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miercuri, 2 iulie 2014

5.7 Million People Without Health Insurance?

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

5.7 Million People Without Health Insurance?

24 states still haven't acted to make more struggling families eligible for Medicaid -- including many of the states that would benefit most.

Here's why that's a problem: If these states don't opt to expand Medicaid, 5.7 million people won't have access to health insurance coverage in 2016.

Want to know exactly how Medicaid expansion will help millions of Americans? Check out our new resource center, featuring an interactive map that shows what expanding Medicaid would mean for people in each state -- from access to affordable health insurance and preventive care, to new jobs created.

See how Medicaid expansion will help people across the country -- and use our share graphics to spread the word on Twitter and Facebook.

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Stop Worrying About the New Google Maps; These URL Parameters Are Gold

Posted: 01 Jul 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by David-Mihm

I suspect I'm not alone in saying: I've never been a fan of the New Google Maps.

In the interstitial weeks between that tweet and today, Google has made some noticeable improvements. But the user experience still lags in many ways relative to the classic version (chief among them: speed).

Google's invested so heavily in this product, though, that there's no turning back at this point. We as marketers need to come to terms with a product that will drive an increasing number of search results in the future.

Somewhat inspired by this excellent Pete Wailes post from many years ago, I set out last week to explore Google Maps with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind to see what I could discover about how it renders local business results. Below is what I discovered.

Basic URL structure

New Google Maps uses a novel URL structure (novel for me, anyway) that is not based around the traditional ? and & parameters of Classic Google Maps, but instead uses /'s and something called hashbangs to tell the browser what to render.

The easiest way to describe the structure is to illustrate it:

There are also some additional useful hashbang parameters relating to local queries that I'll describe in further detail below.

Some actual feature improvements

Despite the performance issues, New Google Maps has introduced at least two useful URL modifiers I've grown to love.

/am=t

This generates a stack-ranked list of businesses in a given area that Google deems relevant for the keyword you're searching. It's basically the equivalent of the list on the lefthand panel in Classic Google Maps but much easier to get to via direct URL. Important: am=t must always be placed after /search and before the hashbang modifiers, or else the results will break.

by:experts

This feature shows you businesses that have been reviewed by Google+ experts (the equivalent of what we've long-called "power reviewers" or "authority reviewers" on my annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey). To my knowledge it's the first time Google has publicly revealed who these power users are, opening up the possibility of an interesting future study correlating PlaceRank with the presence, valence, and volume of these reviews. In order to see these power reviewers, it seems like you have to be signed into a Google+ account, but perhaps others have found a way around this requirement.

Combining these two parameters yields incredibly useful results like these, which could form the basis for an influencer-targeting campaign:

Above: a screenshot of the results for: https://www.google.com/maps/search/grocery+stores+by:experts/@45.5424364,-122.654422,11z/am=t/

Local pack results and the vacuum left by tbm=plcs

Earlier this week, Steve Morgan noticed that Google crippled the ability to render place-based results from a Google search (ex: google.com/search?q=realtors&tbm=plcs). Many local rank-trackers were based on the results of these queries.

Finding a replacement for this parameter in New Google Maps turns out to be a little more difficult than it would first appear. You'll note in the summary of URL structure above that each URL comes with a custom-baked centroid. But local pack results on a traditional Google SERP each have their own predefined viewport -- i.e. the width, height, and zoom level that most closely captures the location of each listing in the pack, making it difficult to determine the appropriate zoom level.

Above: the primary SERP viewport for 'realtors' with location set to Seattle, WA.

Note that if you click that link of "Map for realtors" today, and then add the /am=t parameter to the resulting URL, you tend to get a different order of results than what appears in the pack.

I'm not entirely sure as to why the order changes--one theory is that Google is now back to blending pack results (using both organic and maps algorithms). Another theory is that the aspect ratio on the viewport on the /am=t window is invariably square, which yields a different set of relevant results than the "widescreen" viewport on the primary SERP.

One thing I have found helps with replicability is to leave the @lat,lng,zoom parameters out of the URL, and let Google automatically generate them for you.

