Blind Five Year Old

Facebook is changing as it seeks to find a sustainable revenue model. Over the last year it seems clear that Facebook is trying to make itself more relevant and attractive to brands before the sun sets on the buzz parade.

Facebook Embraces Search

Most recently Facebook added fan links to public pages, creating a tremendous density of internal links to brand and product pages. The likely goal of this change is to boost the visibility of brand pages in search results. The attention to SEO and search is an interesting change for the proponents of the walled garden.

If it works, Facebook pages could take up valuable shelf space on search engine results pages (SERPs). Brands and marketers would be wise to take advantage and spend a bit more time on a Facebook strategy aimed at acquiring fans.

And lets remember that Facebook recently integrated Microsoft Live Search into their standard search interface. If Facebook continues to integrate and highlight search, it could provide a substantial revenue stream as well as help Microsoft capture more of the search market.

Facebook Disses Apps

The major redesign implemented this year pushed a substantial number of applications out of the limelight. The redesign aimed to leverage life streaming and encourage user interaction not application interaction.

The good folks at allfacebook conducted a study that shows the impact the Facebook redesign had on applications. The more popular applications were essentially unchanged but there was a 13% to 15% drop in active users when you look beyond the top 50.

Social Advertising In Trouble

The rush to search and away from applications can be seen in the context of an anemic advertising environment. Social media advertising is quickly getting a bad reputation. Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co. had this to say at a November 15 forum on digital media.

What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?

and …

I really don’t want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook.

The numbers don’t look good either. CPM rates on social networks are some of, if not the, lowest around. And the effectiveness, from a click measurement perspective, of these ads aren’t good. Allen Stern is conducting a Facebook ad test for his new start-up, CloudContacts. Recent tweets on performance look dismal and campaign results should be made public this week.

In the interim there are other benchmarks to review. Once again, allfacebook has done an interesting comparison of Facebook ads versus Google AdWords. The end result was a cost per lead of $0.72 using Google and $1.83 using Facebook.

Now, the comparison isn’t exactly fair since you’re matching passive (though well targeted) search versus active search. Clearly active search is far more valuable … which leads us back to Facebook’s recent focus on search. Brands understand search. They can easily measure search. Brands will spend on search.

Facebook has a huge audience but is running out of time and chances to translate that into dollars and advertising confidence.

What exactly is Web 2.0? There are plenty of ways to explain it and define it, but what is it really? It’s a marketing slogan meant to attract investors, media and users back to the Internet after the dot com crash.

The inability to adequately define what Web 2.0 is a clue that it has roots in marketing. Marketers (and I’m one of them) are good at creating things that resonate without making complete sense. For instance, the phrase ‘virtually spotless’ for a dishwasher detergent seems good but upon inspection really means ‘has some spots’.

Max(x) Barry aptly skewered this situation in his book Syrup.

Pick a random chemical in your product and heavily promote its presence. When your customers see “Now wth Benzoethylhydrates!” they will assume that this is a good thing.

Even Tim Berners-Lee, Web pioneer, sees through the Web 2.0 smoke and mirrors. Ars Technica does a good job of digesting Tim Berners-Lee’s podcast text and presents the most relevant quote about his view of Web 2.0: “nobody even knows what it means”.

But that’s the brilliance of Web 2.0, it can mean whatever you really want it to mean. Want Web 2.0 to include the semantic web? Sure. Want it to be about microformats? You betcha. Want it to be about user generated content? No problemo. Want it to represent a way to use software and technology to connect people to people? Of course. Mashups? Yup. Tagging? Check. Social Media? Okay.

The mythology is that Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty came up with the term at a brainstorming session at a 2003 conference. I don’t think they came up with the term, but O’Reilly created the buzz around it, promoted it and subsequently fought over it. Let’s face it, O’Reilly isn’t a slouch in the marketing department!

Don’t believe me? Well what about Dermot McCormack’s 2002 book titled Web 2.0: The Resurgence of the Internet & E-Commerce.

So instead of trying to figure out who coined the term or what it actually means, just be happy that it ushered a new influx of ideas and investment into the Internet.

Like Web 2.0? Thank your nearest marketer today.

Are banner ads dying?

I remember people shouting about this during the Web 1.0 hey day and there have been plenty of folks who have since cried wolf on the topic. Each time banner ads come back from the proverbial dead, walking the Internet with zombie like efficiency. Is this time any different?

Maybe.

More and more research indicates that young users are not responding to banner advertising. But can we blame them? We’re entering an era in which a whole generation has grown up with the Internet. At an increasingly young age children begin to surf the Internet. Yet, the sites they visit often have far less clutter and advertising than the traditional site.

