I Know Who You Are and I Know What You Like

Web analytics have steadily increased in richness and complexity. Today, most online e-tailers, no matter the size, use some type of web analytics to track customer shopping behavior and attract new customers. In fact, it is nearly impossible to shop online without sharing intimate details about your consumption patterns. Many e-tailers are studying those patterns to figure out what you like, what you need, and what marketing techniques will make you buy more.

One of the first e-tailers to offer sophisticated online shopping targeted to specific customers was Amazon.com. It seemed to know more things about you than you knew about yourself. Amazon truly was the trailblazer for putting web analytics into practice, having collected information longer and used it more proactively than any other e-tailer before (Associated Press, 2005).

Today, many e-tailers are mirroring Amazon by offering customized online shopping experiences by merging web analytics data with data acquired from other sources. Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a predictive analytics department devoted to understanding not just consumers’ shopping habits but also their personal habits (Duhigg, 2012).

One such company that uses its customer data well is Target. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every customer who shops at it stores or buys something online. Whenever possible, Target assigns each customer a unique code — known internally as the Guest ID number — that keeps tabs on everything he/she buys (Duhigg, 2012). The Guest ID becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything customers buy and any demographic information Target has collected or bought from other sources (Hill, 2012). For example, if you shopped at Target, Target would know if you use a credit card or a coupon, fill out a survey, mail in a refund, contact the customer help line, visit the website, or open an e-mail Target sent you. All of those actions are recorded in your Guest ID (Duhigg, 2012). Also linked to your Guest ID is demographic information such as your age, whether you are married and have kids, which part of town you live in, how long it takes you to drive to the store, your estimated salary, whether you’ve moved recently, what credit cards you carry in your wallet and what websites you visit. Target also buys data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, the year you bought (or lost) your house, where you went to college, what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of products, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own (Duhigg, 2012).

Target uses this massive collection of data to provide more targeted marketing to its customers. Its marketing is so “on target” that Target recently came under-fire when it started sending coupons for baby products to a pregnant teenager before her father even knew she was pregnant (Hill, 2012). As it turns out, Target developed a very sophisticated predicative analysis program to determine when women who shop at Target become pregnant. The program allowed Target to reach pregnant women at a pivotal time in their lives before any other retailers know a baby is on the way (Duhigg, 2012).

To implement the program, Target analyzed the data it already had in it’s a baby-shower registry and observed how shopping habits changed as a woman approached her due date, which women on the registry had willingly disclosed (Duhigg, 2012). Next, they analyzed the data and some useful patterns emerged. It was observed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of unscented lotion around the beginning of their second trimester. It was also noted that sometime in the first 20 weeks, pregnant women loaded up on supplements like calcium, magnesium and zinc. They also suddenly started to buy lots of scent-free soap, cotton balls, sanitizers and washcloths (Hill, 2012). These findings lead Target to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score based on if they had purchased some of the 25 products flagged. More importantly, Target could estimate her due date to within a small window, so coupons could be sent that were timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy (Duhigg, 2012; Hill, 2012).

Target has clearly demonstrated an ability to use its extensive collection of data to predict buyer behavior. It has a solid understanding that all data collected, no matter the source, needs to go into one bucket – in Target’s case, the Gust ID number. According to a web analytics expert, predicting behavior based on web data alone does not work because data collected on the web is mostly anonymous, usually incomplete, and is really unstructured (Kaushik, 2007). It is important for web data to be supplemented and merged with other data across multiple channels. Knowing all of the customer touch points both online and offline makes it easier to understand current behavior and predict future behavior (Kaushik, 2007).

According to the company website, Target (2012) is already using cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to receive and store certain types of information whenever customers interact with its website. Target uses this information, which includes the pages visited, which web address the customer came from, and the type of browser they are using, to customize website experiences for its customers (Target.com, 2012). However, Target could do a better job of customizing its online shopping experience by employing a strategy similar to Amazon whereby Target suggests products to customers that it thinks they will like.

