Further

Further goes the extra mile for Variety

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:00 GMT

John Thew, our MD, is doing The Italian Job again - after an absence of 20 years.

The charity car run to Italy helps raise much needed funds for Variety, the Children's Charity, that provides positive experiences for children and young people throughout the UK who are sick, disabled or disadvantaged.

Further is sponsoring John’s car, and one of our wonderful clients, Signs Express is providing the sponsors’ door decals for all of this year’s 40 plus entrants so expect to see a bright red MINI Cooper on the roads of Norfolk, London and Surrey over the coming weeks, resplendent with racing stickers.

John entered the first four runs, from 1990-1993, the last of which was only a fortnight after his honeymoon! Twenty years later and with his kids growing up fast, he’s back in the race with a 2009 MINI Cooper, bought from Cooper Tadworth.

The event starts officially in Imola on 9 May before moving on to Rome for 11-15 May. However, John and his co-driver, Chris White from Integralis, set off on the previous Sunday and will visit the Grand Prix circuits at Spa Francorchamps, Nurburgring and Hockenheim before driving on to Innsbruck and over the Brenner Pass in to Italy.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on their progress as all the cars will carry GPS trackers provided by Skytag. We’ll announce more about that soon. You can also follow them at @TheItalianJob10 on Twitter.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to join Further in sponsoring them, please do so at:

www.justgiving.com/the-italian-job-2013-team-10

or by texting the amount you want to gift, for example £5, as “IJOB90 £5” to 70070

Google Shopping Paid Listing Ads

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:00:00 GMT

Having to pay for something that used to be free may not sound like good news.

There’s little doubt that many retailers will have greeted with dismay the news that Google would start charging for product listings.

But Google Shopping – Paid Listing Ads (PLAs) – may have some long-term benefits, even if it comes with a bill attached.

Google Shopping was introduced in the United States in October last year and is now being rolled-out in the UK.

Google has claimed this is about “helping shoppers better research purchases, compare different products and their features and prices, and then connect with merchants to make their purchase”.

PLAs give retailers greater control over what products are listed and how they appear. Or at least that’s what Google has said.

There is already early evidence from the US that retailers who were quick to embrace the new approach have seen higher click-through rates from PLAs than Google’s more familiar text-based ads.

But Microsoft, the owner of Bing, has been chief among critics of the move… and has gone as far as launching Scroogled.com to argue what it sees as the case against Google.

The essence of the criticism is that Google Shopping is “nothing more than a list of targeted ads that unsuspecting customers assume are search results”.

Google Shopping in the UK works on a cost-per-click basis – so similar to other PPC activity – but without the use of keywords.

Instead of keywords, attributes such as product type and brand will be used to define what appears in the product feed.

Likewise, Google Shopping is managed through Adwords accounts, though users will need a Merchant Center account as well to set up and manage the feed containing product information.

The disadvantage to retailers is obvious: having to pay for what was previously free.
However, one of the biggest advantages of the new platform is that spammy listings – or from tiny retailers who offer unsustainably low prices - will be removed, as they won’t be able to afford the exposure.

One of the persistent problems with shopping results in the past has also been spam product listings that show the cheapest price - but then give the user no way to buy the item on the spammer's website.

With pay-per-click being the only way of gaining exposure, the quality and relevance of Google product search can only improve.

This may well improve usage and give retailers who are genuinely competitive on price a real boost in traffic, if they are getting the return on investment to make the pay-per-click (PPC) model make sense.

Ultimately, PLA and Google Shopping have the potential to be of real benefit to retailers who are already happy to invest in driving traffic via PPC. The new system should allow them to get even more relevant, highly converting traffic than through standard PPC listings.

• For help with optimising your Google Shopping, paid and organic search strategy contact Further’s Client Services Director Louisa Mann at louisa@further.co.uk

Fail fast or learn from what works? SearchLove, content strategies and the future of SEO

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:27:00 GMT

Test and learn. Try something, explore what works, measure what doesn’t, and adapt. Fail fast, learn quickly, and innovate. The layman knows this methodology as “trial and error”, but that doesn’t sound very professional very... “management”. Faced with the push towards a different way of delivering rankings for clients, this is what search agencies have to do, right? Test and learn.

Practitioners of technical SEO are smart folks. They can deconstruct a website; spot the technical obstacles to Google crawling a site and delivering a prominent search ranking. Increasingly, they ask good questions about user experience and will offer an educated view on a user’s journey from homepage to conversion – whether that’s an online till or signing up for a brochure or newsletter. This is valuable knowledge; expertise that has a clear commercial value for clients. But the theme of this week’s SearchLove conference, organised by Distilled, wasn’t really about technical expertise. The recurrent theme was the need for SEO agencies to evolve into digital marketing agencies.

Whether Richard Baxter from SEO Gadget, Wil Reynolds from Seer Interactive or Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz, the message at the Congress Centre in London was simple. Your audience is not Google. Your audience is your client’s customer. You need to know who they are, what and who influences them and lever what your client has that will seize and hold that audience’s attention.

Baxter offered insight into how to use Twitter tools to develop an outreach list based on what the people you want to reach are reading and sharing and who they are following. Influence the influencers. Reynolds’ advice was to forget “chasing the algorithm” – you’ll never outthink the 1,000 PhDs working for Google – and start to think about “Real Company Shit” (RCS): what is going to impact the bottom-line of the business. Google wants to deliver relevant results for its customers. Think about what would make a link relevant to the end user. Fishkin’s message was about earning a customer’s love. You can’t buy it, but you can earn it. Once you have it, cherish it. Yes, there were tips about new tools and tech that can help. But the theme was the application of old school marketing techniques for online audiences.

But that takes us back to the start. Trial and error.

The future of SEO is content and campaign-driven strategy: earning links with great content rather than buying them. So agencies need to test and learn, right? Try out different structures, workflows, methods of trying to brainstorm killer content ideas? Fail fast and adapt?

Wrong.

There are organisations in most towns and cities with departments dedicated to the delivery of content day by day, and in many cases hour by hour. Think broadcasters, the successful online and offline PR agencies and some of the major content-producing blogs. Ask MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis how many bloggers he employs and odds are he’ll tell you he employs financial journalists and that he runs a news operation. He does. Yes, think newspapers too. Forget the debate over print versus web, newspapers are content producing machines.

Learn from what works. Learn from processes that others have refined over decades. If you run an SEO agency, a little time investigating the mechanics and workflows of content creation from those who are doing it day after day will be research time well spent. Why start with a blank piece of paper? Apply what you can see working elsewhere to the scale of the agency you are – and the scale you want to get to.

So SEO, with a little gentle encouragement from Google, is evolving. The smart agencies will want to learn how to run through that evolution as quickly as possible rather than waste valuable time learning to walk.

Seven questions every chief executive should ask about search and social marketing

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:39:00 GMT

“We should have thousands of fans on Facebook. We should be top of Google’s search rankings. While I’m at it, where is our mobile app? Everyone else has already done this, why haven’t we?”

If you haven’t said it, the odds are you’ve thought it. Facebook is eight years old, Google is in its teenage years. The iPhone is in its fifth generation, the iPad in its third with a Mini version launched by Apple this month. These aren’t new technologies any more. So why the hesitation to invest in digital channels? Doubt about the return on investment? Fear of an open-ended commitment of time, money and resources? Uncertainty about how these technologies work and how to make an impact?

Every chief executive has grown up with print, radio and television advertising; as a consumer if not as a buyer. How they work is well-understood; from audited audience measurement to the rate-card system of charges. Knowing the right questions to ask when it comes to search or social is less familiar. So what are the essential questions?

Question #1
What business objectives are we trying to achieve?

Question #2
Who is the audience we want to reach and influence?

Question #3
What are we trying to persuade them to do – what are the needs or wants we are trying to satisfy?

Question #4
What are our competitors doing and how will our approach differ?

Question #5
Where will we find our target audience – what channels do they use?

Question #6
How are we going to respond to our followers – how and when do we engage and who manages that interaction?

Question #7
How much is it going to cost to get the results we need?

Do those questions sound familiar? They should. What is new in digital marketing is the revival of old-school, tried and tested marketing techniques. Ask those questions of your marketing team and you are aligning their digital activity with business objectives rather than vague notions of engagement.

Investment in social media is most likely to fail when the first question is “what social network should we use?” The first two steps are to decide who you want to speak to and what you want to say to them. The choice of channel should flow from those decisions. The trend is to label this approach “content marketing”. The challenge is take a strategic view of the right messages to reach the target audience on the most relevant channel.

Where 21st century marketing techniques come into play is the interaction with the target audience. Unlike the “push” messaging of print and broadcast advertising, social networks “pull” in views from the audience. Brands need to be prepared to respond on an open channel to praise, criticism and customer service questions.

Make no mistake, these old-school marketing techniques are now as relevant to Google and search marketing as social media. Google changed the rules this year: the Penguin and Panda changes to its algorithm for delivering search results.

The jargon isn’t important. What is vital to understand is that Google wants to deliver relevant search results to its users. That’s how Google maintains its position as the most-used search engine. Spammy links from dodgy directories or websites that never see any traffic will not push your brand to the top of the search rankings. Relevant links from high-quality content on an authoritative website will. The most forward-thinking brands are already preparing themselves for the next phase of likely tweaks to Google’s algorithm. All of the signals from Google are that the search giant wants to move further down this path of prioritising relevance and quality in its results.

What connects the strategy for delivering high visibility for a brand in Google is, at heart, the same as for social. The connection is compelling content that your audience will consume and share. So let’s add an eighth question to the chief executives’ checklist. Does your team have the expertise to develop the right strategy and create the right content?

Never underestimate the power of your voice on social media...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:43:57 GMT

Is your social media voice infiltrating the real world? The answer, of course, is yes. It has been for quite a while. However, to what extent has it done so? I’ll explain my curiosity with the not-so-recent phenomenon of ‘The Social Media Voice’ - and its awesome (yet terrifying) power that we all have the capability of harnessing.

A while ago, on a bus, I saw a young girl complaining to her mother and a friend that she had proof that her boyfriend was going off her. ‘I posted a status about our favourite song on Facebook and Twitter,’ she began, ‘and he hasn’t liked, retweeted or commented on either site. I know he’s on there all day. He’s losing interest.’ The girl’s mother looked a little bewildered. ‘It doesn’t mean he’s gone off you,’ she replied confidently. ‘It’s just social media - it’s not the real world. You’re reading too much into this; you can’t gauge a person’s mood just by how they behave using a website.’ However, the friend stayed quiet. Perhaps out of not wishing to get involved in the debate - perhaps out of knowing that, whether for better or worse, the way we communicate online does translate to the real world now. It’s just having the sophistication to interpret this new, silent, deafening language that some of us lack.

If you think I’m being overly-dramatic, think again. I have been at two social functions within the last year where people locked horns over something that was said online, or bonded with each other because of a previous interaction. It’s about time we stopped thinking social media was the ‘light, responsibility-free’ version of ourselves - and is in no way related to a person sitting behind a screen.

Is this screen-based communication a good thing? I’m inclined to say yes. I think developing new ways of showing praise, sincerity and kindness (and, also, disgust and disagreement) are important. I’ll concur that ignoring an enthusiastic, tagged status update isn’t quite the same as blanking someone openly at a party, but it packs the same burn, as both methods of humiliation are public. And why not? People, as a whole, aren’t ‘nice’ - why should we expect the internet to be the same? If you want a world filled with fawning, saccharine platitudes, join a hippie forum. Or befriend Paris Hilton. Either will do.

Another example of ‘The Social Media Voice’ is to witness the power of complaint. If you’re ever bored on a Saturday, try this. Phone up a large company, and complain loudly. They’ll either hang up on you, put you on hold, or endlessly refer you to the wrong people. Now, stand outside one of their stores and bellow about how they’ve let you down. That won’t work either - if the staff don’t stop you, the police will. Now - finally - try having a good old whinge on Twitter or Facebook, tagging the company in your posts. Witness the speed at which they contact you, and the docile apologies they offer! Marvel at their attempts to ‘take the conversation offline’ and agree with your side of the story! Is it magic? No. It’s just that Twitter, Facebook et al are the silent platforms that ensure hundreds, thousands - potentially millions of people hear what you have to say.

We are becoming increasingly digitised. We tweet during adbreaks, we feel lost without our phones, we stalk the objects of our affection on Google+, and we know it’s a social slur if we don’t get a Facebook invite to the big party. So don’t fight it - embrace it, and be wary of anyone who believes that what goes on on social media won’t resonate offline. It can, it has, and it will - so as long as you remember your manners and have strong sources to back up any opinions you might have, go forth and speak your mind.

Image by Franco Bouly

Ecommerce Tracking Tips - Getting the most out of Google Analytics

Thu, 31 May 2012 15:01:50 GMT

At Further we have a fair few ecommerce clients spanning a wide range of product types. Having spent the last six months on secondment to our Marketing Strategy team, I’ve seen a lot of sub-optimal tracking setups, so I thought I’d add a post about some of the things I’ve spotted along the way and also some tips on ecommerce tracking capabilities. [Side note: As of today I’m re-joining the agency’s search marketing team as a Senior SEO Consultant. I’m looking forward to utilising all I’ve learnt about the wider online marketing world to bring even more strategic thinking and technical expertise to our client SEO campaigns!]

Adding ecommerce tracking:

Switch on ecommerce tracking in your Google Analytics account
Add ecommerce tracking code to the order confirmation page

So here are some of the issues that I’ve seen that have caused data inaccuracies:

Not cycling multiple purchases

One of the prerequisites of the ecommerce tracking script is telling Google about every individual item in a transaction. I’ve seen setups whereby the script is pulling in total basket value data but not cycling individual items (and therefore not providing data on individual item purchases).

Various order values

It’s all too easy to pass incorrect values into each of the variables. Take care to pass through total order value without VAT as tax should be listed as a separate value later in the code.

3^rd party payment providers

This gets trickier as the visitor is taken off-site. When this happens, it’s important to add extra code to pass data correctly through a third party payment provider using Cross Domain Tracking.

These posts have proved useful in implementing tracking for WorldPay and PayPal.

In fact it was when researching solutions that I noticed that Google links out to various reputable solutions (great link if you can get it!)

The default ecommerce conversion tracking script:

What else can be done with the ecommerce tracking script?

More often than not I’ll see the ‘category or variation’ variable being loosely used. As most retailers sort their products into multiple categories it’s not always easy to identify this value unless products have been specified a master category. As per Google’s example above they’ve added the product variation which includes colour and size. But this got me thinking that you could pass anything of interest into here.

Sale items – You could pass through whether the product that has been purchased was reduced or part of an offer. It may be that some items on the site are discounted while others remain full price. This will allow you to quickly filter in Product Performance items in sale. Although this may be indicated in the product price it's unlikely you'll know the reduced price for every item on your site.

Featured item – The product may be promoted throughout the site in featured banners. You could pass a value through which will identify it as a featured item to see if it performed better as a result.

Example: header, sidebar, featured

Payment provider – Although there are a number of ways of tracking which payment provider has been used it could also be passed into this variable also.

Example: Paypal, Google Checkout, Sagepay, WorldPay

New/Used – Specify when the item sold is new or used. (Although this may be referenced in product titles or the product code).

The potential for adding extra tracking granularity is as limitless as your creativity and your developer’s skills. You could even combine the various variables above into one value and then you can filter by all the variables and set up Custom Reports based on the category attributes!

Never mind the money

You don’t need to sell monetary items in order to use ecommerce tracking either. Google’s official Analytics Blog recently posted how Nissan uses Ecommerce Tracking without selling.

Penguin...Panda...Six Survival Strategies for Google's Animal Kingdom

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:15:00 GMT

The SEO landscape has changed dramatically over the past few months. Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, with their penalties for duplicate content, low-quality links, over-optimised keywords and heavy ad pages have been felt across the world.

Many businesses have seen their page rankings plummet. Lower ranks means less traffic, and less traffic means less revenue.

But even if you’ve not been hit, if you’re serious about your online business you can still prepare your site for future updates, so we’ve put together six survival strategies you need to have in place if you’re serious about surviving what I like to call Google’s Animal Kingdom…

Survival Tip #1 - Avoid webspam

Spam on the internet is a problem that Google has been trying to nail down for years. As such, the recent Penguin update is an attempt to rid the internet of spam by targeting ad-rich websites which only exist to sell backlinks to other sites. Because they provide no intrinsic value to a web user - if you are linked to, or include a link to one of these sites, then you’ve probably already been hit by Penguin.

Survival Tip #2 …and build great links

If you think about it, trust and authority are crucial when it comes to proving to Google that your website is a valuable resource. If a website with a high page authority links to you, it’s saying to Google that you’re a trusted source of information. With that in mind the only real, authentic way to build links is by creating good, quality content which people love and will link to.

Survival Tip #3 Avoid duplicate content

The main purpose of the Panda update is to reward websites which provide value to the visitor - so if you’ve got duplicate content on your site then you’ve got a problem. This has proved a little difficult for the many e-commerce sites with thousands of similar products on offer. Many were hit hard after the recent update, simply because they used the manufacturer’s wording in product descriptions. A little harsh, maybe, but it's something all site owners need to be aware of.

Unfortunately it seems the only way to get around this and prove to Google that you provide your visitors with quality unique content is by carrying out a full audit, including all editorial, domains and image tags.

Make sure your written copy isn’t replicated anywhere, and if you have an e-commerce site always make sure your product descriptions are interesting and unique. If you have multiple domains, each site should have original content too – even if you are using the same keywords. If you use the same images, each should have different tags.

Survival Tip #4 …and focus on creating unique, accessible content

Since Panda rewards fresh content, you really want to be writing high-quality content on a regular basis. Not only will you get indexed much faster, you can use it to get higher-quality inbound links from other websites in your industry.

If however you are creating content for another website which includes a link to yours in the text, make sure you do your research. I can’t stress this point enough. If the website your content appears on gets hit by any future Panda or Penguin update you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll be hit too.

You can do your research through sites like Open Site Explorer’s search – look for a high page authority and a high number of total referring links. If you’re happy that the site is a quality, well-respected resource you can rest easy.

Survival Tip #5 Avoid keyword stuffing

What’s become clear in the post-Panda and Penguin world is that stuffing content full of keywords or direct match anchor text links no longer works. You can write news and articles with keyword-rich copy until the cows come home, but if you try and outsmart Google and use more keywords than necessary it could be seen you were over-optimising your site – and you will be punished.

Suvival Tip #6 …and use a mix of keywords across your site

Make a list of all the products and services you deliver and use a mix of specific and non-specific keywords and links across your site. For example, if you are an email marketing company and publish an article called “How to write email subject lines which sell”, your keywords and links should be “avoiding spam”, “email tips” and “selling through email”. Don’t stuff the article full of “email marketing” keywords and links to your product, make it natural and link to a variety of pages.

The message is clear - whatever you are writing, think of what your potential readers are typing into search engines and use the keywords to suit.

To sum up…

Unfortunately, none of us can see into the future and say with much certainty where Google’s Panda and Penguin updates are taking us. What is clear however, is that those sites which consistently provide quality and valuable content to visitors are best placed to survive the Animal Kingdom - those that don’t are asking to be punished….Google Piranha, anyone?

Google's Penguin leaves the bad guys out in the cold

Mon, 14 May 2012 20:38:11 GMT

There once was a time when SEO specialists trained in the dark arts (using shady techniques to try and alter search rankings) often soared past the good guys like us. Now however, the game's changing with the recent launch of Google's so called "Penguin update" - and about time too!

According to Google, the Penguin update is an attempt to level the playing field in favour of those websites which have gained links naturally. From reading various blogs, forums and discussion boards, what has become clear is that thousands of websites which have been up to no good 'over optimising' links to their site have been penalised - in some cases very drastically.

Some examples of this have been blog comment spam links, low-quality article sites, keyword stuffing both internally and externally and a real lack of diversity in anchor text. Penguin has also hit genuine sites that haven't tried to break the rules but are in need of improvement.

Here at Further, as online marketing and SEO experts, we have often seen shady techniques propel our clients' competitors high in search rankings. This has often resulted in questions from our clients about why we don't try these techniques too. The answer? Simple....

Cheaters get caught. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they will eventually.

So what's the answer?

Google exists to provide its users with relevant search results. It's not the only search engine out there - Bing, Yahoo, Blecko for example - and Google knows that if it does not provide the best organic search results it will lose market share. If it loses market share the amount of revenue it makes from Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising will decline. With that in mind it is constantly tweaking its search algorithm to deliver its users the best and most relevant search.

Step forward Panda and Penguin.

In fact, recent research from SEO Moz, one of the main thought leaders of our industry and a leading provider of SEO tools, shows that the most recent Penguin update has affected more search queries than any other Google algorithm update so far. The ripples from the Penguin update will be felt across the world - in India, for example, there are no end of companies which provide a link-buying and directory submission service.

The future...

So where do we go from here?

Well, SEO continues to evolve. In fact, it's become even more important for businesses. Trying to cheat the system with low-quality 'spammy shortcuts' will end in failure - Google will find you out, sooner or later. Successful SEO delivers what search engines require, and that's relevancy. This includes providing genuine, quality content. From finding websites with high authority, to researching the competition, coming up with creative ideas and providing better, more timely information - the SEO of today needs far more work than what's worked in the past.

Rather than buying random links, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, what has become clear is that if you try to cheat the system you'll get caught. Good SEO will see you reap the rewards - bad SEO will see you given the red card....

Get your business advert seen on YouTube. if you pay, of course.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:06:00 GMT

It seems that there's no end to the amount of ways Google can make money from our internet browsing habits. From traditional pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to targeted adverts on our emails, the internet giant is nothing but resourceful.

So it was with great fanfare when Google announced earlier this week that it has rolled out adwords for video on YouTube. Basically this means that businesses can now get their video advert to appear during relevant video searches. Although they will only pay for adverts that people actually view, Google says it will help businesses more effectively target their adverts to people they actually want to speak to.

Say you search for 'Best football goals' (being a Norwich fan it's a favourite pastime of mine as we don't score many good ones!), companies that sell aftershave, deodorant, razors or shaving cream will be able to bid to have their advert appear before the video starts. Providing their bid is the highest for this term, those businesses will be given information about how, when and where their adverts were viewed.

But say you're a small business which sells referees' whistles for example? You will want to be featured on this video, but you only have a limited spend. Can you really afford to compete with the big boys like the Gillettes and Calvin Kleins of this world?

According to Google, they sure can. However, I'm not so sure.

It says that small businesses will be able to use 'a new way of targeting' which allows them to see an estimate of how much traffic they'll receive when someone inputs their targeting parameters, with their budget and their bid price. Businesses will only pay if the advert is viewed to the end, not if it is skipped - and therein lies the problem.

When was the last time you visited YouTube and watched an advert right to the end? I don't know about you, but as soon as I see 'skip' I click it instantly. I want to view the video, I don't want to watch your advert. It's the same with Sky+ - one of the reasons it's so popular is because you can fast forward the adverts.

We get bombarded with adverts left, right and centre. While I agree that targeted adverts and PPC advertising can play a really big part in online marketing (studies have shown as much), video ads however are relatively unproven.

Maybe it will take time. Maybe we'll learn to love the YouTube ad. In the meantime, what is clear is that if small businesses want to get their advert seen they will have to target more unpopular terms - and in today's tough economic climate can you really see that happening? I can't.

Our 7 deadly social media sins

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:18:10 GMT

It goes without saying that social media is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses. Used correctly it can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your site, lead to increased sales and allow you to interact with customers in a way that wasn’t possible before. It’s free, it’s fast, and it allows you to keep the channels of communication open post-sale - so completing a purchase doesn’t have to be the end of the line for you and your customer.

Yet regardless of the many benefits social media offers the savvy business, those that aren’t switched on can find themselves at best embarrassed, and at worst, hurriedly scraping together a damage limitation plan. If you don’t fancy ruining your reputation, here’s Further’s seven deadly social media sins.

Social media sin #1 - Failing to prepare is preparing to fail

Perhaps the biggest mistake many businesses make is to launch head-first social media without having a strategy in place. Those that do are easy to spot, because they have no goals and no gameplan. They’ve got stale old content on their pages, no images, no video and no comments - it’s an internet ghost town, and it looks terrible.

Companies with a solid social media strategy in place are busy engaging with fans and followers and creating unique, shareable content and posting it often. They’re building a growing, like-minded community and continually encouraging them to check the company page to see what’s new. Get a social media strategy in place and lay out some key objectives for what you want to achieve and you won’t be ignored.

Social media sin #2 - Build it, and leave it

Far too many businesses jump straight in to social media and create multiple accounts, only to quickly get bored and abandon them after the initial excitement passes. The message is simple, if you can’t keep a profile up-to-date then delete it. It looks thoroughly unprofessional to create an account, and then only update it every few months as it suggests that your lazy attitude to social media is prevalent throughout your whole business..

With planning (it only takes about ten minutes, twice or three times a day) to maintain all of your social media accounts and reap the benefits, so there should be no reason to leave those accounts gathering virtual dust.

Social media sin #3 - Too much self promotion

We all use social media to promote our products and services and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when you’re dealing with social networks, you also need to think about the community you’re part of, and make sure that your conversation isn’t one-sided.

Think of social networking like normal business networking. You’d look very odd if you started to spout mindlessly about your business to a someone you had just met at a dinner party - the same applies here. Listen to what people are saying and respond appropriately, and you’ll find that in turn, you’re listened to.

Social media sin #4 - Sloppy work - auto direct messages and auto posting

We hate to say it, but setting your Facebook apart from your Twitter account by posting different content on each is one of the most important things you can do, so stop posting the same articles and pictures on each one. Yes, it’s easy, but it also looks lazy - and suggests you’ve got no imagination. We recommend that you make each one unique - pictures and videos are more sharable and have the capacity to go viral.

On a slightly different note, but still under the umbrella of content, may we just advise you against using auto direct messages (DMs) on Twitter? They look false, you know everyone else has received one, and absolutely no thought has gone into your first contact with a new follower. Avoid.

Social media sin #5 - Poor customer service and over-moderation

As odd as this may seem, legitimate negative reviews are far from the worst thing that could appear in your @mention stream, or on your brand’s Facebook page. If anything, they make the positive ones seem more authentic. Not to mention they bring poor user experiences to your attention, so you can deal with them swiftly, please the customer, and save the day! Consider keeping them around, unless they’re libellous or obscene. Plus, nobody’s perfect, and it won’t do your business any harm to show your followers that you’ve got a human side.

Try not to react aggressively when you read a negative post or tweet; if it’s genuine, you’ll anger the plaintiff further, and if it’s meant to rile you, you’re just letting the other party ‘win’. Always be polite, respond promptly, and take this opportunity to show your customer that you’re able to make the situation better for them. Turning a negative experience into a positive one, promptly, is far more worthwhile for your business than an endless list of glowing reviews.

Social media sin #6 – Don’t look needy

As keen as you may be to make new friends and influence people, don’t go overboard. People will assume you’re desperate for fans if they see that you’re following 5,000 people and you only have 50 fans – plus, we bet that not all of those people you’re following are relevant to your business. Value yourself, and value your social media by taking your time to pick appropriate followers – if you’re writing great content, using multimedia and updating your page regularly, don’t worry. Your fans will accumulate slowly yet surely.

Social media sin #7 – Keep an eye out, but don’t stalk!

It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the competition, and see what you’re up against. However, we would advise against two things that fall under the remit of sussing out your competition. Number one – don’t follow them. It suggests you think they’re better than you, and you could learn from them, which is definitely not the case! Secondly, if you see they’re running a successful campaign, don’t copy them. Yes, they will find out, and yes, they’ll tell the world that they’ve been plagiarised – which will make you look dreadful. Observing from a distance is all you need to do.

So there you have it, seven deadly sins you need to avoid if you're serious about setting your business apart in the ever-changing world of social media.

Googles 40 plus new changes. What does it mean to you?

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:02:51 GMT

The world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been undergoing some major changes recently. Not content with the ‘Search Plus Your World’ changes Google are making in order to plug its social media network Google+ or the big changes to its Privacy Policy, Google are now starting to scrutinise content on your website and how other websites link to you.

According to a recent blogpost, Google has outlined 40 (yes, you read that right) changes to search quality this month. Although many of these changes are small, such as safe images and localised Youtube videos, hidden amongst these changes include two which could have a real impact on how your business appears in search.

These are:

“Panda Update” – which refreshes the Panda system, making it ‘more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web’.

And

“Link evaluation” – which changes the way Google will help figure out the topic of a webpage. Basically it’s turning off a method of link analysis it’s used for over seven years in order to keep its system ‘maintainable, clean and understandable’.

So what does this mean for your website?

It has been a year since Google unleashed Panda. If you’re confused, Panda is essentially Google’s ongoing campaign to lower the rank of ‘low-quality’ sites in its rankings and return better sites. It does this by looking at a number of factors including duplicate content, web pages with poor quality content and how quickly people leave your site (called bounce rate).

