgs13

 Social media sites have to evolve, otherwise they decline in popularity like MySpace. Pinterest has not only climbed the ranks to the top 3 social media sites on the internet, but they have also evolved with the market and remained popular. Today, Pinterest made a new update that significantly improves the usability of the platform. Those in the movie and e-commerce industries will be very glad to hear about the new ‘rich’ pins.

There are currently 3 types of rich pins: movie, recipe, and product. I’m sure they’ll come out with more in the coming weeks and year. How do you set up these pins? It’s real simple, but you’ll need to fill out your meta tags, You’ll need to test the pins and then apply them to Pinterest. It should be pretty easy to set up. I personally believe e-commerce business owners will see an improvement in their sales. People will see the availability of a product and see the prices right away and be ready to buy. All of that would take place before they even get to your website. What are your thoughts on these new ‘rich’ pins?

Keep It All Straight and Get Started with the Locals: Yahoo Local, Yelp, Google+ Local by @highervis

It’s incredibly important to get your business involved in local SEO, but businesses should not stop at just one search engine or one local listing service. If you’re a business owner, creating a presence on all of the different local outlets including Yahoo Local, Bing Local Listings, Yelp, and Google+ Local will only help you gain visibility. However, you have to make sure that you stay organized and are able to manage all of your different accounts. It can be tough to make this happen and understand the differences between the different local options (not to mention how to get started), but once you get the hang of all the differences you will find it easy to differentiate and make the most of your local online authority.

3 Different Online Local Outlets and How They Each Work
Being able to keep track of all the different local SEO options not only helps you stay organized, but it can help some businesses determine where they should put their primary focus.
Below outlines how to get started, the different options you have, optimization tricks, and a few of the benefits for each of the local SEO options small businesses have online today:
Yelp

How to Get Started. You can get started by visiting this link and either unlocking your business or adding a new business. You will then be taken to different screens that ask you to fill in basic information about your business (hours of operation, address, contact information, etc.) and then wait for authorization by the site. Benefits. Yelp is the most beneficial when it comes to the restaurant industry, but other companies are also benefiting from its popularity. Yelp actually serves as its own social network and works well when it comes to making connections and finding businesses through those connections, so the benefits here are endless.Optimization. Every local listing is about reviews, but Yelp is really about reviews. The best way to optimize your listing is to respond to reviews and try and encourage reviews by pushing for check-ins, including the link on your website, etc. You can also offer special deals on your Yelp listing to help foster reviews and visits. You can learn more in detail here. Google+ Local

How to Get Started. You can visit this link and then choose from one of the following categories: local business or place; product or brand; company, institution, or organization; arts, entertainment, or sports; or other. Each will have it’s own specific questions to create you the best listing possible. Claim your listing if it already exists or create something new with your basic information. Benefits. Some Google+ local information such as a ZAGAT score will actually appear in search results on a SERP. The reviews here are more than just 5 stars and comments. While you can still comment, Google+ gives you the option of rating certain aspects of a business (usually restaurants) such as appeal, facilities, and service. Optimization. Become an active member on Google+ in general and start putting customers or those in your audience in your Google+ circles to help build visibility. This will not only help your local listing, but your overall Google+ brand. I also recommend checking out their “Getting Started Guide” to help you get into more advanced optimization.Yahoo Local

Options. You have the choice of a basic listing which includes your basic contact information, one photo, and descriptions of your products/services or an enhanced listing with will give you a tagline, up to 10 photos, and a detailed business description. Enhanced listings are $9.95 per month.How to Get Started. Visit this link and click “sign up.” Once you click this big yellow button, you will need to sign in with either your Yahoo ID, Facebook account, or Google account. Answer the basic information for the account (your name and information bout your company such as address and content information) and then answer more specific information such as your hours of operation. Hit “Verify” and wait for your page to be verified by officials in a few days, and you’re set to go! It’s as easy as that.
Extra Tip: The new Facebook Graph Search is putting a focus on searching for local businesses in relation to friend preferences, location, etc., so it’s important to begin gaining a presence on Facebook as a part of your new local strategy.
Which local services do you like best? Have you found that being active and optimizing your presence on all of these sites has helped improve your overall local strategy? Let us know your story and tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Photo Credit: images.businessweek.com

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7 Ways to Find What Your Target Audience Wants and Create Epic Content by @jaysondemers

Great content sells. It converts. It helps with SEO. And sometimes, it works like magic: it goes viral, creates traffic inflow, and helps you achieve your goals. But what exactly is great content? How do you produce something so great it’ll go viral and help you achieve your goals?

The Internet is inundated with a lot of similar-looking content. This very article might sound similar to something you’ve seen before. Unique content is hard to produce, and it’s getting harder by the day as more websites grasp the importance of content marketing. In view of all this, how do you produce great content that stands apart from the rest?

