I wrote a host of short blog posts for State of Search over the past few weeks to cover for the site’s owner Bas van den Beld while he was on vacation.

The most substantial of these blog posts is a case study on why geotargeting users based on IP address is a silly affair, especially when trying to determine what region of a country a user is from. In the UK especially, IP targeting is utterly broken.

State of Search: Geotargeting Based on IP Address is Broken

It’s when you get to regional IP targeting that all semblance of accuracy goes straight out the window, and it becomes nothing less than a total crapshoot. In fact, firing buckshot at a big national map will probably yield more accurate results than the geographical data you’ll get from any web analytics package.

Some other blog posts I wrote for State of Search recently are primarily news stories about new developments in search and web:

• The Explosive Growth of Google+
• Google simplifies Adwords for small businesses with AW Express
• Branded AdWords advertising boosts total site traffic
• Growing pressure on Microsoft over Bing
• Adobe Edge: SEO-friendly web animations?
• Universal Search: how often are they shown on Google’s SERPs?

IP Address Geotargeting / State of Search is a blog post from Barry Adams.

For State of Search I wrote a blog post comparing two URL shortening services: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls. Each has its pros and cons, and which you should use depends on your situation and resources:

State of Search: URL Shortening Services Compared: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls

URL Shortening services are the lifeblood of Twitter. With short URLs you can share links on Twitter in abundance without having to worry too much about breaking the 140 character limit. And, just like links are branding opportunities, so are short URLs. Yes, you only have a few characters to work with in a short domain, but why not make optimal use of it and make it a branded short URL?

My latest for Search News Central is purely for SEO geeks. I describe several solutions for dealing with duplicate content issues arising fro faceted / layered navigation and conclude with my own recommended approach:

Search News Central: Solving Duplicate Content Issues Arising From Faceted Navigation

I’m a big fan of faceted navigation on ecommerce websites, also known as layered navigation. With faceted nav users can find exactly what they’re looking for with just a few clicks, even on websites that contain tens of thousands of products. A good implementation of faceted nav is a user experience dream come true.

In my new column for the Belfast Telegraph I take another shot at predicting the future, this time for the mobile web. HTML5 might in due time supersede mobile apps, and in my column I explain why this could happen:

Belfast Telegraph: The Future of the Mobile Web

The problem with apps is that they are platform-specific. An iPhone app will not work on an Android phone. Blackberry users need to download different apps that are specifically developed for that platform. Nokia faces the same issue. While some mobile companies such as Apple are quite happy with this business model, others aren’t.

URL Shortening / Duplicate Content / Mobile Web is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I wrote an article for the March 2011 issue of Business Eye magazine, that we’ve republished on the Pierce Communications website. Aimed at a layperson audience, the article is an attempt to pierce the hype surrounding social media and the proclamations of SEO’s irrelevance:

Pierce Communications: SEO and Social Media – Piercing the Hype

Websites don’t accidentally rank high in Google. It takes concerted effort to ensure a website performs well in search engine results, and SEO is a multi-faceted discipline incorporating aspects of web design and development, technical know-how, marketing and PR, and even social media.

My latest for Search News Central is about Google’s Farmer/Panda update, and specifically about how it has affected article marketing as a linkbuilding method:

Search News Central: The Panda That Killed Article Marketing

Article marketing is a tried and tested method of generating links. You find a topic, write an article about it that includes a link or two, and publish it on several article directories. Or, more accurately, you pay someone else to do all that for you, and you just provide the link destination and anchor text.

SEO and Social Media / Panda and Article Marketing is a blog post from Barry Adams.

Late last year I decided to use my quiet time in the holiday season to set up my own URL shortener. I like bit.ly a lot, but the idea of having full control over my own URL shortener as well as a ‘personal brand’ short URL – along the lines of yoa.st – persuaded me to try and get one of my own.

First of all I needed to find a good URL. This was probably the easiest choice: once I discovered the .ms (Montserrat) TLD existed and the bada.ms domain was still available, I didn’t hesitate for a second.