What has become clear is that Panda is here to stay and the 3.3 update Google has implemented this month will continue to sift websites’ content. In order to overcome the changes, you need to make sure your site is:

Fresh – If you have a news page or a blog, make sure it’s kept up to date.
Useful – Don’t copy text from other sites and hope that tweaking a few words here and there will fool Panda. Write for your readers and make your content useful.
Free from duplicate content – Make sure anything you’ve written is not hosted elsewhere. You can be sure Panda will pick it up and you could be punished.

In terms of link evaluation, Google’s changes are shrouded in mystery. How precisely does Google evaluate the quality of a link? Will this mean an end to traditional link building? Does this update spell the death knell for online directories and link exchanges?

It would be helpful to know a bit more about the specifics of Google’s link analysis, but these are cards that the internet giant will keep close to its chest. However, in order to keep up with these changes, I would suggest you need to make sure your site is:

Linked from reputable sources – A link from a well-respected website to you will convince Google you’re a worthwhile site.
Contains natural links – Links from bloggers or sites naturally talking about you, your products or your services will convince Google you’re a site which needs to rank.
Has natural anchor text linking to it – Make sure any text linking to you is not over optimised. If you sell bathrooms, text linking to you should not all be ‘bathrooms’ – consider alternatives like ‘showers’ ‘sinks’ ‘toilets’ and ‘taps’.

There is no doubt these new changes by Google demonstrates an ongoing evolution of SEO rankings and the need to do you research and not be afraid to adapt (for example what an SEO agency does well compared with an in-house or non-SEO focussed agency). I’d love to find out precisely what Google changed this month, but then again I guess this would remove some of the fun of working in this ever-changing industry!

Can you put a Price on dignity?

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:49:34 GMT

We all saw it coming; she had been quiet for too long. And this week, Katie Price proved that she’s either short of a few bob or the canniest businesswoman this side of Christmas when she teamed up with Snickers to front a campaign that’s been making headlines ever since.

It all started when Ms. Price’s tweets began focusing on topics that she normally doesn’t choose to mention (she normally sticks to horses, her children and colours she likes.) Updates such as ‘Large scale quantitative easing in 2012 could distort liquidity of Govt. bond market. #justsaying’ had most followers believing @MissKatiePrice had been hacked, or had had some kind of intellectual epiphany. However, later on that day, all was revealed. Price tweeted a picture of herself with the accompanying text: ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry @SnickersUK #hungry #spon’.

My initial reaction to this is one of pity. Has Katie Price just willingly admitted that such topics as the economy are firmly out of her grasp? That’s saddening, for a start. But for a woman best known for her pert, trim figure and exercise videos, her siding with a confectionary giant reeked of desperation for recognition, even if that meant damaging her own brand. Can you imagine Price biting into a Snickers in a hungry spot then declaring it a fine snack? No? Neither can we.

Price’s dubious foray into the realm of Twitter PR has got many experts thinking.

Dorset-based businesswoman and social media aficionado Joanne Dewberry is sure that whilst Price meant well, her stunt failed somewhat. “I think it's an incredibly clever concept but possibly the execution became a bit tacky by using Katie Price,” Joanne explains. “If I were in Snickers Social Media Team, I would have insisted in a much more 'wholesome' role model. I wouldn't want Katie Price associated with my business - I always found it odd that her TV programme was sponsored by Kiddicare.com, and that made me avoid them.”

Writer and social media fan Louie Watts has nothing but praise for Price’s stunt. “In my opinion, Snickers has created a fun and clever campaign. If the celebrities taking part don’t mind showing a different side to themselves, then why not?” he reasons. “I don't think it is causing any harm and it’s created a fair amount of conversation. This has thrown them into the public eye, which is exactly what Snickers want.

“Although some people may see Price’s admission that she has no interest in worldwide affairs as an insult to her intelligence, I think it’s important not to read too deeply into her campaign,” Louie continues. “At the end of the day, the message is more to do with how some people change when they're hungry, which is a basic fact of life that we all can empathise with. It’s as simple as that.”

Is Price a clever businesswoman with an eye for an opportunity, or desperately grabbing at headlines? Joanne thinks that the Katie Price PR machine knows full–well the benefits of well-timed exposure. “When I first saw that she was sponsoring Snickers via Twitter, my initial thought was that she was cash-strapped. However, as we have learnt from Katie Price in the past, she puts a lot of thought into her business transactions - and no doubt she knew that her profile, plus Snickers was a winning formula. They achieved what they set out to do; we’re all talking about both Snickers and Katie Price. Job done.”

So, what is left to be said about the coalition of Katie Price and Snickers? Whatever your personal feelings about Price, there can be no doubt that the campaign in itself is sheer brilliance. Both Snickers and Price have never pretended to be highbrow, so why shouldn’t they exploit their strengths, together? It’s a great creative angle for an online campaign that Snickers and Price knew would go viral, and it’s worked extremely well. As if you needed any more proof, I spotted five people eating a Snickers yesterday. Coincidence? I think not.

Google's new Privacy Policy and what it means for you

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:14:56 GMT

Earlier this week Google announced an upcoming change in their privacy policy, which consolidates the previous 70+ (yes, you read that right!) privacy policies across different Google-owned products into one, all-encompassing document.

It's due to take effect on March 1st 2012, but why have they done it, and what does it mean to the average user and the search industry as a whole?

The fundamental reason for pushing this change, and the reason privacy advocates are up in arms, is that Google want a more seamless experience amongst all of their products, especially flagship ones such as Search, Gmail, Google+ and Youtube. This means that all of these services will share more data about you than ever before - which could mean a more customised user experience but will also have a significant impact on how much Google understands its users and can profile them.

Google Books, Google Wallet and Google Chrome will not be impacted by this new privacy policy and will retain their own, for 'technical and legal reasons'.

What are some specific things users can expect?

Results you see in search will be more personalised, for example using your Youtube viewing history to push relevant results. So, if you watch Meatloaf's music videos on Youtube (poor you..), a Google search for 'meatloaf' is more likely to show results for the music artist than recipes.
More details about people you know will be shared between Google products - so someone you follow on Google+ could be highlighted in your Gmail account, for example. Google Docs will be aware of your Gmail and Google+ contacts when you want to share documents or files.
Services like Google Calendar could use your current location (taken from Google+ or search settings) to remind you about meetings based on how long your journey to the meeting location might take.
Data from multiple services can be integrated. Google Calendar reminders in Gmail, your Picasa photos in Google+, your favourite Youtube channel videos in search results...you get the picture!

But what's in it for Google?

Well, in part it's the desire to deliver an improved experience for Google users. The internet giant is very aware that to sell more advertising (which is, remember, their core business) they need to make its services the best available on the web and encourage people to stay inside Google properties, loading pages and viewing adverts.

The main reason however is to add another layer of intelligence into the behemoth which is Google's advertising platform. By sharing data between all of Google's products, they can build up a terrifyingly accurate picture of a user's interests, their daily routine, social circles (please excuse the Google+ pun) and travel habits.

By understanding users more than ever, Google can show hyper-relevant advertising and charge more for it - either through higher click-through rates or advertiser's willingness to pay a higher cost-per-click. Expect to see adverts on Google properties that are so personalised that they may become unnerving:

If you've searched for a destination in Google Maps, you may see adverts for hotels and restaurants in that location on Google Calendar.
Email a friend via Gmail and you may see adverts on Google+ (yes, it's only a matter of time) for whatever it is you've just been talking about.
Follow a brand on Google+ and you may see sponsored video content from them in Youtube.
And if you use a specific model of Android phone, you may see adverts in Google search results for accessories (regardless of whether you're searching from your phone or laptop).

To sum up...

As a search agency who advertises for clients via the AdWords platform, I'm looking forward to seeing what advanced targeting options Google rolls out over the next 12 months. The more targeted and relevant we can make adverts for our clients, the more effective they can be and the better the return on investment for clients.

As a user, I'm actually pleased that Google have made this move and I hope that it leads to a new level of automation and intelligence when using the Google products that now pervade my personal and professional life. I can imagine Google being able to use this data to create a sort-of 'digital butler' who can recommend interesting websites and resources based on my interests, remind me of upcoming events and help me organise my life better.

I hope that Google won't use this data in ways that users find overly intrusive or allow it to get into the hands of dubious people. However, unlike some of the mainstream press who are sensationalising the 'invasion of privacy' angle, I can't see why Google would want to risk what would surely be a suicidal lapse of judgement.

Sign up to Google+...or else?

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:03:00 GMT

Working in the digital marketing industry, it can sometimes feel as if we are slaves to Google. We use it to judge the effectiveness of search engine optimisation (SEO) for our clients (although why everyone calls it SEO Lord only knows, we should just call it Google Optimisation and be done with it). We use it to track analytics, to check our email, to search for news, for images, for blogs, for prices of products – we even use it to watch videos (yes, it also owns Youtube). Given such global dominance, the fact that Facebook is still the world’s number one social network with over 800 million members worldwide is refreshing to say the least.

Unfortunately it seems that Facebook’s days are numbered – simply because Google’s forcing people and businesses to sign up to its social network Google+. Not through choice mind you, but because they have to if they don’t want to be left behind.

When it comes to search, social media can play an important role. Besides helping you get quality backlinks, shared content such as blogs, Facebook posts and retweets can help drive traffic to your website, provoke comment and debate and increase the likelihood of your content appearing in search engines. Google’s “search plus your world” changes however have put an end to all that.

The new changes now automatically populate Google searches with results from Google+ including photos, posts, and profile pages. Google says these changes enable searchers to find both private content shared by friends and overall web content via a single search, yet I’m more inclined to believe it’s a blatant attempt to kill off Facebook and Twitter and continue Google’s global dominance.

“But Google+ isn’t for me!” I hear you cry. “I’m happy with Facebook and Twitter thank you, I’ll stick with these…”

If that sounds like you you’re making a big mistake. Why? In a nutshell, although content from these rival services can still appear among search results – this will only be if it's specifically relevant to what you're searching for. Google+ data will now appear regardless of whether or not you're seeking it.

If you are a business that relies on Google for organic search traffic and sales, personalised search results will become the norm when users are logged into their Google account. Not only will this make it so much harder for businesses to determine their search rankings, it will also make it harder for customers to find them. Throw in the fact that Google+ results will be appearing before public listings and that not all of these results will be relevant and you’ve got a serious headache.

The only solution? Join Google+. Create a brand page and become an active member. Get your brand page into as many influential people’s circles as possible, post keyword-rich status updates often in order to increase your relevance in important searches and do it in a natural non-spammy way.

The SEO industry will undoubtedly have to bend to Google’s command as these aggressive changes have turned the SEO landscape on its head. Sadly, it seems that failure to sign up to Google+ and get a ‘+1’ strategy in place will do more harm than good.

Time for Facebook and Twitter to either up their game and do it quickly or raise the white flag and surrender.

Why not give Google+a try today and add us to a circle or two. Click "Add to circles" below.

Too close for comfort - should celebs be on Twitter?

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:01:10 GMT

There was cause for celebration all round this week when the First Lady, Michelle Obama, took to Twitter. The President’s wife’s account debuted on Thursday, and she’s already got almost 236,000 followers. It’s great to see that the White House continue to demonstrate an admirable ability to use social media to their advantage - Barack Obama already has nearly 12 million followers, and it’s clear his Twitter account is a hugely useful tool when the need for clear communication is at an all-time high. With the next election due in November, politicians all over the States have taken to social networking to ensure their message is heard loud and clear.

OK, so we’ve covered that those in power not only need, but have a legitimate use for Twitter. Now, let’s take a look at celebrities that wield slightly less power, such as Lily Allen, Ricky Gervais, Paris Hilton and Sarah Harding of Girls Aloud. These stars frequently let us know where they’re going, what they’re up to and with who, and, most importantly, who they’ve fallen out with. The internet is awash with Twitter spats - who could forget Lily Allen’s very famous online sparring match with then News of the World Showbiz Editor, Dan Wootton? What about Ricky Gervais’s fracas with members of the Christian community? However, what we have to ask ourselves is, is any of this appropriate? Surely these conflicts can be resolved via a phone call or email, not played out in the public arena so a bloodthirsty public can gather to watch what should be a private disagreement. Various stars have also come under fire for publicly sending their condolences via Twitter when another star suffers a tragedy, as their actions are construed as shameless namedropping. Sometimes, you have to wonder whether a handwritten note would do the job just as well.

The discomfort that Twitter presents to us when engaging with this level of celebrity is we’re still used to A and B-listers being intensely private individuals only presented to us through airbrushed magazines, newspapers and finely-managed TV interviews. In a way, seeing them with a ‘human’ side, a side that must drive their PR people mad, is disquieting. It’s bizarre to see an interview with a film star on their best behaviour, then read a less-than-complimentary tweet from them about something unpleasant they’ve just encountered. We pay these people to present, to act, to make music or to just plain look fabulous. Somehow, finding out they’ve just wet themselves in a lift ruins the illusion of glamour. When celebs become too ‘accessible’, the magic dies.

Maybe I should finish with an example of why silence is golden; let’s look at the famously-silent Kate Moss. Known throughout her career for refusing interviews and avoiding to court the paparazzi, her inaccessibility has only inspired growing interest in her career. I would guess that most people see Kate Moss as a beautiful, strangely silent and rather canny businesswoman - we haven’t been allowed to see much of her personal side, so her allure remains intact, despite the various scandals that have plagued her career.

Kate’s refusal to answer back to her critics has allowed her to behave in ways that suggest she doesn’t care what anybody thinks - thereby instantly making any criticism she receives instantly look slightly pointless. Her silence is reminiscent of the Hollywood stars of the 1940s, when it was considered ‘cheap’ to behave in anything less than a dignified manner. I’m not saying we should gag celebrities, far from it - but maybe it’s time to look at what being in the public eye actually means, and how unthinking social networking can sometimes irreversibly damage a career that’s been built on illusion itself.

What do you think? We'd love some feedback. Leave your comments below, get in touch with us on Facebook, or send us a tweet on Twitter.

Goodbye email - hello social?

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:28:52 GMT

If, like me, you returned to work after the Christmas break with a mountain of emails sitting in your inbox, you probably spent the first couple of days trawling through, replying to the most important, flagging those which needed an action or response and deleting the spam. However, if recent predictions come true, this process could soon be rendered obsolete as more of us turn to social media and instant messaging to communicate with one another.

As 2011 ended, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg nailed his colours to the mast, saying: “We don’t think a modern messaging system is going to be email”. Now this got me thinking as I tackled my ever-creaking inbox: ‘do businesses really need email?’ and if not just how likely is it that the mountain of emails that haunt many of us on a daily basis will soon be replaced?

There’s no doubting social media’s popularity. Not only does it let you communicate with customised groups of people at the touch of a button, it’s a great way to find out what’s going on in your industry. Compared to email, which can often feel like a very lonely system, social media is alive with thought, debate and awareness. News breaks instantly and hashtags create easy-to-follow conversations. Comments are easy to track too, removing the need to search for what people said and when, while status updates can be used to let people know that you are genuinely busy and not just ignoring their messages!

However, despite the enormous amount of benefits that social media has over the standard email system I don’t think it is going anywhere. According to the Radicati Group there are currently 3.1 billion email accounts in the world - given that the world’s population is just over 7 billion, that’s pretty impressive. In fact, they estimate that the number of email accounts will increase to 4.1 billion by 2015…that's hardly a death knell for a system which has been around since 1971.

Yet regardless of the numbers involved I think it’s the functionality offered by email which will continue its life. Unlike social media email provides traceable trails, read receipts, the ability to attach important files and have secure conversations – all of which are so crucial in business.

What I would like to see an end to is unnecessary internal emails. It doesn’t happen here at Team Further of course (we actually talk to each other and use Skype instant messaging to raise awareness of useful websites for example!), but how many of us get sent a stream of messages from our colleagues who sit within easy reach? Perhaps the real debate is not the end of email but actually having a conversation instead - now that's real social...

Is your vanity taking over Facebook?

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:03:53 GMT

A story published by The Telegraph (and numerous other news sites) has revealed that Facebook users are deliberately reporting pictures as ‘offensive’ - simply because they don’t like how they look. The study, conducted by technology site All Things D, has revealed that the majority of pictures that were flagged up weren’t obscene, just unflattering.

Facebook’s engineering director, Arturo Bejar, has said that he would rather users contacted each other directly to sort out ‘photo disputes’ and the site has recently changed the options beneath photos to include new ones, such as ‘I don’t like this photo of me'.

Are we right to be precious about a few unflattering shots of ourselves? We’re all aware of the changes that an increasingly digital age has heralded; most people have digital cameras; most people have a Facebook account. If you go to a party, you might get photographed. The pictures may well end up on the internet. This cannot have failed to escape most people.

Secondly, who cares if you look a little out of sorts? Scroll through your friends’ accounts; you’ll easily find a few snaps they probably wish didn’t exist. Thirdly, even before the Facebook revolution, we were aware of the discomfort that accompanies a few embarrassing pictures. Will you deem your baby photos ‘offensive’ and throw them away? How about that shoebox full of snaps from your teenage years, wearing disastrous outfits, that your Mum always gets out when you have company? Of course not. What’s the difference between people seeing a bad photo of you online, or in your lounge?

As we move into an era where couples communicate on Twitter whilst sitting side by side, it’s good to remain aware of what social networks are, and what they were intended for - and that’s fun. Let’s not let our vanity get in the way of enjoying them; and unless you’re a professional model, you should probably stop trying to get that picture of you with a double chin taken down.

Social New Year Resolutions

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:55:39 GMT

It's a new year, and, if you're anything like the Further team, you're looking for a method to streamline your ways of working online whilst avoiding getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty (yes, we are talking about perusing the photos from the NYE party you attended.) So, in the spirit of working hard, getting ahead and (dare we say it without getting mocked mercilessly) developing a new you, we have compiled Further's top tips for getting your mojo back during the long, cold months after Christmas...

1) Push your boundaries. Yes, Facebook may be exciting, but it's hardly new. If you must social network whilst the boss isn't looking, (not that we condone anything like that, for obvious reasons), try something new. Have you given Google+ a go? If not, why not? Don't be scared of the unknown. Remember how timidly we all approached Myspace?

2) Clear out your dead wood. It's worth trying to remember all your old email addresses and passwords, then logging into various social networks you don't use anymore so you can make sure you're only active across the sites you actually use. One of the team here was bemused to discover that during her internet career, she had forgotten she had signed up to Faceparty, Bebo and Friends Reunited.

3) Embrace Facebook's new Timeline feature. Yes, it might take some getting used to, but in the end everyone will have to convert, so why not get the hard part over and done with? Plus, you can now get a cover for your profile! (That was our attempt at coaxing you into making the switchover. Did it work? Perhaps not.)

4) Get rid of old email addresses you don't use. If you've been pestered by acquaintances asking you why you've been offering them various types of herbal medicine, we're guessing these are accounts that are a) defunct and b) spammed to within an inch of their lives. Change the passwords, then shut down the address. Nobody needs 15 email addresses, anyway - how much mail are you planning on receiving?

5) Enjoy the benefits of a well-timed cull. Take a good look at your Facebook friends and be brutally honest with yourself - if you're irritated or bemused by somebody's presence, get rid. However, do the grown-up thing and do so quietly. Those status updates boldly announcing your intentions can misfire badly when Aunty Janice tells your mum that you've unfriended her on Facebook.

6) Whilst you're in the mood, why not give your Facebook a dusting-off? If you're feeling snazzy, a new profile picture will work wonders. Also, updating your information, such as career and education, can give your profile a much-needed boost. Don't forget that when Facebook's Timeline comes into full force, anyone can trawl through your archives, so it may be worth a look to see if there's any embarrassing content you'd like to, er, dispose of.

7) Finally, although we are increasingly moving into a world where we have more friends online than we do in real life, don't forget that the environment beyond your computer is a rather fun place. Make a pact with yourself to spend a few evenings out and about if you're forming an unhealthy attachment with your computer - Facebook can wait. Parties probably won't.

Social media in 2012 where is it headed?

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:29:39 GMT

2011 was certainly an eventful year for social media. Facebook continued to grow and add new features, Twitter announced it had over 100 million users, while Google jumped on the bandwagon with the launch of Google+. As such more and more businesses ‘got social’ and used it to increase their brand awareness and their customer service offerings.

We saw the good (and bad) sides of social media too. While the Arab Spring protestors turned to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to tell the world their stories, closer to home it was used to co-ordinate riots and the looting of stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

With that in mind I thought I’d look into the special ‘Further crystal ball’ and make a few predictions for the future of social media in 2012…

Prediction # 1 - Social saturation

First off, I think that more and more businesses are going to get involved in social media for fear of being left behind by their competitors. By the end of 2012 don’t be surprised if you see your local pub, plumber or hairdresser online, tweeting deals and uploading photos. If they’re not online now, rest assured they soon will be.

Prediction # 2 - Sharing is caring

Given this year’s changes to search (in which Google started to place a higher emphasis on shared links and content) expect to see more sharing buttons embedded on business websites. Google+ it, Facebook it, Tweet it, LinkedIn it – we’ll be encouraged to tell our friends about what we’re reading, more than ever before.

Prediction # 3 - Behold the blog!

Although blogging has been around for years, I think businesses will place much more emphasis on creating compelling, creative and engaging content. Expect to see more businesses tweeting links and directing their Facebook friends to their website to read their words of wisdom and view their latest products. As I’ve already mentioned, there will be an increased use of sharing buttons and comments fields to encourage debate.

Prediction # 4 - Funnels for the win

The upcoming changes to Google Analytics will make users’ buying journeys easier to understand for e-commerce businesses because they will be able to see which ‘channels’ were most effective in initiating and assisting sales. Given that ‘social media’ is a category (along with display ads, pay-per click and organic search) expect to hear more about the importance of multi-channel funnels. What part does social media play in deciding to buy will be a big question e-commerce businesses will try to answer.

Prediction # 5 - Return On Investment

Given that 2012 is predicted to be a pretty gloomy year for businesses, expect to see more importance being placed on social media’s return on investment. Although it’s free to use, social media is cost-heavy in terms of the time taken to create content and engage with customers. I predict that many financial bods and marketing departments will come to blows as the latter tries to justify the importance of having a social online presence.

Prediction # 6 - Broadcasters get on the bandwagon

If you’ve ever watched a TV programme and tweeted at the same time, you know how enjoyable it can be. Broadcasters will want to tap into this sentiment and as such I predict that more and more of them will encourage us to connect with like-minded people watching or listening to their shows. From answering questions through Twitter hashtags to creating dedicated programme Facebook profiles, expect to see more social media captions and subtitles on your favourite TV shows soon.

Prediction # 7 - More offline social media marketing

As more businesses wake up to the power of social media, I predict that more offline marketing literature will contain their social media details. Your local pizza place will have it on their menus, your local pub will have it on their wine lists and your local department store will have it on their receipts. Goodbye Yellow Pages!

To sum up…

There’s no doubt about it, social media is moving at an incredible pace and it will be interesting to see which of these predictions come to pass. Yet regardless of what happens in 2012 you can be sure we’ll cover it in this blog – it’s an industry that keeps us on our toes and that’s why we love it!

What do you think of the predictions and where do you see social media heading? Let us know below…

Where Mark Davidson went wrong...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:33:56 GMT

The first I heard of Mark Davidson was when his name began trending on Twitter in September this year. After a relatively quick investigation, it turned out that one of his disgruntled ex-employees had ‘hacked’ Davidson’s company’s Twitter account, and not only was this person drunk, they were extremely angry. A series of scathing tweets appeared, accusing Mr. Davidson of not knowing how to use social media, that a rival company paid better, and that the other ghostwriters were ‘really boring’. Naturally, this went viral. Articles appeared warning of handing over Twitter accounts to ghostwriters, and Mark Davidson’s goose appeared to be well and truly cooked. Until someone suggested the ‘Twitter takeover’ had been a hoax - and Davidson confirmed it had been.

In an interview with The Atlantic Wire, he confessed that he’d arranged the stunt himself in order to show his mother he could become a maestro of social media (or something like that; it’s never quite revealed why. It has something to do with his brother being a doctor.)

Either way, Davidson seemed pleased with the stunt - and rightly so. I followed him straight after he started trending, and I’ve only just gotten round to deleting him from my feed. (He’s gone back to tweeting about his business. Far less interesting.)

You might think that all’s well that ends well, right? Wrong. Davidson has tarnished his reputation in a way that his business image won’t ever recover from. On the one hand, he looks impossibly foolish, if you believe the takeover was real. We’ll never be able to look at Davidson again without thinking of his fired ghostwriter’s acerbic comments - is he a rubbish boss? Can he really barely type? I believe most people, on some level, will always believe it was real.

On the other hand, Davidson’s horrifically-smug response wins him no fans - or sympathy from journalists. "I’m not promoting anything," he said, during the interview with The Atlantic Wire. "I’m not trying to dupe people. What I did try to do was spark a conversation, as I always do. I kind of wanted to teach a lesson [to journalists]. When I read all the different blog posts, they built a fictional story around my fictional story. Ultimately, the real story is don’t believe what you read.” Sadly for Mark, this excuse smacks of poorly thought-out damage limitation. The phrase, ‘Actually, I meant to do that,’ springs to mind.

Plus, teaching journalists a lesson? Very worthy. I don’t suppose it’s the journalists in question that have helped build your Twitter following to over 55,000 people, or gave you the press coverage you obviously craved? Telling journalists not to talk about a breaking story is rather pointless. I’m sure they’ve all learned their lesson; but let’s not forget. Thousands of them blogged about you, and there was only one person involved in this who looked rather incompetent, whether those tweets were the work of a cunning ruse or not. The lesson here is, if there can be one, is that if you’re going to stage a publicity stunt like this, make sure that you can prove, without a shadow of a doubt later on, the whole thing was a hoax. Otherwise there’s an uneasy silence afterwards where everyone tries to work out if you’re really desperate for coverage, really conniving, or just impossibly embarrassed. Take note, Mark Davidson.

Moaning on social media

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:59:29 GMT

There’s no doubt about it, if there’s one thing us Brits love (more than queuing and cups of tea) it’s having a good old moan. According to new research from Sage, more and more of us are turning to social media to complain when we receive poor customer service. Its survey of 2,000 consumers found that one in five of us are using social media to vent our frustrations, yet only 4 in 10 of us ever receive a reply.

I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty poor service in the past. When my internet and TV service went down earlier this summer I called a certain Mr Branson’s helpline to get some help. After being kept on hold for nearly half an hour they cut me off when putting me through to yet another ‘customer experience executive’.

Like a true keyboard warrior I was straight onto Twitter to complain. I wanted all my friends and followers to know how useless they were. However, within 30 seconds of blasting my rant into the Twittersphere their social media team were onto my complaint, requesting my phone number for a call back. I was impressed – they sorted my problems and gave me a month’s free internet to say sorry.

Unfortunately, it seems not all businesses are as savvy. The research shows that 60% of complaints fall on deaf ears – and when you consider that the average Twitter user has 27 followers it’s easy to see why companies should be taking the power of social media seriously.

To take an example of this, earlier this week Easyjet were hounded by thousands of disgruntled Tweeters after denying a blind lady, Joanna Jones, and her guide dog from boarding a flight from Gatwick to Belfast. Within minutes of her request for help it was retweeted countless times and the press were on the case.

It’s a lesson for all businesses – if you’re on social media you need to be proactive, quick off the mark and be prepared to provide good customer service outside of the 9-5. Get it right and you’ll have people singing your praises – get it wrong and you could potentially unleash a storm. After all, your customers are your livelihood.

Unsociable media: Our tips on using social media during the party season

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:54:44 GMT

Sometimes, the urge to say something, anything is unbelievable. Halfway through your office party, and after your eighth glass of red, that awful man that heads up your sales team saunters up to you. He says something breathtakingly inappropriate, and sidles off, hands in pockets, possibly whistling. You are left red-faced, and more than a little outraged. Heading to the toilet to calm down, you can’t resist a quick tweet. ‘So-and-so from Sales just said this!’ you type furiously. ‘What an idiot. #[insertcompanyname]’. And that’s your first mistake.

The trick to enjoying social media during the party season is very simple. If you find yourself wanting to say or post anything that you know will a) enrage someone else or b) compromise your job, beware. Here are Further’s top tips for keeping your reputation intact this December:

1) When you’re out and about, get off Twitter. The whole night. Tweeting about how much fun you’re having looks ridiculous, and to be honest, who cares? The chances are, everyone else is also at a party. Constantly drawing attention to the wild night you’re having always looks faintly absurd; it’s a sad paradox. Avoid at all costs.

2) Hold your tongue. Emboldened by alcohol, you finally pluck up the courage to comment underneath a hated colleague’s photo with a pithy remark, such as ‘You look like a pig in a dress.’ This may well be funny in the ladies’ loos, when you’re surrounded by a gaggle of giggling pals egging you on. The chances are, this will stop being funny when aforementioned hated colleague approaches your desk at 9.03am on Monday morning, and then tells your boss.

