Visibility

Summer is a time for relaxation and vacation, right? Not for digital marketers. In an industry that changes almost as quickly as that proverbial tide, SEO professionals need to be even more attuned to industry shifts. SEO game-changers in 2010 are affecting the digital marketing arena in 2011. For those of us in the biz, this means increased attention to client goals, industry regulations, and the changing search and social media spaces; it means a new way of doing business. Below are the top four digital marketing changes that both industry professionals—and their clients—need to know about now.

Google Mandates Reporting and Transparency
Most of us want to know what our marketing dollars are accomplishing. If you are spending advertising dollars online, and paying an agency or some other third party provider to manage an AdWords marketing campaign for you, it is only reasonable to expect a report detailing what you are receiving in return for that spend. Google agrees with you. That’s why in February 2011, all Google advertisers should have been able to find out how much of their advertising budget (cost) was spent on AdWords, how many times their ads appeared (impressions) and how many times users clicked on their ads (clicks).  tSunela and other reputable digital marketing agencies already provide this level of transparency. For the agencies that didn’t, this was a game-changer.  By forcing third parties to disclose ‘the exact amount charged by AdWords’, Google forced agencies to  delineate between the money that is being spent on the AdWords campaign and the money that is earmarked for the management of the campaign. Google’s end goal was to improve advertisers’ return on investment and experience with AdWords. So, if you are an advertiser that has engaged an agency to manage a paid search campaign, and you do not already receive—or have recently started to receive—regular reports detailing campaign performance specifics, start asking questions now.

Google Changes Certification Program
In April 2010, Google announced some big changes to their certification programs. Most notably, the Google Advertising Professionals Program is now known as the Google AdWords Certification Program. What does this mean? This means more training materials; more challenging certification exams; and other exams that will test depth of knowledge in search, display, and reporting/analysis. Program graduates receive a redesigned Certified Partner badge. Certified companies are also entered into the Google Partner Search database that users can search when trying to locate someone to manage their pay-per-click campaigns. What does this mean for the average Joe? Become familiar with the “look” of the new certifications. Start looking—and asking—for your digital marketing agency’s new certifications. If they don’t have them, or if you see old certification badges, it may be time to start looking for a company committed to continuing education. 

Bing and Yahoo!—The Happy Couple
In mid-2009, when Yahoo! and Bing announced their “merger”, SEO professionals focused solely on Google search optimized campaigns began to worry. The rest of us just had questions. In October 2010, their coupling became more defined as systems integration testing came to a close and the two companies began sharing their algorithms for both organic and paid searches. This sharing of algorithms means that now there are only two big players in the search engine world: Google (66% of market share) and Yahoo/Bing (approximately 33% of market share).  Can you believe that only 10 short years ago, there were eight viable search engine options? From a search marketing standpoint, the experts are divided as to whether this is good or bad for advertisers and businesses. It makes things less complicated, but more competitive. While it constrains organic search optimization, it presents a significant opportunity for the paid search marketers. Stay tuned…the comprehensive effects of this merger—for the individual and the digital marketing industry—remain to be seen.

The Facebook “Like” Button
In spring 2010, Facebook replaced its “Fan” feature with the “Like” button. It was more than just a word change…it was a direct challenge to search engines and other social networks. Here’s how it works: With just a few lines of code, an organization can add a Facebook “Like” button to their website. When visitors click on this button, the site content is shared with the visitor’s Facebook account.  The button creates a bridge from a website to a Facebook page, allowing for the visitor to then share the link with Facebook friends.  But, instead of html code (the most common way to link entities), Facebook created a closed, proprietary system which only they control. This closed system will not allow Google to index the links, information, and connections created.   Within the first week of being operational, over 50,000 websites added the button. This is more than just an online popularity contest, though. This is a strategic move to try to block Google’s ability to track what is popular and relevant on the web. While the “like” button has not fundamentally changed the nature of paid and organic search optimization, it has given digital marketers food for thought. Will other social media sites follow? If so, how and to what degree? And, if the social media space opts for proprietary code, making Google and other search engines unable to track relevancy of content on the web, will social media optimization become the next digital marketing service offering?

Last Word
In an industry that is continually evolving, it helps to take a look at the biggest changes and how they will affect SEO professionals, their clients, and the everyday online experience. As search engines and social media spaces continue to advance, hold your digital marketing agency accountable by asking for certifications, detailed reports, and industry best practices. Ask questions and start a discussion. Often, this is the best way to vet your agency’s competency in this continually-changing industry.