Answer people’s needs.
As plain as it sounds, this is one of the toughest things to do in marketing. What’s tougher is getting your ‘solution’-like content to the people who’re looking for it; but in this post, I’ll be tackling the ways in which you can figure out exactly what your target audience needs so you can give it to them.
If you think about it, that’s what enables websites to survive. If your content answers, solves, and helps, you are going to earn trust and your brand will become an authority. The trick is to discover what your target audience wants. Here are seven resources that can help you figure that out.

#1: Competitors’ forums
One of the most ridiculously simple methods, though it’s a little controversial, is to stalk your competitors’ web presence. Some regard this as unethical, but I think it’s in the best interest of both the customer and your business for you to figure out what your competitors are doing (and do it better).
If you are an SEO professional working with a client and trying to leverage content for SEO purposes, this tactic offers one of the best opportunities to position the client’s business in an entirely profitable light. When done correctly, this can also be one of the best ways to tap into your competitors’ deficiencies, and leverage that to create a win-win situation for yourself and your target audience.
For those who think this approach is unethical, there’s nothing like a little opinionated, passionate content to drive click-throughs, traffic, and conversions. Your clients will love it.

#2: Comments
Comments are a great way to engage your target audience. But beyond that, if you’re dealing with B2C businesses, comments shed light on the needs of your target audience.
When we speak of comments, I’m not just talking about comments on your website alone. Comments are made on many websites and forums. Comment threads run into the hundreds on websites like Reddit. Discussion boards are flooded with people talking about something — expressing their need for some particular solution.

These are areas from which you can mine excellent content ideas. You have to exercise your creative neurons to find out what themes keep repeating and are hence more likely to gain traction when published. But don’t let go of an opportunity to create something epic just because only a handful of the users are talking about it. You might find yourself on the leading edge.

#3: Surveys (online and offline)
Surveys are boring; many people swiftly click past polls without even looking at them. But you can get some specifically targeted tipping points from surveys. So should you conduct a survey? If you have the resources and the user-base to get a lot of valuable input, go for it.
But you don’t have to rely only on your survey to figure out what your target audience needs. You can search for surveys conducted by others, both on the Internet and in magazines, newspapers, and elsewhere in the offline world.

Surveys are good because out of thousands polled, typically a few hundred will respond. And most of the people who respond are particularly interested in something (which is why they took the extra time and effort to answer boring questions). The results provide a funnel through which a targeted group is giving you ideas about what your content should include or cover.

#4: Keyword research – Trends, Related & AdWords tools
This is an old, but trustworthy method that’s still not often used enough.
Google’s own Trends can inform you about the interest level people have shown toward a particular item. You can pick generic keywords in your niche and look up trends. This may not give you content ideas directly, but it helps you understand what’s “trending.” With this data in hand, you can go further to identify specific keywords and then topic ideas.

If you’re hard pressed for time, Google’s Related Keywords is a great tool to start your content research and production. Related keywords are mentioned at the end of each search page. When you see a long-tail keyword, you should pick it up, do some preliminary research on it, and if indications are promising enough (search volume, competition, ROI of a particular theme/topic), you can produce content around that.
Speaking of long-tail keywords, Google’s Adwords tool has helped me figure out what people are looking for. The short keyword phrases are generic and can’t lead directly to topic ideas, but the long ones are clear indications of what people want. Chances are high that you might stumble upon a bunch of related keywords around which an entire content strategy can be designed.

#5: The social networks
Nothing beats social networks when it comes to personal expression. Although heavily diluted if you’re not looking at the right places, social networks can be a direct indication of user interest and content ideas. The key is figuring out where to look.
Twitter: #hashtags are a good place to start. Experts in your niche are bound to have conversations on Twitter that can lead to some really specific, targeted topic ideas that will solve a pressing need being discussed in the Twitterverse.
Facebook & Google+ pages: Brand pages try to engage with their audiences at an intense level. That can spark comments in which people explicitly demand something. Capitalize on this and you might really be at the forefront of creating really useful content that targets your audience perfectly.

#6. Product forums, a.k.a. support
If your niche has a product and people are looking for support, in all probability there’s going to be a forum somewhere. If your client is producing a product, find out if there are forums and support pages that relate to it. Such forums are gold mines that can be mined to learn exactly what the target audience needs.
But if there’s a support page already, isn’t it going to cover the same ground? Why produce content around the same thing again? Because support pages aren’t exhaustive, they aren’t intensive, and they’re often not terribly friendly.

Also, if your work as an SEO professional centers around a website that deals with a particular market (and not a product), you can still figure out what the end-user needs by identifying associated products or end-points where the user gets something. Then you can tailor your content accordingly to leverage this.

