You can view and download the report by visiting the Nielsen State of Media Report

Nielsen State of Media Report is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

Client calls demanding an answer: “Why am I not #1 in the Google for the most ambiguous term in the history of language?”

As practitioners, our natural instinct is to start explaining the technical aspects of what’s going on. Links this, competitive density that, crumb code and content the other… during this, to most clients, we quickly start sounding like the adult characters from Peanuts; “Wawa, wa wawawawa”. While these are valid responses to the client’s inquiry, they tend to leave clients miffed and doubtful. So how do we solve this problem?

SEV for all Mankind

One of the things we’ve learned at WordsGoHere over the years is how little actual value absolute rank brings to the table. Compounded by the ever increasing impact that results personalization and location-specification the search engines are employing (signed in or not), we’ve been forced to evolve our thinking. We’ve transitioned our view of SERP performance from a ranking report to a concept we refer to as a Search Engine Visibility Score, (SEV score). To introduce valuable depth to the KPI, we have added a secondary KPI, the percentage of visible queries that are producing visits to the site. It doesn’t have a fancy acronym yet.

Before we go any further, allow us to be painfully clear; this is a KPI that has been “fabricated” as required by our experiences. The SEV score is born out of a need to simplify the presentation and explanation of SERP data to clients that did not (nor should they really be required to) understand organic visibility past the concept of a Ricky Bobby-esque “If you’re not first, you’re last” perspective. We can tell you that since we first introduced it to our clients, the feedback has been genuinely appreciative. They declare that they get it, and appreciate the real transparency this approach provides. In fairness, since beginning our efforts to write this article, we found that the fine folks at SEO Gadget suggesting Search Engine Visibility as a Metric. Might be something to this?

SEV Details & Definition

SEV is a simple concept really. Its a percentage of the total number of target queries that are visible within an acceptable threshold of positions in the SERPs. If your SERP tracking tool is suggesting anywhere in say the range of the first page, or even top 20, odds are favorable that your site is being served in the SERPs and offered SEV opportunities. Take this a step further by looking at the number of those queries that are producing visitor – the real purpose of Search Engine Visibility after all – you suddenly have a contextually rich and meaningful KPI to discuss with your clients about your efforts. Visibility, while impressive in its own right, means little unless it’s driving opportunity (visits).

The conversation will quickly move away from being #1. You will have helped the client realize that it is actually about how many opportunities your efforts are providing their business. Nothing beats showing how you are paying for yourself!

By nature, we all like bigger numbers (especially clients), and we understand that anything shy of 100% could be better. We are also trained to appreciate a climbing trend line. We all understand that concept as “progress”. Using KPIs that will allow you to frame your efforts in a trend-able fashion, will resonate with any business stakeholder or client.

Lets take a gander at the technical how to.

How to Calculate SEV Scores

The scene :: you are targeting visibility and monitoring 100 queries across the major 3 engines.

• If targeting and monitoring 100 queries, there are 300 total opportunities for Search Engine Visibility (100 queries * 3 search engines)
• Assume a 1st page threshold (meaning, that in order to count something as successful, it must be inside the top 10 positions)
• If 150 of those opportunities are within the declared threshold, the SEV percentage would be 50% (ex. ((300-150)/300)*100)
• It’s literally that simple!

Now, lets look at the percentage producing visitors KPI

• Of the 300 total opportunities for search engine visibility, 109 are actually producing visitors
• The math: ((109/300)*100) = 36.33
• This gives you a 36.33% of your target queries are producing visitors.

Since it is universal that visibility should drive opportunities (visits) to a client site, these SEV KPIs can do a lot to help you prove the value of your efforts.

To help illustrate this concept, please check out this Search Engine Visibility PDF example, in a format not unlike what the Words Go Here team uses with our clients.

In a follow up post, we’ll present a few examples of how to use keywords tags as attributes for segmenting SEV performance in business objective context.

Measuring SEO Success Past Absolute Rank is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

All you have to do is:

• Create a privacy policy
• State the usage of third party tracking
• State the usage of cookies to track anonymous data

No one actually reads those terms of service agreements when downloading new software, or signing up for a service, right? Or am I the only one that clicks the checkbox without reading it? Those things could make us promise our first-born, and we would have to oblige should we get an email from legaldept@rumpelstiltskin.com.