References

Associated Press. (2005). Amazon knows who you are. Wired.com. [Web log post]. Retrieved July 3, 2012, from http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2005/03/67034

Duhigg, C. (2012, February 16). How companies learn your secrets. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp

Hill, K. (2012, February 28). How Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved July 3, 2012, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Kaushik, A. (2007, September 11). Data Mining And Predictive Analytics On Web Data Works? Nyet! [Web log post].Retrieved July 4, 2012, from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/data-mining-and-predictive-analytics-on-web-data-works-nyet/

Target.com. (2012, May 3). Privacy Policy. Retrieved July 4, 2012, from http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/page.jsp?title=privacy_policy#collectedonline

Tighten Up Your Measurements with Google Goals, Funnels, and Filters

After a dismal traffic report last week, I was super pumped to discover I had 17 visits and 24 page views last week! After digging deeper into the report, my overflowing excitement was soon tamed. I noticed 14 of the 17 visitors stayed on the site less than ten seconds. This very limited time on sites doesn’t represent a very engaged visitor. They did what Kaushik (2010) says, “I came, I saw, I puked, I left.” Although this was crushing news, there was some more encouraging data. In the traffic referral section of the report, I noticed six of the visitors came from a blogger.com referral and one came from kaushik.net. This tells me that perhaps other blogrolls on my fellow classmate’s blogs are working and maybe my comment on one of Kaushitk’s posts really did generate traffic.

Given this week’s report, there is plenty of room for improvement. In this post, I examine how Google’s Goals, Funnels, and Filters can be used to optimize my Google Analytics data for this blog. I took a look at these three tools and chose which ones were appropriate to apply to my blog.

Goals

When you originally think of the term “goal”, you likely think of it as achieving a desired result. In Google’s world, a goal represents a level of interactivity on your website (Google Analytics, n.d.). There are four types of goals that can be set in Google Analytics (Google Analytics, n.d.; P.I. Reed School of Journalism, 2012):

1.      URL destination goals are achieved when a user visits the defined goal page. A good example is a thank you page after a user has submitted information through a form or completed a shopping check-out process.

2.      Time on site (or visit duration) goals are achieved once the user meets a certain time threshold on the website. You can specify a greater than or less than time in hour, minute, or second increments. Once this time threshold is met, the goal is achieved.

3.      Page views/visits goals are achieved once the user meets a certain number of page views or visits to the website.

4.      Event goals attach a conversion to an event.

Every website should have at least one goal. At a basic level, the goal should answer the question, “why do I have a website?” (Google Analytics, n.d.). A goal for this blog is that the user is actually engaged and reads a post. I don’t want to count visitors who click on the site, don’t read anything, and leave. This tells me they didn’t find what they wanted on the blog. For these reasons, I felt it was appropriate to set two goals for my blog. I set one goal for when the time on site exceeds more than 61 seconds. I felt after 60 seconds, the site visitor actually read a post, or at the very least, skimmed some of the content. The other goal was set for when the visitor views more than one page. This will show me that the site visitor viewed more than one post and had a high level of engagement with the site. All of the other goals offered through Google Analytics seem too in-depth for a shallow blog, but could be appropriate for more in-depth or e-commerce sites.

Funnels

Each goal can have a funnel that defines the desired steps (or path) necessary for converting to the goal (Google Analytics, 2012; P.I. Reed School of Journalism, 2012). Defining these pages allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals, and where they go. Funnels are particularly helpful on e-commerce sites because they can show how effective a sites check-out process is. Another example of where funnels are useful is a college’s online admission process. If the site visitor doesn’t reach the URL destination goal (e.g. purchase confirmation page, submits an application), the funnel report will show where the site visitor abandoned the process.

Although I certainly understand the merits of funnels in the examples provided, I don’t think they are necessary for my shallow blog. A goal of mine is for the site visitor to read a post. It would be nice if they continued reading all of the posts, but I don’t consider it a failure if they don’t. I also don’t expect them to travel through the site in any particular pattern or desire them to reach a certain URL destination. For these reasons, I did not apply a funnel to my blog.