#7: eCommerce
This applies largely to product-focused markets. Suppose you or your client run a website for top-notch information on headphones. How do you generate content that’s not just unique but also interesting enough to attract visitors and solve problems, so you can build trust, authority, and a fan following?
Head over to places where an associated product is being sold. This might be a JBL headphones listing on Amazon or a Sennheiser headphone set on eBay. Check out customer reviews, comments, and the general chatter around the product. You can find a lot of this specifically on Amazon and Amazon-like websites.
When you go through these reviews, you can find some interesting suggestions, a few tips, and potential insights about the product. This is highly specific information that you can hardly get from anywhere else. And it’s real.
How about sorting this information and packaging it into a great article that helps your users make well-informed decisions? Bingo! You scored a point there.

Conclusion
Conclusively, the bottom line is simple: if you’re in the shoes of a customer, you know precisely where people talk about what they require. And when you answer this, your content — no matter how boring or short — will serve a defined purpose, making it much more valuable.
Ultimately, it’s the users who matter… for everything from your brand to your return on investment.



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In (Partial) Defense of Tracking Cookies

by Dan Lyons
May 16, 2013 at 1:30 PM
Social Media, SEO, Business Blogging
--> Tweet It's easy to hate on tracking cookies. Wouldn’t life be great if browsers just shut cookies off altogether -- and kept them off? No more annoying ads! No more interruptions! No more feeling like you’re being stalked by those hiking boots you looked at last week, didn’t purchase, but now keep popping up in ads on every site you visit, begging to you to reconsider.
Fair enough. I get it. I’m sick of this stuff, too. So I understand why Mozilla has decided to block third-party cookies in Firefox, why Apple does the same in Safari, and why Microsoft has made Do Not Track the default setting on Internet Explorer 10.
But I also get why advertisers see this as a nightmare that will destroy the online economy. I can even (almost) understand why some advertisers are vowing that they will simply ignore Microsoft’s “Do Not Track” signals if those signals are set by default rather than by users themselves.
The whole thing is turning ugly and emotional, with both sides crying foul and taking shots at one another. To privacy advocates, advertisers and their lobbying organizations are big bad greedheads intent on ruining the web by following us around, tracking everything we do, splattering ads on every available surface, and bombarding us with messages we don’t want. To advertisers, privacy advocates are a bunch of naive anti-capitalist hippies who don’t realize that if ads go away so do all those things that are supported by ads -- like TV. And Facebook. And Google. And most of the web, for that matter.

They’re arguing in heated Senate hearings and in negotiations hosted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which is hoping to prevent an “arms race” by creating a standard that both sides can accept. For now, however, the W3C negotiations are so badly deadlocked that privacy advocate Jonathan Mayer says we might as well give up. "If you made a list of all the top policy calls that we need to crank through, we've made no progress at all," Mayer says. "There are fundamental impasses on just about every major issue."
Can't We All Just Get Along?

But let’s take a deep breath. The truth is, not all tracking is the same, and not all tracking is bad. And in our haste to block the stuff we hate, we might kill off some good stuff, too.
As Mike Volpe, the CMO at HubSpot, puts it: “The cookie is getting a bad name, but it’s just a piece of technology that can be used for good or evil.”

First, the evil: When you go to a site and some other company (a “third party”) puts a cookie on your computer and starts tracking you as you travel across other sites, “that feels like something you can’t control,” Volpe says. “That feels nefarious.”

On the other hand, there’s the kind of tracking that Amazon does, where the website knows who you are and makes fantastic recommendations. That’s called “first-party,” meaning that the cookie used to track you is put on your computer by the site you’ve visited and only tracks what you do on that one site. That kind of tracking feels magical.

One simple solution, and one that Mozilla and Apple employ, is to just block third-party cookies. That sounds good, except that if you block third-party cookies, you could end up blocking some of the good kind of tracking, too. So while the web experience might get better in some places, in others it could get worse, at least temporarily. Instead of moving forward, in some places we could be taking a step backward.

It's worth noting that HubSpot's software does not use or set third-party cookies. So if you are a HubSpot customer, HubSpot software will not set third-party cookies for any of your visitors. (As a company, HubSpot does use third-party cookies to track certain marketing initiatives, but that's a different thing.)
How We Got Here

The problem with cookies is that a lot of companies have abused their ability to track people, so much so that even the engineer who invented the original cookie says he finds tracking cookies annoying. He insists cookies were not originally intended to be used for tracking people around the web.

"One of the design elements of cookies was to discourage tracking across websites," says Lou Montulli, who is now a co-founder and chief scientist at Zetta.net, a tech company in Sunnyvale, California.

Back in 1994, Montulli was a founding engineer at Netscape when he developed a way to put a bit of data on a computer so websites could recognize returning visitors and "bring `memory' to the web," as he puts it. He dubbed his invention a "cookie," and later received a patent for the technology.