3) Be discreet. If you do find yourself sharing a kiss with a colleague, try and make sure you’re away from prying eyes (and camera phones.) There’s nothing worse than finding out a romantic moment exists in photo form. Of course, we’d never recommend a smooch with a colleague, but as long as you’re both single, do so at your own risk!

4) Consideration is key. Let your boss enjoy that huge chocolate mousse she ordered, and allow her to eat it drunkenly in the corner. Don’t feel the need to post a picture of her private moment all over Twitter. The lady works hard. Allow her this moment of indignity with the mousse.

5) If you’re sat next to people you don’t know very well, and the conversation is lacking somewhat, resist the urge to get your phone out and pass the time by checking out photos of your ex on Facebook. Not only is this the height of rudeness, but it’s also a tad narrow-minded. Give these people a chance. After a few glasses of wine, you may find out things about Gavin from Accounts that will make you see him in a whole new light.

6) Finally, remember, alcohol has a set of inverse laws; the commonest being the cleverer you think you’re being, the sillier you are. If you tweet or post a negative thinly-veiled reference that you think won’t be noticed, and you believe is the social media equivalent of the enigma code, believe us, it will. Tweeting ‘Some things just go on and on and on...’ during the MDs speech isn’t big or clever. It just makes you look like you have a bad attitude. Which most MDs don’t like.

These guidelines are mainly common sense. However, if you’re absolutely desperate to get on Facebook after you get home, there’s nothing wrong with a happy, energetic status update saying what an ace night you’ve had. You can go to bed smelling faintly of gin, party streamers in your hair, and most importantly, your reputation fully intact. Hurrah.

Social Media - Getting it ROIght?

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:50:37 GMT

So, you’ve set up your Facebook, you’re building up a twitter following and you’re publishing interesting blogs. Now what?

One of the biggest talking points in the social media world right now is ROI, or showing a return on investment.

It’s certainly a tough question – a recent study showed that companies are still struggling to understand the impact of social media on their bottom line.

With that in mind we’ve come up with five top tips for measuring your social media ROI:

1) Measure how much it costs your business

Unfortunately social media is not free – sure it’s free to use and set up, but costs certainly mount up when you think about the time taken to manage the accounts, engage with friends and followers, write new articles, come up with creative ideas and respond to enquiries. Set up a monthly spreadsheet and total up how much time it takes you to manage the account efficiently. This should help you work out how much social media physically costs your business on a monthly and yearly basis.

2) Then see how revenue it brings in…

The aim of every business is to make money. If you’re doing social media right, you should be able to track how much revenue it brings you in terms of sales, leads or new customer enquiries. Don’t be down heartened if this is low to begin with, it takes time to build up brand awareness and trust. With any luck your social media efforts driving traffic to your website will lead to increased revenue as time goes on.

3) Get that landing page right

Everything that happens on a landing page can be measured through Google Analytics. Whether that’s how many direct referrals you got from Facebook, how many Twitter followers signed up for your newsletter, or just how long they spent reading your blog. These (somewhat dry) traffic measures will give you a clue as to just how effective your social media efforts are – the more people you can direct to your website, the better.

4) Measure your reach and influence

Although some social media experts claim that the number of fans and followers you have isn’t important, I would disagree. Sure, quality engagement is important, but it’s a fundamental fact that the more people that you can reach, the greater chance the awareness of your brand will be increased and that your message will be heard.

Facebook's Insights Tool goes one step further and gives you friends of fans figure and tells you how many people are talking about you. Total up how many fans and followers you have on a weekly basis, how many times you’re mentioned and how many times you’re re-tweeted - the more, the better.

5) Content is king

Creating engaging content is king with social media. Convincing someone to visit your website is only part of the battle, keeping their attention and encouraging them to share it with their friends is the real game-changer. Whatever content you create, be it a blog, a piece of news or a helpful guide, keep it fresh and interesting. Use keywords gleaned from Google to ensure it appears in search for years to come, and be sure to install widgets to allow for easy sharing – this will let you track how many times it’s shared.

To sum up…

These measures should give you a good starting point when measuring your ROI through social media. But remember, ROI is not all about money. Social media is about building new relationships, generating word of mouth marketing, and strengthening brand loyalty with your customers – can you really put a price on that?

Social media success for Further!

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:28:32 GMT

November was an epic month for Further, as far as Facebook was concerned. Many of our clients have seen fantastic results in their social media campaigns as a carefully-executed set of competitions and online promotions ensured their followers skyrocketed - and we’re planning to build on our success.

East of England department store chain Palmers only had 68 fans on Monday 14th November - however, by Monday 5th December, we’d managed to build their numbers to an impressive 1,116. An increase of 1541%; fabulous stuff. Similarly, Norwich-based online retailer FYFO only had 86 followers on Monday 14th November, but their grand total on Monday 5th December was 756 - that’s an increase of 789%.

Our work with fellow online retailer Totally Funky was also hugely successful - they had a mere 49 Facebook followers on Monday 14th November, but we’d increased that to 909 by Monday 5th December. The same could be said for another of our clients, Strawberry Fool; they only had 42 followers on Monday 14th November, but by Monday 5th December, we’d managed to increase their followers to 753. A whopping increase of 1692%.

One of Further’s PR and Social Media Consultants, Liam Tarry is delighted with our Facebook success stories. “Achieving such fantastic results for our clients is proof of the power of social media. They are engaging with new customers, seeing increased traffic to their websites and this is leading to more sales. Having only been at Further for a month, both Vicky and I are absolutely over the moon at what we’ve managed to achieve so far and long may it continue!”

Is Facebook really worth $100 billion?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:02:00 GMT

As a financial journalist in a former life I'd like to think I know quite a bit about stocks and shares, derivatives, pensions and hedge funds. Working in the City both before and after the credit crunch hit I saw for myself the shady trading practices which were to lead to the global economic turmoil we’re still feeling today.

With that in mind, the recent speculation that Facebook is to float on the stock exchange next year made me sit up and take notice. Analysts have predicted that the social network, which now claims more than 800 million members after seven years of phenomenal growth could set its valuation at $100 billion. “Here we go again!” I thought to myself. “Another dot.com bubble on the way..."

But is Facebook simply too big to fail?

When it comes to valuing on a company it's a bit like pin the tail on the donkey. A whole host of factors need to be taken into account – from using earnings multiples to calculating how much it would cost to create a similar business.

Putting it bluntly, Facebook is simply unique in what it offers. On average, users spend around 23 minutes a day on the site, sharing photos, updating their status and chatting with friends. As such Facebook knows a hell of a lot about its members, given that they reveal so much basic personal information. It also has an exclusive hold on all this data, and this can be used for targeted advertising purposes.

Many businesses are now shunning their own websites in favour of a presence on Facebook too. Take Coca Cola (36 million ‘likes’ to date) Starbucks (26 million) and McDonalds (12 million) and you can see why it’s such a popular marketing tool. Forget TV ad breaks and billboards – they’re in your home and on your news stream the moment you turn on your PC.

Given that there’s nothing else quite like Facebook out there, it’s then worth looking at how much other top companies are worth. According to a recent ZDNet report, a $100 billion valuation would rank Facebook ahead of Amazon ($88.3 billion) and Disney ($61 billion), but well behind Microsoft ($209 billion) and Google ($190 billion).

Should it go ahead, Facebook’s float would break new ground as the biggest consumer technology public offering in history. Yet it seems that in the grand scheme of things, $100 billion is not as eye-watering as I first thought.

Social media lives up to its name

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:54:33 GMT

What exactly do you use social media for? Spying on old flames? Entering competitions? Writing bitter comments under peoples’ status updates? You’d suppose people have a variety of (potentially unsavoury) reasons to use social networking platforms, but US research released earlier this month has revealed a softer side to our online habits. The study, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, questioned over 2,250 Americans to discover their reasons for using a social media site. Unusually, the vast majority of the respondents said that they used social networking simply for keeping in touch with their friends.

Social media has often been the scapegoat for many of society’s panics. When Friends Reunited was launched, a flurry of reports suggested it was responsible for an increase in extramarital affairs. Twitter has often been the butt of derisory jokes suggesting that its users are self-obsessed, unimaginative bores and Facebook has recently come under fire as widely-circulated reports suggested that teens have used it as a platform for bullying. All are unfair criticisms; we should all be aware by now that there’s no ‘controlling’ the internet. When a free, widely-used platform is made available to anyone with a computer, there’s always a risk that a minority will use it for unsociable means. We’re communicative creatures, and social media has given us ways of finding like-minded others that wouldn’t be possible in the real world. Think I’m wrong? Try standing in your local Sainsbury’s with a sign saying ‘I like to talk about my fixation with Disney’. Good luck finding kindred spirits.

Social media is so successful because of what it is; it’s not just a clever name. There’s no catch. It’s an easy-to-use platform that users will make of it what they will - and the way most people will utilise it is to keep in touch with others. The survey conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project also discovered that a mere 3% of social media users considered ‘finding potential romantic partners’ their main reason for getting online; despite Friends Reunited being unfairly blamed with causing affairs (the Daily Mail has even covered the uneasily-titled ‘First Friends Reunited murder’), Facebook and Twitter users appear to be set on one thing only - conversation. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

So, you want to work in Online PR?

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:13:29 GMT

You’ve made your mind up - you’re set upon a glittering career in Online PR. With the world of social media and online marketing developing at a breakneck pace, it’s a tremendous job for anyone who seeks a new challenge everyday, who’s creative and loves to write. But how do you get there? What should you study? And, most importantly, what are the skills you’ll need? Luckily, Further’s PR and Social Media Consultants and Further founder Steve Jaggard are on hand to answer all your difficult questions...

What should I study?

Steve: Degrees in English or journalism-related subjects give an employer confidence that you can write, because it's surprising how many people coming into the workforce don’t have a command of either spelling or grammar.

Vicky: I would try to find a degree with an element of journalism. You need to be able to find a story, write about it cohesively and know who to pitch it to - so being able to write properly is a must. I’d aim for English or Literature degrees; something that encourages you to look at text in a new light and reconstruct it. Saying that though, work experience is really useful, so if you could find a placement at a PR company after your A-Levels, I’d say run with that and see where it goes. Employers love to see that you’re serious about your chosen career; and that you’ve started early.

Liam: Whatever you choose to study, you need to be able to demonstrate to your employer that you can research and write well. English, History, Politics and Media Studies are good choices, as they all need excellent communication skills. If you want to get into PR after your A-Levels, make sure you have a good grade in English. Having an A-Level in a modern foreign language would be impressive to employers too as it shows you’re passionate about other cultures and you could impress future clients!

What will impress prospective employers?

Liam: Being able to demonstrate your love of communication. Try starting up your own blog and write about the things you love. Perhaps you’re a book worm, a film nut or a big foodie. Show some passion in your writing and you’ll be sure to catch their eye.

Steve: A passion for what people do always impresses! I always look for excellent communicators and those with a strong understanding of online media, communities, blogs, networks - and how to use them. I also look for creative thinkers who will find the right angle that will get news published, as that's often what make the difference.

Vicky: Keeping your eye on the cutting edge of online technology and trends will definitely show you understand the world you’ll be operating in; it’s fast moving and you need to keep up. Having ideas on how to promote very different businesses and being able to show that you can vary style and tone is always good. Also, having a vivid imagination is a winner.

What skills will I need?

Vicky: The ability to learn very quickly, be a dab hand at a multitude of social media platforms and to understand the basics of SEO. Also, get to know your audiences; the chances are, you’ll be working with more than one client, and you need to know how to juggle their needs.

Liam: Excellent social skills – you won’t get very far if you’re not of a friendly disposition! You need to be reliable, committed to your clients and feel passionate about what they sell or do. Above all you need to be a team player and not be afraid of rejection.

What are the most rewarding parts of the job?

Liam: Finding a story with your client where no-one else would think to look.

Vicky: Seeing a promotion taking off, and seeing your work published online, probably.

What are the hardest parts?

Vicky: I’ve always found writing new articles for Wikipedia is a real struggle; so much virtual red tape! Getting your press releases to the right people, and making them interested, always takes a fair amount of imagination. It’s quite important to develop a thick skin and not take things personally.

Liam: Building up a list of contacts you can approach who will be receptive to your ideas and/or press releases. Journalists are busy people, and if you can’t grab their attention within 10 seconds or so you’re unlikely to succeed.

What companies can I contact for advice and work experience?

Steve: Try and find work experience with a reputable company. If this proves difficult and you are getting nowhere, revert to Plan B - find a friend, relative, or neighbour who has a business or online presence and prove your worth to a potential employer by offering them free online PR. This shows initiative, and you have tangible results to show at your interview and on your CV. Also, you must ensure your CV demonstrates your obsession with online, so always name sites/communities/groups that you belong to.

Liam & Vicky: If you’re planning on leaving school after your A-Levels, notgoingtouni can provide some excellent advice. If you are planning on Uni, there’s always UCAS. The Direct Gov site has some really good pointers and sites like Monster and Total Jobs can always help you find local companies that are hiring/advertising work experience. Sometimes chatting to other students can make a difference; The Student Room is good for that. If it is an unpaid stint you’re after in order to get your CV started, I’d advise you to contact all your local PR firms using a site like Yell and politely ask them whether it would be possible to work with them for a week or so. And when it comes to the inevitable job hunt, Indeed is ace.

Businesses waste time and money on social media

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:51:46 GMT

Nearly two-thirds of us Brits don’t want to engage with businesses on social media – that’s according to a study launched today by research firm TNS Group.

Its ‘Digital Life’ study, which looked at 72,000 consumers in 60 countries, found the largest amount of hostility towards businesses on social media was in the US (60%) and here in the UK (61%). The findings suggest that businesses are wasting their time and money trying to reach people online and that this is resulting in what TNS calls ‘digital waste’.

But is this really the case? And should businesses be worried about the findings?

What I think this study fails to grasp is that, rather than social media being a waste of time for businesses, too many just don’t ‘get it’.

Allow me to explain.

Social media is all about people connecting with the things they love, rather than engaging with marketing messages broadcasted at them through their social profiles. I believe that it’s less about the business interacting with people, but the other way around. Businesses have to create a reason for people to connect with them – and this reason needs to be seductive, intriguing and relevant.

One way businesses can do this is by creating a strong brand story, a story which can be told in as many different and engaging ways as possible. This will encourage this story to be retold and shared, creating a powerful word of mouth effect as it's liked and discussed across the web. Let’s take just one example...

I’m sure you’ve seen Compare the Market’s Aleksandr Orlov? That loveable meerkat with the catchphrase ‘Simples!’ currently has nearly 800,000 likes on his Facebook and nearly 50,000 followers on his Twitter. What strikes me is that there is no mention of Compare the Market’s financial products in any of his status updates or tweets, and yet we still associate him with the company. Now as a financial journalist in a former life, I know that trying to make financial products ‘sexy’ is an impossible task – yet Aleksandr manages it with no effort at all.

What I think businesses need to understand is that people will engage with you if you tell a story, develop it and make it relevant to the man on the street. Be creative with your message and your products, offer discounts and special offers for your friends and above all else don’t take yourself too seriously.

So no, I’m not worried about the future for social media for businesses – those who know how to interact with people and tell an engaging story will be the winners in the long run.

Steve Jobs, a positive message out of a sad day.

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:12:03 GMT

To most in our industry, Steve Jobs was known as a visionary and genius -  a man who has made possibly the largest single contribution to the way we communicate and socialise certainly in my lifetime.  

Even to those in our offices who would never admit to wanting anything other than their pc, there was still a glowing admiration for the man as a true innovator, someone who quite simply turned apple around by pushing the boundaries, making the impossible possible and building one of the world’s most iconic brands by creating desire through innovative functionality and stunning market-leading design .

From the mouse to the i-mac, the i-phone to the i-pad, Steve Jobs truly challenged convention and showed the planet the way forward. So sad and ironic therefore that until yesterday, when his passing was announced, that so many millions outside of our arena did not even know of the genius behind the mega-brand – one of the most influential people of our times.

The world will certainly be a poorer place without his talent, passion and sheer  doggedness to overcome barriers, not just technology-wise but in his own personal health battles too.

Let us hope, however, that there will be a positive to come out of yesterday’s dreadful news. The 24/7 broadcasting about his death, and the accompanying life story obituaries will hopefully make us all think about life and work in a different way.

We shouldn’t settle for mediocrity or second best. We should push for what we fervently believe in. We should all look for the spirit of innovation inside ourselves and pledge to make things happen, in our all too short a time on this planet.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs, I for one have been inspired by your creativity, your courage and your contribution.

Google PageRank API Access Ceased?

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:00:00 GMT

It seems Google have ceased access to their PageRank API in the UK as of today. Checking various third party toolbars such as SEOquake and SearchStatus all come up with nothing, however the official Google toolbar still seems to show a figure.

Google's patent for PageRank actually expires in 2011 according to this blog post. Its was originally renewed in 2003, but it has not been confirmed if Google will renew it again this year. This could open the way for other search engines to launch their own ranking score for websites.

So is this a sign that Google are phasing out showing toolbar PageRank altogether? They have been talking about it for a while now as an effort to curb link buying and selling. It would be a big move forward for Google and the rest of the search industry and could clean up a lot of legacy SEO practices and beliefs.

There are however alternatives to Googles PageRank score, for example the SEOmoz's MozRank which could even replace PageRank as the definitive authority score for a domain (and be used by link buyers and sellers). The key difference is that alternatives will never be able to show if a domain has been penalised through a drop in toolbar PageRank.

How will this affect your SEO? Let us know in the comments.

London rioters get 'ambushed' by quick-thinking affiliate

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:17:31 GMT

There's not much that can be said about last night's riots that hasn't already been either broadcast, shared or spread across the UK and the world. It is shameful, no-one can condone it, but even sorry times like these can create marketing opportunities for the fleet of foot.

Having tried to get the latest on the riots this afternoon, I googled the news results, then the discussion groups whereupon my eye was drawn from the depressing serps listings towards the right hand side of the page. There, all alone in acres of space (unsurprisingly considering the subject matter) sat a solitary PPC ad which I have to admit raised a smile amidst the surrounding gloom..

With the pay per click model ensuring the spend wouldn't be wasted, it just had to be worth a punt for this creative-thinking affiliate. I'd love to know if it converted. Ok, so it's not going to change the world, or make the Disneyland affiliate an instant millionaire, but full marks for innovation and giving it a go. Who says search marketing need be boring? Thanks guys for brightening up my day, whoever you are!

5 DIY ways to make your site more social

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:29:00 GMT

Social media is all about engaging with your customers, listening to what they have to have to say, helping them share, and building a rapport. This blog post explains 5 quick and easy ways to incorporate social elements into your website and business - and there's no cost involved, just a few minutes of your time.

1. Facebook Like

Enable users to quickly share and recommend your products/services by adding sharing buttons. The buttons can also be used to help promote your Facebook Page too. This social network behemoth has over 500 million active users. Why wouldn’t you want your visitors to your website to ‘Like’ or share your page with their friends?

So is it easy to add? Well in its most basic form it is. In fact Facebook provides helpful code formation wizards to help you out. Check out the full list of Facebook social plugins which includes the Facebook Like button as well as options to also add:

Send buttons
Comments
Activity feeds
Recommendations
Like boxes
Live streams

2. LinkedIn Shares

LinkedIn has 101 million members worldwide and over 5 million of those are in the UK. The professional identify network also has a LinkedIn.com Share Button ready to be added to your site. This allows your visitors to share your page with their network on LinkedIn with ease.

LinkedIn also allows you to communicate with people in your industry on Linkedin Groups or you could create your own. Much like Facebook, LinkedIn gives you a selection of easy integration options on their Plugins page.

3. Microblogging

The king of microblogging is Twitter. Twitter is perfect for communicating directly with others whilst also helping with sharing. According to Hitwise, Twitter accounts for 1 in every 184 UK visits online. Creating an account is quick and free.

Much like the Facebook Like and Linkedin Share options, Twitter has many tweet button options. Twitter’s official buttons can be added to your pages with ease. Simply choose your button and enter your Twitter account as reference and the code is displayed ready to embed on your site. Here is the Tweet button builder. Other popular buttons include Tweetmeme’s retweet button.

4. Blogging

A blog allows you to easily publish updates about your company, your opinions and any other form of interesting content. Blogs generally come with a comments system straight out the box. This allows your readers to get involved and add comments to your news and views.

While from an SEO standpoint it’s good to have a blog incorporated into your website’s hierarchy it doesn’t have to be complicated. There are plenty of third party options which just require a link from your website once set up. A number of blogging providers also provide widgets so that you can embed your lastest posts in a feed. Popular free blogging platforms include WordPress and Blogger.

5. Feedback

If you’re interested in finding out what your users think about your services and products you could add a Feedback button from Get Satisfaction. The button available from Get Satisfaction can be added to any page you like. This allows visitors to leave public suggestions and comments about your website/services. This community site allows to you to find out what they like, or dislike, as well as providing suggestions, which in-turn allows you to improve your service. Be warned though, feedback could be both good and bad!

A free account will get you the basic options. Simply register and add your website details. You will then be provided with the code to go on your site.

Bonus tip: It’s what you do with it that counts

As well as promoting your social presence on your website it doesn’t have to stop there. Don’t forget to promote your active accounts on:

Your email signature
Your business cards
Your business profiles
Your stationery
Your newsletters
Your body – Ok don’t go that far!

While I’ve added a range of quick social building options here which are commonplace and standard fare, we recommend you define your social strategy to see whether it fits in with your goals and objectives. Or why not get in touch and let us help you with a Social Media workshop. Don’t just do social for the sake of it.

Data sources:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://press.linkedin.com/about

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2011/05/twitter_accounts_for_1_in_ever.html

An SEO's essential guide to blogs, tools and very clever people

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:56:00 GMT

So you fancy yourself as an SEO do you? Although by no means an exhaustive list, here are some essential green clicky words for you to add to your interweb browsing machine. Please feel encouraged to add to this list in the comments!

Enjoy! :)

Essential official Google blogs for SEOs

Google Webmaster help videos

Replacing his personal blog, Matt Cutts - head of Google webspam, answers popular SEO related questions. Information about the algorithm, straight from the horses mouth.

Official Google search blog

Google's new official search blog. Not much content on here yet, but definitely one to watch for the most up to date innovations in Google search.

Google Analytics Blog

The official Google Analytics Blog is definitely one to follow at the moment with the release of the new interface.

Google Webmaster Central Blog

Essential reading from the Google Webmaster Tools team. Find out about the latest innovations straight from the source.

Essential search blogs for SEOs

SEOmoz

Rand Fishkin's SEOmoz has become the definitive place to be for all things search, social and online marketing. Consistently high quality content on a regular basis mixed with equally high quality user input makes this an essential read. Not to mention the huge amount of guides, tools and best practice papers.

Blogstorm

UK based Blogstorm writer Patrick Altoft is relentlessly scouring the Google SERPs for developments. If there is a new algorithm update or SERP change, you will hear about it here first.

WIEP link building blog

Great monthly round-ups of everyone's most challenging part of SEO; link building. Keep up to date and be inspired with the latest techniques.

The link spiel

You can never have too many link building tips and tricks and link spiel is just that.

Ontolo link building blog

Yet another useful link building round-up blog similar to WIEP.

GoogleCache

Out of the box thinking with a tinge of black, GoogleCache will get you thinking about new and innovative ways to go about your campaigns. Strict white hats need not apply!

SEO Optimise

Forward thinking, creative ideas is the name of the game on SEO Optimise. If you are tired of the same regurgitated information, be sure to subscribe to this blog.

SEOGadget

Richard Baxter's SEO Gadget is on the forefront of technical SEO, markup and Excel wizardry. If your forte is on-site SEO, this is definitely one for you

Yoast

The MASTER of Wordpress plugins and generally a very clever chappy!

Essential online marketing blogs for SEOs

Econsultancy

The industry voice for the UK online world. Econsultancy is packed with consistent quality content ranging from online brands, E-Com, conversion rate optimisation, SEO, social and much more.

Search Engine Land

Highly respected US based search industry blog run by some of the world's most knowledgeable SEO's.

Andy Beal’s marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim is the definitive source of internet marketing news.

Essential social blogs for SEOs

Mashable

From the site: "Mashable is the top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture. With more than 40 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific news site reporting breaking web news, providing analysis of trends, reviewing new Web sites and services, and offering social media resources and guides."

Socialnomics

Experts in all things social, the blog spawned from the #1 Best Selling International Book Socialnomics.

Essential online tools for SEOs

Google Webmaster Tools - If you are not using Google's suite of Webmaster Tools, you are not a real SEO! Essentially domain information including 404ing pages with backlinks, server errors, HTML errors, site speed and much, much more.

Google keyword tool - Get fairly accurate (depends on what your definition of accurate is!) search traffic estimates for your chosen keyterms. Don't forget to tick "exact" on the left hand side and take the figures with a pinch of salt!

Google insights - Use Google's own search data to find seasonality in search terms and compare year on year search volumes. Very useful to visually explain drops or gains in traffic.

Pingdom speed tool - Great tool to test the speed of your website and identify exactly what elements on the page are causing speed issues. Increasingly important, not only for rankings but for usability (especially mobile!).

Copyscape's Copysentry - A great little automated tool to detect if anyone is copying your content. Stay ahead of the scrapers and your competitors by ensuring your content is unique. Increasingly important under the new Google Panda regime.

Open site explorer - As Yahoo! Site Explorer is on the way out, SEOmoz spotted a gap in the market and used their immense amount of ranking data to create the Open Site Explorer. Very useful, exportable back link information. Spy on your competitors link building!

SEOmoz Linkscape Visualization and Comparison - Another very useful little tool, comparing the “strength” of a domain against another in terms of SEOmoz’s own ranking factors.

Google URL Builder - Easy to use tool to create tracking URLs for Google Analytics for your campaigns such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

http://word2cleanhtml.com - Convert Word documents to clean HTML. Simples!

Essential software for SEOs

Microsoft SEO toolkit - Microsoft’s take on on-site SEO. Use this audit tool to gain some useful insight into your website’s potential issues but be careful not to go overboard as some of the suggestions are a little pedantic.

Screaming Frog SEO spider - A nice little web spider which identifies potential SEO issues on your site including redirects, meta tags and many other factors.

Excellent Analytics - Export your analytics data directly to this powerful Excel plugin and organise in way you never knew was possible!

Xenu Link Sleuth - This simple tool grabs a root webpage and scans it thoroughly in order to test every single link and check they all work correctly.

Essential browser plug-ins for SEOs

SEOmoz bar - Some useful features and data including SEOmoz’s own ranking and trust metrics, nofollow highlighting and SERP and website overlays.

Google personal block list - websites from your personal search using this toolbar.

SEOquake - Probably the best SEO toolbar available, comprising SERP overlays, nofollow highlighting and many other metrics. A must have.

Live HTTP headers - Check the header status codes of pages with this great little plugin.

Flagfox - Very simple plugin that displays a country flag of where a website is hosted in the URL bar.

Web Developer - Great for inspecting elements, CSS and editing HTML live in the browser.

Google Page Speed - Optimize web pages by applying web performance best practices.

SEOs to follow on Twitter

Top SEO's to follow - This is not a be all and end all list, but is certainly a good place to start.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this will increase your SEO powerz by at least 10 points. We would love to hear your favorite blogs and tools, so please let us know in the comments!

Google uses 57 signals to personalise search when you're logged out

Wed, 18 May 2011 23:25:28 GMT

A stumbled accross a TED talk tonight by Eli Pariser, Author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You. It covers some personalisation and censorship issues on the web, primarily talking about Facebook and Google customising feeds and search results with the end user having any control.

The video specifically mentions that Eli was told, "by a Google Engineer", that the search giant uses 57 individual signals to personalise the search results, despite the user not being logged in. Eli goes on to give a few basic examples of how search result pages differ massively based on this personalisation.

Watch the video below:

Search Agency Risers and Fallers in 2011

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:18:00 GMT

Once again the New Media Age Services Guide for Search Agencies has been published, showing the rankings and search revenues of those agencies that wished to participate.

There was quite a lot of fluctuation with revenues this year compared to last, but it's difficult to see clearly from the data table, so I put together a little bar chart to show who the risers and fallers are:

Click for larger image

Keep in mind, this only covers agencies that wished to participate. The revenues are those reported by the agency, only for the discipline of "search" and are not reflective of the total revenues of the company in question.

The fall of low quality voucher & price comparison sites in the UK

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:37:39 GMT

Isn't it annoying when you search for a company or brand in Google only to be presented by low quality voucher sites and comparison engines? Quite frequently these sites are auto generating “brand” pages that outrank the actual brands site. Well, Google has had enough it seems!

A blog post at Search Metrics has revealed huge traffic declines for some of the UK’s largest voucher / comparison sites following the release of the new Google Panda update. Some drops are as large as 90%.

Will anyone miss these sites in SERPS? Do they provide any value to the user?

The table above details some of the sites that has lost out. The full list can be found at the Search Metrics blog.

Are the days of auto generating landing pages to rank for brands and domains finally over? I certainly hope so!

