Cut to the Core

Mr. Page, Thanks for the Rank!

Guest blogger, Rosalinda Sanquiche, is the Executive Director, Ethical Markets Media. Rosalinda’s childhood years hiking through Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest informed her belief that we must engage in sustainable behaviors to preserve the magnificent world we inhabit.   She earned a masters in Environmental and Resource Policy as a George Washington Fellow at George Washington University in D.C. She is a speaker and author on environmental issues and is thrilled to work with Ethical Markets Media to promote socially and environmentally responsible behavior from an economic perspective.  

 

Larry Page is a whiz at algorithms, ones you likely use every day -- yes, really. 

When you do a web search for anything, Google has an algorithmic method of determining what you see first on the search page, and PageRank is key.

Google PageRank is a proprietary mathematical formula that implies value of a website.  It can be correlated to traffic but is more importantly correlated to the quality of connections to other reputable, high-value, quality sites.  A website that gets "less" traffic but offers higher-quality content and lots of active, useful links might have a high PageRank whereas a site that gets lots of traffic but has poor content might get a lower PageRank. 

As per Google, "PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results."  With a website like www.ethicalmarkets.com, if anyone searches the term "ethical markets," we come up first because we have one of the few urls with those key words, because we're currently an active site with lots of pages and because we have a high Google PageRank.

In the forthcoming book, Dare to Care, the author describes Ethical Markets Media as a "typical global Internet company, ranked a 6 on Google with more than 30,000 links." The editor rightly questioned, "what does that mean?" 

To those who manage traffic to a site, IT people, web managers, exec directors like me, this is important and meaningful.  When reading the book, we'll think, "impressive."  For everyone else, they'll probably gloss over it.  It'd be nice to put the numbers on a scale, like a 6 out of 10, but that implies an arithmetic or an exponential relationship.  I doubt it's even a bell curve or other standard deviation.  See Wikipedia for the gritty details.  The math is beyond me.  We say we're a 6, but that's rounding for simplification.  We're probably more like a 6.193743378+/-.025 (only Google really knows). 

I've never seen a 10 (the possible max).  I've never even seen an 8, though I've heard they're out there.  A six is strong for our type of website (one of the 500 million variables - not porn, not sales, not .edu, and so on). 

If I were re-writing the line, I'd say something like this: "a typical global Internet company with a strong PageRank 6 on Google and more than 30,000 links."   The author probably doesn't need to include anything about PageRank since the term has little meaning to most people and tends to be used as a marketing tool, but as a point of pride I think it's worth mentioning.  Thanks, Larry!

Google Changes Search Algorithm

In order to protect the integrity of Google Searches, and to continue to deliver relevant and valuable responses to user searches, Google makes periodic changes to its search formula. The most recent formula seeks to factor out the effects of two data manipulations: “content farms” and “scraper sites.”

In February, Google began the process of adjusting its search algorithm, a mathematical function for prioritizing search results, to control the effect of “content farms,” the marketing practice of publishing massive amounts of textual content in order to populate a Web site with pages. The content is written solely to satisfy keyword popularity and, thereby, to maximize page views. The goals are to produce a higher ranking and, ultimately, to generate higher advertising revenue. Thus, a “content farm” Web site refers to Web sites that have been able to increase Google ratings by providing this low-quality content in quantity. Google notes that their “farmer” update, as it is informally dubbed, “noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries.”

Google also seeks to factor out a related issue – the “spam website.”  A “spam website” copies all of its content, usually open content, from other sites through Web “scraping,” the use of software that can extract Web site content. For an explanation of how to use Google Analytics to assess the impact on your Web site, and to see a list of sites that won or lost out because of the update, read The Daily SEO Blog entry of March 3rd.

 

Three Web site practices will ensure that Google continues to value your content and rank it highly:

1. Publish original content. Search engines consider originality and variation of media communication channels reasons to improve rankings. In addition to Web site content such as articles and special reports, consider writing a blog, producing a video, starting a photo log on Flickr, or  sharing your presentations on SlideShare.

2. Obtain quality inbound links. High-quality links have long been a strong indicator to search engines that your content is valuable. Therefore, make the effort to collaborate with other high-value content producers and work to get quality links. 

3. Create content with good writing. Frequency of mentions in social media is a factor that is measured by search engines. That means you should focus on the quality of your writing, as well as focus on your audience, in order to get social media mentions that will spread through all the social media platforms.

 

Key Point – If you focus on quality content vs. quantity, you will deliver a user-friendly and a high-quality experience to your visitors. You will also receive a higher ranking on Google due to your timely and original content.

Do you have questions about the long-term impact the algorithm might have on your online sites? Do you need assistance writing online content? Look over our branding package, BrandStory, and give me a call at (850) 341-9075 or send me an e-mail: maria@koreaccess.com

My Favorite 7 Tips to Make Work Simpler, Faster and More Fun

The management of resources is a critical factor in the success and ultimate survival of any organization. On an individual level, if you are efficient and make the most of your inputs, you are considered productive. During the industrial age, productivity was only defined quantitatively by the number of units produced in a given time slot. In today’s information age, creativity, customer satisfaction and other qualitative measures are critical in defining productivity. This makes the amount of output less relevant and the quality of output the focus in today’s definition of productivity.