We take it on faith that the companies we trust with our data would never put anything so sinister in their Terms of Service, but what if?

I bring this up because dealing with so much data as i do, I also deal with a lot of privacy policies. Since September every time I go through a privacy policy I’m reminded of a post from Brad Geddes at Search Engine saying that 90% of websites using a Google product are breaking at least one of their terms of service. Think about that for a second; if a small business is running an AdWords campaign, using Google Analytics, Google Places, Webmaster Tools, or any other Google Apps, etc, there is a 90% chance that the business could realistically be held responsible in a lawsuit.

Think about this scenario:

Someone, a non-Gmail user, sues Google. Why? Because Google gets sued every day, duh. The complaint of the user is that they visited a website and they didn’t know Google Analytics was tracking them.

Google’s crack legal team looks at the offending website and finds that there is no privacy policy anywhere on the website.

Google says that the website doesn’t have a privacy policy, which is a violation of the Terms and Conditions. They are the ones that should be sued.

This idea isn’t far off. Google is in enough hot water overseas from privacy hawks and anti-trust concerns. They’ve got enough headaches to worry about to come after a small business or two themselves. But in covering their own (Edit: you-know-whats), I speculate that it would be pretty easy to point the finger somewhere else just to get something off their backs.

A quick update to your privacy policy can ensure you avoid sitting in the cross-hairs.

CYA: Update your Privacy Page is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

In some cases, Google has been manually punishing sites. Two high profile cases where Google hulked out are JC Penney and Overstock.com.

In both cases, JC Penney and Overstock had SEO firms who’s strategy revolved so heavily on “link building” that inbound links were being paid for, which is against Google’s guidelines – which makes Google angry. And you wouldn’t like Google when it’s angry.

With these two high profile cases coming on the heels of each other, there is evidence that aside from the “Farmer” algorithm update, Google may also be cracking down on sites with paid and/or irrelevant inbound links.

Am I Being Penalized for Paid Links?

If you think you have been affected by Google’s paid link penalty, here’s how to verify in Google Analytics:

• Sign into Google Analytics
• Under the website profile, click on Traffic Sources
• Click on Referring Sites
• Change the date range to the week before you noticed a decrease in traffic
• Take note of your highest referrers
• Change the Date Range to the week you noticed a decrease in traffic
• Take note of your highest referrers
• Look for any drastic changes, or some sites suddenly disappearing from the list

To verify that Google traffic in particular has taken a hit:

• Click on Search Engines
• Under the graph, where it says “Show” click on “non-paid”
  If you use another analytics program (Coremetrics, Omniture) look in organic referrals by Search Engine.
• Check to see if you have seen a dramatic decrease in traffic
• Compare that to the previous week and the previous month
  Saturday and Sunday may be normal low traffic periods.

If your referrers have seen a change, and Google traffic has dropped significantly, you may have been penalized by Google

If you are running a rank checking program, you should wait at least a week after you’ve noticed these fluctuations and then look to see if your rankings in Google have dropped.

Why wait?

• Because the rank checking program may not have updated accurately
• Depending on real time search, and which servers are hit when the program runs, you may initially get inaccurate results. A week will give the results time to normalize

I’m Hit! Now What?

Next steps are request reconsideration from Google. Remember to be very detailed when writing out the case for reconsideration.

Avoid Being Penalized in the Future
Many site owners have little to nothing to do with link building, but that doesn’t mean they’re off the hook. If you own the site, you’re responsible for SEO tactics. Be sure you stay informed. Discuss link building tactics with your SEO Department/Firm and ask questions like:

• What is our linking strategy?
• What websites are we linking to?
• How do we know these websites?
• Who runs the website?
• Why are they linking to us?
• Are they affiliate links?

When considering link building, keep these things in mind:

• Link building is about building relationships online and offline
• Make sure the links you are receiving are from trusted sources
• If it’s ambiguous, make sure the inbound link is from someone you or someone who reports to you can contact

Google & Paid Link Penalties is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

You may have already heard, as there’s a wealth of excellent coverage currently out there such as:

• Google Forecloses on Content Farms – Danny Sullivan
• The Panda that Hates Farms – Wired
• Google’s Panda/Farmer Update – Distilled

However, we found ourselves explaining and comforting to such a degree that we thought we’d publish a simple how-to guide for the layman who wishes to determine if he’s been affected.