Here are a couple of variations that I encourage you to try:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/realtors/am=t/data=
followed by:
!3m1!4b1!1srealtors!2sSeattle,+WA!3s0x5490102c93e83355:0x102565466944d59a
or
!3m1!4b1!4m5!2m4!3m3!1srealtors!2sSeattle,+WA!3s0x5490102c93e83355:0x102565466944d59a

Take a closer look at those trailing parameters and you'll see a structure that looks like this:

The long string starting with 0x and ending with 9a is the Feature ID of the centroid of the area in which you're searching (in this case, Seattle). Incidentally, this feature ID is also rendered by Google Mapmaker using a URL similar to http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=39&fid={your_fid}.

This is the easy part. You can find this string by typing the URL:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/seattle,+WA

waiting for the browser to refresh, and then copying it from the end of the resulting URL.

The hard part is figuring out which hashbang combo will generate which order of results, and I still haven't been able to do it. I'm hoping that by publishing this half-complete research, some enterprising Moz reader might be able to complete the puzzle! And there's also the strong possibility that this theory is completely off base.

In my research thus far, the shorter hashbang combination (!3m1!4b1) seems to yield the closest results to what tbm=plcs used to render, but they aren't 100% identical.

The longer hashbang combination (!3m1!4b1!4m5!2m4!3m3) actually seems to predictably return the same set of results as a Local search on Google Plus -- and note the appearance of the pushpin icon next to the keyword when you add this longer combination:

Who's #1?

Many of us in the SEO community, even before the advent of (not provided), encouraged marketers and business owners to stop obsessing about individual rankings and start looking at visibility in a broader sense. Desperately scrambling for a #1 ranking on a particular keyword has long been a foolish waste of resources.

Google's desktop innovations in local search add additional ammunition to this argument. Heat map studies have shown that the first carousel result is far from dominant, and that a compelling Google+ profile photo can perform incredibly well even as far down the "sixth or seventh" (left to right) spot. Ranking #1 in the carousel doesn't provide quite the same visual benefit as ranking #1 in an organic SERP or 7-pack.

The elimination of the lefthand list pane on New Google Maps makes an even stronger case. It's literally impossible to rank these businesses visually no matter how hard you stare at the map:

Mobile, mobile, mobile

Paradoxically, though, just as Google is moving away from ranked results on the desktop, my view is that higher rankings matter more than ever in mobile search. And as mobile and wearables continue to gain market share relative to desktop, that trend is likely to increase.

The increasing ubiquity of Knowledge Panels in search results the past couple of years has been far from subtle. Google is now not only attempting to organize the world's information, but condense each piece of it into a display that will fit on a Google Glass (or Google Watch, or certainly a Google Android phone).

Nowhere is the need to be #1 more dramatic than in the Google Maps app, in which users perform an untold number of searches each month. List view is completely hidden (I didn't even know it existed until this week) and an average user is just as likely to think the first result is the only one for them as they are to figure out they need to swipe right to view more businesses.

Above: a Google Maps app result for 'golf courses', in which the first result has a big-time advantage.

The other issue that mobile results really bring to the fore is that the user is becoming the centroid.

This is true even when searching from the desktop. I performed some searches one morning from a neighborhood coffee shop with wifi, and a few minutes later from my house six blocks away. To my surprise, I got completely different results. From my house, Google is apparently only able to detect that I'm somewhere in "Portland." But from the coffee shop, it was able to detect my location at a much more granular level (presumably due to the coffee shop's wifi?), and showed me results specific to my ZIP code, with the centroid placed at the center of that ZIP. And the zoom setting for both adjusted automatically--the more granular ZIP code targeting defaulted to a zoom level of 15z or 16z, versus 11z to 13z from my home, where Google wasn't as sure of my location.

Note, too, that I was unable to be exact about the zoom level in the previous paragraph. That's because the centroid is category-dependent. It likely always has been category dependent but that fact is much more noticeable in New Google Maps.

Maps app visibility

Taking both of these into account, in terms of replicating Google Maps App visibility, here is a case where specifying @lat,lng,zoom (with the zoom set to 17z)can be incredibly useful.

