Trusting PageRank

Earlier this week Google removed PageRank from its Webmaster Tools. That’s the 0 to 10 scale you can also see in your Google Toolbar that reflects a page’s “link popularity,” or authority--an indicator Google believes is overvalued by practitioners of optimization.

This turn of events has caused a mighty stir in the SEO community and PageRank has received quite a bashing through it all. “Who needs it?” “Only losers rely on it.” “PageRank is for grandmas.” And, all the while folks continue to admit that PageRank is a critical measure in optimization just the same.

There’s no denying that PageRank is one of the quintessential book covers by which everyone judges a site. It’s not likely to disappear from the collective conscious any time soon. Why?

Whether we call it a critical line in every rank report or reduce it to a kindergarten toy, the PageRank stat is the quickest path of insight into the way Google tries to reflect the real world around us. It attempts to provide an algorithmic representation of how much we can trust the content we encounter on a given web page. It’s the Google algorithm’s goal to be a searcher’s valued guide to the online world. If Google thinks you’re the bees knees, them maybe I’m safe to think so too. The entire concept of Google’s search engine is to play this real life concierge. It has been a key component to the engine’s success in becoming the dominant engine of choice.

So, Google can say what they will, and call it PageRank today or something else tomorrow, the concept of ranking pages based on contextual trust and authority will never lose its resonance with the end user, be they regular searchers or SEO gurus. We like it because the concept fits our “real world” view and helps us make sense of what we find online. That successful merging of the online and real world demonstrates how important it is for businesses to succeed in communicating their own physical reputations into an accurate web presence. When the two are in sync, they begin to serve each other and benefit any marketing objective.

Social Media & Small Business - Game Over?

I caught this study in Reuters this week stating “Small Business, social media not mixing.” A telephone poll was conducted for Citibank Small Business by GFK Roper from August 20-27 of a sample of 500 small businesses which concluded that social media was not catching on, nor being found all that useful in the small business sector.

Maria Veltre, executive vice president of Citi's Small Business segment was quoted in the piece:

"What this survey indicates to us is small businesses are very, very focused on running their business and on generating sales and managing their cash flow and doing the things that are really important, especially in these economic times," Veltre said. "I don't think quite yet the social media piece of it has proven to be as significant."

Beyond the fact that we could venture to say that these “really important” things are always the drivers for small businesses, I think the sentiment of the article is entirely off the mark. What the low numbers really highlight is nothing more than the natural evolution of small business on its way into another “new” internet marketing arena. Some small businesses *are* currently using social media to profitable ends. However, when it comes to online marketing adoption, the small business segment at large has always ridden the back end of the curve.

While spending my own time stoking the fires of Local Internet Marketing between 2003 and 2006 – which was heavily focused on helping small business owners buy into the benefits of smartly executed paid search marketing and local business data optimization – I found that small businesses were not able to “buy in” until a clear and easy path was laid before them – two things which don’t currently exist in the social media landscape at all (we’re not talking about how simple it is to create an account on Twitter here). Small business owners don’t often want to be guinea pigs. With small exception, they don’t have the bandwidth, or the disposable budget to be marketing trail blazers.

The industry has a long way to go when it comes to solving the equation of mass small business adoption into social media, and until it gets there we are likely to see a skewed opinion coming out of polls and research. We haven’t even figured out universally consistent tools, measures, ROI, or margins when it comes to all this stuff; this to say nothing of the need to develop a tangible message which resonates with small businesses across the board. All of these things were of critical importance as solution providers stepped in to successfully bring Search Engine Marketing to small businesses in scalable mass.

All of this is coming, but it could well be a year or two off before the communal mind of small business appreciates social media as a tangible and fundamental portion of their advertising efforts.

What's Old Is New Again

Over the last two months I’ve had the extreme pleasure of consulting with a leading marketing firm based in the Chicago area, helping them craft, launch, and incorporate a full web strategy layer into their existing business model. The 15-year-old firm is meeting client demand to figure out everything web2.0 and help them take advantage where it can best serve marketing goals. In so doing, they are also taking a “practice what you preach” attitude which includes a full website redesign and social media rollout. Busy days, indeed.

Here on the pages of WebNewPoint0 I often make the point that dealing with the “new age” of Internet marketing need not be as overwhelming as it appears. Beyond the undeniable hurdles of being able to create content (gobs and gobs of it), much of doing good social media comes down to understanding where it is and isn’t a challenge. Failing to evaluate the nature of the challenge can leave folks paralyzed in the starting blocks. The more I help people wade in the water, the more I see this element playing a role.

Here’s what I find most intriguing through it all: Social media is far less a new thing than anyone might imagine. In the formative days of this medium everyone seems caught in the glow of “shiny object syndrome.” We gotta have it, and all at once we worry about how the heck we’re gonna use it. But beneath all the glow we are apt to soon discover social media’s “something new” impediments aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. There’s less standing in your way than you might think.

In reviewing and preparing a host of case studies for this new site it has become clear that the marketing tactics which have historically solved client challenges are the same core tactics everyone is touting as all the rage in social media. As it turns out, social media might not be so revolutionary. Oh, it’s a fabulous new playing field for marketers, to be sure. But the game hasn’t changed all that much.

Leveraging a company’s internal wisdom to generate a monthly publication that goes out to a client base hungry to understand the value of complex tools and services? Sounds like the same tactic you’d use to produce a blog today. Re-branding and developing a communication strategy aimed at gaining prominence in a competitive trade show environment? Sounds a lot like the process needed to develop a compelling and consistent web presence across multiple online portals in today’s ever-shifting landscape. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

People tend to look at social media and immediately feel left behind – like they have to go back to school and learn things all over again. But my guess is some of the best tacticians in social media have yet to recognize they are already far ahead of the curve, while they are mistakenly worried they will never be able to catch up.