What is a Content Farm?

Essentially, a content farm is a web property or group of properties that creates low-quality “optimized” content en masse designed more for the purpose of ad generation than valuable information. Other attributes include:

• This content is created quickly and doesn’t offer any value
• It happens in such a volume (4,000 pages per day for some properties) that it pushes well crafted content out of the search engines
• Content for content’s sake
  For example: eHow.com, about.com and examiner.com

How to Tell if You’ve Been Affected by the “Farmer” Update

The fastest way to tell if you have been affected by the “Farmer” update is to check Google Analytics. Unfamiliar with GA? Here’s a play by play:

• Log into Google Analytics
• Click on Traffic Sources
• Click on Search Engines
• In the list of Search Engines, Click on Google
• Under the graph, where it says “Show” click on “non-paid”
  If you use another analytics program (Coremetrics, Omniture) look in organic referrals by Search Engine.

Once you’re in, there are a couple things you need to do:

• Check to see if you have seen a dramatic decrease in traffic since February 24th
• Compare that to the previous week and the previous month
  Saturday and Sunday may be normal low traffic periods.

If it’s looking grim, you have the option to request consideration from Google. Make sure you’re very detailed when writing out the case for reconsideration.

What About Paid Link Penalties?

Do not confuse the “Farmer” algorithm change to Google’s recent crackdown on paid links. Stay tuned for more info on how to verify if you’re being penalized for paid links.

A Layman’s Guide to Google’s Farmer/Panda Update is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

So, PubCon South is right around the corner (March 8-9  Austin, TX), and it is official; I am speaking on a panel!

Search Analytics and Traffic Analysis

Date: Wednesday March 9

Time: 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM

Location: Salon B

Format: Standard Conference Session

Show up, because this is going to be a fantastic session.

This is my first speaking engagement on a panel this large, and it’s a milestone moment so excuse me if I gush for a second.

When I broke the news to Timothy Nobles, I think he was just as excited as I am, in a “Drinks are on the house!” kind of way. This is as big a moment for him and Words Go Here as it is for me.

Timothy and I started out in Internet Marketing at the same time. He initially brought me on as he was starting out and we formed a tremendous working relationship. At the time, this whole “internet marketing” thing was still pretty new, and we were learning and plying our skills in the high-demanding automotive industry. Because of the scale of our in-house operation, we learned our craft quickly and we learned it well with Timothy finding a niche with Organic Search and Content Strategy, and myself having a talent for PPC and Analytics.

The fast-paced, aggressive environment allowed us to learn and adapt furiously; our battle scars were deep, and for all the daughters that didn’t get ponies for their birthdays, and for all the used yellow convertibles in Buffalo, we gained large wins and a crazy sense of internal satisfaction when it looked like our most vocal competitors might have started bitin’ our rhymes and copying our style.

And in that industry within an industry, frustration grew as companies might not have moved as fast as we would have liked, “automotive online experts” would take credit for advances Timothy and I made, and others would peddle bad advice only serving to line their own pockets and cause confusion in the marketplace. I believe this was the catalyst that made Timothy want to go into business for himself, and me to desperately want some type of recognition from our peers (call it “Only Child Syndrome”).

For both Timothy and I, where we are professionally is the culmination of a near-decade of tremendously hard work as Words Go Here begins to take off and someone thinks I’ve got enough knowledge to talk about Analytics in front of people. This is a watershed moment in time for both of us that is as validating as it is humbling.

I do feel like I need to thank some people for helping me get here:

Longtime bro, and fellow Austinite Taylor Pratt has been tremendously reassuring. Since he’s an old hand at these types of things. I want to thank both him and Jon Henshaw. It was working with them that gave me the final boost of confidence to seek out greener pastures on my own, and I’m eternally grateful. I don’t this would be possible without the Raven crew.

Kelly McGee at Ads Next, who is a satellite sister from back in the automotive days. She and I attended our first Search Conference together, and neither of us would have made it out alive without the other one.