Secondly I needed to find the right software. I could have gone for bit.ly pro, so that the people at bit.ly would be doing all the hard work for me. But instead I opted to set up my own shortener and not rely on an external third party. Somehow that felt more like it would be mine, instead of something I leased from someone else.

There are a few solutions out there but the Yourls.org package appealed to me most: it’s open source and based on PHP and MySQL, and there are plenty of plugins for it. It also easily integrates with Tweetdeck (my preferred Twitter app) and I found a great installation guide for it on Lifehacker.

Once I had it up and running I installed the Random Keywords plugin so that instead of having to choose my own short URL every time, I just let Yourls generate a string for me.

And there it was, my own URL shortener: bada.ms.

January Statistics

I started using the shortener on December 31st but didn’t unleash it in the wild – i.e. on Twitter – until January 1st. I only used it on links I posted on my @badams Twitter account, and then only for links that didn’t use a branded short URL themselves.

It’s been running for a full month now, so let’s see what kind of cool stats Yourls can give me.

Click Activity
In January I shared 74 bada.ms short URLs on Twitter. These URLs achieved an average of 68.44 clicks, and a median of 41.79 clicks.

The top three most clicked URLs were:

1. http://bada.ms/rxd – (Jan 06) 286 clicks. This points to a Slideshare deck by Eldad Yogev which explains Mobile SEO in great detail. Not coincidentally this was also my most RT-ed tweet of the month.
2. http://bada.ms/4ou – (Jan 21) 282 clicks, points to one of my own blog posts.
3. http://bada.ms/vbn – (Jan 12) 215 clicks, points to a blog post about the dangers of free WordPress themes.

The least clicked publicly shared URLs were:

1. http://bada.ms/thg – (Jan 03) 26 clicks, points to a story about spam in Google’s SERPs.
2. http://bada.ms/9s6 – (Jan 21) 29 clicks, points to one of my columns on the Belfast Telegraph site.
3. http://bada.ms/rw6 – (Jan 06) 30 clicks, points to a news article about the MMR vaccine scare.

In an attempt to find a pattern I looked at the time when these URLs were shared. Interestingly the top five best performing URLs were all created between 9:23 am and 12:45 am. This could indicate that URLs shared on Twitter before lunch in the UK get the most clicks.

However, of the five least clicked URLs four were created in the same time frame, and only one fell outside it (4:27 pm). Additionally most clicks don’t originate from Europe (see below), so there doesn’t appear to be any solid correlation between share time and popularity.

Next I looked at the day of the week when the URLs were created and shared. Again I found no correlation – the five most clicked URLs neatly spanned all working days of the week (Thu, Fri, Wed, Tue, Mon) and the five worst performing URLs were also shared across most of the work week.

The only notable issue here is that there are no cases – best nor worst URLs – that were shared on a weekend. This is almost certainly because I rarely tweet on weekends anyway.

The Spike
Unsurprisingly nearly all clicks on a short URL happen within the first 2 hours after the URL has been shared. Traffic then drops off significantly, usually lingering on with a few clicks here and there for a few days.

It’s quite interesting to see that many URLs continue to receive traffic for weeks after they’ve been created, accumulating the odd click here and there despite no longer being actively shared on Twitter. Sometimes a short URL may seem ‘dead’ for a week and then suddenly it’ll receive a few clicks again.

Traffic Sources
The traffic sources report in Yourls makes one thing abundantly clear: people in my Twitter network (my followers and their followers) make extensive use of third party Twitter apps. Clicks from these apps register as direct traffic as there is no referral string sent along with the click. At least 90% of all clicks on any given short URL registered as direct traffic, with the remaining clicks mostly composed of twitter.com referrals and a few others (HootSuite, Netvibes, Wikiwix, etc.)

Apparently I have at least one cautious user in my network: Longurl.org consistently pops up as a referrer. This is a security service that allows you to un-shorten a long URL without actually visiting it, thus ensuring you’re not being sent to a hazardous webpage. I’m not sure whether this is an actual user or an automated check.