- UPDATE -

Following on from the comments below, Doug from discountvouchers.co.uk has kindly shared his actual organic traffic traffic in April. Looking at the data above the site has allegedly lost 63% of its traffic. The graph below displays a different story. It would be very interesting to know if other sites on this list are not seeing the suggested drops.

Google Panda / Farmer update is live in the UK

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:33:58 GMT

As of yesterday, April 11th at 12pm West Coast US time, Google officially announced the release of the Google Panda / Farmer update in all English speaking countries. The official post can be found here on the Official Google Webmaster Central blog.

People are already reporting ranking drops and gains (although it's very early days to make any real conclusions), it seems sites that have put the effort in to make their content unique and useful are gaining.

If you haven't already, this certainly seems like a good time to review your site's content. Check out our guide to avoid the Panda update on eCommerce sites.

Additionally seek out poor performing content by finding high bounce rate pages in your analytics package. Either try to improve the quality of this content or consider removing it altogether. Watch those aggressive Adsense placements too!

Image credit zidane_0120

SEO Automation: The basics and benefits

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:01:00 GMT

SEO will often lead you to perform repetitive tasks. It's handy, that you will usually be performing these tasks on a computer; computers are the bee's knees at performing such tasks, and with little effort they can be processing mundane tasks while you sit back and watch cat videos (or work on a more interesting search activity).

In this article I will explain some of the ways you can use automation to optimize the way you work and show some basic examples of SEO automation that you can take away and use. This article is not designed for professional programmers but more for seo's looking to be more efficient, so don't be alarmed to see some code further down the page, its really not as hard as it looks.

So the question is, why carry out the same repetitive tasks when it can be done by your server or home pc?

Benefits of automation
It's all about time. It could take 1 hour per day to check a bunch of urls to see if they are live or not, alternatively, it could take 4 hours to research, write and test a simple script/tool which would then only take 5 minutes per day to run. The benefits are obvious.

Time = Money
Automation = More time
More time = More Money!

You could look at it as an investment with an incredible reward which is gained almost instantly. The less time you spend on this, the more you can provide a client in terms of monthly time, effort productivity. It's a win win!

Types of automation
There are many tasks that can be automated which you may have never thought of until now. Ask yourself and your colleagues “What repetitive tasks do we do?” . They don't have to be online tasks, it could simply be changing documents into the correct format or copying files. But before you run off automating everything that you do there are a few things to consider;

• Some websites and webmasters are not great fans of having automated scripts/tools run on their websites/resources, so read the terms and conditions of the sites in question carefully. If they don't like it, don't do it!
• Ask yourself if it is necessary for certain things to be automated, if you are not going to benefit from it a great deal, just remember automation is not always as accurate as the human touch. Sometimes your code doesn't know things that may be good or bad, it just does as it is told regardless of the consequences.
• There are many tools, plugins and modules which make writing and using automation much easier, so do a little research before starting your script.
• Don't get greedy or go insane, if you have no rush for the data, don't get your automation to go wild (for example, if you query google pagerank too many times in quick succession, google will block your ip temporarily or even permanently from querying Pagerank!). Not a fun place to be!

What you will need
There are tools that automate some ridiculously complex tasks but this blog post is aimed at the simple things that, altogether, make up a lot of time. There are many existing scripts/tools that can be found on the internet for automation (most are not free), but here I'm going to explain some basic methods for making your own (give a man a fish etc). You will need a Programming/Scripting language:

C++,C#,C
Python
Perl
PHP
Shell

For this blog post I will be using Perl, mainly because this is the language I use the most and because it is very good for the sort of tasks I am talking about. Many other languages are suitable especially python because, like perl, there are many Modules which make life much easier. You don't have to be a hardcore coder to understand and implement the ideas below.

We will start with something familiar, pagerank. Let's say you need to check the pagerank of 20 different websites a day, this takes a substantial amount of time to do manually over the course of a month.

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use WWW::Google::PageRank; 
my $pr = WWW::Google::PageRank->new; 
print scalar($pr->get('http://www.yahoo.com/')), " ";

This little script uses the the WWW::Google::PageRank module and then simply uses it to print the pagerank of yahoo.com. Obviously running this script over and over on each url by hand would be silly, so now we need to automate this. We have a list of our 20 urls (I will be using 3) in a file called domains.txt and we want our program to go through the list and print to the screen the following information: “PR and URL”.

The commented code looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl 

use warnings; 
use strict;
#Load the Google pagerank module 
use WWW::Google::PageRank; 
#Assign the object to the variable $pr ready to use 
my $pr = WWW::Google::PageRank->new; 
#Open the file domains.txt and assigns it to the variable $inputfile 
open my $inputfile, 'domains.txt' or die $!; 
#Start a loop to look at all the lines in the file (domains.txt) 
while (my $url = <$inputfile>)
    { 
    #Print PR 
    print " 
PR "; 
    #Print the result from our pagerank query for the current line 
    print scalar($pr->get($url)); 
    #Print the Url on the current line 
    print " $url"; 
    #Loop ends 
    } 
#File closes 
close($inputfile);

The outcome should look like this (I called my script pr.pl):

[Ben@********]$ perl pr.pl PR 9 http://www.yahoo.com PR 10 http://www.google.com PR 8 http://www.bing.com

Remember, to run this script you need perl installed, which you can get here; http://strawberryperl.com/ and the perl module WWW::Google::PageRank you can get from here http://search.cpan.org/~ykar/WWW-Google PageRank- 0.16/lib/WWW/Google/PageRank.pm and don't forget the perl script file name must end in .pl and must be executable.

Without wandering into webspider territory I am going to show you one of the most handy modules around for web automation. WWW::Mechanize is a programmatic web browser which supports ssl, cookies and most other things a normal web browser supports. Even though this module has many features and can perform highly complex tasks we will just use it to perform a simple task.

This script tells us the status code (404, 200 etc) of a list of urls:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
#Load the Mechanize module
use WWW::Mechanize;
#Assign the object to the variable $mech ready to use
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new( autocheck => 0 );
#Open the file domains.txt and assigns it to the variable $inputfile
open my $inputfile, 'domains.txt' or die $!;
#Start a loop to look at all the lines in the file (domains.txt)
while (my $url = <$inputfile>)
    {
    #browse to url
    $mech->get($url);
    #Dont follow the redirects, following will not display 301's
    $mech->max_redirect(0);
    #Make a variable $response that will contain the status code
    my $response = $mech->status();
    #Print the status code and ->
    print "$response -> $url";
    #Loop ends
    }
#File closes
close($inputfile);

The outcome should look like this (I called my script header.pl):
[Ben@********* Desktop]$ perl header.pl 200 > http://www.testurl.com/birds 200 > http://www.testurl.com/cows 400 > http://www.testurl.com/rabbits 200 > http://www.testurl.com/horses 301 > http://www.testurl.com/monkeys

I have written this script to be similar to the first so that you can see how easy it is to replicate scripts to perform many other tasks.

It's worth remembering that most of the time these scripts do not have to be very user friendly as they are primarily bespoke tools made for your own use or for people who you have direct contact with people you can help to use the tools. Just because they don't have to be 100% accessible doesn't mean they can be too sloppy. For example, make sure the data you want is output in a clean, readable and accurate way. There's nothing to stop you making them very accessible and stable, but remember that it will usually take more time.

It's important to streamline your services, optimize the way that you do things, so you can carry out more tasks in a day - which will eventually lead you to more profitability and enable you to stay ahead of your competitors with information available to you on demand.

Do you 'do social' ?

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:27:00 GMT

Yes, social media is certainly flavour of the month in the buzzwords arena right now…..??

And, yes, of course we ‘do social’ here at Further – we’ve been doing it for the past few years, (come to think of it we’ve even won awards through use of it back in 2008!) but we have always used it only when and where it is deemed one of the right ingredients that will help the client meet their objectives.

To me, that ethos remains the right one. If it won’t help a client meet their objectives, then why put their money into it if there’s a better alternative on the table?

Agencies shouldn’t just do it because the client thinks they need it. It’s like any aspect of marketing. It comes down to understanding your client, their market, their competition and making the intelligent choice. It should be what agencies do by nature.

Having said all this, the digital marketing landscape is changing more rapidly right now than it ever has. One way or another this has brought ‘social’ far more into play than ever before. Google is even adding its own social elements, as well as using social signals as influencing factors in its algorithm. On the video front, youtube is now considered the second biggest ‘search engine’ on the planet.? We are giving and sharing opinion on products and services with our peers online like never before.

Look a little harder and you’ll see Facebook hosting social commerce storefronts for early-adopting retailers. This is just a flavour of what is now happening out there to change the way online marketers like Further can help clients to get to the end user where for opinion-forming, brand exposure or for direct sales.

Any SEO agency who still dismisses social media as simply a fad which has no benefit or positive effect on client marketing efficacy may as well get their coats.?? What never ceases to amaze and at the same time concern us, is what some people and agencies professing to suddenly be experts in ‘social’ are out there pushing in seminars and workshops in a bid to steal the social pound before anyone else does.??

Social in our humble view is far more than showing a client how to get up and running on facebook, twitter, linkedIn. Valuable as they can be if used, and more importantly resourced, in the right way, we’re not even skimming the surface.

Sadly it’s not even a helpful start unless it is based on my old chestnut of ‘objectives’ once again. After all, how can you even start to populate content if you have no idea of the correct content strategy to be employed, not to mention the tone of voice, rules of engagement..need I go on.

In the world of Further, we sit down with clients, gain a complete understanding of their business, targets, requirements, budgets. We then create a complete online strategy for them that will satisfy those goals. (It usually helps us to keep clients longer if we show them results for their money!).

From this we would look to their proposition, key messaging and devise a content strategy for their social campaigns. Only once this is completed will we approach which social channels to use.

Is it indeed Social Media Optimisation they need? Should they be looking at Social Media Engagement activity, Social media Management, Social Commerce maybe?? You see there is so much more science to this social lark than meets the eye – and like everything else, it needs to emanate from that all-important strategy. The strategy that will make the difference between success and failure, between ROI and waste of money.

This fast-expanding social landscape is potentially a fun, exciting, challenging and ultimately creative one to work within than traditional search – agencies shouldn’t just accept it and add it to their list of services as a new fee-earner, but wholeheartedly embrace it, learn it properly, get passionate about, and come to love it.

Your work will be better for it. As will your results !

Google releases +1 button for social search recommendations

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:32:29 GMT

The social web just moved +1 closer. Google’s latest update to their social search system is called +1. It’s a recommendation system is similar to Facebook “Likes” except +1’s also appear in Google search results.

In order to participate with the +1 system you’ll need a Google Account and you’ll also need to update your settings via the Dashboard (when it’s fully released). However as it’s not fully live, so in order to get started now you can activate it via Google Labs here as an experiment.

What can I +1?

Organic search results
Paid search results
Website pages (if the visited website incorporates the +1 button)

It's likely that +1 buttons will be added to other Google properties too.

How will +1 help?

Recommendations are great, right? So why wouldn't you want them in your search results. +1's appear publicly in search, on ads, your Google profile and across the web. This means that the results recommended by your friends will appear in relevant results. (So let’s hope you trust all your “friend’s” recommendations). It won’t just show your friend’s recommendations it will also use other connections such as Gmail contacts and Twitter followers, for example.

Your own +1’s will appear in a tab in your Google Profile. However, this will depend on whether you have allowed your +1’s to be visible to the public.

How will +1 influence PPC?

Google states that no changes will be needed with your current search ads as this won’t affect your Quality Score. Google go on to mention that : “(+1s will be one of many signals we use to calculate organic search ranking)”. This continues a growing case for social signals to influence rankings. These signals were also discussed in more detail on searchengineland.

More resources about +1:

Google +1 Privacy Policy

+1 button integration (Not released as yet)

+1 button on AdWords

Google’s answer to the Facebook Likes Button

5 ways to avoid the Google Panda / Farmer update for duplicate content eCommerce sites

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:39:58 GMT

Popular UK SEO blogger, Patrick Altoft at Blogstorm released a post yesterday outlining the potential impact of Google's Panda / Farmer update will have on eCommerce sites with little unique content.

The update can potentially affect eCommerce sites that have product descriptions duplicated across many other sites. For example if your site sells laptops and you are using exactly the same product descriptions and specifications as the manufacturer and many other sites, you could face a drop in organic search traffic.

Although this isn't set in stone, it is certainly something that should be taken seriously as the Panda update will hit the UK any time soon. If your site is facing these difficulties, consider the following to try and differentiate your content from the rest of the crowd:

Hire a content writer to write unique, compelling descriptions for your products. This will not only make Google happy but may increase conversion rates as well.
Pull in snippets of independent product reviews from sources such as Reevoo and Which?. Make sure the content is viewable to Google so no iFrames people!
Encourage user generated content by inviting users to leave reviews on your products. This method requires no extra time or effort other than moderation, as the customer writes the content for you! You may need to incentivise customers to leave reviews by giving them discount off their next orders or entering them into a prize draw. This alone however has its advantages as it increases the chances that a customer will return to the site.
Add FAQ information within product page descriptions. Instead of linking to an FAQ page from a term in the product description, display it on the actual page with clever CSS so that Google can see it.
List related products on the page, pulling through description snippets which will be unique to your site.

We would love to hear your take on this update in the UK and also if you have been affected in the US. Please let us know what you think in the comments below.

More Profitable Online Retailing Cont'd

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:34:56 GMT

Carrying on from Pete’s exceptional post last week, I’m continuing the summary of Further’s first e-commerce seminar, hosted at The Forum in Norwich.

As Rob discussed what needs to be done to run a successful e-commerce site from an on page perspective, Mark picked up the trail with the darker ½ of optimisation…off site.

The Evolution of Google

The evolution of Google from the early days of beta (above) to their current powerhouse of search results they are today has shifted Google from mere 10 listings per page to a user experience like no other. With shopping, news and places listings now in the infamous Top 10, Google search results are not only a place where users start their journey though the web, it is fast becoming the only place that users need to go on the web. So with that in mind, why would you not want to try and monopolise all of these areas with your brand to try and maximise exposure in the search results? Seems like a no brainer!

But how can my business get listed in Google Products, News and Places? Well, believe it or not, they’re all free, and relatively easy.

Google Products – Google Products is as easy as uploading all your products to the Google Merchant Centre. Google Products are ranked based on price, title, description/content and reviews.

Google News – This requires approval from Google, but is still free to apply. There are both editorial and technical requirements that need to be met in order to appear for Google News.

Google Places – Every business should at the very least have a Google Places listing. From small to large businesses, Google Places helps you appear in the search engines for all locations that are relevant to your business. All that is required is confirming your business listing in Google, and from there you can customise the listing with a business description, hours of operation, discounts, etc.

“That’s all moderately fascinating, but can you tell me how to make my website rank better in Google?”

“Sure, just get other sites to link to you and do on-site optimisation”

The ‘Bucket’ Analogy

I’m going to attempt to explain the famous ‘bucket’ analogy that Mark introduced in the lecture last week.

What you need:
1 – bucket (website)
1 – pool (desired goal)
1 – water supply (off site optimisation/linkbuilding)

Say for example, the bucket is your website, and the pool represents your goal (as Rob addressed in the first ½ of the presentation).

Your assignment (if you choose to accept it), is to fill the bucket (website) with water (links) and pour it into the pool faster than your competitors (higher rankings). Sounds easy, right? But what happens if your bucket is full of holes, in other words, what happens if there are errors on site that are causing the bucket to leak as soon as you try and fill it. It’s going to take much longer to get to the same end goal.

The holes in your bucket can take many forms, but Mark touched upon the most common on site optimisation error that we see here at Further, duplicate content.

The example used was a pair of gold Adidas trainers (everyone’s favourite). The user can find them under Adidas ( http://mywonderfulsite.com/adidas/t3042), but because of the colour, they can also be found under gold trainers (http://mywonderfulsite.com/gold-trainers/t3042). Here we have the same product, with the same content…on different pages. This confuses Google, as it’s not intelligent enough to determine which page is more important over the other, so it looks towards authority…links! (See where I’m going with this?). And there’s your leaky bucket, you are building links for a site that has twice as many pages as it needs, therefore dilutes the value each link provides the site as a whole, and means you need twice as many to achieve the same result.

To recap, there are 6 ‘easy money’ questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Are you in Google Merchant Centre?

2. Have you submitted to Google Places?

3. Have you applied for news feeds?

4. Do you have sitemaps for video content?

5. Are you asking customers to leave reviews?

6. Are you even asking them to link to you?

‘Likes’ are becoming ‘Links’

Mark commented on some interesting points in regards to social and ecommerce.

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
14% of consumers trust advertisements!

Taking into consideration the above points, as well as the fact that both Google and Bing announced that social media is now a considered factor in their ranking algorithms; incorporating social media into your ecommerce activities is fast becoming a necessity.

So what can you achieve from ‘Social eCommerce’?

Public relations
Customer service
Loyalty building
Collaboration
Networking
Thought leadership
Customer acquisition (Deliberately placed last as this should not be primary goal for social media)

A key point Mark stressed was not to try all aspects of social media all at once. All too often we hear of companies being bit by the social media bug and created a Twitter account, a corporate Facebook page, a YouTube page, etc. Normally it’s down to one person to manage, and months down the line all is given up on, as none of the sites seem to be generating buzz, traffic, etc. Moral: Become confident with one tool before moving onto another.

It’s all about Conversion

At the end of the day, all of the above mentioned, as well as from Rob’s portion of the seminar is to increase conversions, but how do you know you’re getting the best conversion rate possible? Are users looking for something on your site but are just not finding it easily? This is where A/B testing and MVT testing come into the light.

For every objection, you need to create a counter objection. Sounds simple, well it is! The best way to deal with a barrier on your site is to eliminate it or create an easy path around it. You’re probably thinking ‘My site doesn’t have any barriers’! Maybe not…but what if there are? What if some of your traffic would love to buy on your site but because of some glitch that you might not realise exists, it is preventing them from spending their hard earned cash with you. Worth a look, isn’t it?

There are several tools on the market that can help you with conversion optimisation. All of the ones listed below are either free, or have free versions available.

But how long does a test take? Will I be waiting months for results? It depends…

Big changes on site = Quicker changes in conversion rate
Small changes on site = Slower changes in conversion rate

Sounds easy...Right?

Keep in mind that there are several variables that need to be considered when determining a timeline for any online campaign:

Search volumes for keywords
Seasonality of searches
Click-through rate of searchers
Conversion rate of website

But don’t be discouraged…It can be done!

I’ll leave you with this final thought:

Agencies should be producing campaigns based on real objectives: revenue, sales, and enquiries. Rankings alone don’t tell you this so should not always be primary determining factor on success.

Why not contact Further if you are interested in discussing the above statement in more detail.

More Profitable Online Retailing

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:09:16 GMT

Tuesday 2nd March was an exciting day for Further as we hosted our first e-com seminar at the Forum in Norwich.

Big Glass building is Big - Credit Gerry balding

We had a great turnout as 80 people managed to get up at an ungodly hour and get themselves to the seminar by 7.30. After a short mingling time with tea, coffee and a morning wake-up bacon roll, Rob and Mark gave their presentations.

For those of you who weren’t there or didn’t take notes (we did provide paper and bio-degradable pencils) here’s a recap of Rob’s brilliant talk.

Rob talked about the usefulness of e-commerce for your business and how the UK has the most active online population in Europe. In fact, e-com sales in the UK alone have grown from £1.8 billion in 2001 to an estimated £56 billion in 2010! (Source: IMRG, 2010)

E-com growth is growing extremely rapidly, with Internet connectivity now becoming more of a necessity than a luxury. While at the moment, for every £10 spent, £1 is spent online, by 2020 it will change to being every £1 in £5. (Source: CRR/Kelkoo, Jan 2010 & Verdict, December 2009)

Going E-com (Effectively)

The emphasis of the talk was that “trying the Internet thing” with your website isn’t enough. What many companies do is create a website but then find out that there’s no traffic so decide to “bolt on” marketing to the site. Once they find that there’s still not much traffic coming into the site, they start to panic and the cycle repeats again. The website needs to be made with marketing in mind, and not as two separate things.

A sound plan before moving online is needed, and Rob illustrated what the acronym S.M.A.R.T:

Specific

The plan needs to be well defined and clear to anyone who’s working on the project. So, just saying “I wanna make more money” is vague but planning to grow the business by 30% by the end of the year is much more specific and provides a much more solid outline.

Measurable

Goals need to be quantifiable. Aiming to capture 10% of the market share is a lot more measurable than just stating you want your company to be the “best in the industry”.

Actionable

“Aim for the sky, but not too high” – Peter Chu (I made that up just now). While it’s good to aim high, the goal still needs to be achievable. So, if saying you want to sell 30,000 luxury yachts sounds audacious, that’s because it is since there are around that number of luxury yachts in the whole world. Rather, aiming to sell 3000 boat holidays within the next year is more grounded.

Realistic

The goal needs to be within your company’s capabilities. Doubling your profits in two years is realistic, while aiming to be the next eBay is not.

Time based

The goals need to have the correct time frame laid out. Too short and a rushed project will be inadequate. Too much time and you incur more costs than necessary.

Know your enem.. er customer

In every marketing endeavour, it is important to know your customer. Performing customer surveys is the best way to do this. Survey Monkey is a good platform for providing surveys on your site.

Social Media – People love to talk, and with the Internet making it so easy nowaways, people are talking more than ever now. Platforms like Twitter are a good way to see what people are saying about your brand or even your industry.

Twitter: Find out what others are saying about you

Analytics – Analyze yourself. No, I don’t mean selling all your possessions and commencing tutelage under a religious guru in India. You can use Google Analytics to see what pages are most popular on your site and what navigation paths users take through your site. This can offer a lot of insight into what users are looking for when they visit your site.

Personas - Rob talked about making customer personas. These are profiles of what most of your customers are. You can use these to identify the correct demographics for user testing and customer research and you can see if the design and functionality of your website meets what the customer wants. You can identify any technological constraints your target demographic has (are they tech savvy? Are they desktop or mobile web users?). Also, additional marketing channels and opportunities can be gleaned from this.

For example, if a large proportion of your customers are university students who use the iPhone browser then your website should be a) geared towards students and b) be easy to browse on the iPhone.

Strategize

A good strategy for launching your website and marketing campaign should start off with defining where you “are now” and comparing that with where you “want to be”. Data from your customer personas should be used to define your target market, then lay out your objectives and KPIs. How your website will meet these objectives needs to be defined. Then, plan out what content the new website will need followed by tailoring the tone/feel of the website to match your customers. For example, a search for “pogo sticks” in the Google keyword tool will yield among other search phrases “pogo sticks for kids”, “pogo sticks for adults” and “extreme pogo sticks”. You now can tailor your website’s content around these keyterms with sections for kids, adults and the “extreme pogoist”.

The words on the site aren’t the only thing you have to think about though. People are visual animals so design plays a big part. Rob explained how the garishly designed Lings Cars actually works because of the target demographic whereas Richardson’s Boating Holidays is designed in that way to reflect what people are looking for.

LingsCars.com - Gaudy but Effective

Mobile web – Mobile web was briefly touched upon with Rob emphasising optimising your site for mobile users. Compact , ordered, formatting designed for mobiles ensures that you do not miss out on a decent chunk of conversions.

Trust – Every shopper wants to know as much about the product he/she is buying before purchasing it. That’s why good images and detailed descriptions on the site are essential to enticing potential customers to buy from you. This increase trust which in turn leads to converisons.

Conversions – Rob finished off the talk with how important conversion rate optimisation (CRO) was. By increasing the rate at which visitors turn into buyers, you increase revenue without the need to drive more traffic to your site. This is useful the more mature your SEO campaign gets and chasing those coveted 1st place rankings get harder.

CRO: The art of getting an upwards arrow without additional marketing spend. Credit: lumaxart.com

This is where user testing comes into play which involves experimenting with the design of your website, changing wording or placement of calls to action. While many companies will be apprehensive about the potential revenue while experimenting, if you figure out how to increase revenue by 20% without any additional traffic, you can use this for the lifetime of your site.

Well folks, that’s a summary of Rob’s presentation. Wes will follow on next week with a summary of Mark’s.

Most Common Ecommerce SEO Mistakes

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:28:54 GMT

With Further’s first ecommerce seminar fast approaching we decided to write a post about common SEO mistakes on ecommerce websites.

All too often we see ecommerce casualties crawl to our doors needing serious medical attention. So let’s get out the SEO medikit and patch these issues up.

Multiple Product URLs

This is common variety of SEO illness, especially on “old” ecommerce platforms – the common cold as it were.

Symptom

Product output pages exist on multiple URLs. This is usually caused by a poorly developed integration of product categories.

Specimen

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/cars/accessories/conan-car-mat.html

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/weird-car-accessories/conan-car-mat.html

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/conan-car-mat.html

Seeing triple by Foto43

Cure

The cure will depend on what ecommerce solution you’re running with. Some ecommerce solutions are custom builds whereas some are based on pre-purchased software with little configuration scope.

Ideally a product URL will be constant and only live in one URL location - this way if the product is referenced from multiple categories there won’t be any issues with duplicate URLs.

“Prevention is better than cure”

Ideally the ecommerce setup should not cause this in the first instance. If it’s possible to modify, or this developed, then this is the best course of action.

While quick fixes can be put in place they will not solve the underlying problems. Understandably custom builds are costly and having to go back to your web developer and request changes (at extra cost) is a bitter pill to swallow.

A rel canonical meta tag could be added as “hint” to search engine which product URL is the master.

Query parameter virus

Query parameters: Know your limits

Symptom

Query parameters such as filters can cause a serious case of indigestion with search engines crawling as many filter combinations swelling their data hungry bellies.

Specimens

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/category-url.php?brandid=34&price=0-50&colour=blue&sort=low&page=3&size=large

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/category-url.php?brandid=34&size=small&price=0-50&colour=blue&sort=low&page=3

your-ecom-domain.co.uk/category-url.php? page=1&brandid=34&sort=high &price=100-500&colour=red

Lost spider - Thames with Bourgeois spider - by Slbs

Cure

While you might think it sounds like a good idea for search engines to index every connotation, it’s not. While the search engine is crawling duplicate pages wouldn’t you rather it was keeping your more important pages up to date?

Once again this comes back to your ecommerce platform. One method, albeit a temporary fix, is to block crawler access via the robots.txt file. Careful use of robots.txt wildcards allow you to block access to certain query strings.

Google recommends not using robots.txt to block crawler access, although this is more stop incorrect usage.

Google Webmaster Tools has it’s own Parameter handling which lets you choose whether Googlebot will “Ignore” certain parameters. Similar to rel canonical, these requests are treated as suggestions rather directives.

Using better categorisation is one way to reduce the number of products on the product listing page. Another solution is to use javascript to show search engines all products on one page, but users are given paging options. Done correctly this does represent any misleading cloaking issues.

Stock manufacturer descriptions

A case of identity crisis.

Symptom

Most manufacturers’ supply a stock description for their products. These are provided in feeds making them easy to add to your product’s database entry. However, this means competitors are also using them which makes your products pages look similar to your competition.

Specimen

Don't look like a clone, Dolly - Image credit: qyphon

Cure

If you have any spare in-house resources, then get your team to re-write your product descriptions. Not only will this make your descriptions unique, it also gives you the opportunity to add a more personal writing style to your site. This helps with user experience.

Writing product descriptions is a time consuming process and if you don’t have resource to update your duplicated descriptions then you can find affordable content writing services. This will enable your products to stand out in the search crowd.

Closing diagnosis

Don't assume your ecommerce solution is optimal for search. SEO is a continual process of improving your site - even large brands continue to develop their websites to ensure they are keeping up with competition and best practices. Why not consider Further's ecommerce platform specifically developed to be optimal for search.

How SEO Scams Work

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:49:55 GMT

In this article I will attempt to explain a little about the methods used by crackers, scammers and spammers (I'll be calling them villains) to poison search engine results, automate mass exploitation and generally take advantage of everything they can to optimise their scams for search engines.

As there are many methods used I will describe one example of how it all works, so first let's have a look at how a piece of fake AV (Antivirus) software makes money.

Fake AV
The user knowingly or unknowing installs a piece of software claiming to be an antivirus program. The software looks and acts just like an antivirus, but with one small difference.... It doesn't protect the user from viruses in any way what so ever, in fact there is no antivirus engine in the software at all. The software will notify the user that their computer is full of viruses and that the antivirus program will remove these for a fee. The user then has to sign up to a subscription or pay a one off amount.

But how was our poor user so unfortunate to have come across such a nasty piece of software? The awesome power of SEO is how. These scams are usually short-lived, because no matter how legitimate they appear to be and how sneaky, they are scams and will get shutdown eventually. When you have such a limited amount of time you can do anything you want to get rankings and traffic, because search engines can't instantly deal with the effects of the villains' SEO tactics.