"The idea of a trail of breadcrumbs is, ironically, the opposite of what we were trying to accomplish with cookies. The third-party cookie, combined with the referrer field, is an unintended consequence of multiple technologies combining to allow something that should not have been possible," says Montulli, who recently wrote a blog post explaining the origin of the cookie.

Montulli says he doesn't like tracking cookies, but he believes we're stuck with them. "I currently believe that tracking cookies are an unpleasant thing for the web, but they are probably better than any alternative," Montulli says. "Most people don't want to be tracked for advertising purposes, but if third-party cookies are disabled, the industry will come up with another way to do it, and that way will be less under the control of the user than cookies are currently."

Disabling tracking cookies could also break other services. "The extra complication is that things like OAuth and embedded comment platforms, and a whole bunch of other useful technologies, wouldn't work properly without them," he says.The Future

The larger point is about the kind of web we want to inhabit. We're moving (albeit in fits and starts) toward an ideal version of the web where we’d each get only the information we really want. To get there, however, we'll need to let websites learn more about us. But for now, instead of finding a way to do that, advertisers and privacy advocates are locked in a kind of cold war and can't find common ground.
But shutting off third-party cookies completely is using a blunt instrument to deal with a problem that might require a more nuanced approach.

New tools and technologies could help. Even Microsoft, which has angered advertisers by making Do Not Track the default setting in Internet Explorer, is exploring ways to let people give sites better ability to track them.

One idea, mentioned in a recent blog post by Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, is a “permissions API” that would let people switch tracking back on for individual websites so that those     sites could collect information about them, even when Do Not Track was switched on.
The End of Cookies?

No matter how things shake out in the short run, some believe that in the long run, cookies will die out and be replaced by something better. The cookie is “flawed, invasive, it’s got privacy issues, it’s going to go,” is how Paul Cimino, VP and GM of Brilig Digital Data Solutions at Merkle, put it to AdExchanger recently.
Cimino says he thinks cookies will be dead within five years. However, “at that point, it’ll be like birds chirping and flowers blooming because we’ll find some kind of value proposition that allows consumers to trust us and opt into personalization,” he says. His phrase: “Tailor, don’t target.”
Everyone who uses Amazon knows how great it can be to get really well-targeted information from a site you trust. I believe that most people would be willing to share information about themselves in order to get a better online experience, as long as they’re given control, and as long as they’re dealing with an organization they trust.
For that matter, I believe most companies feel the same way and would like to be able to send messages that are better tailored to each individual, if only because it’s a huge waste of resources to “spray and pray” messages to millions of people who don’t want to receive those messages. And also because engaging in "spray and pray" can actually damage your brand.
The good news is that at some level, both sides want the same thing, which tells me that someday we’ll get there. The bad news is, we're going to go through some rough times before we get there.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that HubSpot software sets cookies that showed up as third-party cookies and thus might get blocked by certain browsers. That's not the case. We regret the error.
Image Credit: kimberlykv

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INBOUND Keynoters Nate Silver and Scott Harrison Named 'Most Creative People in Business'

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Practical Tips for Modern SEO From the Best Minds in Europe

by Kieran Flanagan
May 17, 2013 at 3:00 AM
Social Media, SEO, Business Blogging
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The only certainty in the SEO world -- or, really, the digital marketing world -- is change. And over the past two years, we have seen a whole lot of it. Both Google Panda & Penguin have severely disrupted what works for search marketers, leaving many rather confused about what they should be doing to attract more organic traffic. And not only that; it has left many unsure which best practices may now actually actively harm their organic search strategy.
As a response to this confusion, we decided to reach out to five of the top SEO minds in Europe to ask if they could share their expertise and secrets on what a successful SEO strategy needs to incorporate today. The result was not just one ebook filled with great information, but five whole ebooks full of SEO nuggets that cover important topics like keyword research, optimizing your site post-Panda, attracting links in the new Penguin world, and recovering from a Google penalty.

This blog post will cover some of the most critical tips from the ebooks so you get some low-hanging fruit taken care of right way for your SEO strategy, and also get a taste of what's on offer when downloading the full free bundle.

1) Segment Your Keyword Research Into 4 Steps, From Richard Baxter (@richardbaxter) at SEOGadget.com
The SEO world loves to talk about link building. In fact, it’s easy to forget there is anything more to SEO. But keyword research is one of the most important parts of a successful SEO strategy. It’s the foundation upon which everything is built. In his ebook on keyword research, Richard describes a great approach that contains 4 different stages.

For example, in the "keyword gathering" stage your goal is to build a complete list of keyword ideas for your website. You can gather keywords from competitive tools like SearchMetrics, aHrefs, HubSpot's Keywords and Competitive Intelligence, and use other keyword tools like Ubersuggest and HubSpot's Keyword Tool. Another great tip for gathering keyword information is to use Google Insights for their related searches. It lets you look at both "top searches" and "related terms" for individual keywords. All of this information can be added to your keyword list.