Bryce Callaway for Fists of Fury! One of the most loyal guys I’ve ever met, and one of those persons you always want on your side of a fight.

Grumpyhawk for challenging me on a daily basis. You make me want to be better at my job.

Ashley Morrison – She had to deal with a lot of the residuals in those early days, and she made every business trip worth it. Despite going our separate ways, she remains a big part of how I got here. You’re the top.

Lauren Litwinka – I met this young woman at SMX East of aught-nine. She bought me a Coke in between sessions, so she’s pretty cool in my book. During the conference I noticed how determined she was to meet everybody, and I thought to myself, “She’s going to be somebody. I wish I had her confidence.” Cut to a few months later and she had relocated to Duluth, MN to take a job with Aimclear. It’s amazing the little things you pick up from people.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land – I was initially on Danny Sullivan’s radar during our SEO Showdown Foursquare match at last year’s South by Southwest Interactive. During the Google Instant kerfuffle, he linked to a post I had written on the Raven Blog. He and I had briefly discussed the SMX East 2010 Google Instant panel, but it wasn’t in the cards for me that time. I became more motivated than ever professionally, when only a year ago a similar situation would have discouraged me to the point of debilitation. At some point I grew up during all this.

To Brett Tabke and Jeff Randall – thanks for taking a chance on this guy.

To my fellow panel members, Alan K’necht, Paul Edmondson, Prashant Puri, and Moderator Joanna Lord, I just hope I make you guys look good while not embarrassing myself.

Show up at this panel if you dare to have your minds blown by some Analytics goodness!

Nate at PubCon ? OMG! is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

Why are C-levels still focused on Page Views and Hits? Because other C-levels are. When bosses are told Page Views are important, that is what they will consider important even if page views aren’t germane to their business goals.

I have never hidden the fact that I am a professional wrestling fan, and have been since I can remember. This may embarrass my parents, colleagues, ex-girlfriends and future ex-girlfriends, but I unapologetically love professional wrestling.

Currently fans of wrestling are complaining about WWE’s “Did You Know” graphics during the commercial breaks.

What follows is an innocuous factoid, usually about the vastness of WWE’s viewing audience (branded the WWE Universe). On the 900th episode of Monday Night RAW, one of the factoids shown from the “Did You Know” Graphic was:

WWE is watched in over 40 countries. WWE.com gets more hits every day than ESPN.com, MSNBC.com and CNN.com.

Traditional WWE fans seriously hate this. They believe that WWE owner Vince McMahon is so insecure that these graphics appear only to stroke his ego; he wants to be accepted as a cultural institution rather than just a pro rasslin’ show.

What fans don’t realize is that these bumpers are not because McMahon needs to tell himself how great he is; they are a not so subtle B2B marketing campaign. They are looking for new advertisers, screaming “Look at all our traffic! You should advertise with us!” McMahon is hoping that during their broadcasts, influential executives with deep pockets will be watching and think, “holy shit, that’s a lot of hits! Get me all the banner space on WWE.com!”

These decision makers are told “hits are important,” regardless of website type. If they are told hits are important on websites, then hits must be important on their website.

Changing the conversation:

CEOs are told that Internet Marketing is a War; a battle that if they aren’t winning they must be losing. How do you win the internet? Obviously it must mean being number one on Google for everything. How do you win Facebook? You have the most followers. The chart has to always be moving up, all the time. As internet marketers, we know traffic is cyclical. Most websites aren’t going to have must-see content all the time. Not everyone is going to like your brand always.

And it’s something we perpetuate. Instead of focusing on sustainable business, we have companies whose names imply higher search engine placements, our job titles imply we know the mysterious ins and outs of social media, or that we have millions of followers because we have a dynamic, in-your-face personality.

We are the ones that present industry as a war, and only we can navigate the smoke and mirrors, and then chastise our clients for not getting it. And when we imply the idea of “always more” to CEOs that are still fixated on hits, company strategy becomes based around that, not sustaining business goals via their website.

Until we are willing to stop perpetuating culture of more by acquiescing to routine data pulls and promising ever increasing gains we will always be wrestling with “hits.”