Filters

Filters provide a flexible way to determine what data is included in your Google Analytics report and how the data appears (Google Analytics, 2012). Google recommends excluding internal IP addresses from reports but also suggests keeping all of the data because once a filter is applied, the data can no longer be accessed (Google Analytics, 2012). Google offers predefined and custom filters. For the purpose of this assignment, custom filters are too in-depth and unnecessary. I found the predefined filter to exclude traffic from a specific IP address to be helpful because I could at least filter out my own visits to my blog. After learning how to actually find my IP address, I set up a filter to exclude myself from the Google Analytics report. I certainly realize that I will see a decline in site traffic due to this filter, but at least I will be measuring actual visitors to the blog.

My former employer refused to apply an internal domain filter because it would show a significant decrease in site traffic. Their site goals were based on volume and they didn’t care if the traffic came from internal or external visitors. At the very least, they should have applied filters so that they could distinguish between internal and external visitors. This would have provided valuable insight on what types of content these two different sets of visitors are interested in.

Putting Data into Practice

After digging further into Google’s Goals, Funnels, and Filters, I realize these tools provide a more in-depth measurement of results. It is easy to gather data, but interpreting data is a whole different ball game.  You really need to interpret the data, identify and summarize relevant parts, and understand the meaning and implication of this data so you can tweak and improve what you’re doing. Whatever industry you’re in, it is important to fully understand how your site is performing. With this understanding, you can optimize the Web experience for site visitors and get the most out of your site.

References

Google Analytics. (n.d.). Google Analytics IQ lessons. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN# 978-0470529393

P.I. Reed School of Journalism. (2012, May 25). Lesson 6. IMC: 642, Web Metrics and SEO. West Virginia University.

Who Goes There? Google Analytics Will Tell You

I installed the Google Analytics tool on my blog earlier this week and so far the data has shown some pretty dismal results - one visitor came to the blog two times and averaged five page views per visit. Do you hear crickets chirping? I do. The blogosphere is a big and busy world millions of blogs. How am I going to attract visitors to my blog?

Let’s start with the good news. According to my Google Analytics report, my one visitor was engaged enough with the blog to spend an average of six minutes and two seconds on the blog. This is valuable information because it shows that the content was relevant to the visitor. Since content is the most import aspect of a blog (Raj, 2011; Odden, 2011), hopefully the visitor found some useful information on the blog and will come back for more. Better yet, maybe the visitor will tell others about the blog and they will visit too.

Another interesting insight Google Analytics showed is that the visitor came from a blogger.com referral. This finding made me think about the power of blogrolls. Blogrolls are an easy way to get your blog in front of readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog off the blogrolls, and find your content interesting and enjoyable, turning them into loyal readers (Gunelius, n.d.). This sounded like an easy (and free) tactic to try, so I updated my blog to include a blogroll all of my classmate’s blogs. Perhaps they will reciprocate and include my blog on their blogrolls. (Hint, hint.) Next week, I can check Google Analytics to see if I received more referrals from their blogs on blogger.com.
Since Google Analytics shows where my traffic sources are coming from, I sought out to see where else I could post my blog to generate traffic.  It is common practices for people to post links to their blogs on their social networking sites like Google Plus, Pintrest, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (Raj, 2011). Frankly, I am too embarrassed to share my coursework with my friends and family, so I looked for other ways to get my blog out to professionals who may be interested in my content on web analytics and search engine optimization (SEO). A blog about blog traffic recommended submitting my best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit as a way to quickly boost traffic to my blog (Gunelius, n.d.). I was intrigued by the quick aspect of this approach. After all, we are in week five of a nine week course. I went to all three of these sites and became quickly frustrated. With Digg and StubmbleUpon, I couldn’t figure out how to publish my posts. I consulted help sections and it seems others are pretty frustrated too. With Reddit, it was simple to set up an account, but it wouldn’t accept my article. What now?

