Crowdsourcing - How the Consumer is Producing the Product They Want.

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is a novel concept in problem solving. It is based on the idea that (paraphrasing Wikipedia) tasks can be outsourced to an undefined and generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. It takes cognizance of the fact that many minds can accomplish more than a few and uses integrated media to tap into the intellects, creativity and preferences of the public.

The term is relatively new and was coined by Wired’s Jeff Howe in 2006. Jeff puts forth a second definition of crowdsourcing describing it as-

“The application of Open-Source principles outside the field of software”.

Crowdsourcing in action

Although the term may be new, the principle has been in use for some time. In-fact we have all seen crowdsourcing in action and may or may not have been aware of it. To cite a few examples, consider the process followed in 1994 in the implementation of the new South African flag in-which a call for designs invited the general public to participate in the design process thereby ensuring their buy in. That was an older form of crowdsourcing.

Popular reality television programs such as The Apprentice and Idols where viewers are invited to vote for their favorite candidate are some highly publicized recent examples of crowdsourcing. Although Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales objects to the term, the collaborative free-content encyclopaedia is another example of a successfully crowdsourced initiative.

A particularly noteworthy recent application of crowdsourcing was the use of Internet driven participatory politics in American President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The Obama campaign made brilliant use of new media to not only communicate regularly with voters but also to gain insight into what people were thinking, what their concerns were and ultimately what it would take to win their votes.

It seems as though Obama’s term in office will maintain the high level of interaction the American public has come to expect with other politicians following suit. N.Y. Public Advocate Mark Green recently called on New Yorker’s to aid him in setting his agenda saying: “Contact me at MarkGreen.com with 20 ways to fix our City so I can learn as I campaign”.

These are just a few of the larger instances in-which crowdsourcing lends itself to massive self-promotion giving the organisation, candidate or initiative widespread exposure.

Crowdsourcing as a business model

Crowdsourcing as a business model is used across various industries and sectors. It is also applied as a public problem solving model and has been used effectively in the design and development of products as diverse as software, pharmaceuticals, clothing and online stock-photo and map repositories.

Some of the perceived benefits of crowdsourcing include low costs, short lead times and increased customer input as well as buy in.

Ultimately the success of the crowdsourcing model can be attributed to the combined application of a few basic business and marketing principles:

• It places great emphasis on research and development – a key facet of the competitive marketing strategy
• is an innovative research and development solution using new media to improve reach and shorten lengthy research times
• is highly responsive to customer needs
• is interactive and invites participation from the target market
• uses an integrated media approach blending online and offline media
• promotes brand building through increased exposure and the use of publicity.
  

The model is quite controversial and has many vocal critics however the customer centric nature of crowdsourcing affords consumer’s a new level of involvement in the product development process.

Relevant Content is the Key

The internet is a valuable marketing and PR tool, but getting the best out of it can be a daunting challenge, especially for smaller businesses with limited budgets.

Understandably, the agenda of the companies setting up websites is to sell their products and services. But it is no good setting up a website with no strategy and objectives behind it and hope customers and potential customers will flock to it.

Too many websites are designed to be ascetically pleasing and flashy with lots of graphics and little focus on content, says Ceri James, sales and marketing director at JD Internet Consulting.

"But search engines rank websites according to the relevance of their content." As much content as possible should therefore be presented in a text format that can be cut and pasted into a document as opposed to being embedded in images. "Search engines do not pick up and index fixed images," he says. So it is best not to just have fancy graphics on the home page without any informative text-based content.

"The first 300 characters of content on the home page are the most important for relevance ranking," says James. Option tabs used to navigate the website and the page titles they click through to should contain the same key words and phrases that should also relate to the content on the page. Search engines are more likely to pick these up than cute or clever titles that need to be interpreted.

"Google's main goal is to index the internet and rank websites in order of relevance," he says.

A company’s aim should be to achieve a higher relevance ranking for its target audience than its competitors as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody. Another consideration is that a 50-page website full of useful content has 10 times more chance of being picked up by the search engines than one with only five pages. Creating links to other relevant websites and getting listed on relevant portals and directories are just some of the ways to get a higher search engine ranking.

"A good internet consultant will set up these links as part of a package," says James. Having attracted the right audience, it is important to keep them on the website as long as possible.

The "stickiness" of the website will depend on factors like the overall look of the website, how easy it is to find what they are looking for and how relevant and useful the content is once they have found it.

Further attractions might include interesting relevant articles, product reviews and benchmarks, offering giveaways or special discounts and displaying prices of products and services.

Some companies are reluctant to display prices on their website, but competitors will get their hands on pricing information some other way if they really want to, says James. Informative articles will attract target audiences to a website and help to increase its search engine ranking, especially if the content contains key words and phrases.

Having found what they want potential customers will also need to easily access contact details, obtain further information or find out where to buy products or services.

“You want the customer to explore the content and then convert their interest into a sale,” he says.

When Robynn Burls set up her online company Encyclomedia, which provides a media contact database service, she realised that setting up a website that nobody can find is a waste of money.

So she started attending conferences and searching for information on the internet to learn how to optimise the website to get a good search engine ranking.

"Search engines look for keywords and phrases in website content that match the words users' type in when searching for information," she says.

Before setting up the company's website Burls first brainstormed with other people about which keywords and phrases to use.