SEOKits
If you cross SEO with a rootkit you get an SEO Kit, A piece of software that sits on websites/servers creating keyword rich pages to attract the attention of the search engines.
The SEO Kits will scan for trending topics and make a page with relevant keywords with anchor text links pointing to the page they are trying to promote, you may have a come across these kind of keyword pages before. When you first glance over the page they make sense but looking closely, not much. They are not to trick humans however, they are to trick search engines. Most of these pages are hidden in a way that user would not naturally come across them.

For the SEO performed by the SEO kits to be effective they would ideally need to be on sites with good authority and trust. This means villains would have to hire lots of servers with already authoritative sites, right? Wrong. The websites/servers have been compromised using yet another layer of the scam.

Mass Automated Exploitation
There are an unbelievable number of ways in which the servers hosting the SEOKits could have been compromised but for the purpose of the blog post I'll keep it simple....ish. The villains use bots (automated programs) that will look for and compromise vulnerable websites/servers, install the SEO kit and maintain the server. The bots will usually operate and attack from other compromised servers and more often than not, from the peoples home computers that installed the fake AV. The bots and SEO kits can usually be controlled from one place, this is called the C&C (command and control).

Some ways in which the bots will attack sites/servers are:

Existing Backdoors

There are many infamous backdoors villains use to control webspace/servers once compromised, the one I will use as an example is called c99. Using common search engines such as Google, the bot can search using certain queries (D0rks) which will find vulnerable servers. “Inurl:”c99.php” -intitle:c99 -inurl:”c99.php.txt”” Will show results for lots of servers with the c99 backdoor, the bot can simply visit these sites and take control of the webspace/server.

A compromised server - C99 shell interface

Automated Exploitation

Using a mixture of existing vulnerably scanners and Google, the bots will look for known vulnerabilities in web servers, usually caused by running outdated software. On some occasions the attacks will use 0-day vulnerabilities and then exploit them in order to take over the server Ironically, the bot will sometimes attempt to patch vulnerabilities to stop other bots taking over the server. The bots will use most of these servers to perform further attacks against other servers or synchronize with compromised machines forming a “Botnet” style configuration.

It's important that the compromised servers try to hide their tracks from search engines. If search engines get wind of the fact they are hosting malicious content or have a backdoor on the site, search engines and web browsers will try and protect their users from being exposed to malicious content. Search engines even warn users on the search engine results page.

A warning in google chrome browser

Unfortunately, these small warnings are not enough to save you and your websites.

That's the basic layout of the scam and if executed as planned when users search for “Justin Bieber screensaver” they will see lots of seemingly relevant results. The user will then click onto the site, the site will perform a few redirects and then they will end up at the destination distributing the fake AV. Now there are a few ways in which the fake AV will find its way onto the user computer:
• The web page will automatically present the download.
• A popup which once clicked will download the Fake AV.
• An exploit will be launched against the user browser, causing the fake AV to be silently downloaded and installed.

This sort of scam has been effective for many years now and as you can see, expands rapidly. The tactics of the villains have not changed greatly, this is down to the fact that most users are reluctant to change their habits and be more proactive in securing their websites and computers. Here's a few tips, looking at the problems that allow these scams to be so successful and what we can do as users and developers to try and prevent them.

Content Management Systems (Wordpress, Joomla etc)

Wordpress is a great platform for less technical people to make a website and host the site on their own webspace with ease. Unfortunately, this brings a myriad of potential problems when it comes to security.

• Update - Vulnerabilities get patched, these are updates, if you don't update, your platform of choice is insecure. It's not just the platform that needs to be updated but all the plugins also, they could create an easy way for your site to be compromised, so be smart with plugins. Do you really need all the plugins you are using? If you do keep them updated.

• If you search for “joomla” in a vulnerability database you will see around 800+ results most of which are vulnerabilities in the plugins.

• Defaults – Bots are programmed to look for default settings and files, if your wordpress admin is called “wp-admin” then the bot knows exactly where to go and what to do. Try not to use default file paths and settings.

• Passwords – Make these strong, with the power of 20 servers bad passwords merely delay the bots cracking attempts.

• Never use a password that is also a word that is used on your site, bots will profile the site and put them in list of passwords to try.

Self managed Servers/Hosting

Many people take on the task of looking after their own server, unaware of the complexity and extent of knowledge needed to keep the server and its users safe.

•Update - Make sure your server is updating as soon as updates are available. Just like the CMS platforms I talked about above, if you have programs running you don't need, uninstall them, these are just another potential vulnerability.

• Don't let your authentication mechanisms give out too many retry attempts 5 to 10 is apt.

• If a hosting server is compromised it's possible for links/malware to be placed on all the websites hosted on the server, so make sure you have set up your file permissions and account privileges correctly.

That about wraps it up, like I said this is just a basic insight into this kind of activity and there are many methods and techniques used, we can never stop these villain's but we can give them a much harder time.

Further Reading:

Rootkit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit

Computer Vulnerabilities - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerability_(computing)

XSS – Cross site scripting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting

RFI – Remote File inclusion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_File_Inclusion

Justin Bieber - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber

Backdoor Shell - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_Shell

Iframe Injection - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iframe_virus

20 Online Trends To Watch In 2011

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:47:22 GMT

I recently got sent an excellent publication by JWT with their 100 things to watch in 2011. JWT has an excellent pedigree of making great predictions for future technology and trends, so I have selected what I think are the top 20 online/Internet trends that are related to digital marketing. You can see the full list of all 100 here. Enjoy.

F-Commerce

This could be the way that a concrete ROI finally comes to social media. With a few brands currently selling via Facebook Storefronts, it's looking likely to see a huge boom as we approach a year of F-Commerce.

Social Networking Surveillance

It's no secret that UK security agencies already use the myriad of information on Facebook to monitor criminal groups. The US is also moving to have social networking sites forced to comply with wiretap orders and Israel has used Facebook to catch women illegally avoiding Army service. There's even a selection of social media monitoring tools that track what employees do after-hours on social networking sites. Remember: Think before you post!

CAPTCHA Advertising

Ahh, the hugely frustrating CAPTCHA image we're all so used to. Typing in those random words on reCAPTCHA to prove we've got roundabout the same intelligence as a spambot. It looks likely start levering CAPTCHAs as a way of stopping people hitting the mute button on their ads. A little like writing lines at school? Microsoft, AOL, Toyota to name a few are already on-board.

Apps Grow Out Of Mobile

More and more of our desktop activities are being migrated onto the Internet. Web developers are applying the principles of mobile app culture; software that provides fast links to games, entertainment, news etc to desktop browsers and computers. There are already desktop app stores from both Mac and Google.

In Car Apps

Car manufacturers are already installing smartphone-linked in-car apps that allow drivers to check tyre-pressure, download music or (dangerously?) keep up to date with their Twitter. Personalised radio and phone/car app integration will become the standard in 2011.

Enhanced Display Advertising

The good old banner ad - it just won't die. They'll be a rise in banner ads that do more; showcasing live video, letting users "bookmark" ads for later viewing and direct gateway offers; linking credit cards on click for automatic discounts.

Children's E-Books

Dynamic story books bridging the gap between gaming, education and reading are fast becoming a reality with traditional children's publishers such as Random House and HarperCollins set to release many dynamic children's e-books in 2011. This rise is likely to increase demand for colour e-book readers such as teh iPad and Nook Colour.

Digital Downtime

As a large chunk of our life, especially work revolves around technology. Expect to see more of an emphasis on digital downtime; studies showing the benefits of taking time away from the multi-screen environment are encouraging people to de-tech for hours or days at a time.

Indoor Mapping Technology

Google have done a great job mapping our world, streets, the sea; even the moon and Mars - but very little has been done in the way of indoor mapping. Companies such as FastMall are tackling this problem, providing indoor maps to guide people around shopping malls, convention centres, airports and the like. Combined with other technologies, indoor mapping offers a great new vector for real-time marketing.

E-Book Sharing

E-Books are getting shareable with Kindle books being allowed to be loaned for 14 days and e-book libraries starting to emerge, even lending out e-book readers. A step toward free and instantly accessible information.

Electronic Profiling

If you haven't seen it before, this is the mind-reading vending machine, in Japan. By extrapolating facial characteristics into demographic information it can predict your beverage of choice with 75% accuracy. Facial recognition billboards in Japan can also identify gender with an 85-90% accuracy, changing the message accordingly.

Facebook Alternatives

Even with over half a billion people using it, there is life outside of Facebook. Social networkers will be exploring more niche communities or alternatives that offer greater exclusivity or privacy. There's pretty of options already out there; Appleseed, OneSocialWeb, Diaspora, Pip.io, TheFridge, CollegeOnly) including a host of DIY networks.

Group Manipulated Pricing

Group buying for the consumer was pretty much unheard pre-2010, but brought into spotlight by Google moving to buy Groupon. As the idea matures, we'll see more inventive variations, with real-time price dropping as more people opt-in.

Mobile Health

With 500million people to be using mobile health apps by 2015 and a market valued at $60 billion, watch for mobile health apps that change the way patients and doctors interact and share data. Apps can also help patients monitor their own vitals, blood pressure, glucose levels, etc and provide an accurate up-to-date history when needed.

Micro Business

With so many fast and easy platforms (such as Zilok, NeighbourGoods, skyara) almost anyone can turn a possession or skill into an instant business. We'll see more niche markets and businesses taking off as the level for entry decreases.

Near Field Communications

Near Field Communication (or NFC) is likely to become the next thing the phone salesperson is trying to sell you. With the ability to exchange data within 4 inches, it will allow devices to act as mobile wallets, tickets, check-ins, send data to printers and pick up information. Hopefully it won't allow hackers to walk down the street collecting such information.

Personal Interest Prediction

New ways to chart who likes what and make accurate predictions on what else will interest the individual are becoming big business. Both Hunch and Gravity have taken a good stab about it with Hunch's "taste graphs", which are powered by seeing what your friends on Twitter and Facebook like and Gravity's "interest graphs". Could this be a new way to find information online, rather than searching?

Mainstream Social Browsers

Web browsing will become both a more personal experience as social media tools become ingrained within major web browsers. This change will give smaller contenders such as RockMelt and Flock a head-start, helping connect people based on similar news and topics searched on, allowing quicker linking of web material to social media.

Tap To Pay

The digital wallet has already taken off in some parts of Asia and Europe. Watch for more transit systems, shops, vending machines and Internet connected devices giving support for NFC phones. Paying back someone for that pint has never been easier - just bump phones, no excuses now.

Channel: YouTube

YouTube has always been a monolith of the web, but it's recent change in strategy from user-generated content to much more premium content will really set roots in 2011. YouTube will become a primary destination as a live TV channel, streaming events, TV Shows and MOvies with real-time user interaction. YouTube is rumoured to be interested in acquiring web video production company Next New Networks, which shows an interest in showcasing original content.

Technological Dependencies

It's obvious there's a lot of exciting new tech coming in 2011. I think the most interesting advancements are going to come has some of the technological dependencies are resolved. So for instance, the digital wallet is an exciting prospect for online retailers, but heavily depends on NFC technology becoming widespread. With recent grumbles on personal privacy issues with sites like Facebook, it will also be interesting to see if privacy concerns slow down any of this growth. Afterall, a lot of these technologies that cost a huge amount to implement are "free" to users, but only in the financial sense. What your actually trading is your data; your location, your personal interests, your shopping habits, browsing habits and a myriad of other information that marketers are desperate to get their hands on. Still, nobody complains about the Tesco's clubcard?

Planning Ahead For Social Shopping

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:40:00 GMT

Aside from having an interest in search engines that borders on unhealthy, I'm a practised layman in social science with books like Freakomics, Quirkology and Tipping Point absolutely fascinating me. It's pretty fortunate for me as, in relation to e-commerce the world of SEO and social are coming close enough to be compressed into one, terrifying(?) marketing singularity.

Although it's a term that's been washing around for a while, I haven't seen many people talking about the concepts of "social shopping" directly, despite it being around in various forms such as shopping forum communities and product recommendation engines for a fair while. The term itself hasn't really caught yet and a lot judgement is passed within our industry by the terminology you use (I should actually say, the terminology you don't use judging by the games of buzzword bingo I've seen played). So although people that say "e-marketing" ring alarm bells with me, those that mention social shopping are likely in for a long discussion.

I was quite disappointed to read that Tim Kendall, the Director of Monetisation at Facebook left his post last week. He had contributed some great things to Facebook and being the biggest social player online, I was interested to see how he would lead them through the next couple of years.

On the plus side, I'm pleased to see that Google has publicly stated that it includes social signals within organic search rankings. Especially as that is what I had been saying and telling people for the last 12 months. (Phew).

Social & The Buying Cycle

In my opinion, search engines are really what has driven commerce on a large-scale on the web. They are the conduit that makes it possible to find the almost infinite variations of products, services, sizes, colours, shapes and prices that your heart could desire. It is my belief that social commerce will take online commerce to a new level of possibilities by filling in the gaps that until now, the web has inherited and simply put up with.

Image from SearchEnginePeople Post

If you aren't familiar with buying process cycle, I'd recommend you read the post on SearchEnginePeople, as it's a pretty straight-forward and simple explanation.

You can see within this cycle there are some things the web has traditionally been excellent at - such as "assessment of alternatives". Search engines provide an easy way to access hundreds of competitors, comparing features, benefits and prices or systems such as the Amazon recommendation engine provide alternatives based on socially-fuelled data.

Alleviation of risk is something the web used to be terrible at, it in fact did a negative job for a long while with a sizeable chunk of people perceiving the risk of entering their bank details online too high. Fortunately, this situation changed and retailers started working on alleviation of risk with encryption, promises on data protection and on a product- level, letting consumers add reviews, which is pretty much the point we've been stuck at for a few years now.

All of these changes happens slowly though. I remember 5 years ago a lot of clients being terrified of giving the customers the ability to post reviews online in case they posted something negative. Nowadays it's a no-brainer that product reviews will increase conversion rate and some companies have based entire businesses on collecting customer reviews (whereas others seem to have based businesses on trying to attract negative reviews).

The Human Web

The largest study done shows that the average separation between any two given Facebook users is 5.73 connections, which lands in at around the classic "6 degrees of separation". From a marketing point of view, this is a much more important concept than simply the ease of communications between different groups on the web, it's the communication within those groups.

Social groups are founded with common bonds, be it upbringing, geographic location, career, faith, interests or age, the likelihood is that your customer has a huge amount of 1st degree connections to the rest of your potential customer base.

In the mountains of research available on how people make purchase decisions, I've steadily seen "the Internet" climb up the list, usually to the number #2 position which is always behind "recommendation from friends or family". Sure, a mob of anonymous reviews on Amazon can help you make a purchase decision or alleviate fear, but it's never going to sway you as much as the family member or close friend who truly understands what you like and dislike.

A stock photo of people pretending to be best buddies

Even in its most simple form, social media integration such as the Facebook Open Graph could bring these two powerful tools of "mob review" and "friend review" together and have a huge impact on all phases on the buying cycle from awareness of need (as the purchase / review is displayed to connections), fear alleviation (a friend bought it, it must be ok) to purchase decision (I have similar need, they have done the legwork on price).

In much the same way as many companies are managing their social presence on networks, rather than trying to host their own forums and platforms, we will see integration for social discussion weaved into e-commerce sites.

Planning For The Future

While there are a lot of plates spinning from Google Merchant Centre to Facebook MarketPlace and nobody sure is how quickly a scalable Portable Identity Management solution will materialise, it is of course hard to lay concrete plans for the future. Looking at past trends, one thing you can say is that, in the end, people will always take the path of least resistance.

Not because they are lazy, but freeing up time and brain power allows you to do other things and accomplish more. Whether new ventures have been popular or not on launch, if they achieve the same and are simpler and quicker, they always eventually seem to win out.

My advice on social shopping would be:

1) If you haven't already, at least start exploring and learning how social media can affect other campaigns or parts of your business.

2) Ensure your search campaigns and social campaigns are working together, not in isolation.

3) Keep up to date with the new tools big players are offering.

4) There's some great papers and decks on social media influencing purchase decisions online in the last 12 months.

5) Make sure you consider the implications and technical requirements if you're planning on changing platform.

Google Places and Place Search - Who, What, Where, When and Why

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:05:36 GMT

On 27^th October 2010 Google rolled out a major change to localised search results. Dubbed “Place Search” by Google, this update combines local organic results with Google’s local listings (now rebranded Google Places). This is a significant change to the way the (now combined) algorithm displays results based on your perceived location and search intent.

What triggers localised Place search results?

We’re currently seeing broad terms as well mid tail terms triggering Place search listings. Of course searches which include a village, town, city or county will trigger it too. Basically any search which Google deems that is more beneficial to inject local business listings into the results. So this can cover shops to service based searches. As the searcher this makes sense, since it's good to discover companies in your locality (and why not help out your local businesses!). At the moment it’s apparent that broader terms are showing a broader map area. This will show local results (to us) for entire east side of England (not really that local at all!).

What factors will increase the chance of seeing a set of Place based results?

Google is using a range of signals which includes:

Your IP – It’s possible to find your locality based on your IP’s geolocation, however the UK currently has a poor matching of IP to location
Location preference – Was set by your previous Google Maps/Local usage. However...
Update 12/11/10 - Google has now added a location preference function appearing in the 1st column underneath the search filters:

This also shows your previously set locations used in your Google account. It also lets you add postcode meaning Place searches will be better focused to your position. This has been introduced to get around the poor IP to location matching (oh and it's also pretty useful!).
Personalisation - (NB: this isn’t confirmed, but i see no reason why Google wouldn’t influence the results based on previous searches. Also your starred items will show higher)
Location based search – A search for “[service] [village/town/county]” will likely trigger a Places search. We've noticed that if you use a broad country such as "UK" in your search query then Places isn't triggered.

What happens when a Place Search is triggered?

Google will display localised results based on the users’ search. This is influenced by search intent, or at least an estimation of what the user wants to see for their search.

The screenshot below shows a search for the broad term ‘mobile phones’.

Organic listings for these search results now have new format. The text based listing now dominates the entire centre column with the mini-map located at the top of the 3^rd column. Data from Google Local listings have now been tied in to the local ‘bricks and mortar’ location. The new listing format includes:

Address
Phone number
Links to reviews from other “trusted” sources such as yelp and qype
5 star rating system
A snippet from one of the reviews
Links to your Google Place page
A red location marker
A photo sourced from a third-party review site or a Google Streetview photo
Bookmarking via star

The marker labels the relevant local company on the Google map at the top of right column. The map, which was once displayed in the centre column is now in a fixed position at the top of the of the 3^rd column. It also hovers over the paid listings as you scroll down the page.

The filters in the 1^st column now have an additional Places selection available.

The search for ‘pizza in norwich’ below shows that standard organic listings are pushed to the bottom of the 7 pack of Place listings.

So far there have been a number of different formats spotted with a range of blended result combinations. These include standard 7 packs lists, new styled 3 pack listings, 7 pack listings with location tag links and a range of single listings split between organic results.

How has the Place page changed?

Place pages remain unchanged, however more 'sentiment analysis' information from Place pages is now included in the search result listings itself. If you’re unfamiliar of a Google Places page why not take the tour provided by Google.

How will Place Search affect my website’s rankings?

Local businesses will see a boost from increased exposure in search results if their profile has been added to Google Places either by themselves or a third party directory/review site. Google has added extra influence on local businesses meaning more qualified results will appear for the searcher.

Generally standard organic listings are pushed down in the results which favours businesses. This will impact traffic normally received to local directories.

Google Place listings aren’t necessarily owned or edited by the business owner, thus meaning that third party business directory/reviews sites could get more traffic. It also means reviews of both a positive and negative nature could appear for your listing.

Back in February this year Pete wrote a post about Google Local Listings and it also shows how Google Local listing used to be displayed in the search results. In the example below it includes a map and 7 basic local listings.

How can i increase my rankings in Place Search?

While there are some indications on what could improve your rankings, Google Places will be harder to influence since it links your website with your physical presence via your official Google Place listing page. Now that the local and organic algorithms are combined inbound links to your website are still an important factor.

Things to do:

If you don’t own a Google Places listing get one! They’re free, simply register all your details here. Google’s Tip at this stage is: “Before you create a business listing, think about which Google Account you are using. In the future, you may want to share this account with other people at your business.” You will also be able to claim listing by adding verifying your business.
Remove any duplicate listings if they exist as it could cause some confusion.
If you own a listing ensure you have added as much vital information as possible. Get your profile filled up with information to satisfy the “100% complete” criteria. Ensure you've added the closest category to your business type and add some photos.
Consider using the free "coupon" service to add a local-based incentive. This adds a short message (like this) to your Places page
In the US it's possible to add (paid) Tags to highlight your Place listings. However they do not affect rankings.
During his initial testing, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org, mentioned that "New GG Places algo appears overly simple at times: X*(review quantity) + Y*(listing references) + Z*(trusted sources citations)".

Local directory submissions and their references influence your rankings. According to the impeccably bearded Danny Dover, Google are down with Yahoo Local, yet i've not seen any reference to Yahoo Local in the UK citations so far.

In the UK, a wide range of sources are being cited for references and reviews. These include:

tripadvisor.com
thomsonlocal.com (thomsonlocal.com upped their game after Google Places went live yet Yell.com appears nowhere in local citations on Places)
qype.co.uk
yelp.co.uk
trustedplaces.com
bview.co.uk
localdatasearch.com
restaurant-guide.com
welovelocal.com
visitbritiain.com (had this broken Japanese reference!)
remotegoat.co.uk
Google Users can "Write a review" on the Google Places page when logged in.

In some cases Google is using some bizarre referencing sites. It looks as though a site using a particular mark-up (not even microformats) is then considered a trusted source.

NB: Before you start registering on these local sites and submitting reviews please note - it is illegal to submit bogus reviews under the EU Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices. Read this Register post explaining it. With that knowledge in mind you could encourage your visitors to review your company. This could be added at the end of checkout process if you're an ecommerce site.

Why has Google added Place Search?

While many other esteemed bloggers have mentioned the strategic and financial impetus behind Google's decision, Google have stated that this makes searching faster. It's that keyword again - 'fast'. Google's goal "is to help you feel like a local everywhere you go!".

We've seen a range of results at Further for our clients. Clients not relying on local based searches are unaffected. Clients targeting UK SERPs are seeing increases in visits. However, these changes will affect each client on an individual basis based on their keyword focus, business location and market objectives. I had 10 questions to answer in this post but alas have run out of blogging time. I hope to follow up these questions and Places findings in another post.

Have a great Guy Fawkes Night and weekend. Be safe!

3 SEO Reasons To Get Involved In Social Media

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:39:06 GMT

It's only over the last few years that organic search engine optimisation has been taken really seriously by mainstream businesses. It's understandable, as many people and businesses have been burnt by various Internet fads and made poor investments. Like buying MySpace.

There's a lot of mixed feelings about "social media" (I don't even think it's a particularly great term, but it's what we're running with so...) If you've been keeping the social side of your online campaigns at arm's reach, then here's 3 ways how social media can have an impact on your search marketing campaign:

25% of major brand search results are user-generated content

You can't control the mob

Whether you like it or not, you can't control every single SERP. People are going to talk about you and these results are going to appear for your brand name or related service/product searches. If you're not involved in these conversations, you will have absolutely no influence on what people say about you. Complaints left unattended tend to grow; especially online.

Social signals are blended into search

Search results are constantly evolving

Blended search results (such as local listing, Google Products or Maps) are commonplace now. These results directly include ratings and reviews of your company, your product and your service. These are powerful signals to new customers when they are making their decision to interact with you. If your SEO campaign does not take these blended results and their interaction with main search results into account, you may have a #1 ranking - but you may not like what it says.

Social will have a direct impact on rankings

The rules of SEO are changing fast

As I talked about in depth in my last post, social media signals are being integrated into pure search results. It's very likely that even with blended and third party results aside, actual "pure" rankings will likely be impacted by social signals.

Are you confident about your social media strategy? Further are taking part in a free event, talking about social media at Bedford College in collaboration with the British Computer Society this Thursday. Why not pop along, or if you can't make it - have a chat with us about your social media strategy.

Portable Identity Management and SEO

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:34:50 GMT

Recently I've been doing several seminars on social media marketing and specifically how it integrates with search marketing campaigns (in order to stay in my area of expertise too).

Having met a lot of SEOs over the years, most of them broadly fall into one of two camps:

The "technical" SEO types
These are guys that insist that Google is always going to have an algorithm to sort pages, therefore understanding and "exploiting" (or "fine-tuning") pages and links to these algorithm will produce the best results.

The "content" SEO types
Tend to disregard the fine-tuning / more technical aspects of SEO in favour of putting all their effort into producing top-quality content to attract links.

I'm not going to labour over "which is best" in terms of approach, but there have been notable examples, such as Michael Gray's I Listened To Google and Failed.

In my opinion, I've seen a broader range of "mediocre" success with a technical approach, but a much more spiked, total hit or total miss with the content approach. In both cases, I've also seen one let down with a total lack of the other.

What I'd like to briefly discuss is the issue of Portable Secure Identity Management online. If you haven't encountered the terminology before, it's basically what it says on the tin - a way of securely keeping your identifiable information online, ideally in one place. The benefit is that you are able to login to multiple, otherwise unconnected services online with a single login.

Especially of late, privacy online (especially Facebook Privacy) has been a hot potato subject, with some people blindly accepting the storing of more data and others calling for more control.

As lots of studies (of both the internet and non-internet type) will show, people over-time will generally always choose the "path of least resistance" (AKA "the easy way out"), freeing up your brain to do the important things in life, like watch the X-Factor. I would suggest that it is only perhaps a matter of time before a far more unified and centralised identity management comes into play online.

We've already seen the baby steps with Open Graph, Y! Connect and of course, Google slowly merging all of your service accounts into one monolithic pile of personal information. So we're only at the stage of the horses leaving the stalls and I'm positive there will be millions of pounds thrown around in a bid to secure your personal information. But why?

Likes are becoming Links

I really like the expression "likes are becoming links". I'm pretty sure I heard it from someone else and stole it, so I can't take credit for it, but it certainly rings true in the search developments I'm seeing.

Complicated databases, indexes, information retrieval and sorting aside, the basis of Google's web-page sorting mission is to basically find, reliable, up-to-date, "good" (popular) content. Historically, the best way to do this was by tracking links online, who mentioned what on their blog, forum - or shared something on their local news group.

If I find something I want to share now, like many people - I will simply post a link to Facebook. Something Google, with its original web-crawl model is going to have trouble finding and sorting. When you rollout this behaviour change to millions of people, you start to get a big problem - that much of the grassroots (or at least potential growth) in "linkers" has disappeared.

There's many sides of complexity to managing identity online, even when it comes to things we take for granted. For instance, it's commonly accepted that on e-commerce sites, products with reviews will generate more sales - as there is the added element of "mob-trust". With connected identity groups (such as Facebook), you are taking this to the next level, not only are you receiving peer-feedback, you are gathering it from a trusted source, or least a friend of a trusted source - perhaps a great reason why integrated Facebook reviews on pages may become more popular.

I'm doubtful whether Facebook will become the de-facto standard for the storage and management of identify online, but I'm positive we're going to see these systems evolve and that they will have a substantial impact on search, especially when combined with initiatives search engines are undertaking.

Should I panic now?

Something that gets missed out of many search and personalisation discussions is the importance of surprise. When you perform a search, the results need to return something you did not expect or know previously to make the search fulfilling. If search is totally powered by some quasi-mind-reading-friendship-matrix, you may as well just ask the friend.

The point of this post is that regardless of your background, whether it's a technical approach that I would put myself under, or a content-approach, you may need to broaden your horizons.

As personal identity becomes more important online, you might want to consider:

If you're a technical SEO type: It won't be as easy for you to pull links out of the ether or control rankings simply by finding a few good link sources and creating some great on-page traps for search engines. It's only going to become easier for "the mob" to sort and share content, so you're going to need some meat on the bones.

If you're a content SEO type: It might be time to polish up or get some help with the technical side. Aside from usual best practise, integrating new technologies on your websites will add a whole raft of new SEO considerations. If you don't bother, you may miss the boat entirely, if you do it badly, you're always going to have to be working harder than your competition.

Optimising Your Pages With YSlow And PageSpeed

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:13:00 GMT

There’s simply no debate when it comes to the speed and efficiency of web pages. Faster is better. We’re almost all guilty of relying on the increasing speeds of broadband, and increasing power of computers to take up the slack in our coding practices. Computers and Internet connections have been more than happy to take up this challenge, but the ever-evolving practice of Search Engine Optimisation has taken an interest in the performance of our pages. In fact, the speed at which your pages load is now a deciding ranking factor within search engine algorithms.

Google like fast pages. They say so themselves, and they even provide a tool in the form of Google PageSpeed, a FireFox plugin, to guide us through the various optimisations and rate our websites for speed. Yahoo do the same with their YSlow plugin for Firefox. These utilities afford us a reasonably clear picture of the optimisations both of these search outlets expect, and break these down into logical steps which can be followed to improved the overall page speed.