Listed below are my seven tips to function at your personal best in order to achieve quality output:

1. Evaluate the tasks in a project: Think through the value of each step and consider alternative ways to manage the process. Work hard to figure out what tasks are unnecessary.
2. Identify what must be done first: Arrange tasks in order of completion date. Make sure to manage bottlenecks.
3. Get ready the day before:  Have all your materials and tools ready in the order you will need them. Keep an organized workspace.
4. Schedule uninterrupted time: Concentrate on working till your task is complete. Resist temptation to disengage from your single-minded focus.
5. Work backwards: Manage your deadline by scheduling project tasks to meet your estimated project delivery date.
6. Process in batches: Perform repetitive tasks in one sitting. Maximize your time, materials and resources by running all errands on one day or making all your calls at the same time.
7. Take well-timed breaks: Choose your breaks to increase your energy levels (i.e. eating, exercise, etc) and to relieve mental fatigue.

To make work simpler, faster and more fun; schedule your daily work to fit your individual preferences and to align with project goals. I invite you to share your insights and tips.

 

“When you're finished changing, you're finished.”

Benjamin Franklin

 

How to Repurpose Your Core Content

Follow this two-step strategy to quickly and easily put together collateral marketing materials that satisfy, in content breadth, scope, length, style and tone, all your customers’ expectations.

To learn strategies to organize your marketing content and to find ways to make content context specific, read “Repurpose the Core Content of Your Publications,” a Kore Access marketing resources article. For the full article,Download Repurpose Core Content 

How Creative Can You Be in Repurposing Your Materials?

Is your organization maximizing the use of its marketing materials? Discover ways you can effectively utilize each piece of your marketing materials to attract, to inform, and to convert buyers with “How to Repurpose Your Marketing Materials and Win Core Customers Tip Sheet,” an easy-to-use tip sheet from Kore Access. To get ideas and insights into best practices, click here.

*To learn strategies to organize your marketing content and to find ways to make content context specific, read “Repurpose the Core Content of Your Publications,” a Kore Access marketing resources article. For the full article, click here.

Repurpose Your Content to Quickly Create a New Publication

When you have written on a particular topic numerous times, you can optimize your efforts by repurposing that existing content, whether it is in the form of an article, white paper or booklet, to quickly and easily create additional collateral marketing materials, such as flyers or press releases.

In other words, adapt knowledge you have already organized and refocus it to create a new publication. For example, this November 2008 issue of Marketing Mindset contains thoughts from a leadership article and from a checklist previously published by Kore Access. Make sure, though, that when you borrow bits and pieces from previous works, your new piece does not look like a “cut and paste” effort. Here are some tips to help you avoid that problem: 1) Make sure to match verb tenses throughout the new version; 2) be consistent in your usage of specific terminology; 3) rewrite, when necessary, so the tone and style are consistent throughout, as well as consistent with the new purpose; and 4) check for redundancy in word usage and for the needless repetition of certain ideas.

Do you need marketing content? Call or e-mail and we will share our tips with you – click here

Chloe's Design Tips

For over thirty years, guest blogger, Chloe Tyner has been a typographer and graphic designer.

Since 1990, she has worked as a freelance graphic designer and consultant. Her experience with advertising agencies, marketing consultants, web designers, writers, illustrators and printers has helped her achieve a comprehensive overview of print materials and how to achieve champagne results on a budget.

In the last few years, her trusty Mac laptop has allowed her to continue the work she enjoys while accommodating her true passion: travel. This past summer she worked from a tent, on a mountain, on an island in the Caribbean.

Plan the layout of your design to suit your marketing campaign.

Stop and think. How do you plan to distribute the piece? This is one of the first things I ask any client on any print job. It doesn’t matter if you have a million beautifully designed self-mailing brochures, if there’s not adequate space for the mailing address, a business mailing imprint, or a stamp.

Make sure one of the first things that you address in your design is your means of distributing the piece. Are you going to mail it out as a direct-mail piece? Put it in a number 10 envelope? Bind it in a three-ring binder? Hand it out at a conference? Ask yourself if your design suits your purpose. If it’s a mailer, does it comply with U.S. Postal regulations? If it’s a multi-page piece, how do you plan to keep your pages together? If you plan to bind it, did you leave space along the left-hand side or the top of the page for the binding?

Short and Sweet Keeps Them Reading

In today’s business environment full of interruptions and high demands on reading, did you know experts formulate chapters to be no longer than 25 pages and to take no longer than 15 minutes to read?

Apply the 7 rules of document formatting and design and keep your audience reading. Learn how with the Kore Access marketing resources tip sheet, “Best Practices for Document Design.”