Some blogging experts suggest leaving comments on popular blogs with your blog URL can get you a ton of traffic (Raj, 2011; Gunelius, n.d.). Caution should be used to make sure the comments are meaningful (Gunelisu, n.d.). For blogs on my topic of interest, there probably isn’t any better than the author of our textbook, Web Analytics 2.0, Avinash Kaushik. His blog Occam Razor contains hundreds of posts about web analytics and SEO. We have similar posts about bonce rate, so I thought I would leave him a comment. My comment is as follows:

“Mr. Kaushik, in your Web Analytics 2.0 book, so you said bounce rate is the sexiest web metric ever. I agree. What I Iike best about bounce rate is that it identifies the low-hanging fruit that need to be fixed now. If people are turned off by the page, fix it. My student blog on Online Accountability offers some advice on addressing Bounce Rate. Check it out at http://terabuckley.blogspot.com/2012/05/boing-boing-boing.html”

The post is awaiting his approval. Let’s see if anyone bites on it.

With all of the measurements Google Analytics offers, I am most interested in discovering if my blog attracts search engine traffic. Specifically, I would like to know what search terms prompted the visitor to land on my blog. There are a number of things I can do to improve my chances of being picked up by a search engine:

1.     Links: Links are one of the most powerful parts of a blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs (Gunelius, n.d.). Good news, I am already linking within my blog!

2.     Tag Posts: Tags (or Labels in Blogger) are easily noticed by search engines. They also help readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati (Gunelius, n.d.; Alexandrou, 2012). Labeling my posts with key terms was a simple fix. I could also optimize labels by using Google to identify key search terms.

3.     Images: Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic (Genelius, n.d.). Awesome. I am going to update my post that doesn’t have an image and include one in this post too! The downside to Blogger vs. WordPress is WordPress automatically suggested images for a post based on content. I miss that feature in Blogger.

4.     Titles: Write an attractive title to reflect the essence of contents of the informative post you have written. There is no need to repeatedly stuff in keywords (Raj, 2011). I am following this tip in a sense (with the exception of the Boing, Boing, Boing post). The title could be strengthen with the words bounce rate in the title.

5.     Write Well and Write Often: Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog's audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more (Gunelius, n.d.; Alexandrou, 2012). This is obvious advice but not to be overlooked.

With all of these improvements, I am hoping for some improvements in the traffic report next week.

References

Alexandrou, M. (2012, May 16).  On-site SEO still works. ClickZ. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2174910/-site-seo

Gunelius, S. (n.d.) 15 tips to increase blog traffic. About.com. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingtips/tp/TipsIncreaseBlogTraffic.htm

Odden, L. (2011, November 7). Optimize and socialize your way to better business blogging. ClickZ. [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2122820/optimize-socialize-business-blogging

Raj. (2011, July 20). Build traffic to your blog: how to generate and increase traffic? [Web log post]. Retrieved June 21, 2012, from http://mtherald.com/build-traffic-to-your-blog-how-to-generate-and-increase-traffic/ 

Google AdWords vs. Facebook Ads

Advertising on the Internet has become highly sophisticated, yet easy-to-use thanks to applications like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Both allow advertisers to quickly set up targeted advertising campaigns in a matter of minutes. The campaigns are highly targeted, adaptable, flexible, and most importantly, they are measurable. Advertisers can see in real-time what their return on investment is for each campaign using the specialized analytical dashboards provided in each application. All campaigns are free to create and advertisers only pay when the ad is viewed and/or clicked. Campaigns can be created for one day or indefinitely. Additionally, the advertiser gets to determine the price they are willing to pay for the ad. Clearly, the advertiser is in control of its own destiny using both applications.

Where Facebook and Google ads differ is in their ability to hone in on a target audience. Google allows advertisers to select audiences based on geography and keywords. For example, Google matches the keywords the consumer entered in the search with the terms the advertiser selected for the ad. Using this approach allows people searching for puppy toys to find stores selling puppy toys. Facebook also offers targeting based on geography but its demographic and psychographic targeting is much richer. Facebook allows targeting based on age, sex, relationship status, likes and interests, education level, workplace, and connections. You can even select to reach people on their actual birthday! Facebook ads can send consumers to a company’s Facebook page (i.e. event page, fan page) or the company URL. This allows Facebook users the ability to share ads with their connections. For example, if an ad directed people to an event page, the person could click that he/she is attending that event. When he/she clicks attending, everyone in his/her social network gets a notice. The person’s connections may then also be interested in the event and choose to attend. If they attend, the advertiser doesn’t have to pay an additional fee for the ad because the new attendees are going based on a friend’s recommendation, not by clicking or seeing the ad. Another benefit of Facebook ads is that they allow advertisers to post photos in their ads, which is not an option with Google.