2) Stay Panda-Free With These On-Site Optimisation Tips, From Will Critchlow (@willcritchlow) at Distilled
With the launch of Google Panda, the importance of technical SEO increased significantly. Will's ebook is full of tips that will improve the performance of your site in Google, as well as your website usability and ultimately conversions. One of the best tips Will gave away was how he evaluated the quality of a website in the new Panda world. Although we can't know exactly how the Panda algorithm works, we do know the human responses Google is trying to model.
Using public information, Will recreated a survey to try to match a questionnaire Google originally started with when developing Panda. A couple of those questions are below, but you can find all of them in the ebook:

Would you trust information from this website?Is this website written by experts?Would you give this site your credit card details?Do the pages on this site have obvious errors?Does the website provide original content or info?

Using these questions you can survey visitors to your site and assess the quality of it using the same criteria that has been used in the Panda algorithm. As you work to improve the quality of your site, you can resurvey visitors to check if you're receiving more positive feedback.

3) How to Build Links Post-Penguin, From Kelvin Newman (@kelvinnewman) at SiteVisibility
Attracting links to your website is going to play a major part in helping you to rank well in Google. Since the launch of Google Penguin, that process of "link building" has become a lot more tricky. The wrong tactic can now land you in hot water with Google, resulting in a penalty and a lot less traffic. Kelvin's ebook gives a whole lot of tips on how to attract links the right way. One of his best insights is how to take a more "inboundy" approach to attracting links. Think about who you want linking back to your content (your persona), and create content that directly helps them accomplish that goal. Kelvin gave the following example to illustrate his point:

"Maybe your target audience for linking back to you is a small business owner who knows they should be doing more to market their business but doesn’t know where to start. Can you produce a super-in-depth questionnaire that really helps them understand which social network they should be targeting? Consider a series of podcasts that they can listen to while driving to their next meeting that helps them make more intelligent buying decisions, or a blog post full of ideas that they can use as inspiration next time they brief their agency."

It's important to understand who you're trying to attract a link from, what type of topics they're interested in, and their different pain points. You can then use that information to create content people are engaged with and actually want to link to.

4) How to Create Content That Generates Links, From Kevin Gibbons (@kevgibbo) at BlueGlass UKKevin's ebook is completly focused on that difficult task of understanding how to develop content that attracts links. It builds perfectly on the ideas discussed by Kelvin. One of Kevin's best tips is on using questions in your industry to generate content that attracts links. Once you've pulled together a list of common questions in your industry, you can then write content to solve those issues. Using Google Alerts, you can set up alerts so you know when people are talking about subjects where your content may be of use. If relevant, it's a great opportunity to reference your content and add value to the conversation.5) How to Recover From a Google Penalty, From Tim Grice (@Tim_Grice) at Branded3Tim's ebook is literally a treasure chest of information on how to recover from a Google penalty. It has a lot of important tips for marketers who have run into trouble with Google. One of the best tips from Tim, though, is on recovering from a manual penalty."If you had a manual penalty, this means somebody at Google manually reviewed your link profile. When you send in a reconsideration request somebody at Google will review your profile. You have to remove any link that was built for nothing but SEO purposes, and be extremely critical of any links with aggressive anchor text."If you have great SEO tips -- whether from your own experience or other industry experts -- share them with us in the comments!

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Google Launches Dramatic Redesign of Google+, Emphasizing Context and Content Discovery

by Pamela Vaughan
May 17, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Social Media, SEO, Business Blogging
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You may have caught wind of some of the announcements coming out of the Google I/O conference over the past couple of days. And while we made some high-level observations here yesterday about how this year's emphasis seems to be on context, there was one announcement we thought deserved more of our attention: the complete redesign of Google+.

Uhh ... yeah. Did you miss that? We kind of glossed over it, too. So in this post, we'll pick apart what's different about Google+'s new look -- which Google is rolling out over the next week -- and what these changes mean for marketers like you.

What's New With Google+?
First take a quick look at the changes to Google+ in this 57-second video from Google:
 If you can't remember, here's a quick, very recent blast from the past screenshot showing you how Google+ used to look, thanks to TechCrunch:  Now onto the specifics. Here's what's new and exciting about the Google+ redesign:1) Consistency Across Devices

According to a 2012 Google study about multi-screen usage, 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal. In other words, people may start reading an email on their phone on the train home from work, but finish reading it at home on their tablet -- or maybe they watch a commercial on TV and then turn to their laptop to research the product. Based on what we know about users' multi-screen habits, it's no wonder Google's design changes to Google+ attempt to achieve consistency across all devices. While the Google+ tablet and mobile apps had already accomplished a consistent look and feel, prior to the redesign, this same consistency had been lacking in the web platform. The Google+ redesign makes the experience across all devices much more cohesive through the following changes ...

