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Module 3: Google, RSS, Alerts

& Dashboards

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Is your website a billboard?

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Is your website updated regularly?

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Is your website useful to your own employees?

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I don’t know who you are.I don’t know your company.I don’t know your company’s product.I don’t know what your company stands for.I don’t know your company’s customers.I don’t know your company’s record.I don’t know your company’s reputation.

Now – what was it you wanted to sell me?Moral: Sales start before your salesman calls…

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Google Quotient

• Findability: Can your brand name, product or service be found easily?

• Linkability: Are you linking out and being linked by others?

• Relevance: Are the search results relevant to your potential customers?

• Differentiation: Are the generic searches for your product or service rated higher than your competitor’s?

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Search engine results are key• 68% click a search result in the 1st page of results • 92% will go up to (at most) 3rd page before

changing query (half will switch after 1st page)

• 39% believe that the companies whose websites are in top search results are the leaders in their field.

Key lesson: If you're not ranking well for your desired search terms, brand names and other important key words and phrases, you're missing out on significant, highly qualified traffic.

Source: iProspect & JupiterResearch, Search Engine User Behaviour Study on Google, MSN, Yahoo! Users, 2008

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British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic:A basic search results comparison

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“British Airways” – 1st Page Results

Source: http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/reputation-wars/reputation-wars-british-airways-vs-virgin-atlantic/

1. www.britishairways.com - Owned

2. www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb - Owned

3. www.baworldcargo.com - Owned

4. www.baworldcargo.com/tracking - Owned

5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways - Positive

6. www.britishairwaysjobs.com - Owned

7. www.britishairways.no - Owned

8. www.baa.com - Positive

9. www.oneworld.com/ow/member-airlines/british-airways - Owned

10.www.baholidays.com/packages/ - Owned

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“British Airways:2nd Page Results11.www.foxnews.com/story/

0,2933,291304,00.html - Negative

12.www.bavirtual.co.uk - Owned

13.ocaoimh.ie/tag/british-airways/ - Negative

14.www.bafc.co.uk - Owned

15.www.londoneye.com - Owned

16.www.britishairwaysrfc.co.uk - Owned

17.www.topix.net/com/bab - Positive

18.www.worldtracer.aero/filedsp/ba.htm - Positive

19.www.gbairways.com - Positive

20.www.flybmi.com/bmed - Positive

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“Virgin Atlantic” – 1st Page Results1. www.virgin-atlantic.com - Owned

2. www.virgin.com - Owned

3. virgin.com/uk/default.asp - Owned

4. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Atlantic_Airways - Positive

5. www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com - Owned

6. www.flyingwithoutfear.info - Owned

7. www.v-flyer.com - Owned

8. www.virginatlanticflights.com - Owned

9. gs19.globalsuccessor.com/fe/tpl_virgin01.aps?newms=hm - Owned

10.www.airlinequality.com/Forum/vir_atl.htm - Positive

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“Virgin Atlantic”: 2nd Page Results11.www.cheapflights.co.uk/airlines/

virgin-atlantic.html - Positive 12.www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc -

Positive 13.www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc -

Positive 14.www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/

MissionControl/Tracking/ - Owned 15. farechase.yahoo.com/airlines/

virgin_atlantic-214281 - Positive 16.www.engadget.com/2007/01/17…etc

- Positive 17.www.virginmobile.co.za/…etc -

Owned 18.www.cheapflights.com/airlines/

virginatlantic.html - Positive 19.www.fastcompany.com/…etc -

Positive 20.www.usatoday.com/…etc - Negative

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British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic

1. Own website

2. Own website

3. Own website

4. Own website

5. Positive: Wikipedia

6. Own website

7. Own website

8. Positive: Airport website

9. Own website

10. Own website

11. Negative: News site

12. Owned

13. Negative: Blog

14. Own website

15. Own website

16. Own website

17. Positive: News Aggregator

18. Positive: Baggage Tracer

19. Positive: Travel booking site

20. Positive: Travel booking site

1. Own website

2. Own website

3. Own website

4. Positive: Wikipedia

5. Own website

6. Own website

7. Own website

8. Own website

9. Own website

10. Positive: Airline review site

11. Positive: Flight deals aggregator

12. Positive: Magazine site

13. Positive: Magazine site

14. Own website

15. Positive: Flight deals aggregator

16. Positive: Gadget news site

17. Own website

18. Positive: Flights deals aggregator

19. Positive: Magazine site

20. Negative: News site

Score: 42/50 Score: 44/50

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Love vs hate

• “I love British Airways” - 436 results

• “I hate British Airways” - 172 results

Score: 36 / 50

• “I love Virgin Atlantic” - 597 results

• “I hate Virgin Atlantic” - 3 results

Score: (49.75 rounded up to) 50 / 50

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Fun test: GoogleFight.com

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10 ways to monitor brands for free1. Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts, iGoogle

2. Yahoo Alerts: http://alerts.yahoo.com3. Yahoo Pipes: Social media firehose

http://pipes.yahoo.com/update_maker/social_media_fire_hose

4. Blogsearch.google.com

5. Technorati.com

6. Backtype.com

7. Search.twitter.com

8. FriendFeed:http://mashable.com/2008/12/05/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-friendfeed/

9. Socialmention

10. Compete.com

Bonus: whostalkin.com

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Fee-based trackers

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15 Google tips

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Google search tips1. Capitalization and quotation marks: Google searches are

NOT case sensitive. Searches for najib razak, Najib Razak, and naJIb rAZak will all return the same results.

