Google Brand Update Part 2- How do I build the Trust and become an authority for my brand?

The change in emphasis in algorithms to start looking at the trust and authority factors have been on the horizon for a while. Back in June I talked about how customer comments could effect your ranking and in November how Search Wiki could be the start of customers 'voting' for your site.

This is all fair and square but how do you actually start understanding how to implement this kind of strategy?

• Set up Google alerts on keywords associated with your products and services
• Start understanding who are the main influencers talking in the sites
• Where are a lot of the conversations happening - which sites and which forums?
• Look at your target audience and research the main sites that they get involved in
  

Once you have established which sites and who the movers and shakers are, you can then start planning the next stage:

• Set up an account - make sure it's a real person, real email address. Not a company account - as that's not authentic, nor real. Look at your business, and understand who manages a lot of the customer queries now, as it should potentially be the people with the best product knowledge who understand how to manage customers
  
  
• Once set up, start reading the posts and discussions on a frequent basis
  
  
• Where appropriate, offer information and suggestions (think about offline customer service and how you would approach it)
  
  
• Integrate these sites into your over customer communication strategy, so you openly encourage discussion with your customers. So look at how you can promote this on your site, in your email correspondence, and any direct mail.
  
  
• Integrate this with your offline PR strategy - to get links from the more main stream sites
  
  
• Ensure you have the metrics in place to measure success of the campaign. Is is volume of traffic to the website, number of mentions of the brand name (buzz marketing) or something else. Have a read of Measurement Camp for more details

Building trust and becoming an authority is not a quick win strategy, it something that grows over time. So when thinking about ROI (as that's what everyone talks about!) put tangible measures on the campaign, so the powers that be can see results for the resources they have allocated to it.

So tell me how you have gone about approaching a building the trust and recognition around your brand. What were the main challenges?

Google Brand Update - what are the implications? Part I

Back in March there was an update in Google which changed the algorithms and incorporated the concept of 'trust' into the rankings. If you missed it, have a look at the video from Matt Cutts, Google talking about the changes.



Brands / websites which have a higher perceived trust and are deemed an authority on their niche would appear higher in the rankings. The effect of these changes has been most felt by the larger brands and on the more generic phrases such as 'credit cards' or 'holidays'.

So in Google terms - what is 'trust' and 'authority'
You can build your trust and authority over time, it is not something that can be bought or installed on your website. It is about the long term commitment to being involved in the community around your product and services. It's about participating in the conversations which are already going on about your products and services and placing yourself as the centre of authority on the subject. It's not about using these opportunities for selling but assisting the individual so they have a positive experience of your brand.

Becoming involved within sites such as getsatisfaction, facebook, twitter, you tube, forums, (and all the others) means that you are aware of the conversations going on and can directly influence these. Most importantly you can build your trust and have an opportunity to develop your brand as an authority on your niche.

It is about building your online profile of your brand through the various different sites and channels. Over time users of the sites will grow to see you as a resource and you will become more powerful and recognised within those communities.

The trust of your postings, bookmarks, articles and comments will grow, with the ultimate goal of gaining the respect of the community so you are perceived as an authority on your niche subject. Once you have a voice in the community, you then have influence. So therefore people will be more trusting and hence any selling would be a soft sell.

Setting up your blog for SEO

Over the past 2 years I've been speaking to many clients about setting up blogs to enhance their SEO campaigns. So I thought I'd share some of the key ideas.

1. Ensure the blog is on your main domain. Having your blog as another site pointing into the main site defeats the main reason for having a blog. Ensure your blog URL is something like mydomain.co.uk/blog. Wordpress seems to be the most flexible at setting this up in this way. Put WP in the root directory and change the themes to match the layout of the website.
   
   
2. Blog on a niche subject. If you are running a search engine optimisation campaign you should know what key phrases you are optimising for. Using the principle of the long tail (as discussed in a previous post). Look at the niche key phrases pertaining to your products and services. Planning the blog posts around search phrases which people are searching for, will undoubtedly mean that the blog posting will be ranked in the search engines. So you blog post becomes the entry point into your site.
   