2) Multiple Columns
Depending on the size and orientation of your screen, Google+ users may now see one, two, or three columns of content on their main Google+ stream, their personal profiles, and Google+ Business Pages. Here's how this looks on HubSpot's Google+ Page, for example:

Very Pinterest-esque, am I right?

3) Larger Sized Media
Similar to the more prominently displayed starred content you see on Facebook, Google+ users will notice that certain media content such as photos and videos will sometimes span the width of the full Google+ stream, like you see in the example below. However, it's not clear how Google+ decides which cards (i.e. the individual posts resembling tiles, or "cards") get featured more prominently, and unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be something individual publishers or page admins have control over.


Cover photos, both on personal profiles and on business pages, have been blown up significantly as well (obnoxiously so, in my opinion). As a result, it's important for marketers to make sure the image they use for their business page's cover photo is high resolution. When it comes to sizing, Google+ indicates cover images must be at least 480 pixels wide and 270 pixels tall.

4) Animations
Google+ users will also notice that a lot of features are animated now, boosting the interactivity of the social network. For example, the sidebar navigation slides out from the left when you hover over the home icon on the top left, the sharebox bounces toward the center of the screen, and the cards flip and fade (more on this shortly).

5) Related Hashtags
One of the limitations of the former Google+ design was that it lacked depth. While users could scroll up and down to scan posts, there was really no way to go deeper and explore a particular topic even further. The redesign solves for this by automatically adding hashtags to the content you share. Google+ will look at your post to determine what it's about, hashtag it accordingly, and then rank relevant conversations across the network. When users click on the hashtag, the card flips, and users can browse related content right there (see below). Users can also add their own hashtags or remove the ones automatically generated by Google whenever they want.


6) Stand-Alone Hangouts App
Google+ has also transformed Hangouts into a free, stand-alone application which includes text, photo-sharing, and live video features, available for Android, iOS, and the desktop. The revamped version of Hangouts features richer, more responsive messaging; conversation histories; notifications that sync across your devices (so you only see them once); and free, face-to-face video chatting. It's also available practically everywhere -- download Hangouts from Google Play, the App Store, and the Chrome Web Store, or access it via Gmail or Google+.

7) New Photo Features
The final set of new Google+ announcements has to do with its new photo features, which include cool things like ...
Automatically backing up pictures taken with your mobile devices, as you take themAutomatically highlighting higher quality photos and weeding out duplicates, blurry images, and bad exposuresAutomatically enhancing photos to improve elements like brightness, contrast, etc.Automatically animating a sequence of photos or grouping photos into a single collageHere's What We're Dealing With, Marketers
In thinking about the Google+ redesign, I'm picking up three main marketing themes here: 1) an emphasis on context, 2) an emphasis on content discovery, and 3) an emphasis on visual content.

1) An Emphasis on Context
No surprise here, especially given that context seems to be the overarching theme of the I/O conference this year -- as well as a very hot topic for marketers these days. We've talked before about how leveraging contextual information to inform your inbound marketing can make it much more powerful and effective, and Google+'s new features like related hashtags are clearly aimed to help deliver more relevant and contextual content to its users. As a marketer, use this to your advantage, tagging your Google+ posts with relevant hashtags to make your content more discoverable. Which leads me to theme numero dos ..
.
2) An Emphasis on Content Discovery
Aside from the element of discovery that Related Hashtags bring to the table, the Pinterest-like redesign of Google+ makes content discovery much easier, surfacing more, better scannable content through the new tiled design. And while it seems like there's an algorithm behind which images and video Google decides to display more prominently, marketers should recognize the chance that the visual content they share may get featured more prominently than text-based content. (Man, these segues are uncanny ...)

3) An Emphasis on Visual Content
With its Pinterest-like resemblance, there's no doubt that the Google+ redesign puts a much greater emphasis on visual content. It's no surprise either, given the effectiveness of visual content in social media. The takeaway here for marketers is pretty straightforward -- invest in visual content creation. Especially considering the chance that Google+ may feature your visual content more prominently, marketers who excel at creating visual content have a better opportunity to stand out from other content in users' Google+ streams.

What do you think of the Google+ redesign? What other takeaways do you think apply to marketers? Learn more about how to adapt your Google+ marketing strategy to the new design in our recently updated ebook, An Introduction to Google for Business: A Setup & Strategy Guide for Marketers.