Are we creating a generation of banner intolerant Internet users?

Those of us, myself included, who came to the Internet as young adults have been exposed to a higher degree of ad clutter from the start. We’re used to it. Not only that, our context for approaching the Internet was shaped through television. Television conditioned us to expect advertising to be part of the equation.

Yet, again, this is not the case for a new generation that has grown up with TiVo and other DVR products. These services have undermined normal TV watching patterns and preconceptions. Every day more of us are conditioned to simply hit the 30 second skip button when presented with a commercial. (As an aside, thank you to Fringe for telling me how many seconds the break is going to be. That’s very handy!)

These habits are particularly important since new research indicates that the heaviest TV viewers are also the heaviest Internet users.

Are social networks part of the problem?

Yes.

Social networking is one of (if not the) largest activity for the young. Sites like Piczo, MySpace and Facebook, among others, are like the middle school and high school of the Internet. These sites are, at their core, utilitarian in nature. They’re about communicating. They’re about making ‘friends’.

Some of them do use banner ads, but more and more evidence shows a growing banner blindness on these sites. I suspect the high number of visits (for a very specific purpose) exacerbates banner blindness on social networks.

If you use CPM rates as a proxy for effectiveness then it becomes obvious that social networks are in distress.

Can we blame Twitter?

Yes.

Twitter and even my current addiction, FriendFeed, contribute to the problem by not using banner ads. They are but one more site, one more application, one more widget that is providing a valued service for … nothing. Clearly advertising isn’t the only way to monetize these sites, but by not implementing any monetization strategy they send a signal to users that they can get something for nothing.

The ‘something for nothing’ mentality makes us less tolerant of advertising. I can surf the Internet with Firefox, supercharge my blog with WordPress plugins and use Google Analytics to track metrics for a slew of client sites all … for not one penny.

This isn’t a long term problem. A type of Internet Darwinism will take place where those without a true business (aka revenue) model will either fail or try to implement some sort of real revenue strategy. In most instances, that will be advertising or subscriptions.

Will it be advertising or subscriptions?

Just before the collapse of Web 1.0, I worked at Bluelight.com, the online version of Kmart. One of their major initiatives was an ad supported free ISP. We had millions of users! The thing is, it didn’t really work. They wound up converting it to a subscription based service which was ultimately acquired by United Online

Today, we’re conditioning a generation to ignore banner and display advertising. The cat is out of the bag. The genie is out of the bottle. So even if we want to return to it as a revenue stream it is becoming an ever weaker medium. And we only have ourselves to blame.

So perhaps subscription based sites, or networks are the wave of the future. Would you pay for Twitter?

Will banner ads die?

Of course not. Banners will never completely die, but a few things will have to happen for them to rise again to feast on the glorious eyeballs of Internet users.

They’ll need to be more engaging and use rich media in more appropriate ways. More importantly, the industry will need to measure banner ads not by CTR or traditional click-based ROI but by brand measurement metrics. There are a few companies who provide this service, though my favorite is Vizu Ad Catalyst. (Disclosure: I worked at Vizu for a short time but stand by the fact they are leaders in this new field.)

The current economic climate has forced many analysts to adjust their online advertising industry forecasts, some of them twice. Yet, I’m unsure any of them are accounting for this new generation of Internet users who are blind to banners at best and intolerant of them at worst.

How do you make sure your message is getting across to users? Five foot web design.

Here’s how five foot web design works. Print out a nice color copy of the page in question. Tape it to the wall. Take a few steps back until you’re around … five feet away. What do you see? If you can’t make out the message then you might have a problem.

I’m no web design or user interface guru and I don’t pretend to have Jakob Nielsen’s experience or expertise. Instead I’m armed with the knowledge that you have a very short time to persuade someone to stay on a page. So don’t be coy. Don’t fill it up with a whole bunch of stuff. Keep it simple. Tell users exactly what your site or web page is about, what you want them to do and where to go next.

How do we get people to slow down on a street in the physical world? A sign. Let’s look at the ubiquitous yard sale sign. Which of the two signs below do you think is more effective?

No contest, right? The same rules apply on the information superhighway.

There are other real world examples that support five foot web design. My first job out of college was as an account coordinator at an ad agency. One of my tasks was writing up meeting notes. My first attempt was returned to me with more red on it than I’d seen in a long time. The message: say it with as few words as possible.

I also learned about one of their hiring techniques. Only the first page of a resume was reviewed. Any subsequent pages were thrown in the trash and never read. The lesson: brevity was and is critical, particularly in advertising.

