Google’s Algorithmic Change: A Blow to SEO?

Last week, Google pulled the rug out from under many companies when it adjusted its organic PageRank algorithm. As a result, sites, both large and small, dropped significantly in search result rankings, causing their parent companies to squawk disapproval all across the web. The explosiveness present in the reaction from the advertising industry points to a trend toward increased dependence on search-related marketing campaign strategies that is mirrored (and most likely driven by) a similar increase in budget allocation toward SEM or “Search Engine Marketing” (see graphic at left). SEM refers to a range of marketing tactics whose goals are all the same: drive traffic to the company’s website through online search networks. This can be accomplished by organic “SEO,” search engine optimization techniques that involve engineering a site to better ensure its prominent inclusion on relevant search results pages, and “PSC,” paid search campaign tactics that deal more with purchasing key words, rankings and sponsored ads (see graphic at right). By integrating the two general strategies, companies can develop a strong web presence that should lead to higher, more targeted, consumer traffic through their sites.

The Google debacle of the past two weeks dealt primarily with SEO. Its PageRank algorithm combines the number of visits a site gets, with the number of times the search word appears in the text, and the number of links other users create to the site (and countless other jealously guarded secret ingredients) to rank webpages based on their relevance to search commands. The higher the number, the closer to the top of the results page the website is listed. The graphic to the left shows a simplified version of directional linking that indicates site C would have the highest rank (taking only linking behaviors into consideration). Advertisers do not pay for these rankings, nor do they have any outright control over the results. But with general knowledge of PageRank procedure, marketers have worked to reverse-engineer Google’s algorithm in order to strategically place their clients’ sites on search results pages by creating invisible text or false links, for example. This strategy may not be effective though. As Phil Craven of Webworkshop.com reports, “Not all links are counted by Google. For instance, they filter out links from known link farms. Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Google. They rightly figure that webmasters cannot control which sites link to their sites, but they can control which sites they link out to.” It was just this sort of ‘cheating the system’ mentality that forced Google to revamp its ranking algorithm in order to return to a more realistic, organically based search experience.

The problem that comes with SEO is that in the rush to employ the tactics involved in gaining higher page ranking, advertisers overlook the importance of a well-made site—the phenomena that search engine algorithms were designed to discover in the first place. Rather than focusing on ways to cut corners and out-smart search engines, resources should be put into optimizing sites through their characteristics. “Better rankings,” says P.J. Fusco of the ClickZ Network "come with better linking. Better linking starts within your site. Having a site map is a no-brainer, as are non-graphical site-wide navigation, footers, and related deep links … Implementing the 20 most fundamental elements of SEO best practices … should provide you with a straightforward approach to better visibility for your Web site in the major search engines.” By re-evaluating the algorithm, Google is forcing marketers to refocus their efforts, which will, hopefully, lead to more effective site building and link integration in the future. Even if it fails to accomplish that, perhaps in time, the cyclical pattern I see (marketers discovering ways to cheat the system, search engines responding by honing their ranking practices and the marketing community throwing a fit until they can find new ways to cheat) will produce positive results: an internet search so well tuned that it connects consumers with exactly the companies and products they need and want, while minimizing the waste absorbed by companies eager to connect with their targets. Either way, Google’s decision to update signals an opportunity for the marketing industry as a whole. The question now is how will that industry respond?

Widgets: Online Advertising’s Newest Tactic

Widgets, a word formerly known only to economics professors and business students as the term used to describe any number of unnamed commodities, has taken on new meaning with its emergence into the digital world. Defined as “mini-Web applications (such as the New York Times Reader pictured at left) that are downloaded onto a desktop or transported into personal Web pages, blogs or social-network profiles,” widgets are quickly becoming integrated into marketing campaigns for financial services, automotive products, and consumer durables; even personal care companies are making inroads into widget marketing. Such widespread popularity has caught the attention of the marketing world, which is now leveraging the new technology to reach out to consumers via their most trusted sources of information: other consumers. Through effective use of this medium, marketers can engage with consumers, drive traffic to websites, and now, with the latest technology, measure the success of incorporating widgets into integrated marketing campaigns.

Widgets are fundamentally user-driven programs, meaning that consumers may choose whether or not to engage with them. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, this has its advantages and disadvantages. Fewer people may receive a message, but those who do are much more likely to be attentive and attuned because it stems from widgets they have taken the initiative to include on their own desktops or websites. As Chris Cunningham of Online Media Daily rather bluntly puts it, “That widget isn't there to pay the sales force; it's there because the person whose words or photos we're coming to see every day likes it.” The key to widget marketing is in maintaining a “practical extension of your brand— a microcosm that delivers the same brand promise.” It must be a functional addition to a consumer’s online experience that underscores the key values that the sponsoring company holds while providing extra value. Otherwise, consumers will not make the effort to engage and the widget becomes just another failed advertisement.