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8 Data-Based Tips for Optimizing Your Content on Pinterest and Instagram

by Dan Zarrella
May 17, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Social Media, SEO, Business Blogging
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Even though the two most popular social networks to emerge in the past few years (Instagram and Pinterest) revolve around visual content, there isn't much data about what content performs best on these platforms. Because Instagram and Pinterest revolve around visual (not textual) content and their APIs are difficult to access, it can be challenging to research these networks.
But just because something is challenging doesn't mean it's impossible. After diving into the data, I found eight actionable data points to help you use Instagram and Pinterest to their maximum in your inbound marketing efforts.
If you want to see more exclusive data about visual content on social media, join me and special guest Sarah Evans (@PRsarahEvans) today at 2:00 p.m. ET for this week's #SciChat webinar and Twitter Chat. You can sign up here.

Without any further ado, let's get to the data.
1) On Pinterest, experiment with tall, infographic-style pieces to get more engagement.
On the web in general, tall images are easier to read than wide ones because it's much easier to scroll vertically than horizontally. The same concept applies on Pinterest: Taller images -- those containing more "content" -- tend to get more repins than shorter images.
2) Try to keep your descriptions between 100 and 200 characters.
Both Instagram and Pinterest allow creators to provide textual content such as descriptions or captions alongside their visual content. Including text is helpful for both search engines and humans by giving context for what's in the image.
On Pinterest, the optimum description length is between 100 and 200 characters, around the same character count as a Tweet. Even though people use Pinterest to browse pictures, short captions and descriptions help increase engagement.
3) Use hashtags when posting on Instagram.
On Instagram, a key non-visual feature is the ability to use hashtags in the text accompanying a photo. In fact, when I analyzed data from the site, I found that posts that included hashtags had a far higher like-to-follower ratio than posts that did not use hashtags.
4) Find a clever way to relate top-performing hashtags to your content.
The list of most powerful hashtags on Instagram is led by reciprocal-behavior indicators: hashtags like “#FollowForFollow,” “#LikeForLike,” “#F4F,” and “#L4L.” These represent a symptom of the social aspect of the site, though it's not clear whether they lead to high quality followers.
The rest of the list of most liked hashtags show us that nature, and in particular sky-based nature photography does very well on the site, as evidenced by “#Sky,” #Clouds,” “#Sunset,” and “#Sun.”
5) Post images that appeal to everyone, strangers and friends alike. 
On the flip side of the hashtags coin, I also examined the least-liked hashtags on Instagram. This list is full of tags that indicate that a photo is relevant only to the person who took it and his or her close friends: “#BestFriends,” “#LoveHer,” and “#Drunk.” Imagine viewing an image taken by a stranger tagged with something like this -- chances are, it’s not going to be very interesting to you. On the other hand, a pretty sunset or interesting cloud can be attractive to anyone.
6) Experiment with making images showing something people can aspire to do, be, or create.
When we turn our attention back to Pinterest and look at the most pinned words, we find words like “love,” “favorite,” and “like” that indicate a positive emotional attachment from the poster to the image posted. The rest of the list is full of words that indicate aspirational imagery, such as “home,” “DIY,” “inspiration,” and “recipes.” These words signify something that the poster wants to buy, do, emulate or create.
7) Think about the DIY activities that your audience may be interested in.
The last list of words was the words that were pinned the most, but this list is the words that, once pinned, tend to get repinned by others most often. This list is dominated by cooking and food related words: “recipe,” “chicken,” “bake,” and “bottle.”

If your goal is to produce viral visual content, experiment not only with food related images, but also with images that show and explain how to create things. For example, you could show visual instructions to make a recipe -- cooking is a DIY activity that almost everyone can (or does) do.

8) When creating visual content, think about which action you’d rather stimulate: discussion or sharing.
When I compared like-rates to repin-rates, I found a strong, positive correlation. That means there is a powerful relationship between the “like” action and the repin action -- people are more likely to repin content they like.

On the other hand, when I compared comments and repins, I found a much less powerful relationship. There isn’t as strong a correlation between the kinds of content people want to comment on and the kind of content they want to share with their friends. Controversial or disagreeable content makes me want to comment on it, but I’d likely hesitate before sharing it with my friends.

Did any of this data surprise you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
Image credit: Jason A. Howie

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The 10 Cutest Brand Mascots of All Time

by Corey Eridon
May 17, 2013 at 4:00 PM
Social Media, SEO, Business Blogging
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This post is full of gratuitous cuteness. Here's why.
I'm looking into some flights to Ireland (I'm a sufferer of the most debilitating form of wanderlust), and I'm using the flight comparison engine Hipmunk to find a flight.
I used to use a couple other ones, but the Hipmunk chipmunk is just so cute it's paralyzing. Like, he shows up in my Facebook News Feed, and I stop scrolling and emit an audible "awww!" That kind of cute.
(And by the way, I know two men who also admitted to being fans of Hipmunk on Facebook purely because "the little chipmunk's so cute!" Both of them have since purchased multiple flights through them, as well. I rest my case.)

