Jon DiPietro is Domesticating IT

Google is moving the goal posts again. This is not a complaint, but an observation. This post isn’t about the ins and outs of their new  Instant Search feature going live. There are lots of bloggers taking the opportunity to opine about the irrelevance of SEO or the death of the long tail search. I recommend reading at least a dozen or so posts to get a wide view of the potential impact. There is one thing everyone seems to agree with; we won’t really know the impact for a while.

So what is this post about? It’s a life lesson for search engine marketers, articulated in memorable fashion by Ferris Bueller on his day off. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Are You Insane?

Albert Einstein is credited with the quote, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  If you haven’t thrown out your search marketing playbook this year but are expecting the same results, you may very well be insane.   There have been so many game-changing events in the last twelve months that it’s critical to a) understand their implications and b) modify your strategies and tactics accordingly.

Search Engine Marketing Is Changing

Google Instant is going to change the way organic search and pay per click campaigns behave as well as how they’re measured.  Right away, the very definition of the word “impressions” has become a lot more complicated.  This will have a trickle-down effect on all of the click stream metrics you’re watching.  In engineering terms, we call this event a discontinuity.  I’m fond of using the phrase, “I do not think it means what you think it means” for many of my blog posts, and that concept can be applied here also.  You simply cannot compare (some of) your historic metrics to those being collected as of yesterday.  They are apples and oranges.

We’ll also need to start thinking about the impact of what I’ll call “attention deficit searching.”  Early observations suggest that instant search is going to favor established brands and trending topics/searches.  This means that if you have optimized for a given long tail keyword search, a person who may have intended to type in that entire search phrase could get distracted by a recent news event and never make it to your website.  Let’s use a fictitious example…  Assume for a moment that your website is optimized for the long tail search, “bubble bath pillows.”  Then one day, the Internet goes nuts with stories about “bubble bath pics of Angelina Jolie.”  Many of your searches could experience “searchus interruptus.”

Search Engine Marketing Is Personalized

This aspect isn’t new, but Google Instant will up the ante even more.  Google has told us that, “Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search.”  These predictions are going to be personalized for the person conducting the search, which means that no two people will (theoretically) see the same results.  Further complicating this is the fact that this is going to occur dynamically as the person types, which is likely to change their behavior.  At the end of the day, it’s possible that this will end up improving the quality of click-throughs to your site since they are going to have to survive this new vetting process.  However, it means that intelligent web analytics are an absolute must now!  Since there is no such thing as a generic search anymore, the results and outcomes will have to speak for themselves.

Search Engine Marketing Is Dead

Okay, that’s a blatant and transparent sensationalized headline.  SEM is no more dead than the web, despite Wired Magazine’s own sensational headline that “The Web Is Dead, Long Live the Internet.”  In “Search Engine Marketing: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means,” I wrote that…

Your entire Internet marketing strategy may be based on a mirage. Many companies are focused on search engine optimization and pay per click campaigns. This is all well and good as long as Google remains the gatekeeper of the Internet. But here’s the thing; there’s a new sheriff in town and the entire 18 year old ecosystem of the world wide web is in danger.

The reality is that “walled gardens” like Facebook and iTunes are increasingly closed off to search engines and their influence is even stronger than Google’s.  The volume still favors search engines right now, but Internet marketers need to be aware of this approaching tsunami.

Search Engine Marketing’s Bottom Line

Things are changing really, really quickly.  Like many situations, this favors the agile, forward-thinking organizations.  Keep your eyes open and your powder dry, but most of all…

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I occasionally post subjects with the subtitle, “I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.”  The subtitle pays homage to one of my favorite sources of movie quotes, The Princess Bride (you can view this particular quote on YouTube).

I’ll be conducting an inbound marketing workshop at the ISA Marketing & Sales Summit in a couple of weeks. We’ve just launched a blogging contest that is giving away an iPod Touch. Although I’m judging and not eligible to win, I’m linking this article to help spread the word.

Browser content (i.e. HTML on port 80) now accounts for less than 25% of all Internet traffic.

Your entire Internet marketing strategy may be based on a mirage. Many companies are focused on search engine optimization and pay per click campaigns. This is all well and good as long as Google remains the gatekeeper of the Internet. But here’s the thing; there’s a new sheriff in town and the entire 18 year old ecosystem of the world wide web is in danger. This is according to Wired Magazine who today published “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.”

The premise of this article is that we are willingly giving up the freedom and openness of the traditional world wide web in favor of a more closed, less free version; apps. Wired argues that like the rail system and electrical grid before it, the Internet is entering a period of consolidation and domination by a few power brokers.

Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen).

Now. let’s keep in mind that Wired is not entirely unbiased in this debate. They and their publisher, Condé Nast , have put a large portion of their eggs into Steve Jobs’ basket. But to paraphrase the late Kurt Cobain, “Just because you’re biased doesn’t mean they’re not right.”