Use “quotes” or + sign to include all words. Eg: a +b

2. Limit to .my sites

Example 1: killinghall site:com.my

Example 2: “abdullah badawi” site: gov.my

3. Either OR. If you want to include either this or that in result list, use the OR operator (must be upper-case):

Example: "siti nurhaliza" OR "datuk khalid” site:my

(Leave out the OR, Google returns pages that include both terms)

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4. Exclude the Wrong Results Using -Exclude irrelevant results with minus (-) operator on every word that you want to exclude and try again. Eg: killinghall -school -“north yorkshire" -church –pubs

5. Finding different FiletypesGo to Google > Advanced Search.Try finding Acrobat (pdf), Powerpoint (pps), Excel spreadsheet (xls) files on any .gov.my site.Example: site:bnm.gov.my filetype:xls

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6. Older stuffTry Google Cached or www.archive.org

7. Daterange trick: as_qdr=d7, where d=day, 7=sevenhttp://www.google.com/search?q=site:abc.com&as_qdr=d7

8. News and Images: http://news.google.comhttp://images.google.com

9. Google Finance: http://finance.google.com

10. Tools: Calculator: Eg: 3200+5000 OR 5% of 3527

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11. Tools: Metric converterEg: “233 square feet in square meter” OR “233 sq ft =? sq m”, 10 acres in hectares

12. Tools: Dictionary, acronym finderEg: define: dodecagon OR define: PCR

13. Tools: Currency converterEg: currency of Brazil in Malaysian moneyEg: 3.578 USD in MYREg: 5.6 million British pounds in MYR

14. Tools: Recipe tipEg: half a cup in teaspoons

15. PhonebookEg: Brad, Pitt, LA OR rphonebook: Brad Pitt LA

Extra tip: Check flight status by typing flight code eg: mh 123

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Google AdWords, Google AdSense, SEO

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Understanding basic terms

• Hits

• Pageviews, Impressions

• Unique visitors

• Downloads

• Embeds

• Timespent

• Traffic

• PPC =pay-per-click, CPM =cost-per-1000

• CPC= cost/click, CPA = cost/action

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Google PageRank

• PageRank™ is Google's proprietary system for ranking web pages. 

• Google grades pages from PR 1 to 10 based on a complex algorithm that takes into account the page's content, and the number and quality of inbound links. 

• The higher the inbound links, the higher in the search engine results page (SERP) your website/blog will appear after a query.

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Search Engine Optimization

• The process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site ranks higher when those keyword phrases are part of a web search.

OrganicOrganic

PaidPaidPaidPaid

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Wordtracker

• Enter in keywords and search phrases

• Find relevant terms• Use for brainstorming

as well as drilling down into specific phrases.

• Google Keyword suggestion tool:

Free version:http:// freekeywords.wordtracker.com

http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

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Google AdWords: search results

Exercise: 1. Search for keywords of your product 2. Who’s advertising your keyword?

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Google AdWords

• AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product, and main source of revenue.

• AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.

• Google's text ads are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines.

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Google AdSense

• Website publishers can earn a portion of the ad revenue for placing Google-administered text and image ads on their sites or blogs.

• The ads generate revenue on a per-click basis.

• Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors.

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Google Analytics• Tracks and generates detailed statistics about visitors to a site.

• Used to optimize AdWords campaigns by analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed, their geographical position and where exactly visitors click on the site.

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Building a simple monitoring dashboard

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RSS• Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication is a

method to syndicate your web content out to users. Using RSS files, you can create a feed that supplies headlines, news, blog posts, comments, forum threads, photos, audio files, and even video to your “subscribers”.

• Subscribers can use a dedicated software called an RSS reader or aggregator to “pull in” all their favourite web content into one location and scan quickly. Current browsers come with integrated RSS readers.

• Users can also use a web-based aggregator to pull-in feeds that are constantly updated and view a web page of feeds. Eg: Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes

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Using RSS

1. Monitor News:http://thestar.com.my/rss/http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm

2. Monitor Press Releases: Intel: http://www.intel.com/intel/rss.htmIBM: http://www-1.ibm.com/services/us/igs/rss/rss.htmlDell: http://www.dell.com/RSS/

3. Monitor Blogs: http://www.tonyfernandesblog.com/main.php?tempskin=_rss2

http://rockybru.blogspot.com/atom.xmlhttp://www.kennysia.com/atom.xml

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Exercise: Add feed to iGoogle 1. Go to http://www.thestar.com.my/rss

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2. Right click RSS, copy shortcut (IE) or copy link location (Firefox), or copy link address(Chrome)

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3. Open igoogle.com. Click on ADD GADGETSTop left.

4. Click on “Add feed or gadget” (bottom left) and paste URL (over http://)

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5. Create a dashboard of feeds and divide into tabs (topic headers)

To add a tab, click on down arrow and Add Tab

You can add up to 9 posts/updates per feed and re-arrange pages into 1-column, 2-column or 3-column

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Method B: 2. Clicking on RSS button1. Switch to Google

2. Subscribe

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2. Add to Google homepage

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Marty Weintraub, http://www.aimclearblog.com

Bonus: How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard: http://tinyurl.com/repboard