Why Hits Still Matter is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

That’s kind of the baseline of a Content Strategist’s job description. But, let’s take a drill-down look at the “planning” and “construction” portions of this Content Strategist’s role (and yet another element of why it’s so critical to have this position in your organization, or partnering agency!), where video content is involved. You’ve already gone through your website and determined what content assets are available and their quality, as well as what’s needed and how it should be constructed (designed, branded, written, intoned, sized, etc.). You did the same process for all of your video content, right? And maybe now you realize you need new video content!

Words Go Here preaches about how Content is the currency of the web, and not as much the “King” that it’s been touted as for so many years. In terms of content as a currency, it’s all about a video’s relevance to users so they will not just appreciate it and find value in it, but so they will also recommend it to others via word of mouth, posts, links, “likes,” and embedding. In the old school (and unfortunately, still somewhat the current) SEO practices, “content is king” often translated into content for content’s sake. The idea being “If we have more pages, more microsites, more links, more posts, more tags, more mentions, more links! more! more! MORE! MORE!!!” then we’ll grow and succeed. But, if the quality of your content is bloated, written for crawlers – not people, and is difficult to wade through, it will have no value to the recipient. So, someone please help me understand how quantity matters when quality is ignored? No one’s going to care. You’re just taking up space and wasting their attention. #ContentFail.

Videos:

So, on to quality of video. Just because you, or your client, or your friend, or your friend’s friend all have a video camera (phone) on hand, doesn’t mean you’ll automatically produce some sort of P.T. Anderson masterpiece about how completely mind-blowing your current hot product is. Video is a powerful medium for translating value relative to your brand, but, should be carefully planned and constructed.

If there was one thing I learned after 4 years in television production, it’s that video production quality matters. It serves to legitimize your value proposition, separate you from your competitors, reinforce your brand, highlighting the product or service in it’s absolute best light. Pun intended.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the critical production components that are required for successful video content strategy and creation. Feel free to treat this as a “Directional Quality Checklist” resource ::

• Resolution ::
  • Hi Def? HD is great in that it provides the highest quality on the front end so when it’s compressed and formatted it will still look it’s best.
  • However, it may be cost prohibitive depending on the size of your production (ex: a quick 1-camera interview vs. a 5-camera, 90-second TV style commercial “spot”)
  • HD might also be “overkill” in terms of the end use of your video project. If you just need a little introduction clip for the sidebar of your homepage, you may just want something lightweight
• Framing ::
  • How intimate, personal, or grandiose do you need this to be? Think about your interview shot styles:
    • Tighter (just shoulders and head or just a “talking head”)
    • Wider (full body)
    • Mid shot (ribs to head)
    • Left, Right, or Center?
    • A mix of all of the above?
• Set Lighting (and Shadowing) ::
  • Soft, comfortable, inviting
  • Harsh, stark, contrasting
  • And remember the set backgrounds… they get their own consideration
  • Wait, are you even shooting this inside?  Outdoors is another animal (like a giraffe versus a lion)
• Video editing ::
  • Smooth transitions
  • Hard cuts from shot to shot
  • Fast paced edits, or longer shots
  • Transition styles (please, no more star fades, a la the 80′s!)
• Audio / Sound ::
  • Soothing, unnoticed, spa-like and forgetful music?
  • Brash, pulsing music that helps drive a point?
  • Orchestral and regal, swelling to pull an emotional response?
  • No music, just speaking voices?
• Graphic Overlays ::
  • Titles – product names, guest/host names and titles
  • Corner “bugs” – sale notices, calls-to-action
  • Branding registrations or trademarks
  • Animations – product demos (“B-roll”) or motion diagrams
• Background Setting (not just lighting), but the “stuff” ::
  • Plants, chairs, candles, pictures (living room, office)
  • Products, people, storefronts (retail environment)
  • Blank or textured wall (a spokesperson backdrop?)
• Product / Talent – Who’s the “star” here? Who’s the “hero?” Make them / it look the part ::
  • For people:
    • Clothing choices (style, age, quality…)
    • Makeup and hair styling
    • Model / acting agency or someone from the company (careful there!)
  • For Products:
    • Set dressing (plastic stands, clothe throws…)
    • “Before” and “After” examples, ready made
• Closed Captioning – Consider your audience! ::
  • Hearing impaired?
  • Translations?
  • If you’re not sure about this one, I recommend our earlier post on the usefulness of CC in SEO efforts.

