Again, I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing to have one of the world’s smartest technology companies helping the government (federal, state, and local) get up to speed on all things digital, but it certainly does raise some questions. If nothing else, the developing relationship requires a little extra oversight.

You know, just in case the machines become sentient and start to turn on us

Google Public Sector

I am all for smaller, leaner, more efficient government. But don’t classify me as a right-winger just yet. I just don’t like wasteful spending and excess “bloat”, especially when tax dollars are stretched tighter than ever before.

So you could assume that I would be in favor of Google’s recent announcement of “Google for the Public Sector“, a “one-stop shop of tools and tips that local, state and federal government officials can use to help promote transparency and increase citizen participation.”

According to CNN, this “government app store” could save a portion of the $75 billion (with a “B”) that the government spends on data storage each year and help “bring government up to speed in terms of computing.”

But there are some serious questions that I haven’t been able to find answers for yet. Hopefully somebody can steer me in the right direction on some of these and I will post updates as I find them.

Questions About the Google/Fed Partnership

1. Why Google? Just Google? Were other service providers considered? If so, what were the selection criteria? When/how will the partnership(s) be reviewed?
2. Who will “own” the data in the “Dedicated Google cloud for government“? Will this include any of the government’s personal information about private citizens? Is there a precedent for this type of public/private partnership?
3. What happens if/when the government is forced to investigate Google in future antitrust or monopoly cases? Will these partnerships and integrations be considered conflicts of interest?
4. Were these decisions and partnerships influenced by any of the ex-Googlers joining or advising the Obama administration in tech-related roles?
   1. Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, the search-engine company’s philanthropic arm, is head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation. (philanthropy.com)
   2. Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s former head of global public policy, left the company to join the Obama administration as Deputy Chief Technology Officer. (NYT.com)
   3. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, has been a close adviser to President Obama’s transition team and is now a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
   4. Katie Stanton, a former Google project manager, joined the White House as its director of citizen participation.
5. Does it make sense to have so much government data consolidated under one company, especially one that already has a lot of information about each of its users?

What’s the Point?

I'm not paranoid, I'm not paranoid...

Sure, you can argue that government data is stored on Sun servers and Cisco routers too, but those companies aren’t in the advertising business. But don’t get out your tinfoil hats just yet.

And yes, I still like Google’s commitment to its customers (advertisers and searchers) and appreciate their contributions to the internet and technology. Heck, I even make a living advising companies how to rank better on Google.

But I still can’t put a finger on the cause of the queasy feeling I get when reading about the partnership between Google and the government without seeing all of the facts out in the open. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. but then again, maybe not…

It’s that time of year again. Daffodils are sprouting, trees are budding, and crickets are chirping. Tax day is over. You did remember to pay your taxes, right?

Most people take advantage of the nicer weather to do some spring cleaning around the house. Your website is no different. Chances are after a hectic holiday season and the excitement of a new year, your site has developed a few cobwebs of its own. It’s time to air it out and get it ready for prime selling season.

Here are five simple ways to clean up your website to get it ready for spring.

Prune Dead Links

Scan your website for “dead links”. These are links to pages that no longer exist on your site and generally result in a visitor seeing an error page (a “404″ in web-speak). This can cause momentary confusion and a poor user experience.

You can find dead links on your site by looking at the “URL Not Found” report in Google Webmaster Tools. If you haven’t signed up for this service yet, you should do so immediately. Additionally, you (or your webmaster) can check your server logs to see which pages and files on your site are returning 404′s. Eric Lander has a great tutorial on log file analysis. Start there.

Sweep Away Outdated Content

Review all of the content on your website and ask yourself this question on every page:

Does this page help my visitors accomplish their task?

Many websites have old or outdated content that no longer serves the intended purpose. Perhaps it was part of a seasonal promotion or a landing page for a marketing event. Maybe some content been replaced or made obsolete by new pages.

Whatever the reason, take this chance to redirect those old pages to more relevant or timely pages on your site. Use a 301 “permanent” redirect so that search engines transfer the link equity of Page A to Page B. Or, simply freshen up the older content by re-writing or updating the references.

Analytics Check-Up

Is your site analytics package configured to track and report on conversions? Check to make sure that your tracking code is properly installed on all of your pages and that your goals are configured correctly to provide the right information in the right format. If you are using Google Analytics, start with the Help Section. If you have a paid analytics provider, look through their documentation for conversion tracking and reporting. Lastly, if you are still relying on basic log file analyzers, consider upgrading to a reporting suite that can at least track conversions.