Five foot web design simplifies your message and increases the odds that users will understand, remember and take action on that message. It will also help your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

The reason five foot web design supports SEO is that it forces you to use your keyword phrases prominently and to rely less on explanatory text and links. In short, it’ll help boost your keyword density.

You’ll need to use your headers wisely. Nice big H1s that don’t mince words. H2s and H3s that support your keyword(s). Strong anchor text. Judicious use of bold text. Strong call to action buttons. Keep it clean. White space is your friend.

Poker Copilot is a good example of five foot web design. Recently, they switched to much larger buttons in hopes of increasing downloads.

The spike at the end of the graph says it all. Spike is not even an adequate word here. It’s a kangaroo leap to a new level.

I also recommend the book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug which presents a more detailed look at web design that dovetails nicely with five foot web design.

In lieu of additional reading, simply take a moment to step back from the computer, or roll back in your chair, and see if your site is befitting from five foot web design.

Yahoo’s organic search results aren’t always organic. I don’t think the average Yahoo user has any idea that many Yahoo search results are paid listings via Yahoo’s paid inclusion product, Search Submit Pro. It’s sort of like buying organic apples and finding out some of them were sprayed with pesticide.

Yet, I can see my way past the ethical minefield paid inclusion presents. There is no expressed contract that states that the organic search results are 100% organic. That’s an assumption that many users make and which Yahoo simply fails to correct. There’s no 100% organic ‘sticker’ on the Yahoo search results.

The real question for me is how paid inclusion impacts search engine optimization (SEO). “Why do I get only 5% of my organic traffic from Yahoo when they’re 20% of the search market?” This is a common refrain I hear from a rising tide of companies. There are a number of possible explanations for this discrepancy.

Sites optimize for Google and not Yahoo

Google is the force in search with a 63% market share in August 2008. For that reason, sites optimize for Google first and Yahoo a distant second. The algorithm for each is different with Google placing far more weight on off page factors like links.

In particular Google seems to have a better quality link algorithm that helps place sites in appropriate neighborhoods of knowledge. Yahoo certainly looks at links but it seems tied to link popularity and link ratio. This means you have to overwhelm Yahoo with inbound links to really have an impact.

Result: Google optimization might not help you with Yahoo.

Yahoo’s index is slow to update

There’s no question that the Yahoo index is slow to update and is less agile than Google’s index. What Google indexes and categorizes in hours could take Yahoo weeks or months. It’s not that it doesn’t get into Yahoo’s index, it’s that Yahoo doesn’t categorize it so that it can be served to users for relevant searches. In many ways it might as well not exist.

Google is also constantly tweaking the search algorithm. If you’re working in SEO you’re accustomed to the changing nature of the Google algorithm. However, It’s unclear how often Yahoo changes its algorithm, but it’s far less than Google and it’s not nearly as big a deal when they do. The Yahoo search index has calcified.

Result: It could take a long time for your efforts to pay off on Yahoo.

Paid Inclusion takes up search engine result shelf space

While there are no guarantees that paid inclusion will get you top results, it certainly takes up shelf space on search results. As more companies use paid inclusion, the number of organic search results goes down, making it more and more difficult to optimize vital keywords.

It seems logical that Yahoo, particularly in its current financial situation, would want to increase the number of paid inclusion results. As a cost per click product it would mean a greater probability of generating revenue with every search engine result page.

What’s the keyword coverage for paid inclusion? What’s the average number of paid inclusion listings to organic listings? These paid inclusion statistics aren’t available, so it’s difficult to understand the real effect of paid inclusion. Instead we can only deduce from watching our SEO efforts and tracking organic search volume.

Result: Paid inclusion might not be the culprit, but it introduces another variable that defies tracking, thus obscuring all other SEO efforts.

There’s a lot of talk (very good analysis actually) about Chrome in terms of functionality and technology. Sure, what’s under the hood is interesting and I’m intrigued by the speed tests. Yet, at the end of the day, I believe Chrome is really all about search.

Let’s first look at two core components that were absent from the launch. There are no add-ons and there is no Mac version. This tells me that the competitive target is not Firefox or Safari. It tells me that Chrome is aimed at converting more WIndows/IE users to Windows/Chrome users. (Yes, yes, it has an open API but that’s different then supporting add-ons a la Firefox.)

Next let’s look at how they’re marketing Chrome.

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Shortcuts for your apps
Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

Faster. Safer. Easier. One box for everything. Shortcuts. I believe the messaging is aimed not at the early adopter but at the early majority instead. While the technology is sophisticated, the end product is simplistic.