I realize most, if not all, of you are not super familiar with these components. Sure, you may notice them from time to time while you’re watching the latest iteration of CSI, or American Idolatry, but they’re not the sorts of things you regularly lend your rapt attention. But when you need quality content, and especially when you’re paying high $$$ for it, this is a critical set of considerations to have in mind. They’re a good list for thinking though the video content construction process. And, as a word of experience, do your best to define everything on the front side. It will help remove subjectivity from the process, as well as avoid increasing expense from production “scope creep,” just the same as it can occur in web design.

Please hear me when I say you do not have to be a video producer to make your online video content work. If you have a Content Strategist, they’ll be helping you with this, and perhaps you won’t be thinking about it (wouldn’t that be nice)! But if you’re your own Content Strategy department, then be sure to vet the potential video vendors the same as you would any other provider. Do the samples they provide strike you as too frenetic, too sleepy, too corporate, etc, for what you’re looking to accomplish? What is their expected turn around time on a project like yours? What is their approval process to ensure your satisfaction? Think, “Is this the sort of style that I want to use to represent my brand and product?” If you do this, you’ll start to notice more of the little things that DO make a difference.

And all of the above goes for regular ol’ still-shot cameras too, folks.

And when it comes to the video end of things, don’t forget about the usability and high SEO value of your Close Captioned options. I think its fair to say that its very rare that you ever want to alienate anyone from your brand. So give consideration to the 508 Legislation.

For another viewpoint on this topic, I recommend Mitch Joel’s recent post on video creditability. And as always, provide us with your thoughts about content strategy. Especially along video or rich media lines. Let’s discuss it, for the greater good of the web (and our clients).

No More Content for Contents Sake is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

As part of your Content Strategy, simply “having” video is not quite enough. Especially if you are using video to distribute any exclusive content. Creating text-based CC appropriate for the video is critical. One of the biggest obstacles at the moment is the differences in formats for the caption files. If you are doing something hosted on your site that leverages the Quicktime player, there is one format for captioning. If you are using YouTube, there is another. They are not a one-for-one port. For this post, I’ll outline a few of the things you should know to be fast and effective at creating text-based CC for your video content on YouTube.

Let’s take a few minutes to get an understanding of the different file formats you can use with YouTube. Then we’ll get on to the how-to parts.

Caption File Format for YouTube Video

A caption file includes the time code in context with the dialogue. Consider time code like the rhythm of the conversation tandem with the pace of the edits. When, and at what pace, should the captions be changing to provide the greatest and most natural readability with the movements of the subjects lips, or the imagery being used. Take a quick look over at Wikipedia for a few more geeky details on time code if you like.

The time code format for YouTube is pretty straight away. Its basic structure is a start and stop marker, each including Hour, Minute, Second, and Thousandths of a Second. The two markers are separated by a comma. The comma tells the system to display the lines of text between these time markers via the linear timeline of the video.

The format of the file is also rather simple, but important to get right. Open up a .txt text file (sorry, no Word docs). I like using TextMate. Its format should be:

• time code start point
• comma (display text until)
• time code stop point
• appropriate amount of text to flow in the alloted time, using line breaks as needed

An example:

As a best practice, try to limit your captions to about two lines per sequence. Try to call out key message statements on one line whenever possible.

Once you have the bulk of the sequences done, you can save the file as .txt (text) or a .srt (SubRip Subtitle) file. Then, proceed to the upload feature. (skip to the upload instructions) It is likely that you will upload your file and find that a few tweaks will be required given the pace of the dialogue or the edits. Don’t sweat it. Just be sure to negotiate some time, upfront, in the project timeline to make those adjustments.

Transcript File Format for YouTube

YouTube, via a beta offering, has this lovely little feature that will allow you to upload the transcript of the dialogue for your video, minus the time code. (skip to the upload instructions) It will then process the file. Using its language recognition software, it will add the time code. This is hands down the easiest and fastest way to go.