From here on in, things will get a little technical. If this isn’t your cup of tea then you may wish to stop reading now and forward this on to your technical staff or web-build agency.

In this article I will run through the quick and easy changes you can make to increase speed and how to make them in IIS7. There are no quick wins, and very rarely a single point that will dramatically increase a score on its own, but a number of small changes will soon sum up into a greater whole.

Download Parallelisation

Most of us have reasonably decent Internet connections in this day and age, and surf at speeds that the people who created HTTP could never have imagined. In theory, a browser should allow a maximum of two connections to any one hostname, letting it download only two things simultaneously. Modern browsers often break this specified limit, but we can’t always rely on this to be true. Irrespective of the actual limit, any resources over and above this number will be queued and downloaded only once the others have been completed.

Serving images and scripts from sub-domains artificially boosts the number of hostnames from which resources are being served, bringing us up to a theoretical total of 6 simultaneous transfers and, thus, a potentially shorter overall load time.

There are two methods of setting up these sub domains, depending on your set up and additional optimisations you may want to perform:

The easy way - Simply add scripts.yourdomain.com and media.yourdomain.com to the bindings of your site in II7. Setting up these as necessary with your domain provider. You can then access the entire structure of your site under these additional domains and can simply rewrite any reference to /images/yourimage.jpg to media.yourdomain.com/images/yourimage.jpg.

You may already see a problem with this technique. You’ve created multiple references to the same site and resources, breaking what might otherwise be carefully set up canonical URLs.

You can rewrite any request outside of images/ to the original domain, but this isn’t the most elegant setup.
The right way – Create two new sites within IIS7 that reference the subfolders that contain your images and scripts. There are multiple benefits to this method, first and foremost your resources will be right at the root of the domain, and your web-pages will not, so yourdomain.com/yourpage.html will not be accessible through scripts.yourdomain.com/yourpage.html.

Similarly, yourdomain.com/scripts/yourscript.js would become scripts.yourdomain.com/yourscript.js. Logical and tidy.

Having discrete sites for these resources also allows you to experiment with further optimisations, such as disabling any scripting support, adding 48 hour plus cache expiry times and enabling compression.

This leads me on to a clever trick- Assuming you have the images for your site within /media/images and the CSS for your site lives within /media/css with relative URLs (eg: ../images/yourimage.gif) you can rely on the relativity of these CSS URLs and parallelize all of the images referenced in your CSS simply by changing your stylesheet link from /media/css/yourcss.css to media.yourdomain.com/css/yourcss.css.

This means that when yourcss.css looks for ../images/yourimage.gif it ends up finding it at media.yourdomain.com/images/yourimage.gif, so you don’t have to go fiddling with any individual URLs for all the non-layout images on your site and should, hopefully, not have to modify your CSS at all.

Minify And Combine Your Resources

Another way to achieve more simultaneous downloads is to combine the contents of multiple compatible files into a single file. This typically applies to Javascript, but can apply to CSS and even images. Although I’m not a big fan of the latter unless it makes logical sense to combine those images- the multiple states of a button graphic, for example, can be combined and switched between using the background-position property for quicker load times.
Similarly, reducing the size of resources also serves to help matters, and you’ll be surprised at Google PageSpeed’s suggestions in this respect. With images it will often deliver a PNG image that looks identical to one you may be using, but with much better compression (I've seen reductions from 54kb to 4kb!). These can be saved to your computer, uploaded and included with nothing more than a simple change (from .jpg or .gif to .png) in your CSS.

JavaScript and CSS can be “compressed” using a process called Minifying. When you minify JavaScript, all comments and white space are removed and variable/function names can even be shortened. Minifying CSS will typically remove white space and comments. Both Google PageSpeed and Yahoo YSlow include tools to provide you with these minified files. But beware, minified Javascript is much more difficult to work with, so you should copy your /js directory to /js-src or otherwise, so you always have a copy of the original file to edit and re-minify.

Combining JavaScript can sometimes be tricky, but is often literally just a case of pasting everything into one single text file. Usually these disparate classes and functions will play nice together and result in a single, sleek file.

If you use jQuery, or any of its common UI extensions, you should be including these scripts from Google’s servers. For example, the URL http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js references the minified version of jQuery 1.4. This will increase your download parallelisation, and also means that you’re serving users a static file from a “Content Delivery Network”, which they could quite possibly already have cached and ready to use. YSlow likes to advocate the use of Content Delivery Networks, but will penalise you unnecessarily when they are not used for every resource on your site.

Compression And Caching

If you set up a couple of sites for media.yourdomain.com and scripts.yourdomain.com, you’ll be able to add caching and compression. Compression is generally turned on by default in IIS7, however dynamic compression is not. Whilst this may not apply to your resources, there are often stylesheets serves by handlers (WebResource.axd) that are dynamic and will not normally be compressed.

To enable Dynamic Compression you first need to install it. There’s an easy-to-follow guide for installing Dynamic Compression at IIS.net. Use Dynamic Compression sparingly, however, as it can cause additional load on your server and should definitely not be used if you’re already running with a high CPU load. When it is used, however, it will speed up the delivery of your actual pages, and strike another point from Google PageSpeeds list of suggestions.

Caching is a different beast. Google PageSpeed and Yahoo YSlow will look for at least two days of cacheability on your images and scripts. You can set this up by selecting your scripts and/or resources sites and clicking “HTTP Response Headers” under the “IIS” heading. On the right-hand side you will find a link entitled “Set Common Headers…” click this and you’ll see a new dialogue where you can check “Expire Web Content” and enter a number of days.

Be careful with caching, however, as it can be a real gotcha. Set it up after you’ve finished merging and minifying your JavaScript and be wary when you make future changes to the site that users will not receive the latest version of your script/CSS unless you force them to.

Google Analytics Thwarts "Serve static content from a cookieless domain"

This is a niggling and easy to solve point that will haunt you even after you've created subdomains for your images and scripts. Google analytics is typically configured to set cookies for all subdomains of a website, but you will normally only use www. for any trackable content. Requests to yoursite.com should be redirected (using a 301) to www.yoursite.com to canonicalize on one domain, and similarly you should use: pageTracker._setDomainName("www.yoursite.com") to prevent Google Analytics setting cookies for your static content subdomains.

Getting Sane Results From Google PageSpeed

PageSpeed is odd, it doesn’t always seem to check the resources on your server for the conditions it desires and will often falsely report a lack of Caching or Compression. To get a more accurate rating from PageSpeed on these points you need to use Developer Toolbar to “Disable Cache,” clear your cache, or refresh your heart out. Beware “Disable Cache,” however, as it can omit some otherwise important optimisations from your results such as Optimise Images. Make sure you address these problems first.

Getting Sane Results From YSlow

YSlow includes a handful of Rulesets, which perform different tests depending on the nature of your site and which speed optimisations are relevant. Running the stock Yahoo YSlow(V2) rule set is not advised, and can lead to unnecessarily penalisation regarding both the use of Content Delivery Networks (or lack thereof) and the use of Entity Tags which you almost certainly wont need to worry about on any single-server, average website.

To create a new Ruleset simply hit the Edit button and uncheck “Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)” and “Configure entity tags (ETags)”. This can inflate your rating by a whole grade, and should help you focus on the things that really matter and let you know when you should stop. Simply put, getting a “C” rating because you’re checking for these two things will probably lead you to try and improve the site elsewhere, don’t worry! Turn them off and get the “B” you deserve. It’s not cheating, honest!

Thanks for reading, and I sinerely hope you've learned something. Optimising pages for speed, whether or not you're going it for the sake of Google rankings, is a noble cause that benefits your users. We have SEO to thank for championing many such causes, from Accessibility to readability. As Google gets smarter our websites, whether intentionally or not, get better.

What is Google Instant and how does it affect SEO and PPC?

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:25:25 GMT

Yesterday Google announced their latest technological innovation of search – Google Instant

You may have seen the teaser Google homepage logos days before this announcement. Google Instant is currently being rolled as a default search method for users in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia. There's also plans for Instant to be available on mobile devices too.

What does Google Instant do?

As you start typing Google will return instant search results if you’ve not completed your search query and without you pressing the Enter/Return key. These instant results mean you can find what you’re looking for much quicker. Google itself states each search is 2 - 5 seconds faster. Not only are results instant but Google uses its vast amounts of search data to predict what you’re searching for as you type.

Let's say you type ‘cha’ and pause for a second. The most common search starting with these letters is ‘channel 4’ and thus results are shown for this query straight away. Also included after this are five expanded common searches related to ‘channel 4’. Simply clicking or using the up and down cursor keys you can instantly narrow your search down. Similarly while typing additional words you can press your Tab key to auto-complete the word if Google already suggests the term you were then typing. All this means searching is fast... very fast (although we've noticed it can be a bit jolty while it catches up). It’s not surprising that it uses 15 technology enhancements for Google to achieve these impressive instant results.

How is Google Instant powered?

In order to provide these near instant results Google is using Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). Ajax is adopted on a wide range of sites and allows data from servers to be fed into web applications without the need for reloading the page. Ajax is used extensively today and it provides rich interactive experiences. It also helped facilitate the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ generation of websites. In some cases based on your browser and bandwidth Google Instant will deactivate and your new search experience and will revert to the old style. This alone shows just how demanding this is on both Google’s highly optimised servers and client-side specifications.

What implications does Google Instant have on SEO?

Most importantly when it comes to rankings – absolutely nothing. Google Instant is merely a new way to search Google’s existing index.

What is unclear however is how searchers will use it and how this could affect long tail search queries and click through rates. While there’s been some good discussion in the office, it’s not known just how much impact this will have. While we could analyse statistics in our accounts it would be better to look at how the usage pans out over a few weeks and make more informed decisions by getting some more data in.

One example search which we found which could be affected by Google Instant that we’ve spotted is this generic search of ‘furniture’ (after fully typing 'furniture' in Instant before stopping).

Let’s look at them both:

Google Instant results (click for full size)

Standard results (click for full size)

The difference is clear. The Google Instant result has predicted the user wants Furniture Village and has shown results tailored to that search. This also means the recent brand boost will show many more listings based around the brand. This means that potential brand names which include a keyphrase could see more click throughs. The standard search results show sites related to the generic term ‘furniture’.

What’s also evident with Google Instant is the fact that the additional five search suggestions in Google Instant have pushed results lower meaning less real estate for organic results (above the fold). Although localisation is still prominent in both SERP’s. Other changes include that all results page are now centered, where previously they appeared aligned to the left.

Throw into the mix Google’s personalisation influencing each search and you can see how Instant can make for some interesting changes in the search world.

Instantly Caffeinated Results - Image credit: Nils Geylen

How will Google Instant affect the search keyword referers and how can I track it fully in Google Analytics?

Lets say you type in a one word term, then Google Instant shows results for another popular phrase, and you then click an organic result; you'd expect Google to track just the keyword you typed as the referring search query. This isn't so - well not fully. Since Google suggested and showed you results for a popular search, that then becomes the main referring search query.

Update (13/09/10): It was believed that it was possible to track both your incomplete query and the resulting 'predicted search' from Google's URL string. However an update on the official Google Analytics blogs states that "the “oq” parameter is not related to Instant Search and is often not passed in the request". I originally referenced a filter devised by Semetrical, which allowed you to track both terms in Google Analytics, but they've also updated their post to say that's it's inaccurate. Google's posts goes on to state that you will only get the predicted search query passed through to Google Analytics.

How will Google Instant affect long tail traffic?

The impact to long tail could influence both SEO and PPC. Potentially users maybe be satisfied by their results before they’ve finished their longer query and thus click a result sooner than normal. Alternatively Google Instant’s built-in predictiveness could actually increase long tail usage since your search is assisted. Either way it will depend on the results and if they satisfy your search desire.

What implications does Google Instant have on PPC?

Google Instant certainly makes PPC a much more interesting field to be in right now. Before this magic came along an individual page load, where your adverts shows, is considered one ‘impression’. In Google Instant searchers will be triggering multiple results as they type. So you would think that every resulting refresh would count as an impression - the result being heavily inflated impressions for an advert. Thankfully Google have created some additional rules for Google Instant:

1. Any Click - whereby any click whether if the user clicks a spell check, ad or link after a search an impression is counted

2. Search Selection - whereby an impression is counted if a user clicks the search button or selects a query

3. Three Second Rule - whereby the advert must remain on page for three seconds before it’s counted as one 'impression'

Google’s ‘Quality Score’ is the the ranking algorithm used for page search results and it’s based on a number of factors but most importantly impressions, click throughs and ultimately the resulting click through ratio (CTR). At this stage there are concerns that despite the added rules, impressions will increase and lower your click through ratios. Although Google has added these additional rules PPC will likely show some interesting statistics going forward. Just don't forget that everyone's in the same boat, so it's likely that any changes will be same for all advertisers.

How can I turn off Google Instant?

Don't worry if you're not digging Google Instant search, it can be easily turned off. Simply click 'Instant is on' next to the Search button on the results page.

Conclusion

The jury’s still out on the real impact of Google Instant, while we can make assumptions, time will show just how much this affects the way visitors search and whether it will influence head, mid and long tail searches. What we do know is rankings will be unaffected by this new faster searching method. Maybe the question we should ask is..."Will the user be satisfied with the resulting speed of your site?"

Ranking Can Damage Your Wealth

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:53:46 GMT

If you're on the giving or receiving end of SEO reports that mainly consist of rankings, the chances are something is wrong. Very, very, wrong.

As a general rule of thumb, businesses tend to exist to make money. Any expenditure of that money is done simply in the hope of either directly or indirectly, making more money.

If you're an in-house SEO or marketing manager and not working hard trying to tie search activity to an end £ value - I can guarantee you're wasting money somewhere down the line.

If you're an SEO agency and your reporting is not demonstrating your results in pounds, shilling and pence - I can guarantee you're selling yourself short.

3 Ways Fixating On Rankings Damages Your SEO

Keep your eyes on the rankings

1. You will lose flexibility

Working in an online environment requires a degree of flexibility. The freedom to change tactics or focus mid-campaign can pay dividends. The worst thing you can have your SEO team doing is slogging away at a "fixed" keyword list, blind to other opportunities.

Think about situations like these;

What about when a news story kicks off in your sector, driving a huge cluster of searches around some terms you're not targeting? Are you going to ignore these because they are not on your "target list"? Or are you going to do the sensible thing and divert some resource to create a page to catch the new found pot of search gold?

Or.. While beavering away on your "target terms", you notice a few well converting terms start to pop around positions 3-5 in Google, yet your "big terms" are still on page 2. Are you going to ignore this and continue link building for your jam tomorrow terms? Or are you going to take the initiative, build some links to those terms that have crept up, nail some #1 positions and get some real search revenue flowing in this month? (Which of course is money you can always reinvest into your bigger terms)

The point is, your client is hiring you (or they are investing money themselves) to generate business. If you're aligning your goals towards rankings, then you guys are working at odds to each other. Having true end objectives will allow both parties to do what is needed, work together and drive results.

2. You're missing the longtail

While it's a term that gets thrown about a lot, the "longtail" of search - all those infinite variations of (generally) higher converting search terms, are gold dust: Especially for e-commerce sites. One of the main problems with having an almost infinite number of search terms is that they don't fit very well onto a "target list". Because of this, they get left out as an avenue of growth entirely.

The longtail should be wired in as an indicator, like your rankings (not the objective of the campaign). So for instance, as you build new links, earn authority and add content, you could track how many search terms your site is found on monthly. Already, moving away from the precious keyword list has got you a more accurate view on the search visibility you're working so hard on growing.

3. Your ranking reports are out of context

So, you've got five #1s, a bunch top 5s and some more in the top 10. Make sure you print this piece of paper out and show it to as many people as possible - it's your ammunition to get a pat on the back. That's about all it's worth though.

If you're not following these rankings through, with your conversion/goal tracking (you HAVE set up tracking haven't you??), then these reports mean depressingly little.

Did you know your number 5 keyterm is actually driving three times the revenue than the term you just got to #1 that you've been working on the last 6 months? How much exactly are these number 1s worth? With just a ranking report, nobody really knows.

The value of SEO

Of course, SEO does have huge value when done correctly. It is your responsibility as an SEO to demonstrate this value. If you can't, who do you expect will? Show them the money!

5 Ways To Link Build With Google Alerts

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:59:07 GMT

One of the hardest aspects of any link building campaign is maintaining a constant stream of relevant incoming links. This guide will show you how to take some of the workload off by using Google Alerts to place link building opportunities right in your lap.

What does Google Alerts do?

In a nutshell, Google Alerts will deliver you notifications of new pages that appear on the web that fit a search criteria you provide. As Google puts it, "monitor the web for interesting new content".

Getting started with Google Alerts

If you've never used it before, Google Alerts is over at (would you ever guess?) http://www.google.com/alerts

Google Alerts Set up

You'll get a pretty simple screen like this. So let's go through the options quickly.

Search terms: This is where you define what you want to monitor the web for. It works exactly the same as the main Google Search box you've used before. It is however, the most common hurdle to people using Google Alerts well. The most important thing to remember is that the Google Alerts search terms support advanced search operators.

If you don't use search operators, it is likely that you'll create criteria that are far too broad, resulting in a deluge of useless junk being delivered to you. The aim here is to reduce work-load, not increase it! We'll give some examples of this later.

Type: Google Alerts gives you the option to sort through specific types of web page.

Google Alerts Set up

The type drop-down can be useful if you have a specific task, such as searching for PR releases for competitors or if you want to create specific alerts around social media discussions or blogs.

How often: How regularly you'd like the alerts delivered. You can choose "right away" if you need to catch fast moving discussions or once a day/week if you want to manage your workload and handle alerts in chunks.

Email length: If you're having your alerts delivered by e-mail, simply how many results you want per e-mail.

Deliver to: You can have alerts delivered either to an e-mail address, or an RSS feed if you want to monitor everything in real time or use the alerts with some other automation system.

Okay, let's move onto some examples of how Google Alerts can help you with link building.

Example #1 Monitoring for domain mentions

Idea: This alert will monitor you to when new pages mention your domain name (excluding your own site). This is a dead simple opportunity to set up and everyone should be using it. Apart from being really useful seeing what people are saying about your site, it gives you the chance to see if people are including those all important links when talking about you! (I've also picked up some good link sources this way).

Search Term: mydomain.com -site:www.mydomain.com

Type: Everything

The search query is simply the non-www version of your domain (this will pick up people that mention both with and without the www). The most important part of this query is the minus site:www.mydomain.com. Without this, you'll be sent alerts everytime Google finds a new page on your own site, d'oh! You can also set up similar alerts for your brand name by adding this prior to the mydomain.com.

Example #2 Monitoring for core services

Idea: We're going to be specifically monitoring news results here, to reduce the noise of a million splogs we would otherwise pick up. The idea behind this alert (you can use multiple alerts) is to monitor for news items that mention your niche / core services on an as-it-happens basis. Once you find these news stories, scan read them for accuracy and have a think about what the article is missing (shouldn't be too hard if you're an expert in your niche). The opportunity here is to quickly provide a content source that the news item needs, then phone/e-mail the author and provide them with a link to the data you've compiled or article you've written that will improve theirs.

Search Term: "core service" e.g. "search engine optimisation"

Type: News

How Often: As-it-happens

The important thing about this alert is that you use the quotation marks to phrase match your search query to stop you being bombarded by results.

Example #3 Big brother engagement

Idea: You can use Google Alerts to tactically drop yourself (and a link) into a million different conversations. This alert requires some work but is well worth the effort. Depending on how busy your niche is, you may be able to get away with an "everything" alert, or you might have to trim it down to "discussions". The idea is to set up multiple alerts for specific questions that are common in your niche, so you'll get the alert when people are asking these questions on forums or resources such as Yahoo! Answers (yes, I'm aware that one is nofollowed).

Search Term: "what is the best underwater camera" (use your imagination!)

Type: Everything / discussions

How Often: As-it-happens

Again, it's a good idea to use the quotation marks to only pick up exact phrases, otherwise you'll be getting quite a few e-mails!

Example #4 Competitor monitoring

Idea: If you're neck and neck with a competitor for search rankings, set up an alert monitoring for their domain and company mentions. Not only will this give you the inside track on what they're putting out there, but it's likely to reveal their precious link resources without having to dig through thousands of backlinks.

Search Term: "competitor name" competitordomain.com -site:www.competitordomain.com

Type: Everything

How Often: As-it-happens

Example #5 Monitor your own site for viruses

Idea: This is more about stopping competitors building links from your site :) This is a great little tip that can give you a quick heads up if your site has been compromised and hidden links injected.

Search Term: site:www.mydomain.com viagra cialis (etc, etc)

How Often: As-it-happens

Nice and simple site: query followed by a blacklist of words you would never expect to see on your site. So, if you get one of these alerts, you know something fishy is going on.

Get creative and stay alert!

I've given a small handful of ideas on how you can use Google Alerts with your SEO campaigns. There's actually hundreds of different types of alerts you can set up to help you along the way, so get thinking!

HTML basics: Marking Up A Form

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:46:00 GMT

As with all front-end development, the most important thing to consider when marking up a form is to have a good, prior understanding of all of the relevant HTML elements you have at your disposal. This not only allows you to semantically describe the form in the best possible manner for accessibility and usability reasons, but also gives you a plethora of hooks upon which to hang your CSS to make the final thing look good.

So to begin with we must first open the form. The ‘action’ attribute determines where the form’s data will be submitted, and the ‘method’ describes in what manner it is to be sent. Typically you will want to use “get” for performing retrievals, such as a basic keyword search, and “post” for anything intrinsically more privy where for instance a database is updated or an email is sent.

<form action=”http://www.further.co.uk/contact-us/” method=”post”>

Next we want to make use of the “fieldset” element, which is used to logically group form inputs together. You should also use a “legend” element in conjunction with the fieldset in order to provide the user with a caption for your grouping. This will significantly help visually impaired users who are relying on a screen reader to describe the form to them.

  <fieldset>
    <legend>Your Contact Details</legend>

Now we can go ahead and add our user input fields; so first let’s take a look at the code and then I’ll go on to explain it.

    <ol>
      <li>
        <label for=”name”>Name</label>
        <input type=”text” id=”name” name=”name” tabindex=”1” />
      </li>
      <li>
        <label for=”email”>Email</label>
        <input type=”text” id=”email” name=”email” tabindex=”2” />
      </li>
    </ol>
  </fieldset>

Firstly, you’ll notice that I have used an ordered list (<ol>) to separate the fields. This is primarily a layout aid to assist styling, as we can use each list item (<li>) as a container and style them uniformly or target individuals with classes and/or id’s. I believe this practice also works well semantically, as it can provide additional information to screen readers (by announcing the number of fields to the user) as well as providing a far better and more intuitive un-styled layout.

Each “input” has a corresponding “label”, identified by the matching ‘for’ and ‘id’ attribute values. It is very important they match for both usability and accessibility reasons, as clicking a label will give focus to or toggle its target input field and the association will be announced by screen readers on cue. Almost as important is the “tabindex” attribute, which explicitly tells the browser in which order to navigate through the input fields upon a user pressing the tab key. Omitting this attribute will lead to the browser second guessing the order based upon the documents structure, which may not always work as you intend.

So far we’ve just covered a very basic one line text input, so let’s take a quick look at some of the other form elements available to us and how to go about marking them up.

  <fieldset>
    <legend>Your Message</legend>
    <ol>
      <li>
        <label for=”subject”>Subject</label>
        <select id=”subject” name=”subject” tabindex=”3”>
          <option>General Enquiry</option>
          <option selected=”selected”>Business Proposal</option>
          <option value=”Support”>Help Request</option>
        </select>
      </li>
      <li>
        <label for=”comments”>Comments</label>
        <textarea id=”comments” name=”comments” rows=”6” cols=”40” »
tabindex=”4”></textarea>
      </li>
    </ol>
  </fieldset>

First up is the “select” box, which provides a means of presenting the user with multiple options whilst (by default) only displaying one, so as to economise space and avoid overwhelming the user. Upon first viewing the selection box the first option will be displayed unless the ‘selected’ attribute has been applied to any of the remaining options instead. On submitting the form, the options label text will be submitted unless a specific ‘value’ attribute has been provided.

Next we have the “textarea”, or multi line text input field. This is fairly self-explanatory, just take note the ‘rows’ and ‘cols’ (columns) attributes which define the size of the field when not overwritten by more specific CSS rules and the fact that it is not a self-closed void element (unlike <input />).

To complete our form we need a submit button for the user to press. This can be done in one of three ways: either with input type=”submit”, input type=”image” or button type=”submit”. The first two use the self-closing void element “input”, the latter is a standard element requiring a matching closing tag. I prefer to use the “button” element over the others purely because you can target it with CSS without needing any extraneous classes.

  <fieldset>
    <button type=”submit” name=”sendContactForm” tabindex=”5”>Send »
</button>
  </fieldset>
</form>

View full source code

So that concludes my introduction to writing basic HTML forms. In the next episode I will delve into some of the other intricacies of form input controls such as radio buttons and checkboxes.

Pagerank Sculpting

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:43:00 GMT

Well dear readers, yet another year has passed and it is June once again. If you remember it was around this time last year when Google announced its decision to change the way it treated nofollow, causing a bit of a shake-up in the SEO world and a fair amount of hubbub.

A bit about nofollow

Nofollow was introduced back in 2005 as a tag in a link which allowed webmasters to say: “I can’t guarantee the quality of this link”. The link therefore would not pass any PageRank. This meant that webmasters could self-police the flow of link equity around their sites and worked to some extent to combat link spam, especially offering less incentive for spammers to spam blog comments.

As Google’s algorithm became more advanced, SEOs were also using nofollow to do things like nofollowing links to other sites in an attempt to hoard PageRank. They were also using nofollow internally to direct the flow of PageRank to their more important pages with the highest conversion rates (known as PageRank sculpting).

This didn’t sit well with Google, because as webmasters were PageRank sculpting, they would also use the nofollow tag to exclude the flow of PageRank to parts of the site with value to users, such as forums.

To combat this, instead of removing the nofollow tag altogether, Google decided to make all the links on a webpage have an equal distribution of link equity. This means that using the nofollow tag on links on your site will simply mean that the link will not pass link equity, effectively acting as a link equity sink.

Nofollowed internal links: now like black holes

PageRank sculpting now

Does this mean PageRank sculpting is dead? Well, it certainly is harder but it’s by no means dead.

There are still a few things you can do:

Prioritize pages

Prioritize the pages around your site and ensure that the pages you link to from your main pages (e.g. homepage) are the high priority ones.

If we use the hypothetical example of a site which sells felt tip pens you would probably want to prioritize linking first to the pages which will lead to a sale such as the brands and colour category pages. When searching for pens, chances are that colour and brand will be the most highly searched for terms.

The pages with less priority will be the “privacy policy” and “terms and conditions” pages. Although these pages don’t directly convert, for usability reasons you will still have to link to them from the homepage. One solution here will be to combine these pages into a smaller number of pages so a greater percentage of link equity will be passed to your more important pages.

Re-categorize links

The lower priority pages and pages which have very similar content can be grouped together and linked to from a single category page. These category pages would then be linked to from the homepage.

Restrict Site wide linking

Another thing you can do is try to restrict the number of site wide links on the site to just the pages with high priority. The one potential problem with this is that if it is not done correctly then it could lead to usability issues.

Multiple links to same URL

There may be times where you will get multiple links to the same URL, especially in the case of e-commerce sites. In some sites we have come across, we have seen the image, keyword-rich anchor text and the description being highlighted as a link. Minimize the number of links by removing the description as a link since it is not keyword relevant.

Test, test, test!

Finally, the last thing you have to do is test usability and conversion since PageRank sculpting this way can impede usability. Ultimately, more targeted visitors to your website is the end goal, so unless the number of conversions decrease because of architectural changes to your site then you know you’re on the right track.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that in terms of ROI, time is probably better spent on link building and generating good content – PageRank sculpting is not as effective as it was before although it still does have its uses, especially for large sites which have trouble being indexed. (Via Rob)

Why has Google dropped so much Insights data?

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:48:55 GMT

I’m quite a heavy user of Google insights. I find it a very effective way of comparing date ranges or keywords. From my own (admittedly pretty small and in need of refinement) analysis of insights data against the real world data, I saw a pretty strong correlation between the two. Sorry, I’ve got no numbers or evidence on that. Coast Digital did a study on the correlation and saw similar results. So overall, a pretty effective way of understanding what happened. Well, it was at least.

It seems that Google has significantly trimmed the amount of data they are providing through insights. Here are two screenshots from the results for the same terms, one made at the start of May and one made at the start of June:

As you can see, the graph from June lacks the granularity of the graph from May. The numbers on these terms are now reported weekly instead of the previous daily granularity.

To put in perspective how much granularity has been lost, these terms represent ~10,000 searches p/m.

I also tried another search for a term that represents ~2,500-3,000 searches p/m and was presented with this beautiful, detailed graph:

Oh...