As an example, I performed the search below from my iPhone at the hotel I was staying at in Little Italy after a recent SEM SD event. And was able to replicate the results with this URL string on desktop:

http://google.com/maps/search/lawyers/@32.723278,-117.168528,17z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1

Conclusions and recommendations

While I still feel the user experience of New Google Maps is subpar, as a marketer I found myself developing a very Strangelovian mindset over the past week or so -- I have actually learned to stop worrying and love the new Google Maps. There are some incredibly useful new URL parameters that allow for a far more complete picture of local search visibility than the classic Google Maps provided.

With this column, I wanted to at least present a first stab to the Moz community to hopefully build on and experiment with. But this is clearly an area that is ripe for more research, particularly with an eye towards finding a complete replacement for the old tbm=plcs parameter.

As mobile usage continues to skyrocket, identifying the opportunities in your (or your client's) competitive set using the new Google Maps will only become more important.

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Yorkshire Whips Up Excitement For Le Tour

Posted: 02 Jul 2014 02:30 AM PDT

With cycling successes in both the Tour de France and the Olympics in recent years receiving massive coverage, it comes as no surprise that the UK should revel in the opportunity to celebrate the 2014 edition of the Tour de France, starting in Yorkshire. As someone who only really got into watching the Tour last year, I’m interested to see how brands in the Yorkshire area are using Le Tour to their advantage.

At midday on Saturday 5th July, hundreds of riders will set out from Leeds along their 3,664 kilometres route, cycled over three weeks. In this blog post, I will look at some of the ways businesses in the area are using this unique opportunity to promote and sell their services and products to new audiences. As stories about the Tour fill up column inches in the run up to the Grand Depart, brands are using a variety of means to spread the word and change the angle to gain coverage and interest. Here I take a look at some of the campaigns:

Bettys – heritage and pride

I’m a Bettys email list subscriber, so it didn’t take me long to spot their Tour campaign, which began back in April, long before I’d even thought about writing on this topic for the White.net blog.

I was enticed by their email on the 30th April, teasing me with a sneak peak image of their upcoming ‘exclusive bicycle-inspired range’, which was followed up with another email a week later inviting me to admire the selection of limited edition tour-inspired foodstuffs on their website.

Email 30th April 2014

Email 8th May 2014

The email must have worked for me, as I clicked on it and tweeted about the range after their second email caught my eye in early May (image below) Granted, my tweet may have been more from a marketer’s point of view as “Ooooh look, Betty’s is doing something about the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire – isn’t that clever?!” as opposed to “Oh look how yummy and cute those special edition yellow jersey-wearing biscuits are!” – I can’t quite remember my tweeting mindset now, but it shows that it had an impact on me.

But what about web visitors who weren’t warm and hadn’t received promotions to their inbox – how were they drawn in?

The on-site tour page (carefully omitting any mention of the T word) brings together the elements of heritage, by promoting the story behind a limited edition 1919 Victory Bear, to celebrate the year Betty’s was founded. The Betty’s & Bicycles page presents the range of cycling-themed products and invites visitors to enter a competition, as well as contribute to the Bettys & Bicycles Pinterest boards. Bettys followed this up with vintage bicycle-themed content across Pinterest and Facebook.

The verdict:
I think Betty’s campaign is great in terms of bringing together the themes of having pride in Yorkshire and a great brand heritage. Betty’s have strayed far from their core brand and values, but have embraced the event and have created a story around it. This campaign will have captured a few new customers, who may have seen Bettys products online and placed an order, or who have become aware of the brand, and are now more likely to visit one of Bettys tea rooms while visiting Yorkshire for the Grand Depart. In the main part, I think this campaign is aimed at Bettys’ already established fan-base, who would be interested in limited editions that relate to Bettys’ long history.

Social Sharing to date (via Social Crawlytics)

Links acquired: 3
Tweets: 114
Facebook: 39
Pinterest: 35 pins

Sheffield Hallam Univerisity – Science and Opportunity

Being a University of Sheffield grad, I’m reluctant to praise our adversary on the other side of the city, but Sheffield Hallam University has managed to catch my marketing eye with a compelling content hub dedicated to the Tour. This hub appears to serve various purposes and brings together promotional content, such as competitions and events, and insightful resource content that showcases the university’s expertise through analysis of the science and technology in play during the tour. It also highlights the cultural aspects of the city, such as film and the arts, whilst promoting Sheffield as an exciting place to study and visit, especially if you love cycling and hills.