Just like the caption file, pace your sequences about two lines at the time, placing callouts on a separate and single line when possible. For a three minute video, it usually takes the algorithm less than 5 minutes to process. Please keep in mind, that the longer the video, when using this transcript file format, the more you are asking YouTube’s algorithm to do for you. The more you ask of it, the longer it needs to process.

An example:

This being a beta offering, there are still a few hiccups here and there, so expect to need to a few extra minutes to clean up a few sections for the sake of timing. This is quite easy to do. Once the file is done processing, simply download the .srt file that now has the system added time code and make your edits. Save the file. Then upload and preview. Seeing as how the file has time code now, the upload is pretty much instant as there is no processing required. You can do this as many times as needed to get it just right.

Adding a Text-Based Closed Caption File to a YouTube Video

1. Login to your account on YouTube => Go to My Videos => Select the video for which you want to create captions.
2. In the top navigation you will notice the “Captions and Subtitles” tab. Select it.

   

3. Just down on the right, there is an “Add New” button. Click through.

   

4. This is the main interface for uploading your caption or transcript file. The options are for a Caption file, which has the time code pre-populated, or for a transcript file, which is a file that has the text minimally formatted to indicate the flow of the dialogue in the video.

   Simply choose the file, select the file format type you chose to use, name it, and upload.

   

Though this post is specifically covering the how-to for English language closed captioning, YouTube provides the ability to included captions for sub-titles in other languages than that of the main audio track. As a simple example, you could easily add Spanish or Chinese dependent on your client base and your specific needs. The guidelines above will have you pointed in the right direction to accomplish this as well!

Closed Captioning for YouTube is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC

Several months ago such a unpleasant scenario befell me, and I thought it best to share with the WGH Community…

I took on a legacy PPC account that was in some, shall we say, disrepair.  In an effort to right the sinking and burning ship I began restructuring the layout of things, following segmentation best practices — similar keywords into separate ad group buckets, ad copy reflecting keywords, etc.  Pretty basic by all standards.  One of the main portions of restructuring that needed to happen was in the branding campaign.  Over time there had accumulated a number of branded keywords with variants and stems that could be categorized, but had been instead left within one ad group.  Naturally, I separated the one ad group into a more reasonable three groups, and added more keyword rich ad copy.  And as this was a different structure on an old account, I made sure to up the CPC bids a bit just to give Google some extra love while getting the campaign over that expected initial re-evaluation hump.

Campaign relaunch.  Conversions plummet.  Freak out.  Panic.  Governments collapsing.  Babies sold on the black market.

The company had (and has) a very strong brand presence within their field, so a sudden and inexplicable drop in their brand conversions was making a lot of people antsy.  Understandable.  Naturally the only culprit in the mix was the restructuring I had done.  But what had I done?!  What, having followed best practices, could have caused such a tanking?

The branded keyword Quality Scores of 8 to 10 had all pretty much dropped to 4 and 6!  I reached out to a few friends at top agencies, as well as Google, to see if they had thoughts.  They were just as baffled.

In the end, I figured “at least I can drop the bids back down so we’re not burning through branded dollars even more than usual.”  I put the bids back to or under their previous ranges, and in less than 24 hours the Quality Scores were right back where they’d been originally, in the 8 to 10 range.  Confused?  Yup, me too.

After running it around again with some peers, the best we can all figure is that the Google algorithm watches certain tolerances in % change for CPC’s on an account and freaks out if those tolerances are exceeded.  A better way of putting it is, when the Google algo sees something that seems way out of whack with expectations — which branded terms can set much easier than some of the larger more general terms — then it will suspect foul play / spamming and ding it.

I know, I know… it’s crazy.  It doesn’t make sense.  Or does it?  You establish a precedence of bidding on your branded terms, and suddenly you change the long-standing structure of that segment of your account, while upping the bidding element, and suddenly “you might be a spammer!”  Guilty until proven innocent?  After much thought, that’s the best our internal and external discussions could make of the situations.

If you’ve run into a similar situation, please share it with us.  This sort of thing is a “ghost in the machine” situation, but if we all have an occasional situation we can contribute to the pile, we’ll all be more ready to react when something peculiar occurs.

Quality Score Anomaly is a post from: Words Go Here, LLC