Thought Waves

It is excellent to see one of the greatest minds in business and technology thinking about the world’s poorest.

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It’s hard to dispute that the Long Tail is an important concept in Search. A lot of times, though, we tend to think of the long tail as being a B2C concept by relating it to specific product names in ecommerce situations. But, it’s just as relevant in the B2B world. One-word phrases bring businesses up against a lot of competition, but the benefit of increased traffic may outweigh the expense of ranking. On the flip side, credibility-building site assets like case studies can be optimized with longer-tail phrases in order to boost the probability of conversion. Where does your SEM campaign fit into the curve?

Source: B2B Long tail SEO

This is a very interesting take on how B2B searches are conducted. However, more than an SEO challenge, this is an information architecture challenge for savvy B2B marketers. It is an IA challenge in the sense that many non-tech savvy B2B players have legacy CMS systems that need to be “optimized for search engines”. The example above makes the assumption that the B2B search market cares about the top level keywords where competition is heavy and costs are high.

I would argue that the competition is fierce not at the 1-word terms but at the 2-3 words terms in SEM and natural. The top level terms are a great way to get noticed in topics that are new to the market. For instance, to learn what’s new in the world of outsourcing someone might type in the work outsourcing. But is there a real advantage in covering that term with SEM or are you better off piggybacking on other related deeper terms that are more targeted and serving new and fresh ad copy?

The thought leadership search market is a tricky one. If you spot a trend before any of your competitors, you would have a huge first-mover advantage in the search market. The possibilities of creating and owning a brand new concept online can make your search campaigns highly successful. But keep in mind that grabbing awareness and mind share is tricky, especially in a new content/idea search market and if the idea you are selling does not catch on you might find yourself holding on to a lot of valuable yet unusable content.

The truth is that many of the SEO-driven efforts could be solved with a sound information architecture strategy that would make key content easier to access. Here are a few things that you should look for that will help your search engine rank and will make it easier for humans to find your content:

Here is a guide on how to optimize by using common sense and a good information architecture strategy:

1. Have a clean root URL - top level directory (i.e. http://www.example.com should return a fast loading, lean front page)
2. Avoid flash for navigation. As of today, search engines have a hard time indexing flash-based links and content
3. Avoid drop downs. If you must have them, make sure they don’t have submenus within

Information Architecture:

1. Lay down the top level topics in your main navigation [aka. sections].
2. Define categories within those sections - if necessary.
3. Set the content pages within the categories or sections.
3. Define tag sets to structure otherwise unstructured data.
The tags will create a URL such as: http://www.example.com/tag that will group all pieces of content that are relevant to the tag.
4. Home page should be always 1 click away.
5. URLs should read as if reading a sentence. For instance if the topic is “logistics management” your URL should be something like:

http://www.example.com/logistics/management.html

or

http://www.example.com/logistics-management.html

Your URLs at the end should look like this:

With categories:

http://www.example.com/[section_name]/[category_name]/[content_title].html

Without categories:

http://www.example.com/[section_name]/[content_title].html

6. Use subdomains to make breakdown your topics even further and gain a bigger presence in the front page of SERPs.

i.e. http://service.example.com

Rule of thumb: Visitors should get to the content they are looking for in 3 clicks or less.

“Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes” Mark Penn; Hardcover; $17.15
“The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature” Steven Pinker; Hardcover; $19.77
“Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets” Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Paperback; $10.85
“The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Hardcover; $16.17
“Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” Chip Heath; Hardcover; $16.47

Keeping mind/brain fresh with new/different ideas, priceless.

I don’t need no stinking facebook beacon to tell y’all what I’m reading. I just don’t want facebook to tell you everything I’m doing. For instance, to find out about how my family is doing, y’all will have to call me

This is a 60,000 mile view of what an SEM optimization or service agency or technology provider should offer in order to properly address the needs of the SEM market. Keep in mind, SEM is an ever-evolving field with companies like Google leading [owning] the market. In order to serve your clients I believe you should have the following top 5 characteristics as a company.