When used appropriately however, a widget firmly ensconced on a consumer’s website or desktop can serve as a fantastic reminder ad, keeping a brand or product fresh in the consumer’s mind. Acura’s RDX Traffic widget (seen at right) is one such effective device. It provides real-time traffic updates directly to users' desktops in over thirty cities. The brilliance of this widget is that it is providing a valuable service that will be utilized often, so Acura will be kept in the forefront of the users’ minds, while at the same time it is improving brand image by underscoring the company's efficiency and reliability to (typically) younger, tech-savvy consumers. The next time an RDX Traffic widget user is in the market for a car, Acura will almost certainly be one of the brands that come first to mind.

Once the initial wave of adapters have embedded widgets into their websites, secondary adaptation can increase exponentially. In fact, YouTube, a popular video streaming site with content uploaded by users, owes its explosive success, in large part, to widget technology. According to Deepak Thomas and Vineet Buch of the Start-up Review, “YouTube allowed users to easily embed any hosted videos on web pages or blogs. This turned out to be particularly popular with social-networking websites, especially MySpace. The inbound links from these ‘widgets’ also helped YouTube increase its page rank on Google, thereby driving traffic via natural search.” In addition to natural search, hosted videos also directed interested consumers to the YouTube website, thereby increasing traffic in two ways through a single device installed by choice by consumers. Other companies attempting to dialogue with their consumers have an excellent opportunity to mimic YouTube’s success by encouraging widget sharing among consumer friend groups, first by creating a unique and useful widget, then by making it easy to download to other sites or 'click through' to the product homepage.

Despite such success stories, some companies have been reluctant to utilize widgets. However, recent technological developments in the area of tracking widget campaigns are making this viral and heretofore somewhat mysterious application a legitimate advertising medium. Marketers now have the ability to track views, usage, and uploads of their widgets and can use those data to extrapolate the effectiveness and contribution of widgets to their campaigns. This demystification of the proverbial advertising budget resonates well with C-suite executives. In fact according to Cunningham, “Widgets have rapidly earned a place at media strategy tables ... RFPs are now coming out that expressly include sections on 'Widget Brief' or 'Widget Strategy' ... Advertisers who have worked with widgets in the past are clearly putting a lot of resources into weaving them creatively and effectively into subsequent campaigns.” Hopefully those still on the fence will take note of this growing phenomenon and embrace the accountability it brings to the table. Anything that takes the guesswork out of promotional campaigns is worth at least one try!

Modern Advertising: A psycho-visual balancing act

Marketers walk a fine line when they create and present advertising. On the one hand, it is important to grasp the attention of as many people as possible with the intended message; on the other, the message cannot feel as though it is being forced down viewers’ throats. Extraneous, over-the-top advertisements, whether they be high-volume commercials or flashing pop-up ads, tend to turn people off of the featured product or service. At the very least they spur potential consumers to turn off the radio, change the TV channel, or click to the next internet page—none of which lead to desired buying behavior. With this in mind, advertisers must improve the efficacy of the mediums they use, and many are already exploring their options.

It is no secret that traditional television advertising has been a point of some concern among industry professionals in the past few years. With online advertising gaining popularity and the influx of TiVo and similar DVR devices providing viewers a way to avoid commercials altogether, advertisers have had to be a bit more creative in the delivery of their messages. One change that looks to be quite promising is actually an idea borrowed from print advertising: tie-in ads. Despite obvious differences in formatting, the general idea remains constant from print to video. Simply put, advertisers research story options in appropriate magazines, newspapers, (and now TV programs) and then tailor ads to “tie-in” to the story, (see link for example) the idea being that if a potential consumer has seen/read/listened to a story about a particular topic, they will be more receptive to advertising that relates to it. Guinness has already found some success with this method. Last spring, the company created an ad specifically for a Discovery Channel program called Mythbusters, a show that assesses the validity of urban myths using scientific theory. In the ad (see graphic to the right), “one character asked another whether it was a ‘myth that Guinness only has 125 calories.’ After he is told the calorie count was accurate, a voiceover says: ‘Mythbusters, sponsored by Guinness.’" Further research will be required to ascertain whether or not the ad stopped TiVo viewers fast forwarding through the message (Guinness’s original goal), but those who did see the ad remembered Guinness’s name 41% more than those only exposed to traditional commercials. Percentages of this magnitude should provide strong incentives for companies to adopt this more expensive, but significantly more effective approach to television advertising.

Adjustments in ad presentation are certainly not confined to television alone, however. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Sites ranging from Google Inc. to Break.com have been experimenting intensively with replacements for the preroll, the video ads that users are forced to watch before viewing a clip.” Efforts to find the best compromise between corporate interests and consumer impatience have lead to innovations in the form of “skins”, ad graphics that surround the video player screen (see left-hand graphic), and “bugs”, graphics that slide over the bottom of the video-viewing screen, also know as “overlays”, and “tickers”. Though these presentations are much less invasive than their preroll predecessors, they are said to be producing good results for their implementers. Ogilvy Interactive found that “ads connected with online videos perform about three times as well as online sponsorship ads and banner ads when it comes to a consumer's brand recall… ‘it allows you to sponsor and create an association with good content,’ says Maria Mandel, executive director of digital innovations at Ogilvy Interactive.” Still, some are a bit skeptical of online advertising specifically because of the lack of control over “destination content.” Google removed ads from its social networking site, Orkut, in August following a complaint lodged by one of its advertisers against the inappropriate content displayed on personal profiles. Understandably, advertisers are wary of the potential ramifications of unknowingly connecting their brand with inappropriate or illegal activity. Google hopes, however, that efforts to improve context matching of advertising and media content will increase advertisers’ efficacy and feeling of security in the future.