Without question, Facebook offers superior targeting, but on the flip side, the ads are not as effective. Facebook has a much lower click-through-rate (0.04%) than Google (8%). Although the right people are seeing the Facebook ads, not as many people are clicking on them. This could be because when consumers use Google search, they are looking for something specific and are ready to take action (make a purchase). When people are on Facebook, they are looking to correspond with their connections and may not be in purchase mode. Also, Facebook ads are not shown as prominently as Sponsored Links on Google.

With each platform having its pros and cons, finding the right ad space is really a matter of trial and error. Try each and see for yourself which on works better for your audience. Maybe they both will!

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Some in the web world say, “Content is King” (Greenberg, 2009). Others say, “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about” (Novak, 2010). Who is right? What we are actually debating here is even clearer than the classic chicken and egg syndrome. You can’t have a conversation without something to talk about. Content comes first, but the real benefit of the content comes from conversation. Without a conversation, content is just broadcasting or advertising (Novak, 2010). You are talking “at” people, not “with” people.

The approach to generating actionable content that people want to talk about is a simple process that most social media experts will agree on. Have something to say. Say it often. Be interesting. (Greenberg, 2009). Without these three things happening, no one will care enough to start a conversation.

So now that you have good content, how do you start a conversation? According to Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction, the key to generating conversations is to build relationships on the foundation of trust. Cultivating trust online is tricky and takes work, but is by no means impossible. She offers the following four tips to earn trust:

1. Acknowledge with Empathy

Recognize the type of feeling your customer is having, and respond in an empathetic, emotionally intelligent way. Also, when a customer has a good experience with your brand, amplify it. Thank them and then share their feedback socially.

2. Enable the Right Outcomes

Before they trust you, your customers need to know not just that you’ll hear them, but that when they raise concerns, they’ll see a resolution. That means enabling your customers to express their feedback in the place where it’s most productive for them, whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, product pages on your website, or anywhere else. In other words, your community needs to have multiple front doors under one roof.

3. Educate Through Experience

It’s not your job to tell your customers what the company values are. It’s your job to let them experience those values by bringing them into the fold of your brand’s community. That requires a system for archiving, organizing, and sharing conversations, the rallying point for your community of customers. Meanwhile, you still need to produce and share content.

4. Keep the Momentum Going

Ultimately, real relationships are a two-way street, and your customers know that. Trust is the foundation of a relationship, but to keep that relationship going, you need to prove that you earned it, every day and everywhere.

Wendy Lea’s tips are very helpful in building trust, but I would start building trust by first listening to the customers. Find out what is important to them, where they are having conversations, and who that are conversing with. Secondly, it is important to ask questions and solicit opinions. Jump into existing conversations. You don’t have to wait for them to come to you. Lastly, it is important to remember than not all of your customers are comfortable having a conversation online. This doesn’t mean that they won’t find the conversations valuable, but they just aren’t going to participate no matter how engaging the conversation is.

References

Lea, W. http://mashable.com/2012/05/17/online-trust-customers/

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Boing, Boing, Boing

The author of Web Analytics 2.0, Avinash Kaushik, considers the Bounce Rate the sexiest web metric ever. I agree. He says the Bounce Rate measures the phenomenon: “I came, I puked, I left.” In other words, someone came to your site, didn’t like it, and left. You didn’t get even one tiny click! You failed. 
 

The good news is that Bounce Rate identifies the low-hanging fruit that need to be fixed now. If people are turned off by the page, fix it. A recent Mashable article offers some advice on how to lower your Bounce Rate. Here are two tips that I found to be particularly helpful when addressing Bounce Rate:

Tip 1: Be Mindful of Ad Placement. Let’s face it; people are turned off by advertisements. Obviously the ads saying “Buy Me” in blinking neon text is a real turn off, but Mashable had some other notes. It said to take care not to place ads too close to your site navigation (which can cause accidental ad clicks) and don’t put too many ads above the fold of the page. Makes sense to me.