She then used various internet software tools obtained from websites like www.keyworddiscovery.com and www.wordtracker.com/ to test out the effectiveness of the selected keywords. Both these websites offer a free trial of their software and the Wordtracker website contains expert articles and case studies and offers a free newsletter subscription.

Wordtracker will test keywords and report on how regularly these are used in searches and will come up with other related keywords. It will establish how likely users are to type in these words and phrases when they are searching for the type of information posted on the website. But it is worth remembering that a website that uses the most popular keywords will be competing with a lot of others that are using the same ones.

It may therefore pay to use more targeted keywords that are specific to the products and services on offer and are more likely to bring the website up first on the search listing when people type them in. For example, instead of just using the keyword "insurance," use "car insurance" or "budget car insurance."

Having established the optimum keywords, these need to be embedded in the text content on the web pages.

"Bear in mind that Google uses clever algorithms to test the relevance of website content," says Burls. So including words and phrases that relate to selected keywords is likely to increase the relevance ranking of the website. For example, if a person types in the words "public relations", Google will also pick up content containing related words like PR and perhaps publicity.

Having decided on a selection of keywords, the next step is to optimise the content on the website, make sure the text is easy to read and easy for the search engines to pick up and position the keywords strategically.

"I selected three to four keywords and phrases on each page and repeated them three times, once in bold type," says Burls.

Adding a blog to a website is a great way to continually create fresh content that includes keywords and invite comment from those reading the articles posted on it.

Burls says she also writes authoritative articles on the topic of PR for well known information websites like Bizcommunity and embeds some of her keywords in the text with links back to her website. This type of activity gets picked up by the search engines, adds credibility and increases traffic to the website.

Encyclomedia is staging a conference in Cape Town on 20 November (date expired since article was published) aimed at small companies that want to expand their knowledge of PR and what it can do for their business. Conference topics will include search engine optimisation, as an important element of web PR.

Leon Lategan, MD of Purple Cow Communications says in some cases it will pay a company to list its website on an aggregator portal because the chances are that it will achieve better results.

"An aggregator that has say 2000 bed and breakfast establishments on its website is likely to get more hits than an individual website for one B&B," he says.

Today, everyone seems to be offering search engine optimisation and it is important to choose the right one. The selection process should include asking for client references, testimonials, speaking to a few of them and asking them what the consultant achieved for them and how long it took.

Lategan says businesses often make the mistake of trying to pay as little as possible for website optimisation and end up being disappointed with the results. He says if a company wants to pay half the price it could take twice as long to get results.

Article Source

Business Day article published on Tuesday, November 18th

Inside Adwords Pay Per Click

A Double Edged Sword

There are many different ways to get your website into the top ten results on SERP’s (search engine results pages). Some of the most popular techniques include SEO (search engine optimisation) and PPC (pay per click). Whilst the objective of these two techniques remains the same, their methods differ.

When using an SEO strategy the objective will be to make material changes to a website in an effort to improve its visibility on search engines and thus its ranking in organic search. Resources are directed towards lasting and long term improvements to a websites design, code and content.

PPC on the other hand is a paid form of search engine advertising, in which guaranteed placement is purchased for a given fee. The fee is determined by the market demand for your chosen keywords as well as relevance between the keyword and the content of your site. All major search engines offer some form of PPC service. Some of the most effective pay per click services available include Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter, however since Google is the most popular search engine today, it stands to reason that their AdWords offers a greater pay per click reach than any other advertising medium available.

Although there are numerous benefits to using pay per click it is a double edged sword in that it produces both favourable and unfavourable results.

Some of the advantages include:

Immediate results
The pay per click campaign process is as simple as one, two, three. One, create an advert consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Two, set a budget, select your keywords and decide where you would like your advert to be displayed. And three, have your advert appear on the first page of Google results for your keywords.

Pay only for results
You set a budget which will only be debited each time someone clicks your advert and is connected to your website. No other advertising medium guarantees that your advert will be seen.

Targeted reach
Pay per click offers accurate targeting. Provided you select your keywords intelligently, your advert will only be visible to those users who are specifically in the market for your products and/or services. You are also able to direct your advert at specific regional target markets using AdWords functionality.

Local business ads
Link your advert to Google Maps to display your geographic location, contact information as well as an image depicting the nature of your business.

Some of the disadvantages include:

Cost
Certain keywords, depending on how much online competition exists, may be quite costly to secure.

Continuous investment
Pay per click requires that you continuously direct resources towards this method. If you consistently direct resources towards pay per click and fail to make long term improvements to your website using other Internet marketing methods you will create for your business an unhealthy reliance on this method of advertising.

Uncertain market share
It is possible to gain market share through the long term use of pay per click advertising. However because this market share is based on paid placement, it is volatile and could be purchased by a higher bidder.

Every marketer’s objective is to obtain maximum marketing value at minimum cost. Depending on the market in which your business exists and the level of Internet marketing competition, a PPC campaign could provide quick results for a reasonable fee. On the other hand, it could prove costly in the long run and fails to deliver lasting results.
What we can do for you?:

DiscoverSEO will assess your site to determine if Adwords will benefit your company. If you have an existing Adwords Account, we can assist in maximising the potential of your Google Adwords Campaign and bring you the best possible results for your market. Get an Adwords quote »