Google always presented some questionable data in the Adwords Keyword tool, because of their economic sampling and the way they bucket keyword volumes. Google Insights was one of the few places you could get some accurate, detailed data from Google, but for some reason they seem to have severely cut the data available. Is it cost cutting? Did they feel they were giving us too much information? Is it permanent?

Whatever the answers; if it stays as it is, then it is a big loss to data accuracy.

Future of Web Design Conference 2010

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:12:18 GMT

As has become tradition at Further, the design team decamped to London last week for the Future of Web Design conference held this year amongst the bankers in the City of London.

This year the format had been extended to tracks over two days but with the usual high standard of speakers from the upper echelons of web design.

The event was for the most part hosted by the ever enthusiastic Ryan Carson – a man for whom the words 'super awesome', 'good hustle' and 'bro' cannot be overused.

Ryan is rightly regarded as something of a legend within the web design community, and his company, Carsonified, produce some incredible work as well putting together events such as this and generally being a hub for discussion and debate through the excellent ThinkVitamin blog.

The atmosphere at The Brewery was great – relaxed and friendly, not to mention the great food which we took particular advantage of in an ultimately futile, yet satisfying, attempt to recoup the value of the conference ticket. Whilst I say 'we', Annette mostly looked on, ever so slightly disgusted.

Both of us were excited to see what we would get out of the conference – and we were not disappointed. So, whilst many different subjects were covered by the various speakers, hopefully a brief precis of the major themes covered will suffice.

The subjects of CSS3, HTML5, usability and user engagement came up on a number of occasions by various speakers. It seems that CSS3 and HTML5 will increasingly being used to enrich website design in a more accessible and efficient way than the use of flash, javascript and images are used now.

The possibilities are exciting, but I would argue that we are a way off the tipping point where their use becomes mainstream. The obvious sticking point is of course the traditional bane of the web designers and developers – Internet Explorer (IE). A couple of speakers were strong advocates of the immediate implementation of CSS3 properties to cater for the users of 'the modern browsers' whilst allowing for graceful degradation of these for users of IE. The theory being that if IE users get a slightly less 'glossy' version of your website then that's fine.
Whilst I have sympathy with this view, from a business point of view I would probably have difficulty arguing to a client that we should be concentrating our efforts for what still constitutes a minority of the browser market. We should wait perhaps to see what IE9 brings.

HTML5 looks similarly exciting, especially in terms of rendering of video within websites (goodbye flash movies?). Again, the technology is, for the most part, ahead of current versions of Internet Explorer (do you sense a theme here?) and is still a draft specification itself.

Some of the most interesting and animated speakers were found covering the subjects of user experience (UX), engagement and usability. One of our favourite presentations on these was by the Web Standardistas from Dublin. A slightly chaotic yet well executed presentation! These guys talked about how design must serve a function but how important it is to also bring in the emotional concept of design. They collaborated a list of elements to create a great UX, including experience/time, creating a solid foundation for Information architecture and user interface design, bringing an element of interaction to the experience, testing for usability and not forgetting the fundamentals of design including typography, colour, grids etc. The user expectations are always rising and we as designers need to be at the forefront to satisfy their ever growing needs.

The best quote from the conference has to go to Aaron Walter from MailChimp who said that 'Describing a website as usable is like describing a meal as edible'. In a presentation entitled 'Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design', Aaron proposed that as designers we should be looking to engage and entertain users by appealing to universal human needs.

Prize for the most polished (and perhaps enlightening) presentation came from Dan Rubin. Dan spoke on the subject of user testing and how it is possible to iterate numerous versions of, for example a checkout process, during one day of usability testing. His method basically involved presenting what were effectively flat visuals to test subjects, with only the relevant part of the page being functional – using very basic markup. This allows for rapid iteration of the design during the test itself without the need for the site build to be revisited by developers. The test subjects are completely unaware that they are not using a fully functioning site. An incredibly simple yet powerful tool.

There is obviously so much that we could talk about here from the two days of excellent presentations. Whilst we can't cover everything from FOWD 2010, special mention is reserved for the following:

Brett Welch (Adobe): For giving a 'sponsor presentation' that did not mention his product once.

Anna Debenham: For an entertaining and informative presentation on 'Freelance Survival Techniques' from a frighteningly assured 20 year old.

Robin Christopherson: For an all too brief insight into accessibility and design for mobile.

Elliot Jay Stocks: For inspiring universal jealousy over his client list.

As you can tell from the bulk of our post – it was a jam packed 2 days of web design pleasure. The event has definitely given us a lot to think about and lots of inspiration. We look forward to seeing what next year's conference brings…

Google Adwords Now In Green?

Thu, 27 May 2010 11:20:35 GMT

I noticed today that sometimes Google Adwords boxes are sometimes showing with a rather sickly green colour, rather than the usual yellow. I say yellow, but I'm sure there's a more accurate description of that colour. Cantaloupe, maybe. We'll just be clear and say, the usual #FFF8E7 colour.

Usual Adwords Box:

New Adwords Box:

Is anyone else seeing this? Ryan on our SEO team suggested it may be to stop users becoming "blind" to Adwords and drawing attention to them again.

Facebook Privacy Explained: Infographic

Wed, 26 May 2010 15:09:47 GMT

In May 2010, Facebook was presented with somewhat of a backlash in regards to their latest default account settings. It seemed as if the whole of the privacy concerned internet shifted their intense focus from Google’s position on privacy to Facebook’s position. It would not be illogical to come to the conclusion that Facebook could be noticeably damaged by the backlash and the reaction of many users. But is that truly the case?

Optimising for Universal Search and the new Google Jazz Interface

Wed, 26 May 2010 11:03:32 GMT

On May 5th Google’s new user interface (UI) was fully rolled out to all users – which means it’s time to take a look at how this affects the search world. Without going too much into the aesthetics of the new look lets look at what matters. It has been reported that the new 3 column layout with the address bar higher up the page has made a difference with click-through rates from search engine results pages (SERPs). Although this is likely to be affected by searchers checking out the new options.

Search Tools
The additional search options which were once accessible via a slider on the old interface are here to stay in the first column. These currently change depending on your search query. The options are likely to appear in order of what search tool is most relevant. E.g. the Maps filter is more likely to appear higher up when there’s been a geographical search.

Search Tool Filter Breakdown
Having these options available for easy access certainly makes a difference for the searcher. The option to filter results from ‘Pages from the UK’ now appears under the main search tools rather than being accessible via a radio button in the old interface.

Everything – Standard organic search listings with various blended results.

Optimising for everything(!)
The main organic listings are influenced by various factors – something we know a bit about here ;) This doesn’t stop various searches being influenced by blended results. This can mean that prime first page real estate can be taken up with result sections for images, news, local and more. With various searches being dominated by these results it’s certainly worth looking into ways to get seen in them.

The Everything section also has an additional option ‘More search tools’. Once clicked it reveals more clever search tools.

The 'More search tools' section also allows you to view pages you’ve already viewed or haven’t viewed. This being an element of Google’s personalised results.

Other options include related searches, a timeline and the visual wonder wheel. Page previews are also added to help you see a snapshot of a webpage before you visit.

Interestingly Google has kept the main Shopping page results filter out of the main search tools in left column. It’s location still residing in the top navigation bar. A product search will now trigger the visibility of the additional search options. These allow you to view more or less shopping results. Read Pete’s post on optimising for Google Shopping using the Google’s Merchant Centre.

Main search tools filters

News – Displays News results from Google News.

Optimising for News filter
Influencing news results isn’t easy unless of course you’re being mentioned. It is possible to become a news publisher although these technical requirements as well as other rules. Google News publishers can be suggested here.

Videos – Displays videos from sources such as Youtube, Metacafe, Dailymotion and more. On clicking Video you also get video specific content options such as video duration, sort by date or relevance, video quality preference and closed captioning (such as transcriptions).

Optimsing for the Video filter
The rankings of these results are likely based on a number of factors including video views and inbound links to the video itself. My blog post last month looked into optimising video for SEO.

Maps – This redirects your query directly into a Google Maps search.

Optimising for the Maps filters
It’s free to get your business added to Google Places (was Google Business Center). Read Pete’s blog post on optimising for Google Places.

Books – Displays results from Google Books. Additional options include a link to My Library (Google’s Book Bookmarking service), document type (books or magazines), preview size and publication date.

Optimising for the Books filters
Writing a book, getting it published and then getting it added to Google Books is lengthy process. This filter is great as a research tool – helping you to find content not based in the interwebs (until now of course!).

Blogs – Displays results from blog posts.

Optimising for the Blogs filters
The regular nature of blog posts means that results are ordered by published time in this section. Being displayed in blended results for blog posts certainly has it’s benefits but it’s unlikely to provide much traffic from Google itself, as blog posts will generally be treated as normal organic listings. Blogs are excellent in their own right for providing quick indexed information for the public domain. A blog with great content will attract links, draw in traffic and provide important focused links to other sections of your site.

Updates – Displays real-time updates from social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Friendfeed and Jaiku.

Optimising for the Updates filters
Mostly recent messages are displayed with the 3rd column populated by ‘Top links’. The ‘Top links’ are influenced by the sharing of links from a combination of retweets and shares. Interestingly the link: operator is used to view who shared the link. This doesn’t have the same affect when using it on a standard search. The link: operator can still be used to see Google’s representation of inbound links to your URL. However you will get a lot more link details in your verified Google Webmaster Tools account.

Real Time search updates have been showing in standard search results for a few months now. They provide a quick way to get on the first page of Google for your search term – however this will be for a short period. Nonetheless it’s good to syndicate your news to sites like Twitter and build a following. Remember social media won’t necessarily improve your rankings.

Discussions – Displays results from forums, groups, message boards and Q & A sites such as Answers.com, Yahoo Answers and messages boards powered by vBulletin and PHPBB.

Optimising for Discussions filter
This section displays links to threads with high amount of individual posts. Getting involved in your community by participating in forums can help you engage with your customers. On the flipside creating your own forum is big step. It takes a lot of time and effort to build up a loyal online community.

The conclusion
The new search tools and interface certainly shows just how diverse Google’s search engine is. Core organic search rankings will always be the best source of traffic. With results including more blended results it’s certainly worth getting involved to increase your exposure and traffic potential.

How To Disable .NET Viewstate For Googlebot

Mon, 17 May 2010 11:53:00 GMT

Something we've been doing for a long time now is hiding .NET Viewstate from search engine crawlers. While .NET Viewstate is needed to maintain the state for users between postbacks, they can be absolutely massive and bloat out your source code.

It's not uncommon to see .NET Viewstate that are 800, 900 or even over 1,000 characters. You really want to strip out these Viewstate to reduce the size of the page that Googlebot and other crawlers have to go through.

An Easy Solution

There's a lot of complex solutions online on how to disable Viewstate for crawlers, but here's a nice simple one. Simply add this code to your master page page load, so it runs for all pages:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
If Request.UserAgent.ToLower.Contains("googlebot") OrElse Request.Browser.Crawler Then Page.EnableViewState = False
End If
End Sub

Thanks Joe :)

N.B. .NET will still show a part of the Viewstate - but it will be truncated usually to around 50 characters, which isn't going to cause any problems.

Optimising URLs

Fri, 14 May 2010 15:45:00 GMT

Whew! It’s May yet again and this also means that Pete’s SEO Corner is officially a year old. However, unfortunately the weather this month has not been up to par with May last year. On the plus side, we can use the extra time we will be spending indoors this month to work on optimising the URL structure of our sites.

Why Optimise URLs?

There are numerous benefits to optimising your site’s URLs:

Highlighted Keywords

Keywords which the user searches for will be highlighted in the URL string. This will serve to increase clickthroughs in the SERPs because they stand out more. This applies to individual keywords and not just search phrases.

So for example, in the screenshot below we can see that in the first result “Jimmy” and “Choo” has been highlighted while in the second it’s “jimmy” and “carr” and in the third it’s “jimmy” and “choo” again.

You will probably have noticed that the keywords have been highlighted in the title tag and the description as well. These were covered in my previous posts about optimising title tags and meta descriptions.

Easier crawlability

A good URL structure will make it easier for search engines to crawl your site and thus index individual pages. Google will find it alot harder to index URLs with foreign characters in it.

More likely to rank

Having keywords in the URL will help to increase your rankings for particular keywords. Google in recent times has gotten cleverer at indexing dynamic URLs however so the benefit of keyword optimised URLs has decreased somewhat as dynamic URLs have seen greater rankings.

More memorable

Shorter, more optimised URLs with intelligible keywords in them will tend to be more memorable than longer URLs full of database descriptors. This will increase visits to your site because people will be more inclined to remember your URL.

Let’s start optimising!

Right, there are multiple things you can do to optimise your URLs. Let’s go over a few now:

Keywords in URL

The first is making sure that the keywords you are searching for are in the URL. It’s prudent to first think of what users will search for before deciding what your URL will look like. In the following example for an electronics retailer, one of our clients the URL for one of their LG televisions is as follows:

http://www.myelectronicssite.co.uk/product/lg-37le5300

We figured that when searching for a television or other electrical appliance, they will usually search for the brand first and then the model number. This helps the site’s webpages to rank for specific product searches.

Search Engines also give more weighting to keywords which come first so place your more important keywords first. Also, try not minimise non keyword specific words out of the URL. Words such as “folder”, “your” and “directory” should be avoided unless they are part of the keyword sets you are targeting.

Minimize URL length

Long URLs are bad because they make it harder for users to remember the URL and like title tags, they dilute the strength of the individual keywords in the string.

In the following example:

http://www.myelectronicssite.co.uk/product/televisions/black/brand/LG/lg-37le5300

This URL is not ideal since the weighting of the core term: “LG-37le5300” is being shared among all the other terms in the string including “televisions”, “black” and “brand”. The shortened URL still contains “product” as a way of informing the searcher that the URL is for a product and not say, a blog post or a search string.

Avoid Underscores in URLs

Google does not recognize underscores (_) so any spaces between words will be treated as the one word. Use hyphens/dashes (-) instead. For example, if you have a domain like: www.experts-exchange.com, it will be better to use the former example than www.experts_exchange.com since in the latter the space isn’t recognised and can be read as something else entirely.

Convert Dynamic URLs into Static

Most E-commerce sites will have dynamic URLs. These are usually not SEO friendly as
An example of a particularly bad URL would be:

http://www.myelectronicssite.co.uk/product_details.jsp?PRODUCTID=0937489324345244324562&FOLDERID=9823764891236
47864&GENID=39287482361523

Not only is this particular URL long, it also does not contain any keywords. Unfortunately, there are many e-commerce sites out there still with such URLs.

Just like in our earlier examples, use keywords and minimise the URL length to

http://www.myelectronicssite.co.uk/product/lg-37le5300

A lot more memorable isn’t it?

Redirect non www

To search engines, the same site with www and without the www are 2 different sites. You will be splitting links between the two sites since some will link to the former and some the latter.

So for example, while most links will probably be to http://www.myelectronicssite.co.uk, some will still go to http://myelectronicssite.co.uk. These links won’t be credited to the www version of the site unless you use what’s called a 301 redirect which basically redirects all visitors to the www version of the site. Existing links to the domain being redirected will be credited to the destination URL albeit with a slightly diminished strength. That’s why it’s better to redirect domains earlier than later.

Maintain consistent URL structure

It’s also wise to maintain a consistent URL structure throughout the lifetime of a site. Although you can always redirect old URLs to their newer counterparts if the directory structure changes, link equity from redirected URLs don’t pass on their full strength.

This is why you should make sure you’ve got an optimised URL structure from the start of a new site.

These tips should help your on-site efforts so go forward and optimise!

5 Non-Technical SEO Checks

Tue, 11 May 2010 16:23:22 GMT

Detail can make the difference between success and failure when it comes to SEO. Generally speaking, the importance of on-site SEO increases in relation to the total number of pages on your website. What might seem like a small thing, may not be so when it's repeated 100,000 within your site template.

That said, what about much smaller sites? There's a lot of basic SEO checks you can do with very little technical knowledge. Here's our top 5.

1. The 3 second page content check

You're smarter than a machine!

Load a random page on your website and ask someone not familiar with it to tell you what that page is about after a 3 second look.

Humans are actually really great at scan reading and picking up subtle hints on content: If a human can't clearly grasp the content of a page within a few seconds, a machine (like a search engine robot) is really going to struggle. Not to mention, you may have a usability issue on your hands.

What you are actually checking for:
In terms of search engine optimisation, page titles should be optimised to reflect the individual content of that page. You can also optimise the layout of content to make the depth of content clearer for users and search engines.

2. The blind link check

Do you know where you're going?

Load a random page on your website. Ignore everything except links to other pages. From reading these links, can you tell roughly where you're about to go and what the next page is? If you've got a lot of "click here" links and image navigation, you may have a hard time ranking.

What you are actually checking for:
Search engines uses the "words" (it's called anchor text) in links to try and determine the content of the linked-to page and tag it with those words. Having pages links to consistently with "anchor text rich" keywords will increase the chances of that page ranking well within the SERPs. You should always take the time to optimise your internal links.

3. The URL memory game

Which cup is the URL under?

Choose 3 pages that you think are important on your website and you'd like your visitor or customer to see. Give yourself 30 seconds a URL and see if you can memorise them. If you can't, you may need to simplify your URLs.

What you are actually checking for:
Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs are addresses that contain keywords, rather than query strings.

So a search engine friendly URL might be:

> http://www.yourwebsite.com/running-shoes/nike-air-max/

A non-search engine friendly URL might be:

> http://www.yourwebsite.com/shop.php?categoryid=24&productid=992&browser=ie8

If I'm totally honest, Google is actually really good at crawling and indexing dynamic "unfriendly" URLs now, however research has shown that "friendly" URLs are more likely to be shared/e-mailed/instant messaged and linked to. They generally cause less problems as they are being copied & pasted around the web.

There also appears to still be a slight ranking benefit from optimising your URLs match the targeted keywords.

4. Do important things come first?

Search robots get tired before mouse clicking fingers

Hopefully you've still got your "important 3 pages" list we made in our last check. Go to your homepage and now navigate to these pages from there while counting how many clicks it takes to get there.

Ideally, your most important pages should only be 1 or 2 clicks away from your homepage.

What you are actually checking for:
Good information architecture and link structure. Generally how Google and other search engines pass trust and importance via links has to do with the "distance" between pages. Pages "further down" the navigational tree are assumed (well, mathematically calculated) to be less important. There is a decay factor in the amount of link equity passed down in each link level.

5. The double-vision check

Which one do you want to take home?

As you navigate up and down your website, is it possible to access the same content twice on a different URL?

Example:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/trainers/black/nike-air <- Our Nike Air product page

http://www.yourwebsite.com/trainers/mens/nike-air <- The same Nike Air product page

In this example, we have found we can access the same product page, by navigating through our "black shoes" category and our "mens trainers" category. While this doesn't present a huge problem for users, it can prove a big hurdle for search engines.

What you are actually checking for:
Duplicate content. It's worth mentioning that Google has a duplicate content filter, not a duplicate content penalty (unless you're being really excessive). This means that Google will choose one or the other of your pages to display in the search results.

While not a penalty, it's criminally wasteful. The result will be that you are wasting link equity on pages that won't rank and detracting value from the one that does pop-up in the results. Essentially, you'll still only have one page show up in the results, it will just show up lower.

Don't worry though, there are some simple solutions to duplicate content that don't involve rebuilding your site!

We're of course, only scratching the surface with these suggestions - why not find out how much a full SEO site audit is worth or talk to us about getting one.

Google Merchant Centre

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:39:00 GMT

Another very useful feature in Google’s arsenal of tricks is a separate set of search results if users search for products through Google Products (found on the “Shopping” tab). Google Products only displays products which can be bought online from E-commerce sites. This includes sites like Amazon and Ebay but typically excludes sites which feature products but which can’t be bought directly from the site such as B2B distributors.

In the screenshot below you can see an example of what is displayed if you search for “sports shoes”

The product results can be refined further by choosing a category of shoe such as “Running” and “Squash” and also by price.
In the absence of product names matching the search term, Google will also give a preference for company brand names which is why in this case the results are filled with products from SportsShoes.com. This is another reason why the name of your company will affect your SEO efforts so much.

Yowzers! Sign me up!

If you currently run an E-commerce site you’re probably salivating with anticipation at the potential source of traffic.
In a nutshell, you’ll simply have to create an account with Google Merchant Center and then submit a product feed.

When you log into the Google Merchant Center you’ll be presented with a list of the current accounts you’re managing including the current status.

In order to add a new account you will want to click on “Add Account” on the bottom left of the page. We recently created a new account and as you can see the status reads “No Data Feed” – meaning we haven’t done the next step, which is upload a datafeed.

Creating the Feed

Google will only accept the feed in 2 formats at the moment: tab-delimited .txt files and XML.

It’s generally better to go for XML whenever possible because it is more error proof when it comes to formatting. .txt files are more susceptible to errors in formatting because the absence of even a single tab could break the feed.

Although you can choose to put in as many attributes as you want into the feed, there are certain required attributes which need to be present within each feed while some others are recommended and others even optional. The following datafeed attributes are required:

condition
description
id
link
price
title

I would also recommend adding brand, image link and weight (provided shipping costs are based on weight) and payment accepted.

Upload your feed

Now that your feed has been created, the next step is to upload it.

Simply select your target country and enter the filename of your feed.
Next, click on “Edit”.

You’ll need to specify factors such as what format the datafeed file is in and the encoding used. Although you can set the system to detect it automatically, I prefer to specify.

Scheduling

You can either manually upload the feed to Google or if the feed has been automatically set to be refreshed, you’re better off creating an upload schedule.

Click on “Create” under the “Upload Schedule” column and specify when to upload it and the URL of the file.

Once you’ve done all this, go to “General Settings” and firstly verify your site by following the instructions, and also filling in details about your business.

Joining the feed to your adwords account

Now that your feed has been created, there’s an extra tidbit you can use to enhance traffic even further. (Courtesy of Rob) If you have an adwords campaign running and you link up your product feed in Google Merchant Central, a button will appear to display products from the feed which will appear directly below the ad.

This in essence enlarges your ad for the fair price of £0!

Tweaks

You can make the final tweaks to your Google Merchant Center account by filling in your tax and shipping information. This allows Google to automatically calculate the final price once tax and shipping costs are taken into account.

You also have the option to use the Google Checkout system in conjunction with your product feed results. This basically adds another way for customers to pay for your products.

Troubleshooting

Chances are you’ll encounter some formatting error of your feed on the way. Click on the link to your feed under “Datafeeds” and you will be presented with a list errors and explanations as to what it is.

Make sure you iron out any errors on your product feed other wise not all of your products will appear on Google Products.

Statistics

If you access the Dashboard you can see an overview of the stats for the campaign.

This page will list any errors with your feed such as missing products and the number of clicks and impressions your products have had. This is a good way to see how well your product datafeed is performing. Right now, you won’t see any stats since the feed has just been uploaded.

Well, there you have it – you now know how to use Google Merchant Center. So, if you have an e-commerce site and aren’t doing the things listed above, what are you waiting for? It’s free after all!

SEO for Videos

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:53:19 GMT

Video is an excellent communication medium. With a rich audio/visual experience it’s no wonder the video world is so big.

For those that don’t know Youtube gets more search query requests than Yahoo. So effectively it’s the 2nd biggest search engine. However this has very recently been broken by the fact that Twitter search accounts for 19 billion searches.

The statistics from the article show.

• Google: 88 billion per month*

• Twitter: 19 billion per month

• Yahoo: 9.4 billion per month

• Bing: 4.1 billion per month

*Google on this list denotes all Google properties such as images, Youtube, etc

Google rich search result

Videos are appearing more and more in the search engines. Google’s universal search will has been known to display multiple blocks of video results for some terms. Can you afford to miss out of this growing channel of search potential? There are 2 options when using video promotion which invariably can be used individually or both at the same time.

On-site video hosting

Hosting your own video files is one of the avenues for video SEO. Although this can be bandwidth heavy it ultimately means you are in control of the content. Videos can be sorted into their own categorised sections and hosted on individual pages. Embedding a video per page means you can control the standard page construction for SEO. A well considered Title tag, video description, tags and sharing buttons. Other elements such UGC (user generated content) could also be incorporated to encourage comment and discussion.

What video formats can i use on my site?

Although there is wide range of video formats available to use, you should use a filetype which is recognised by the major search engines. Google support supports an excellent range of filetypes which include:

.mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm, .flv

However these filetypes must be accessible by HTTP. How will search engines find and index my videos? It can be difficult for search engines to find your video files and this is because of the coarse way in which video is embedded in your site. Thankfully clever search engines bods created some solutions for your videos to be indexed via a video sitemap.

What is a video sitemap?

An XML sitemap can also be used to inform the search engines of the pages of your website. A similar format can be used as a video sitemap to provide help provide rich listings for your videos. This can be referenced from a sitemap index file to let search engine’s like Google know where your sitemap files are.

Here’s an example of a video sitemap entry provided by Google:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
<video:video>
<video:content_loc>http://www.site.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
<video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">http://www.site.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>
<video:description>Get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description>
<video:rating>4.2</video:rating>
<video:view_count>12345</video:view_count>
<video:publication_date>2007-11-05T19:20:30+08:00.</video:publication_date>
<video:expiration_date>2009-11-05T19:20:30+08:00.</video:expiration_date>
<video:tag>steak</video:tag>
<video:tag>meat</video:tag>
<video:tag>summer</video:tag>
<video:category>Grilling</video:category>
<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
<video:duration>600</video:duration>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

The video sitemap allows you to take advantage of vital video meta details.

As this protocol allows you to edit the video’s details it means that if you can create an alternative title for video this maximise on your search potential.

Example:

Let’s say you host a video on a page. The video on the page is about a cat climbing up a wall. Your page’s title tag is ‘Video of a cat climbing up a wall’. By changing the video sitemap code you can reference the video with a different title. The benefit is that you can add alternative keywords to maximise your visibility in the search results. So the video sitemap title could be ‘Hilarious video of cute british shorthair cat scaling a wall’. OK so the example’s not great but you get the point. This is particularly important if you don’t want to out rank your existing content page which hosts the video. By spinning the video’s descriptive title you can make the most of search query variations.

Can I syndicate my videos?

Yes you can. Yahoo initially created the mRSS (media RSS) protocol back in 2004. This protocol allows you to format video files in a search engine friendly format and also means that readers can subscribe to your video feed.

Read more about the exact format of mRSS here. Essentially it allows you to control the Meta credentials of each video including title, video description, video display parameters, ratings, comments and video thumbnail and more.

If this process is too complicated then there are a number of other solutions, such as the very easy to use TubeMogul which will upload your video to over a dozen social video sites at once.

Off-site video hosting

There are a plethora of video services ready and willing to host your video content for free. This has a number pros and cons.

The main pro is you don’t need to worry about hosting costs. The con is that the video promotion will be mostly pointed at the off-site location. So if it were to become popular it’s likely the users will share the link to the off-site hosted URL. This will result in the video hosting provider gaining the link juice. Even with that aside, there are many benefits with off-site video hosting.

It's always a good idea to brand or watermark your videos so wherever they travel, they carry your website’s URL. The mighty Youtube gives the user a lot of options which I will cover in depth in another blog posts. But essentially you can control the video’s title, tags, comments and embedding privileges.

There are many video sites to which you can re-host your video and take advantage of spinning the title to incorporate multiple keyword combination.

What factors contribute to rankings of a Youtube video?

Matt Cutts’ video last year about ranking factors for Youtube included some interesting insights. The title, description and tags will always be a good starting point, but recent technology enhancements mean that Youtube can automatically generate a transcript from speech. Other elements which could also influence ranking apart from video views include:

• Ratings
• Playlist additions
• Flagging
• Embeds
• Shares
• Comments
• Age of video
• Channel views
• Subscribers
• Inbound links (from external domains)

Video SEO is a huge area in itself and I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for more video SEO advice in upcoming posts.

How to use webmaster tools

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:36:00 GMT

Google webmaster tools allows you to examine, manage and optimise your SEO efforts by seeing among other things, crawl errors and the top search terms to your site.

When you sign up and log in to your webmaster tools account you’ll be presented with the Dashboard containing the following info about your site at a glance:

Crawl errors
Top search queries
Keywords
Links to your site
Sitemaps

Crawl Errors

One of the most useful things about Webmaster tools is the ability to find any errors in your site the Google crawler has found.

HTTP

If there are any URLs that the Google crawler finds that come back with HTTP errors then these will be displayed. The most common HTTP error is the 404 not found error.

In Sitemaps

If there are any URLs that are in the Google sitemap but happen to be uncrawlable (i.e. not existing)) they will appear here.

Not followed

No, this doesn’t refer to external links with the “nofollow” tag. It refers to URLs that the Google crawler was not able to crawl completely along with some information about it.

Not found

Any URLs which return a 404 error code are displayed here, together with where the URL is linked from.

You can use this information to make sure your internal links are linking to the correct pages and that the flow of link juice is optimised.