How about your conversion rates themselves? Is there room for improvement over last year? Are you getting the info you need to make informed decisions? Think through how you want to measure your success this year and in this economy. Do you have all the right pieces in place to get the information you need?

Evaluate Processes and Personnel

Do you have the right people on your SEO team? Is SEO represented during the appropriate touch points in your strategic, creative, development, and launch processes? Check to make sure that your website team is including your optimization plan during their work cycles.

It’s too easy to prioritize SEO out of the tactical implementation of website updates, so use this spring cleaning as an opportunity to re-incorporate the SEO strategy into your daily operations. If you are planning a site redesign or transition to a new domain, a little pre-planning will insure that your transition goes smoothly.

Suggestions welcome.

Split Screen Gmail?

]]> http://www.yoursearchadvisor.com/blog/split-screen-gmail/feed/ 2 http://www.yoursearchadvisor.com/blog/google-presentation-at-ann-arbor-ad-club-tonight/ http://www.yoursearchadvisor.com/blog/google-presentation-at-ann-arbor-ad-club-tonight/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:52:21 +0000 Andrew Miller http://www.yoursearchadvisor.com/blog/?p=264 Continue reading →]]> Just a heads up for the Ann Arbor crowd, the local Google office is putting on a show entitled “Using Google Applications in Various Marketing Strategies” tonight at the Kensington Court Hotel from 5:00 to 7:00.

Unfortunately I can’t make it tonight but I’m sure that’s okay with Google, considering the TechCrunch coverage my last post about the Google Apps presentation received.

Unfortunately for Google Apps users, the rollout of offline access will occur after the rollout to regular non-Apps users:

We’ve sometimes delayed the launch of features like group chat and colored labels to Google Apps domains because we want to ensure that all the features we bring to the Google Apps suite are useful and stable before providing them to our business, education and organizational users.

However, as an administrator it is possible to opt-in to new services and features within Google Apps by configuring your domain settings like this:

1. Log in to the control panel at https://www.google.com/a/your_domain.com. Be sure to replace ‘your_domain.com’ with your actual domain name.
2. Click Domain settings.
3. Under the General tab, and in the New services and features section, check the box next to Turn on new features.
4. Click Save changes.

It may take up to 24 hours for the features to be added to your domain, but it beats waiting for the rest of the Apps world to catch up.

A few of the offline features and benefits are explained in this video from the Google Apps team:

While I was there I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Search Engine Marketing to the VCU Adcenter Brand Management class taught by Kelly Carson from DuPont. I teamed up with my former boss from CarMax and we set out to see if we could teach the students at the nation’s premier post-graduate advertising program a thing or two about SEM. It was like a reunion of sorts since all of us are veterans of The Martin Agency in Richmond, which both supports and benefits from the top-shelf school.

The challenge with this type of presentation is to balance higher-level marketing concepts with tactical information about Pay Per Clicks and Search Engine Optimization so that future Brand Managers will understand SEM’s capabilities when they are out in the real world of marketing and advertising. They probably won’t be the ones managing PPC campaigns or implementing SEO but they need to know how to work with the people that are.

Our presentation was a mix of internet marketing 101, SEM 101 and our experiences and results from years working on carmax.com SEO and PPC. I removed about 10 slides with carmax.com references and examples but the meat of the presentation is embedded here, thanks to Google Presentations. If anything seems incomplete or out of context, it’s probably because we voiced over most of the best stuff.

We were scheduled to speak for 90 minutes but ended up on stage for over 2 hours answering questions and drawing examples, charts and graphs on the whiteboard. The students seemed very engaged and asked extremely intelligent and targeted questions, all of which made us feel like they were picking up what we were laying down. I think this type of presentation is extremely valuable for marketers at every level. SEM is already a “must have” in any marketing plan and is on the verge of becoming a commodity service just like online media planning and buying is now. Don’t be surprised to see that theme explored in a future post.

You might be wondering what an advertising school looks like. Well, it looks a lot like an advertising agency. I didn’t have too much time to tour the entire building, but what I did see really impressed me. VCU just completed a new building for the Adcenter and it is very cool. Here are some highlights:

A giant poured concrete table in the cafeteria

A large open space with configurable ceilings, walls and furniture serves many purposes

A cool staircase is a space that used to be outdoors but is now a covered walkway

And of course, any ad agency needs table sports! This one is courtesy of Yahoo!