Tilting at Windmills

We laughed at Prince when he said it, but this article should make every marketer’s blood run cold. If our usage of the Internet is indeed moving from open, HTML-based web sites to the walled gardens of applications and streaming content, it means that search engines are indexing an increasingly small piece of the pie. They simply aren’t the ubiquitous arbiter they once were, since much of the Internet’s activity is happening outside of their field of view. Basing an entire Internet marketing strategy on search engines is like looking at a windmill and seeing a dragon.

That doesn’t mean that you should halt your search engine marketing tactics. It does, however, mean that it should be a shrinking share of your overall marketing strategy. The question then becomes, “What fills that vacuum?”

Gift Marketing

Moore’s Law has resulted in bandwidth and storage costs that are becoming too cheap to meter. This enabled the Web 2.0 sites we’re all using today and led to the emergence of social networking. Consequently, we’re able to scale our peer groups and get increasing amounts of information and recommendations from trusted sources instead of advertisements and algorithms. The problem for marketers is that much of this takes place inside the walled gardens of Facebook. As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

And so we have brands jumping into social media. However, one of the problems they’re grappling with is the juxtaposition of norms; economic versus social. They’re not used to this whole social thing and many of them are trying to transplant the old advertising models that were based on economic norms into the world of social networking.

Think of it this way…  You’re having a dinner party and invite some close friends. Your doorbell rings and it’s a smarmy, uninvited used car salesman. He lets himself in and starts denigrating the car in your driveway and listing all of the special deals they have. While this behavior may have been tolerated on his lot, it certainly doesn’t belong at a dinner party and you kick him out. Imagine, instead, your best friends call ahead of time and ask if they can bring this really cool guy who was great fun at their last barbecue. He shows up and in the course of normal conversation finds out you’re having trouble with your headlights. He takes a look and shows you how to adjust their alignment and fixes the problem. You find out later (from your friends, not him) that he works at a car dealership and you commit to visiting him when it comes time for you to upgrade your vehicle.

In this new trust economy, companies are going to have to start thinking much more in terms of social norms. Even though the name of the game is making money, they are going to have to follow a different set of rules than they’re used to following. The first rule of inbound marketing is creating compelling content that people want to share. The secret to creating this content is thinking of it as a gift.

Is repackaging your brochure into a blog post a gift? Not so much.
Is showing up unannounced polite? Definitely not.
Do gratuitous, insincere compliments build trust? Not exactly.

Search engine optimization is certainly not dead. But as Hans and Fanz said, “Hear me now und believe me later,” that giant sucking sound you hear in your marketing strategy is the vacuum being created as search shrinks. You need to be prepared to fill it with content marketing that focuses on building new customer relationships socially.

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Weekly High Five lists the most interesting, compelling, and/or useful links of each week.

Welcome to the “Threats and Opportunities” version of the High Five.  This week’s links describe some things to be concerned about in 2010, and some trends to be excited about.  The last link is an absolute must watch video!

#5: Hackers are defeating tough authentication, Gartner warns

Another day, another scary article about how online identities are being compromised. The takeaway here is to become a more intelligent Internet user and take responsibility for your online accounts (for more information on this subject, see “How to Spot Phishing.”

Link: Computer World

#4: Green light for internet filter plans

From the “Big Brother Is Watching” department, Australia is considering forcing Internet service providers to install web site filtering to remove criminal content. All the same questions apply here. Who decides what’s criminal? How do you implement it? The reality is that this very easily thwarted and kids, criminals, and deviants will be able to get around it within hours of the filters being put in place.

Link: ABC News Australia

#3: The 12 Days of Christmas: Website Disaster Style

This is a very creative and effective article that describes some fundamental yet all to common mistakes that are being made with regard to web site design and architecture. It makes them very understandable to the noob (newbie).

Link: SEO.com

#2: What Matters Now

Meaningless coincidence; last week’s #2 position was also a post from Seth Godin. This is a free e-book that is a compilation of observations and advice from scores of the leading thinkers of our digital age.  I don’t even know where to start with this, as there is so much information, advice, and inspiration in this document.  You must check it out.

Link: Squidoo

#1: Forecast for 2010: The Coming Cloud ‘Catastrophe’

This is a really unfortunate title that appears to be a typical “least common denominator” appeal to fear mongering. However, this video and article provide ten predictions for next year that are fascinating and extremely thought provoking. In fact, the cloud catastrophe prediction is just on of ten, and in my opinion the least interesting.  There is one prediction about journalism and the media with which I completely disagree. However, I’ll be authoring a post soon on the trends that are predicted in this story, and many of them can be summarized with this recommendation; “THINK SMALL.”  This is a must view video!

Link: Business Week

Feel free to provide your thoughts and/or contributions…

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