Traffic Location
Surprisingly my Twitter network is apparently very US-dominated, with usually more than half of all clicks on my short URLs originating from US IP addresses.

Other countries that are strongly represented are the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and France. Russia, China, and Japan occasionally show up, as do nearly all other European countries. Africa and South America are notably absent from most URL location charts.

Next Month

I installed a new plugin today – Feb 1st – that filters out the clicks generated by automated bots such as the Googlebot, the LongURL api, and Twitter’s own bots. This should help make the numbers more accurately represent actual user behaviour and might also clean up the traffic locations report.

However, I am getting married at the end of February and will be offline for well over a week, so my stats probably won’t be sufficient to dedicate a whole blog post to. I’ll likely wait until March has come and gone before I publicise my next set of short URL stats.

My Own URL Shortener: Set-Up and January Stats is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I was invited to join presenters Bas van den Beld and Roy Huiskes on their regular State of Search radioshow on WebmasterRadio.fm, and apparently they liked me as I was invited straight back for their next episode!

In my first guest appearance we chatted about SEO in 2010 and 2011, the Goldman Sachs investment in Facebook and the potential of a new dotcom bubble. In the second show we discussed Google and their stance towards affiliate marketing as well as some odd google.com pages popping up in search results.

You can listen to the shows and download them as mp3 files here:

1. State of Search radio – ep39: Bubble coming up, 2010 and and the future
2. State of Search radio – ep40: Google testings, Google the affiliate and Twitter transparancy

Guest Appearances on State of Search Radio is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I’ve professed by scepticism on the growing connection between SEO and social media on multiple occasions. I’ve even written a blog post about it on SEObullshit.com.

As it turns out, my scepticism was misplaced. There is a connection between search and social, and it’s a strong one: shared links on Facebook and Twitter have a direct influence on search engine rankings in both Google and Bing.

Many SEOs have suspected this for a long time – though obviously I wasn’t among them – and it was recently confirmed in an interview Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land conducted with representatives from Bing and Google.

So, I was wrong. Search and social do go hand in hand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and eat a hat.

Search and Social: it’s hat-eating time is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I was invited to join the SEO Dojo guys for their weekly radio podcast, to talk about linkbuilding and SEO for Google News. It was a blast and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with David and Terry. You can stream or download the podcast here (my contribution starts 40 minutes in):

SEO Dojo: SEO Dojo Radio Episode 4

In the second part of the show today we’re having Barry Adams from the Great Websites blog. He works at Visual Script in Belfast and deals with some major newspapers. As such we’ll be asking him about his (extensive) knowledge of Google News.

After seeing yet another regurgitated blog post on how we should stop doing SEO and start focusing on social media, I couldn’t hold back my frustration any longer and wrote a rant that got published on the SEO Bullshit website:

SEO Bullshit: Search and Social? Eh, no.

I don’t buy in to this social-search-coagulation. It just doesn’t compute with me. Looking at my own behaviour online, when I use a social media site I’m in an entirely different mindset than when I’m using a search engine. My ‘user intent’, if you will, is very different.

SEO Dojo Radio / the Search and Social Congruence is a blog post from Barry Adams.

(This article was originally published in the Belfast Telegraph on 30 March 2010. It’s been modified slightly for this blog.)

Last week I received a surprising email from Facebook entitled ‘Your Weekly Facebook Page Update’. It contained an overview of all the Facebook pages I am an admin of, with statistics on the number of new fans, wall posts and visits to the page.

Those of us who use Facebook and other social media sites in a professional capacity have been aching for reliable metrics to judge the success of our social media marketing campaigns.

Facebook launched its Insights tool in late 2007 as a means for page admins to gather data on what happened on their pages and get some basic demographical data on the composition of their fan base. However, since then there’s been remarkably little movement by Facebook on the analytics front.

This latest move is an indication that Facebook is starting to take the professional use of their social media platform more seriously, and can be seen as an outreach to social media marketers.

The fact that several professional web analytics vendors such as Omniture and WebTrends have recently announced new Facebook tracking features, makes this latest move from Facebook just that little bit juicier.