The Tour content hub is effective in featuring current students and staff to give it a more personal touch. It also feels very modern and not afraid to shout about successes and the tour buzz. It features some well produced video content which captures the buzz nicely, such as this video, Cycling in the Peak District.

Perhaps this video should have a more prominent position on the Tour hub on the main Tour page or even the University homepage to draw visitors through to the hub (perhaps auto play would draw-in eyes).

The Verdict

SHU has done a great job as an official sponsor of the tour in creating buzz and excitement around the event and incorporating many different aspects of the university life into its celebration program. The University has done well in putting a personal touch on many of the resources in the hub, which creates a connection with visitors to their website, many of whom will be prospective students and parents of the university. It has also used the tour as a great platform to attract new students, showcasing the city and surrounds, as well as the cultural offerings attached to the tour coming to the city.

Social Sharing to date (via Social Crawlytics)

Links acquired: 274 from 18 domains
Tweets: 240
Facebook: 82
LinkedIn: 125

The University of Sheffield

By comparison, The University of Sheffield seems to have missed a trick. It’s Deconstructing The Tour website (launch seemingly only this week) is rather dry in comparison. It’s tagline ‘Academic Perspectives on the Tour de France at the University of Sheffield’ doesn’t exactly draw in the common man.

The website, on the rather forgettable domain http://www.deconstructingthetour.group.shef.ac.uk, does in fact have a nice fresh design (leaving the university brand guidelines far behind,) some interesting content, such as ‘The Tour of suffering’, a look at the hardships of the tour in decades past and present, the website is slow to load and text heavy.

The most interesting part of the site, Velogram, invites visitors to submit user-generated content in the form of tweets, instagrams and email to share tips, route suggestions and cycling experiences.

The Verdict

I’d be interested to see how much traffic and interaction the micro-site gets. It has some interesting content, but seems to promote itself as a bit of a side-project as opposed to something to shout about.

In terms of capturing interest, I think this hub should have been launched a bit earlier. When I visited the University of Sheffield website last week, there was nothing but a very dry video about the Krebs Cycle (pictured above as the homepage was last week) that would suggest the Tour was about to happen.

Social Sharing to date (via Social Crawlytics)

Links acquired: 28 links from 6 domains
Tweets: 129
Facebook: 29
Other mentions:

Taylors of Harrogate

No, calling a coffee that has nothing to do with France or cycling Allez Allez isn’t exactly clever, but they have at least made an effort to capture a new audience and attempted to show some excitement for the Tour. It’s also been featured in Cycling-weekly.co.uk and iknow-yorkshire.co.uk. Perhaps Taylors should have taken a cue from its sister company,Bettys.

Black Sheep Brewery – biere,biere,biere

Velo-Blog-Post

The Black Sheep Brewery in Masham, which the Tour will pass through on its first day, has gone for the ‘knees up’ approach to the Tour de France the way only a brewery could. It has set up Le Grand Party Masham, which has an awesome webpage with a hot air balloon that bobs up and down in the wind, but no information whatsoever on the party plans (literally nothing but the date.) It has also called a new beer a French name (of course!) and a percentage of proceeds of this beer will go to charity. I think Black Sheep could have made more of a fuss about the party, being along the route of the tour, and producing an ale that raises funds for cyclist Mike Hughes, a Yorkshire-man cycling for Marie Curie in the amateur race of the Grand Depart.

So who wins in the race for the marketing yellow jersey?

It looks like the brands that have jumped on the peloton of excitement in Yorkshire have done the event justice. Some, like Sheffield Hallam University, have seen the wider value of being associated with the Tour de France and have invested in events and promotion as well as a great digital content hub. By promoting cycling with a growing number of young enthusiasts, the university is potentially targeting young sportsmen and women as prospective students, and promoting its sports science courses at the same time. Others have lacked vision in their attempts to market products relating to the tour by using an overly-promotional manner, or presenting interesting information in a dry manner.

There are plenty more brands in the area that may have used the Tour to good effect. Have you seen any effective campaigns, or some that have missed the mark, or are you sick of my Tour de France-based puns now?

Main image courtesy of Thomas Fitzgerald

The post Yorkshire Whips Up Excitement For Le Tour appeared first on White.net.