In all mediums then, advertising has been making significant changes to the way they reach their targets. According to the LA Times, "Companies in the Internet space are changing their business models to have models which are consumer driven, not property driven." Indeed, this is the key to the advertising evolution that touches all media platforms. Understanding consumer preferences in message presentation will ultimately lead to the creation of a more receptive audience. Once the battle for receptivity is won, marketers can then focus on the messages being conveyed, but advertisers know that it does not matter how clever, catchy, or emotionally appealing their message is, without a receptive, attentive audience, that message is useless.

Videogames: The New Marketplace

Ten years ago, video games were a way to kick back, relax, and slip away from reality and its demands. Not anymore. Now marketing has moved beyond the bounds of physical reality into the expansive, utterly limitless realm of the virtual world, which has, itself, expanded to include not only traditional games like Mario Brothers, but also interactive imitation-life games such as Sims 2. The question then is “what will marketers have to do to harness this new medium?” The answer: everything they’ve always done, only now with a new twist. The beauty of the virtual world is that it very closely mimics its physical model meaning that marketers are free to use many of the same techniques that have served them so well in the past. Traditional video games provide the opportunity for traditional marketing tactics, whereas modern imitation-life games offer the chance to interact with and learn from consumers. The trick for marketers will be to make use of every unique opportunity the virtual world holds over and above reality.

Product placement in traditional video games, according to USA Today, has been part of the gaming world since the 1980’s when Sega decided to include Marlboro banners in its arcade racing games. Now, however, interactive product placements are part of the mainstream (see picture to the right). “Advertisers are figuring video game advertising into their budgets; money previously spent on TV and print is now being redirected to in-game advertising,” according to About.com. The next step some companies are already taking is placing actual ads in between the levels of traditional games. This choice is being met with a certain amount of unease by some in the industry who fear that by presenting targeted messages, advertisers might alienate the very consumers they hope to attract. A study undertaken by Neilson Entertainment and Activision revealed much more hopeful data. Jason Tuohey of Medill News Service reported in his article, Invasion of the Videogame Ads that 35 percent of male gamers say in-game ads help them decide which product to buy, and that over 50 percent of "heavy gamers" liked having real ads in the games because of the tone of authenticity they lend to the experience.

It is this quest for virtual authenticity that has spawned so many “imitation-life” games whose popularity extend across age and gender lines in an interactive approximation of reality. These are the games that have advertisers so excited, and it is easy to see why. Sims2 and others like it provide a life-like environment through which consumers navigate as they create families and homes, hold jobs, design products of their own for sale within the digital world (see picture to the left), and most importantly, interact with virtual versions of branded, physical products. While some are skeptical of the benefits to be gained through advertising budgets spent in virtual worlds, many are embracing this medium as a means of solidifying brand loyalty and encouraging brand experiences. As the USA Today article “What's in a name: Product placement in games,” states: “Play Crazy Taxi and a lot of your passengers will ask you to take them to Pizza Hut or KFC … Dive into Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza...and you'll see Zippo lighters and Motorola cell phones…” By placing brands within easy reach of consumers in the virtual world, advertisers provide one more venue through which consumers can view, test, and interact with their products, hopefully leading to increased purchase behavior in the real world.

One thing I was surprised to note while reading through studies and articles exploring the significant prospects this medium offers was that companies seem to be missing out on an important opportunity, namely consumer research. The completely digital nature of virtual worlds would allow marketers to obtain substantial amounts of natural observation data that would be impossible to collect otherwise. The most effective consumer research is obtained through contextual research where company representatives spend time with consumers in their homes and observe how they use particular products. Observations from these sessions can lead to critical insight into the consumer mindset that can eventually culminate in the discovery of a breakthrough product. The downsides to this type of study rest mainly in the substantial cost in time and money as well as the potentially confounding effect of an outsider’s presence. The Observer Effect can lead to changes in behavior that might affect the data collected at the time, but in the virtual world, there is no danger of that. True, there is slightly less depth than comes with face-to-face personal interaction, but far out-weighing this drawback is the sheer quantity of product and brand knowledge, uninhibited by outside influence, and deeper than objective survey data, that is readily available. So far the marketing industry has done a relatively good job of keeping up with technological evolution and the opportunities presented by it. I am sure that in the coming years they will take full advantage of the wealth of information to be gained from casual, interactive gaming sites.