A legion of folks exist out there who don’t even know they have a choice in how they surf the Internet. People aren’t going to be easily swayed by a relatively unknown brand like Firefox. But Google? Hey now, they know Google. They trust Google. They use Google!

Sure they can import their settings, but how many of them will and how many of them even knew about their settings in the first place? Google has disrupted inertia and created an artificial switching window. During this critical time, I believe more will choose to use Google as their default search engine. There is a subtle psychological pressure exerted by using Google’s browser that will encourage users to use Google as their search engine.

One could argue that many of these same users already use Google. And that’s true. But they’re also confused about exactly what to do when they want to search or go to a website. Remember that the top search terms in August were ebay and myspace. So these people could be accidentally using IE’s default search engine from time to time.

And that’s where the omnibox (aka ‘the god box’) comes in. Chrome’s one box for everything appeals to the same user who is confused about when they search and when they type in a website address. If my supposition above is correct, then Google suddenly has far more control over searches and, even more far reaching, directing users to specific destinations.

Google Chrome is about taking more of the search market away from Microsoft and Yahoo. As such, it is one of the few Google initiatives that I believe is perfectly aligned with their core business.

Tabbed browsing doesn’t seem to get the attention I think it deserves. Sites, strategy and brands will need to adjust as more and more of the early and late majority begin to use and understand tabbed browsing.

There was a lot of talk about how increased broadband usage would change the Internet landscape. The time it took to get from one site to the next was greatly reduced by the speed of connection. Yet, tabbed browsing takes that concept to the next level.

A 2006 article about tabbed browsing and its effect on web analytics framed the issue nicely.

Tabbed browsing has made comparing products, shopping for the right price, and researching products that much easier. For example, Chris is looking for a plasma television for his new home. He opens the browser and starts looking at ratings on Epinions. As he explores the ratings, he pops open links to pricing for a few different TVs in tabs. He decides to research a few different models on manufacturers’ sites.

The assumption is that review sites like Epinions or price comparison engines will continue to be the hub or start of any research on a product. I’m not sure this is a valid assumption. From my perspective, the de facto start to almost any (re)search for a product or service is a search engine – Google.

So what exactly does tabbed browsing mean to sites and brands?

Tabbed browsing means a greater focus on brand.

Users are going to be more apt to float from one site to the other for their purchases. The ‘switching costs’ of going from one site to the other is now virtually none. You want your site to be the first place users go or think of for your product or service. You’re also hoping that your brand is strong enough to suppress the tabbed browsing behavior.

The only way to circumvent Google is to have a site or brand that has a greater influence or mindshare for that niche. As an example, Amazon may still have the brand horse power to attract direct traffic for those looking for a book.

Strong brands don’t necessarily need to participate in shopping comparison sites since many users might simply check that brand’s offering in another tab whether or not they are displayed. Southwest airlines has largely taken this approach.

Tabbed browsing means user interfaces must be streamlined and easy.

Once you get a user to visit your site, the user interface must be incredibly easy. Confusion or roadblocks to purchase will give users time to open another tab. Whether it is to find another site with the same product or simply frustration induced ADD is immaterial. Sites must focus on making it difficult for users not to follow the appropriate conversion path. Lead generation marketers are a step ahead in figuring this out.

Tabbed browsing means sites need to invest in SEO.

If your brand isn’t strong enough to bring direct traffic the only way you can be first in the door is through search engine optimization. In addition, as users refine searches in subsequent tabs you want your site to continue to be served in the top results. Repetition will have a beneficial effect.

A new goal might be to have your site open in multiple tabs for any given user? And lets not forget that many confuse search with the address bar, pushing what could be direct traffic into searches. Weaker brands can leverage SEO against bigger brands.

Tabbed browsing means engagement is a better metric for success.

Engagement is going to become a much better metric for success since many will simply keep multiple sites open on a daily basis. I interact much more with FriendFeed but I usually still have Facebook and LinkedIn open in another tab. How this translates into online advertising is another interesting discussion.

Tabbed browsing could overwhelm users.

As people begin to use more and more tabs, it may lead to a backlash of sorts as it relates to Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice. Essentially, more choices doesn’t always lead to more purchases. In fact, in many cases it suppresses purchase behavior. This could mean a general deceleration in eCommerce growth or renewed reliance on trusted and/or known brands.

Google Chrome has upped the ante by creating a default tab page that includes your nine most visited pages. A quick survey of early adopters on FriendFeed shows the number of open tabs to be around 6 on average. I could argue for both fewer or more tabs on average for early and late majority users.

Time will tell. It is my opinion that tabbed browsing changes everything and we haven’t begun to determine how exactly it will play out.