1. Professional and speedy customer service.

2. Knowledge of the client’s target market.

3. Being pro-active and flexible in your strategy.

4. Google API connectivity. There is just no way around it. I believe there is not business case that can support not having Google API connectivity, is there?

5. Thought leadership in SEM trends and a proper execution reflected in the technology.

An increasingly important point is to have true global knowledge and presence. Large companies are going to demand that you have a presence wherever they are present. If your company is not lean and flexible enough to adapt to these demands quickly, you might see your target pool shrinking.

If you want your company to be a great company, allow your people to be creative, to think out of the box and to stay ahead of the market so that you can beat competitors.

In some cases, your client might be years behind the market leaders in terms of SOV* and experience. But if you apply resources, hard work and a well thought out strategy, your clients should be able to catch up pretty quickly to the market leaders.

That’s the beauty of SEM. Not only it levels the playing field, but if you apply a disciplined approach to innovation to reaching your target market, a boost in performance will follow.

* I’m not suggesting you should measure SEM performance by SOV. SOV should be used as a proxy to real performance metrics, even when your goals are number of eyeballs [super bowl style, right?].

Can we, rather, should we take any advice from the smarts of David Armano or Scoble?

There seems to be a blossoming of posts on “how to survive a recession”. Experience matters has its version. Scoble, of course has a post about it. That is all good and I respect the fact that folks are taking the time to pass on their experience to the rest of us, mortals. However, I like Seth Godin’s approach better. He actually posts a job opening and offers a referral fee.

My advise, strap on, look forward and get ready for a ride like no other. Could be over in days, weeks or months.

I came to the US in the height of the technology bubble burst. My first encounter with a faltering US economy. The beauty though, in my humble opinion, is that we are here, the land of opportunity. Specially here, the Silicon Valley - the birthplace of the best technology companies in the world. A place where a guy can start a blog and make a living out of it and become a celebrity.

We are not in Ecuador [where I am originally from]. If the economy tanks in Ecuador, there is really no way out for years. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ecuador, but it is just not an innovation hub.

Happy to announce that Joseph Jaffe’s book arrived safely to my door step yesterday. Right on time for my birthday. That coupled with the surprise iphone I got from the in-laws and the indoor sky-diving session my wife arranged, made it into a fantastic day! Got calls and messages practically from across the globe. Ecuador, Spain, Argentina, to name a few. Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes.

In light of the latest economy news blues, sites such as linkedin and theladders have seen a resurgence in the engagement by users. It is good to see that not everywhere you look is Yahoo!.

Here is a useful post by Guy Kawasawi on how to effectively use LinkeIn. It might come handy.

There is a great book that I recommend for some light reading while traveling or vacationing. “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain. He describes in detail how “the line” is taught and learned while working the kitchen. Tough job, but it can be mastered. Hundreds of things going on at the same time. Orders coming in and flavors being mixed and arranged into a rainbow of dishes.

What most people don’t get about professional level cooking is that is not all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking - the real business of preparing the food you eat- is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of their own that is going to mess around with the chef’s recipes and presentations. Chef’s require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

Folks like Seth Godin, Scoble, Chris Brogan and many others are working the line and taking us along for the ride. Tools such as qik.com are allowing us to peek at what is going on in Davos right now.

But twitter. That’s where you cut your teeth and make the line. Follow the right folks and you will be a master chef in no time. Follow my tweets if you want - I will reciprocate.

I am patiently waiting for my copy of Join The Conversation by Jaffe. Joseph Jaffe has pledged 150 books to bloggers that are willing to review the book in their blog. The latest post on his blog shows 60 more books available. According to the post, the books have shipped and some folks have gotten them already. Oh well, I will have to wait patiently to get mine. Probably I’ll get it tomorrow.