What I'm trying to say is, sometimes being cute makes an impact. It taps into something that turns us all into big 'ol softies. So this Friday afternoon, because our regular readers may remember that I tend to get a little distracted this day of the week, let's just melt into big 'ol softies for a minute and enjoy some of the cutest brand mascots of all time. All together now ... awwwwww!!!

The 10 Most Adorable Brand Mascots of All Time1) The Hipmunk Chipmunk
I won't belabor the Hipmunk chipmunk for too much longer, but before we move on, please enjoy this compilation of that buck-teethed, chubby-cheeked little rodent who thinks he's a person, dressing up in some of his favorite outfits.

Like a big punch of cute right in the gut.
2) The Android Robot
There's a reason Hipmunk robotified its chipmunk for the Hipmunk Android app (see above) ... the Android robot is pretty adorable. I know, it seems strange that a piece of machinery could ever be cuddly, but that's what makes it remarkable! You'll also notice Android uses pretty adorable names for its platforms, like Jelly Bean, Gingerbread, and Ice Cream Sandwich. The robot is so cute, in fact, that people actually create their own "art" of sorts with the robot, putting him in cute scenarios like some you see here.
Image credits: dullhunk, laihiu, victoria white2010
3) The SEOmoz Robot
Guess robots are just inherently cute. The SEOmoz robot always makes me smile, and the copy they use around the robot gives him an even more adorable personality! Just goes to show B2B marketing doesn't have to be totally devoid of the warm and fuzzy.

4) The Dropbox Box
I've featured Dropbox on this blog a few times for their creative design. But their mascot -- which is, quite logically, a box -- always makes me smile. I think the cute comes in because ... who the heck expects a box to be cute? I mean, it's a folded piece of cardboard. Why is it smiling? Why is it wearing a party hat? Why is it in a pastel hilltop scene among happy little flowers? It's the unexpected cute that gets me with this fellow, and has a lot to do with all the other cute "people" he hangs out with, too.

Bonus: Dropbox will also throw in the occasional dinosaur. I'm a sucker for an inexplicable dinosaur.

5) The Snuggle Bear
Snuggle Bear ... the cuteness is kind of baked right in the name, eh? And if you mosey on over to Snuggle's Facebook Page, you'll notice Snuggle being adorable in many different scenarios, including as a stuffed animal being snuggled by cute little kids, and kids and animals giving each other big ol' snuggly hugs. So they've basically decided the bear just wasn't enough cute.

6) The Pillsbury Doughboy
The Pillsbury Doughboy. So cute he has his own subdirectory on the Pillsbury site (on which you can make him dance, if you're looking for a time waster). We all know and love him -- he's a chubby, squishy, round, soft, tiny, giggling pile of dough with a chef's hat. That's pretty much all the cute adjectives right in a row. And if you haven't seen the latest co-marketing commercial with Geico in which he struggles to get through airport security (Spoiler Alert: The pat-down tickles and he can't stop laughing), I recommend you mosey on over to YouTube stat. Oh heck, it's quick, just watch it here:
7) The HootSuite Owl
I feel compelled to disclose that, originally, I wasn't going to include HootSuite on this list. I mean, owls are generally pretty cute, but I didn't think this one was any cuter than the next owl, until my coworker told me to Google images of it.
I was wrong. Mea culpa. The HootSuite owl is all kinds of adorable.
And I love how they put him in ridiculous costumes -- it's hard not to have an owl dressed as a journalist brighten your day. Those white glints in his eyes don't hurt, either.

8) The Tootsie Roll Owl
Debuted in 1970, the Tootsie Roll owl is one of four animals in the iconic commercials that is asked "how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie pop?" When the boy in the commercial asks the owl, he licks the lollipop a couple times, and just bites right into that bad boy.
Turns out, when you're an owl, the answer's three.
The cutest part of all this is the owl's goofy accent. If you don't remember the way he counts, here, check out the commercial for yourself. It's a classic, and it's totally endearing.
Since the commercial's debut, the owl has gotten a bit of a facelift:

9) Tux the Linux Penguin
Tux is a penguin (duh, his name is "Tux") who officially represents the Linux operating system, and interestingly was chosen as the mascot via a Linux logo competition. So not only is he a cute little guy, he's also user-generated content. Double whammy.
Tux has a couple different variations, all of which are pretty darn snuggly:

10) The Gerber Baby
Pshh ... as if we would publish an adorable brand mascots post without babies! The Gerber Baby, introduced in 1928, is, in my opinion, the classic adorable brand mascot. Those chubby little cheeks have such staying power, Gerber still uses the Gerber Baby to this day, and even continues to carry on contests for the new Gerber Baby. Puppies and babies ... no one can resist 'em.

Alright, which adorable mascots did we miss? Share your awwww-inducing favorites in the comments!
Image credit: Hipmunk

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Why P&G Can't Blame 6,250 Layoffs on Facebook

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