Tip 2: Your Message Should be Immediately Obvious. According to Mashable, one of the biggest causes of a high Bounce Rate is visitor confusion. If a new visitor to your site has to figure out or hunt down information telling them what your site does, that’s an immediate red flag. Your site’s purpose should be immediately evident, and expressed clearly in both its design and its content. It recommended using headlines and graphics to highlight important features and key information. Also, your content should be organized and supplemented in such a way so that it guides the reader through the experience. I couldn’t agree more. Sites should be easily scanned and clutter-free.

These tips, among others, offered by Mashable are helpful at addressing Bounce Rate, but the article did not consider content. In my opinion, relevant, focused, content is still paramount. Often, I get bogged down reading a site with too much content. I have to scan through the page to find what I want. I like sites that tell me briefly what I want to know right away, and then let me read the rest of the story if I want. It is also important for the page content to speak my language. It has to be easy to understand, up-to-date, and concise.  In addition to the actual words, the web offers the opportunity to engage the reader with different fonts, colors, and images. On the flip side, using white space can also be crucial, as it provides a breather to a viewer who is possibly drowning in a pool of information.

Another tip I would add to the Mashable article is to make sure you are using the proper SEO techniques for the site. For example, I was recently working on a website focused on carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is a common term used in the energy industry but it also happens to be the name of a popular skateboarding e-tailer. Our energy CCS site was competing with the skateboarding CCS e-tailer. I can only imagine how many visitors came to our site thinking they were getting skateboarding goods, and really they ended up on a geeky science-based site. We needed to find a way to distinguish ourselves from the other CCS site.

If these techniques are tried and the page still fails, you can always remove it. Sometimes “less is more.” A page that isn’t working isn’t necessary.

Search is dead! Long live social!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a hot topic in the web world that continues to evolve on what can seem to be a daily basis. An approach that worked six months ago may no longer work today. Some are beginning to think that SEO may be dead and they need to turn to other tactics to get visitors.

In a recent Mashable interview, The Atlantic Media Company’s Scott Havens, senior VP of finance and digital operations, said, “Sixteen months ago we received the same number of monthly referrals from search as social. Now 40% of traffic comes from social media… Truly [our writers] are not really thinking about SEO anymore. Now it’s about how we can spin a story so that it goes viral.”

I think the point Havens was trying to make is that too often, web writers can get caught up in writing for SEO. They get consumed by trying to optimize their page content for search engines by using the right keywords. As a result, the story suffers. It isn’t as eloquent, relevant, engaging, or funny. Havens was basically saying it is more important to write a good story, than to write for a machine. He certainly has a point there, but I would argue that good writing that goes viral is SEO. If you are making an effort to get your content shared, you’re also helping your SEO at the same time.

Today, a comprehensive approach using traditional SEO techniques with social media can be very effective.  Viral content will boost your SEO because search engines pay more attention to social signals. Viral stories tell search engines that your site is active, current, and invested in the needs of your audience. Additionally, the social approach to SEO allows the content to be more relevant to what the visitor is looking for than by relying on organic searches alone. If a story is viral, it is shared with others interested in the same story. This will improve the Bounce Rate and will likely result in more engagement with the site.  Let the story come first, then follow with SEO. This is truly a win-win for the content provider and the visitor.

A blog article in Search Engine Watch titled “7 Social Media & SEO Tactics Businesses Will Adopt in 2012” echo’s this approach. The article noted that over the past few years, we’ve seen a mad rush (and budget) from companies to create content with the sole purpose of creating content for SEO. Instead, what we’ll see in 2012 is a more structured approach by businesses to create content that provides a unique value to readers resulting in higher engagement levels with their community members. The article notes that we’ll see a more holistic approach from businesses with content, whether its videos, how-to content pieces, or other types of content. In the end, quality content will become more important. After all, content is King. Or is it?