   
3. URLs search engines can read. If you have a site which has nasty query strings, using a blog will open up the content to search engines.
   
   
4. Blog Frequently. Google looks at an algorithm around content velocity. This is how frequently you add content to your site. So ensure you are committed to blog as it will assist your rankings.
   
   
5. Comment on other blogs. Get your Google Alerts and Google Reader set up, so you can follow blogs around your key phrases and subject matter. These will create inbound links into your site.
   
   
6. New content gets ranked higher than old content. In Google one of the ways rankings are prioritised is that the newer posted content will appear higher than older content. So looking at themes and trends when you are thinking about what to blog around is a good strategy.
   
   
7. Link to other content on your site. If there are other blog posts or pages which are relevant to the blog (worth writing so you can drop one or 2 in) ensure you link to this content. Linking themed content does wonders for the search engine spiders which will boost your internal linking strategy.
   
   
8. Write Sticky content worth reblogging. An even better strategy to get inbound links is to write some very factual, relevant, new ideas / content that gets retweeted and will eventually get re-blogged.
   
   
9. RSS feeds- if your blog is syndicated or cited on other sites, any links will drive traffic - and create another inbound link.
   

There are other obvious reasons to blog - such as thought leadership, sharing a personal experience / journey or keeping in touch (if you are overseas traveling). I personally started blogging as I wanted to share some of the knowledge from the past 12 years on digital strategy and marketing - and how these relate to modern Digital Darwinsim.

What other reasons have you got for why blogging is good for SEO?

Survival of the fittest in the age of Digital Darwinism

How do you structure your business for social media?

So think back 10 years when the internet came out and suddenly every company got a brochure-ware website or e-commerce site. Companies had to adapt their existing business structure to ensure that their online strategy dove tailed into their organisation structure.

Some companies were more agile, effective and strategic than others. Good examples 0f companies who evolved well are the leading internet based businesses now. From experience in working in the digital sector for the past 12 years, there are definately synergies between this step change and how companies adopted early internet technology.

Next wave of change
If you read some of my other blog posts you'll see that I am passionate around the fact that companies need to innovate and take on board the tidal wave of change around social media or they will lose their competitive advantage.

Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research, has a great post on his blog about the different organisational structures emerging on how companies are adapting to the new world of social media.

The Tire
The main challenge in managing this strategy is managing the brand reputation online. Each business unit can manage it's own social media strategy without any central management. This would lead to mutliple brand messages and values on the internet - all from the same company. This could lead to conflicting brand messages to consumers and different online customer services or communication - how confusing would that be?

The Tower
I have seen this multiple times - and have refered to it as 'The Silo' where everyone works within their discipline towards the common goals in the company, but not leading beyond boundaries and working cross discipline to improve efficiency. The challenge here is that it is stiffling any creativity and ideas that other business units might have. Tight brand guidelines, sign off procedures and long time scales tend to be representitive of this way of working.

The Hub and Spoke
I agree with the conclusion that this is definately the most efficient way to structure how a company should approach social media. This pulls on many strengths within the company - IT, marketing, PR and the product / services team. So this strategy combines their strengths and gives enough room for creativity and innovation. Getting the balance between control and inclusion is essential for this to be a success. Working cross business unit and teams leads to a more involved, motivated team. Letting the people blogging write the corporate blogging guidelines would be an example of how this strategy might work. This is the most efficient model to ensure that a company maximises their competitive advantage.

What's the impact for SMEs?
That's all well for the large corporates who have these multi-disciplined teams, but how does this work for the SME? It's about working with experience companies who can help you where all those hats - and guide you in the right strategy.

Chances are that there would be someone within the company who has shown an interest in social media. Pick up on this and formalise this interest in their training and coaching - and get them invovled in assessing and implementing your social media strategy.

Let me know how you have implemented social media in your businesses - and the successes you have had