Perhaps Facebook is trying to pave the way for its own (paid) analytics package, that will hopefully allow admins to gain deeper insights in to how visitors reach their pages and how they interact with it.

This will hopefully help take a lot of the guesswork out of social media marketing, and allow clients of social media marketers to demand clearer ROI on their investment.

Facebook Takes Social Media Marketing Seriously is a blog post from Barry Adams.

Social media is the current Big Thing, or so we’re told. You have to Tweet! Be on Facebook! Get Linked In!

But do you really? Is it necessary to be on every social media site and shout your message as loud as you can in to as many microphones as you can find?

Social media websites are not ends in and of themselves – they are a means to an end. For most users social media sites are channels to connect with friends, relatives and colleagues, to read relevant news and keep up to date with stuff that interests them.

Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the digital equivalent of conversations with friends and acquaintances. This means that commercial messages aren’t really welcome. It’s important to realise that on social media websites the user controls the content – what they read, what they share, what they ignore.

Commercial messages are considered interruptive and unwelcome. That’s why as a company, when you do decide to build your presence on Twitter or Facebook or any other social media website, you need to adapt your voice to the medium.

People who are interested in Ford cars don’t want to read loads of hyped sales tweets straight out of car dealer brochures. What they might be interested in is advance information about upcoming Ford cars, inside knowledge of Ford’s R&D, or just to see a human face behind that monolithic corporate image.

The people at Ford know this, so their Twitter account isn’t just a faceless PR machine. It’s run by actual people who have conversations with their followers and provide tweets that are interesting.

This has proven to be a successful approach for them – the Ford Twitter account has over 25 thousand followers.

On Facebook the overall tone is even more informal and social. Where Twitter is becoming a networking tool, people ‘hang out’ on Facebook with friends and family. That’s why success on Facebook depends mostly on how you approach your audience.

While some companies have the benefit of a corporate image that lends itself well to Facebook (Nike for example whose various FB pages boast tens of thousands of fans), for other companies it can be quite challenging to build a strong presence.

They key is to deliver what your fans want. Nike uses Facebook to share cool videos, ask for user input, and launch contests where participants can win great swag.

If all you’re pushing on Facebook is the same sales material as you send by email, you’re not on the right track. Get personal, be authentic, and ask for feedback. Listen to your fans and give them what they ask for.

When you do decide to start tweeting or build a Facebook page, make sure you define for yourself what you want to get out of it. Your goal can be anything from fuzzy marketing stuff like brand-building to solid ROI metrics such as more visitors to your website that convert in to customers.

Sometimes you’ll find that a certain popular social media site just doesn’t work for you. And that’s OK. Social media sites, for all the hype surrounding them, are just channels that you can use for the benefit of your company’s bottom line. If you can’t get any value out of them, don’t use them.

For every social media site that you think can add value, ask yourself the following questions: Is my target audience present? And do they want to hear what I have to say?

As long as you set your expectations and manage your social media presence accordingly, you’ll be OK. Just don’t be social for social’s sake. Whatever you do with social media, make sure it means something.

UPDATE 16 Feb: I came across an excellent case study from Microsoft Advertising on how they successfully deployed social media. It’s a great read and definitely worth your while:
» Microsoft Social Media White Paper – Learn & Earn [PDF]

Use Social Media sites effectively, or not at all is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I recently wrote about social media and if it’s right for you to start using it as a means of generating more business. This week Michael Stelzner has published his Social Media Marketing Industry Report. This free report is an excellent resource for all who are using or considering social media as a marketing instrument.

The report is based on an extensive survey among social media marketing professionals, and you can distill some great insights from it that can help you determine if and how social media marketing can work for your business.

A few key takeaways from the report are:

• Social media marketing does help with generating sales and business.
• The most popular social media sites used by professionals are Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook.
• Doing social media marketing takes anywhere from 5 to 20+ hours a week.

The report (PDF) is very much worthwhile. Whether you’re new to social media or a seasoned pro, you’ll pick up quite a bit from reading it.

Free Social Media Marketing Industry Report is a blog post from Barry Adams.