Restricted by robots.txt

This part lists any URLs that the crawler tried to access but was prevented from doing so by robots.txt. It’s not necessarily an error, since there may be some URLs you’d like to restrict crawler access, but it’s worth it to see if there might be any incoming links to restricted URLs for example.

Timed out

If the crawler tries to access a page and receives a time out, it will be displayed here.

Unreachable

If Google is unable to access the URL due to an error such as DNS issues, they will be displayed here.

Top Search Queries

The Top Search Queries section lists keyterms that bring in the highest traffic over a period of time, together with their relative position in the Google SERPs. This is useful for deciding which keyterms to target in your SEO campaigns.

Keywords

This section lists what Google thinks are the most significant keywords on your site. This is generally calculated by the concentration of certain keywords – the more it occurs, the more significant it is.

This is a good method of finding out what Google thinks your site is about, and checking to see if there’s anything wrong. If for example, the term “Gambling” or “Viagra” appears in the list then it may be an indication that your site has been hacked.

Links to your site

This section shows pages on your site Google has found with links to them. The column on the right lists how many incoming links each page on your site has got. If you click on this, you’ll be presented with a list of the URLS which are linking to that particular page.

You could use this knowledge to suggest other pages a certain site might want to link to. For example, if you currently have a few deep pages which a similar site has found useful and linked to them, you could then let the webmaster know of a few other related pages which might be of use to them.

Sitemap

This is where you can upload your Google sitemap and to check on how many URLs Google has indexed compared to how many URLs the sitemap contains. Any errors Google has encountered with the sitemap will also be displayed here.

Site Configuration

Two other very useful features of Webmaster tools are the ability to manage sitelinks and tell Google if your site has changed domain.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks are (if you didn’t already know) the links to deep pages which appear below your site in the SERPs. These links are determined by the Google algorithm as being the most relevant to users.

The sitelinks for the Amazon.co.uk site for example, are “Books”, “DVD” and “Apple iPoD touch 8GB Latest version”. Although you directly can’t tell Google what you want your sitelinks to be, you can choose to remove certain sitelinks through Webmaster tools. You might want to do this if say, the Google algorithm chooses pages you don't want to drive users directly to.

Keep in mind however, that sitelinks will only be displayed for your site if there are 3 or more unblocked sitelinks available so if for example you have a sitelink pointing to your “Contact” page that you may want to block – but if it also means that other two converting sitelinks to your product pages are going to be removed then it’ll be best to leave it up there.

Change of address

If you have to change your domain to a different one, you should first 301 redirect the domain (on a page by page basis if possible) to the new site and also try your best to get incoming links changed to point to the new site by emailing the webmaster and informing him about the new site.

By verifying with Google you are the owner of both the new and old domain, you can help speed up the process of the new pages being listed. Essentially, you are removing some of Google's risk factor that the domain has not been hijacked and redirected to something they don't want listed.

Although these features are the most useful, Webmaster tools still has more features so it’s worth it to explore once you’ve mastered the basics.

SEO Comedy

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:24:00 GMT

In Britain we enjoy a good laugh. Laughter is the best medicine after all. We have a superb line-up of comedy legends which keep our ‘LOL’ levels high. This analytical post shows how great comedy elements can be interpreted through the eyes of an SEO.

Timing

A great punch line is delivered at the right moment and a perfectly timed riposte renders rafts of laughter to your audience.

This comedy element can be compared with your search strategy. Choosing the right moment to promote a product or launch a new service. My previous post explained how to use seasonal search trends to your advantage. It can also be related to picking the right time to target customers via PPC time scheduling.

Knowledge is key

A great comical comeback will consist of hard facts and prior experience.

Keep up to date with news in your industry. Create authoritative content to help forge your website/brand as a thought leader. Knowledge and data can be used to create insightful posts.

Be original

Knock knock. Who's there? Doctor. Doctor who. Jokes are rarely funny when you've heard them time and time again.

From slopjop

Keyword research is an important part of any SEO strategy. Use search volume tools and review existing terms to remain realistic with your goals and objectives.

A good strategy should involve the creation of unique compelling content. If your content’s really good visitors will thank you for it by linking to you - the holy grail of SEO.

Rapier wit

A speedy comeback goes down well for creating a guaranteed laugh.

From casualgamedesign.com

A healthy page load speed will not only reduce visitors clicking back to search results but will make mighty Google happy too. Recent page speed tools show that slow loading pages could impact your rankings. Don't forget the bigger picture of the ever increasing mobile search market too.

Location location location

Know your audience to guarantee the best laugh. People react differently to jokes based on their culture and location. An error of comedic judgement will drop like a lead balloon.

In the same way that some comedians will only ever be successful in their home country ensure your search campaign is targeting the right area. If it suits your company, utilise local business listing and links from other local sources. Also ensure your keywords are focused for your area.

It’s been emotional

Good humour will trigger your emotions. ‘Sitcoms‘ use tragedy, to comedy effect.

What will trigger people to link to your site? A great tactic to increase inbound links is working out who would link to you and what would they want to link to. By identifying what impetus is required to get those all important backlinks you can tailor your content for specific types of people, groups or even an individual. What interests your linkerati.

Visual gags

A popular factor in the arsenal of comedians is the visual gag or sight gag. From Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Mr Bean to The Might Boosh – this has long been a popular genre.

From icanhascheezburger.com

Visually compelling content makes all the difference in the search world too whether it’s the expertly compiled infographic, the use of photography or the ultimate medium of video. Visual media is a big pull of traffic and links. A plethora of photos and videos are shared every day. Think of ways to improve your visual magnet to draw visitors in and keep them coming back for more. Use video, create photo galleries, add interactive tools or games.

Involvement

Great stand-ups use the audience as part of the show. Having had the pleasure to go to a Jimmy Carr gig a few months ago it really adds to the experience.

We all know how this compares to search and the ever growing world of Social Media. Facebook, Twitter and countless others allow your brand to communicate with the outside world and listen to direct feedback. Using Social gadgets in key places on your website help your visitors easily share and promote your content. Social Media may not directly increase your rankings but it’s great for brand awareness and customer feedback.

Why not get inspired with your search strategy and even add some humour to your marketing mix.

Get Listed In Google Local

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:23:00 GMT

Welcome true (SEO) believers to another instalment of Pete’s SEO Corner. This month, we’re going to take a look at local search in Google.

Horrific picture courtesy of cbc.ca

What is local search exactly? Isn’t country level searching specific enough? Well, you can actually get more specific than that, even down to the level of your city or town.

Google displays this in what it has dubbed the “Local business listings”. When searching for a term, you will sometimes find a small box embedded within the search results consisting of a small Google map and listings of various businesses. In the example below, a search for “photographers” yields the following results:

If the keyterm isn’t location specific, like “photographers” as opposed to “London photographers”, Google will attempt to pinpoint your location (known as geo-targeting) based on your IP address so sometimes it doesn’t get it quite right. The screenshot above shows results for London despite the fact we are based in Norwich which is a 2 hour drive away. Google will also geo-target results whilst you are signed in if you register an account with them and list your hometown in your profile.

Only businesses with brick and mortar locations can be submitted, so unless your site has a physical location then you won’t be eligible.

Unscrupulous reporting

Some SEO companies will claim to get your site to “1st page in Google” and charge you £200 for the privilege when all they are basically referring to is a listing in Google Local Business Centre which will take them all of 5 minutes to submit your site.

Although technically your site will be on the 1st page, your site will only be displayed to searchers locally.

While time is indeed money, I’m pretty sure you can take out 5 minutes of your day to save yourself a couple of a hundred quid.

Sign me up!

Submitting your business to Google’s Local Business Centre is easy. Once you log in, clicking on “Add new listing” will take you to a page where you can key in details about your company.

Google maps will automatically move the marker to the relevant location based on your address although you can adjust it manually if it gets it wrong.

Ranking Factors

Just like the regular SERPs, there various factors which will determine how high your site ranks in the local listings. Although, unlike the regular SERPs, building links to it won’t help it much.

Category

The first thing is the category. It’s important that when entering the category, you use the most relevant keyterms for your listing. This is one of the factors which will determine how high your site ranks for a particular keyword so try your best to make the category match the keyterms you are chasing.

When entering in your category, Google will suggest some common categories for your site although you can also specify custom ones. Don’t be too overzealous in your attempt to insert keyterms though, I’m sure you’d agree “cheap photographers in London” won’t pass as a suitable category.

Verification

Once you have entered all your details you will be asked to verify this listing. Google will give you the choice of either confirming the listing in one of three ways, a) via an automated phone call, b) text message or by postcard to your business address. Verifying your listing is important as it is one of the factors which will determine how high your listing ranks.

Reviews

Another ranking factor is the number of reviews your business has. Google compiles them in two ways: from trawling other review sites and also reviews on the Google local listings pages themselves. The number of reviews is a much greater ranking factor than the star rating so it’s a good idea to encourage customers to write a short review of your business.

Citations

In a similar vein to the reviews, the number of citations of your company around the web will affect your ranking. The citations can be seen under the “More about this place” section in your listing. A good way to find good sites for a citation is by looking at your competitor’s listings and find out where their website is being mentioned. The pieces of information which Google looks for in a citation are mentions of your company’s details such as brand name, phone number, address and URL.

Distance

Distance your business is to the searcher is also a factor. Google will rank businesses higher which are closer to the searcher’s location. Unfortunately, this is one aspect of your business you can’t change (easily anyway) but it’s worth it to bear this in mind.

There are many other factors which will affect your listing’s ranking although what we have covered today are the main ones. Now go forth and submit a listing if you haven’t already!

Social media doesn't get rankings

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:49:50 GMT

We have a “Worst Case Scenario Survival” Calendar in the office (we felt it was worth investing in to keep the SEO team safe), and the advice you get for surviving a flood is: “Step 1: Put on a life jacket”...

What? Not much help. Only slightly less helpful than an instruction to “integrate your social media and SEO efforts”.

I don’t think anyone could call me a social media “naysayer” though. I’ll be able to tell my grandkids about the great Digg revolt of 2007, or a the terrible times in 2008 when a duck with wheels turned the web into one big 1987 timewarp trap.

What about when your SEO agency says, “What you need is a highly-targeted, integrated, social media campaign”. It’s a fair enough statement, but it stills makes me cringe.

What interests me though, is one question in particular, “How does social media directly and indirectly affect Google organic rankings right now and in the future?”. There’s a lot of blog posts that deal with this, but a lot of them dance around the subject and don’t give any actionable advice.

“Exactly how ‘big’ is social media?”

That is an actual question I had to field after giving a short introductory workshop in SEO and social media.

If you ask an SEO about social media, they will probably mention Twitter, Digg.com and maybe even Wikipedia while sneering something about “nofollow”. It’s not surprising, as the SEOs are focussing on their incentive, which is to get links. Getting exposure on Digg meant you were providing the fuel for links to the perfect linkerati audience, Twitter gives you access to one of the fastest moving communications platforms on the planet, all you need is the right incentive. Wikipedia? Seems to be getting less edits by a specific type of person now.

If you haven’t seen it, “Is Social Media a Fad” is a great video that gives some interesting statistics on social media usage:

Okay, so I’d probably question a few of those numbers, but for the most part they paint a fairly accurate picture. Let’s go back to our original question, which is actually three separate questions.

How does social media directly affect search rankings right now?

I’m going to come out and say it right away: Links are still king for organic rankings.

For those of you outside the search marketing sphere, saying things like that usually attracts a large horde of SEOs with “content is king” banners and varying sizes of rope.

To stave that crowd off (assuming they’re not already down at the comment box), I’d like to get in that I’m not saying that content is not important, so I’ll add in two caveats to my claim:

1) There’s no point in having rankings without content, as you’re not going to keep people, get repeat visitors or convert those who are on your site to do the action you want them to. I’m looking from a 100% ranking point of view here.

2) Great content is one of the best long-term strategies for link acquisition. However, the rankings are the product of the links you receive from the great content, not directly from the on-page signals of the great content.

Google’s organic ranking algorithm is still powered by links, links and more links. This was painfully proven, when at the end of last year 7 of the 10 first page results for the search term “ugg boots” were spam results. Not only were the sites ranking due to thousands of automated spam links, but the sites themselves weren’t real, they were setup just to steal peoples’ cash.

Link spamming and hacking sites to make them rank are still an unfortunate reality. These sites didn’t have integrated social media campaigns. They get links, filthy ones - but they rank. They'll get removed when someone hand-reviews them, but the point is that the algorithm ranks them above many "geniune" sites.

So, from a technical standpoint, it is still possible to rank sites well in Google without nail-bitingly good content and social media campaigns.

Getting links in an ethical way without creating content and engaging in social media is incredibly time-consuming and probably not the best option, but we can at least learn from the above examples that social metrics aren’t being used to any massive extent within Google’s ranking algorithm currently.

How does social media indirectly affect search rankings right now?

As an SEO, you’ll spend most of your time at glamorous parties and you’ve got to know how to dance.

Click for a larger image

The first thing any SEO will notice about this search result is that 6 out of the 10 results are social media sites with user-generated content. While you could argue the quality, the web is very quickly “filling up” (when will it be full?) with user-generated content, so it’s not surprising that it’s appearing with higher frequency in search results.

Google’s received a lot of flak recently over its “Vince” (the brand one) and “Caffeine” (the, um infrastructure one?) updates and resulting poor search results.

It’s fair to say that the Vince update was a lot to do with connecting known brands with certain keywords, as is sometimes now evident in the “related searches”. Hold that thought for the moment, we’re going to jump onto Twitter, but we’ll be back here in a second.

Both Bing and Google announced deals with Twitter last year, sparking lots of debate about real time search.

Traditionally, search engines haven’t been very good at delivering real-time search results, the best thing you could do was subscribe to major news sites (or later, Twitter) to catch the news before it was indexed in the chronologically sorted and not overly intelligent Google News.

Search engines generally deal with three types of queries: navigational, transactional and informational. It makes sense that some of these types of query are best handled in the “brand” world and some in the “social” world.

The social side of the web is great for up to the second information and it’s also great for finding out people’s opinions, thoughts and feelings. What social media isn’t great at, is providing easy to digest facts. While the web-crowd can normally sniff out the truth in any situation, it’s hard for search engines to take this social content and break it down into useful chunks of information that can benefit their algorithm.

Information supplied by brands is (usually) on the other side of the coin. Apart from a legal obligation to accurately describe their products or services, it tends to be structured in a more usable format for search engines.

Although there are notable exceptions on both sides of the fence, Google does spend a lot of time machine sorting “unstructured” information on the web and putting into boxes. While this isn’t perfect, it’s certainly impressive when you start playing around with products like Google Squared.

As Google sniffs out the intent of more and more searches (mainly via their personalisation data, which I’m not going to touch in this article), they will get better at knowing what proportion of vanilla, blended, social, news results to give the user – always taking them 1 step closer to the information they want to find.

If you’re doing SEO and social results are appearing for your targeted terms and you’re only trying to link build – you’re making your own life difficult.

You still haven’t mentioned good content! (and some crystal ball gazing)

There are 1.5 million URLs shared on Facebook every day and at least 27 URLs shared on Twitter every week.

While a few years ago, many of the social hubs of the web were mainly controlled by cartels of high-powered users and marketers, we’ve seen a definite shift of just about anybody being able to get their share of the limelight.

With such widespread adoption of Facebook and Twitter, in many cases it’s finding the pire to light a match under. Some people specialise in the creation of such content and are very good at it.

Traditionally, from a purist SEO point of view, you’d say “brilliant, great content = links from web pages = good Google rankings”. However, why bother posting to your blog when you can whack a URL into Twitter from your browser, so share the link on Facebook? It’s a lot less effort and the end result to the user is their friends and contacts will see it immediately and can decide themselves whether to pass it on.

This presents Google and other search engines with something of a problem. There is a shift in how people are linking and the resulting link graph on the web. That can put you in a bit of a sticky situation when your algorithm is based around comparisons of how web pages link together.

I attended last year’s SEOmoz Advanced Training Series (I'd recommend this event as one of the better search get togethers) and Rand Fishkin dropped the line, “Have you ever noticed that a URL that gets ReTweeted a lot ranks really well?”. I won't comment where he was precisely alluding to, but some people took this to mean that Google is currently using Tweets directly in its ranking algorithm. However, looking at popular tweets, you can see they tend to get a lot of followed backlinks from the hundreds of sites that regurgitate information from Twitter, which I believe is likely the cause.

I do think on a backlink level, you can break down the difference between “trust” inferred by links and “popularity” but I do believe Google is going to extend into using other metrics outside of the pure web page link graph.

Planning for the future

“SEO is dead” That’s what people have been saying for the last [insert a year of your choice] years. These changes may have an impact on the techniques that SEOs employ, but while a machine is making the rankings there are always going to be factors you can optimise to help your site get discovered in search results. So no, SEO isn’t dead – far from it, it’s just requiring a little more creativity.

One important thing I think a lot of people don’t think about is that Google can’t just suddenly flick a switch and introduce a new metric that hugely impacts their rankings, the risk is way too high that they’d totally screw up their search results and lose searchers in their droves (not to mention put a lot of people out of business). Their updates have to be done in tiny tweaks while the effect is tested and feedback is gathered.

Let’s have a takeaway for 2010:

1) SEO is not dead – far from it

2) Links are what get rankings – so stay focussed

3) You’re going to waste your time with social media unless you’re adding value.

4) Have a think about why you want to be involved in social media.

5) Great content is great at getting links. “Ok” content, isn’t.

6) There’s no strong evidence Google is *directly* using social networking sites (such as Twitter) in their ranking algorithm.

7)That said, there is a strong chance Google will look at using social metrics to give their link popularity algorithm some more padding

8) Social media sites with user generated content can be great places to get exposure and have some easy presence within search results.

Hopefully this rant hasn't come across as too negative for the social media crowd out there. The point I really want to get home is that while there is an (ever-growing) overlap between the two worlds, a lot of people are losing focus of what matters to their SEO campaign, which will always be visibility and rankings.

Conversely, I will be using Twitter to promote this article and hopefully I'll get a link or two.

Paperchase - A company with a big problem

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:59:46 GMT

Funnily enough, I was just writing a lengthly post about social media and SEO when the Paperchase storm overflowed into my Twitter feed.

If you've missed the story, the full post is here (which currently ranks #3 in Google.co.uk for "paperchase").

The basic story: Indie designer making a living blogging and selling designs, large company copies design and sells, while ignoring her requests to move the product from sale.

This is the claim - and it's certainly causing Paperchase some big problems.

Since I've typed these few lines, there have been over 300 new tweets about Paperchase, as well as negative reviews on their Amazon page.

Many Twitter users are now saying they plan to boycott Paperchase unless the situation is resolved and the artist paid for their work.

It will be interesting to see how Paperchase handle this situation.

Update: Paperchase have joined Twitter to answer concerns. They claim the design was bought from an outside agency.

How to get free advertising for your non-profit organisation

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:19:00 GMT

The internet has turned out to be a wonderful thing for non-profits and charities. By setting up a website you can provide the public with unlimited amounts of information about who you are and what you do, wherever in the world they may be.

Sites like JustGiving and BMyCharity allow easy (but unfortunately not free!) online fundraising, which in many cases has transformed the traditional ‘sponsored X’ into something that is far more wide reaching and more beneficial for the charities involved.

Social media is something that (in general) works better for non-profits than for corporations because, for maybe the first time in history, it’s about being remarkable and worthy rather than whoever has the largest advertising budget! Whether it’s a Facebook page or a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile or a Youtube channel, non-profits are flocking to social media to engage with their audiences.

Here’s something you may not have heard. Did you know that Google give out tens of thousands of pounds worth of free advertising to non-profits every month? And that it’s surprisingly easy to apply for a slice of this free exposure pie?

I’m going to let you in to one of the most unknown opportunities for charities online – Google Grants.

Google Grants are awarded to non-profit organisations in areas that Google are interested in supporting – yes this is a private company and grants are entirely at their discretion. The application process is fairly straight forward however, so there is no harm in applying if there is any chance of being awarded the grant.

Requirements for a Google Grant

• You must have a website that adverts can send people to.
• Your website must not generate revenue via advertising, for example banner adverts or AdSense.
• Your organisation must be a registered charity (by the Charity commission in England and Wales, Scottish Charity Regulator or the Inland Revenue)

There are more detailed requirements which can be reviewed at the relevant Google Grants page.

What do you get?

• Up to $10,000 a month worth of free clicks from the Google AdWords advertising platform.
• Allowed to bid upto $1 per click, on relevant keywords
• Use these free clicks to advertise for donations, fundraising, awareness, volunteering or other charitable causes.
• If you consistently spend the $10,000 a month grant, you can apply for an increase to $40,000 a month!
• Google AdWords campaign is unmanaged by Google, all responsibility for performance is with the organisation.

As you can see, the potential benefit here is huge. What organisation would turn down the opportunity to get a large amount of free advertising, to be used in whatever way best helps you (subject to restrictions, of course!), and to get this every month?

What's the catch?

So, what’s the catch I hear you say? Well... none, really. The application process is fairly painless, although it can take a few months to hear if you’ve been accepted or not.

If accepted, you’re given the keys to a relatively large spend advertising account with no assistance in setting up adverts, or knowing how to gain the most benefit from the opportunity you’ve been given. That can be a bit daunting!

Can I get help?

Thought you'd never ask! Further have now helped several organisations obtain Google Grants and use them effectively to generate awareness, donations and volunteers from around the UK.

If you'd like to talk to us about the process or require assistance, give us a call. We can especially help with the following areas:

• Completing a successful application

• Researching potential areas to target and keywords to bid on

• Setup and intitial optimisation of AdWords campaign, with training so that your organisation can manage the campaign ongoing

• ..or ongoing management by Further to maxmise the benefits of your AdWords advertising.

Further can offer paid search services to registered non-profit organisations at a reduced rate, please contact us for more details.

Click here to visit the Google Grants website, where you can read case studies, application requirements, and ultimately apply for a Google Grant.

Choosing a search agency. 10 simple questions to distinguish the 'dream teams' from the 'donkeys'!

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:51:00 GMT

When selecting a new search agency there are, of course, the basic questions that most clients will ask. You know the sort, those normal questions that agencies are expecting and can prepare for - about things like ‘proven case studies’, ‘client list’, ‘client testimonials’, ‘ethical standards’ ‘in-house or outsourced’......

These questions alone, though, won’t always be enough for you to distinguish the men from the boys, the cream from the cowboys, the dream teams from the donkeys.

What you could really do with, we figured, is a few tricky ones in your armoury that will really get under the skin of the proposition, a few killer questions that just might reveal those beads of perspiration on the brow of even the most confident of pitch presenters.

So here goes, our 10 questions that are designed to do exactly that. We hope you find it useful. And just by way of giving you a benchmark, we have taken the liberty of briefly explaining how we at Further approach each of these areas.

1. “How do you report your results to your clients?”??

Communication between search agencies and clients has never been the best. We hear horror stories from clients who have dealt with other ‘agencies’ in the past all the time. ?Some have never met, let alone had a call from, the agency once the work has been signed.? (Yes, sadly it's true.) Others have never had any kind of regular reporting to rely on. Yet it is important that you know exactly how your campaign is performing. Vitally important. Therefore, we’d strongly advise you ask this question and get an agreement on reporting before signing anything contractually.???

At Further we email every client every month with;
i) a full dashboard report detailing traffic numbers and its source by search term and search engine
ii) a rankings report which shows current ranking position for each keyterm you are chasing compared with last month’s position.?
iii) a Summary written by the SEO team explaining the progress during the month and on the revenue gained from our organic search activity.??

As of March 2010, all Further clients will also be able to access ‘live’ reports 24/7 which detail progress across the period of your campaign, right down to the value of each keyword.??

We believe SEO agencies should not simply be judged on rankings, but on the ROI they achieve for their clients. After all, it can be very easy to gain top positions for some terms, but if those terms do not convert for you, then there is little value coming back to you. You are still paying your SEO agency, yet receiving no enquiries or revenue.

?Ideally, when working with ecommerce sites we will have full analytics access, which allows us to report on return on investment so you can instantly assess the value of our expertise.

???2. “Who will be physically carrying out our work?”?

In some agencies you may not meet the person who actually does the work, just the sales person.? That way, you'll never know whether you are receiving senior or junior level attention, or if your work is simply being outsourced.

At Further we have what we believe is a more client-friendly structure. There is the SEO professional who is responsible for your work, and then there is your Account Manager who is there to look after you on a day to day basis. We are happy for you to meet both of the people who are responsible for making your account successful.

All of the Further SEO team are experienced professionals with a proven track record in search, so you know the profitability of your account will not be in the hands of a Junior.

???3. “How many clients do they handle per month?”?

The SEO professional who carries out your work will more often than not have other clients he or she will be responsible for. However, if the agency has 200 clients and only 10 SEO professionals, then chances are you won’t be getting a great deal of attention, no matter what their proposal states.?? Do the sums!

At Further each SEO professional will have a small number of accounts they are responsible for as we are conscious of the need for every client to have the necessary time spent on their account in order for us to hit their targets and retain clients longer term.

Another added advantage of working with Further is that each account will also benefit from the input of other members of the team from time to time, in order to bring new innovative solutions to the account to keep you ahead of your competition.

??4. “What is the strategy?”

?Real strategy will be a term that is alien to some search providers. ?However, the only way an agency can achieve your goals is to apply some science. ?They should know about your business, your objectives, your competition for search positions. By researching and mapping you against your competitors, they should be able to work out what it will take to hit your target. The resulting strategy should outline the activity month by month and indicative expectations from the campaign. That strategy should be bespoke to you, and not an off-the-shelf programme.???

5. “How does the monthly cost relate to your input?”?

Often your proposal will state a monthly SEO retainer cost. Don’t be afraid to ask exactly how this is split down to ensure you are getting full value from your investment.?

At Further, we ensure that if we say your account requires, for example, 6 days a month, then ?it will be worked on by the SEO team for at least 6 days a month. The day to day services of the Account Manager are included in this retainer cost and do not eat into your SEO budget. We invest in Client Services because it leads to longer, stronger, closer client relationships, so it is in our interests to do so.?

?6. “Are you working for anyone else in my sector?”?

On one hand it may sound great if an agency is already working within your sector, especially if they have performed well as it will give you the reassurance that they know your industry.? But while knowing and working in your industry is great, you have to be very careful if they are currently working with a direct competitor of yours and chasing the same keyterms. After all, there can only be one No.1! ?

Unless you have an agreement for keyword exclusivity, then this is not an ethical situation and one you should think very carefully about. ?So, in summary, it can sometimes be a help if the agency knows your industry, and if they have had a good track record with a past client who is a competitor. However, beware if they are currently contracted to a keyword-comparative competitor. You can do without a provider with split loyalties.

??7. “How often would we meet to review strategy and results?”?

Any agency worth its salt will offer its clients face-to-face meetings at set points during the campaign to discuss results, activity, changes in the market place and to agree any new direction in the strategy which may be required. Again, this is an area you should interrogate the agency on and ensure it is part of your agreement, because it is crucial that all stakeholders are understanding of the progress and the strategy being followed.

At Further we always offer client review meetings and the frequency of these meetings will depend on the nature of the campaign and client. Some clients meet with us twice a year, others every three or four months.???

8. “ How many of your clients have been with you longer than a year?”?

Admittedly search, because it is relatively new in the relative scheme of things and has an element of the intangible about it, has a tendency for churn. Love it as we do, it is admittedly not as sexy or real as a clever, beautifully shot double page spread in colour with your logo on it - a masterpiece that you can proudly show around the office.

Having said that, there’s churn and there’s churn - and some SEO agencies are far better at pleasing and retaining their clients than others. Whether it is via results alone, or client service and communication allied to performance, client retention is a pretty fair way to distinguish between agencies.?

At Further 82% of clients who came on board before December 2008 are still with us over a year later.

???9.”If we don’t like you, when can we get out?”?

We come across potential new clients who are ‘locked’ into expensive contracts long after the relationship has broken down irrevocably. Is this really fair on both parties? ?

At Further we look at things differently. We believe we perform better when we enjoy healthy, open and honest relationships with our clients. Therefore, as SEO often requires an initial few months before its performance can be measured properly, we offer clients the opportunity to cancel at pre-set points.??

10. “Will you guarantee us rankings positions?

”?The trick question, of course.? While we would all love to say 'yes' to this, no agency on this planet can guarantee? organic search rankings. If they say they can, then throw them out straight away, there's no more to say.

Just maybe this should have been the first question! It could save you a lot of wasted time!

Using seasonal search trends to boost your SEO

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:18:40 GMT

We all know that throughout the year keyword search volumes will go up and down. This is all perfectly normal and in most cases perfectly logical. A number of factors influence these trends and they vary from sector to sector. Planning for these seasonal trends is worth bearing in mind with regards to your search strategy.

Retail companies will generally be well ahead of the game with regards to seasonal trends, for instance increasing staff and stock levels to match the increase in demand. Other classic factors influencing search volumes include pay day, the economy, news and the weather.

Stay frosty and alert

In one way or another all of us in the UK were (and still are!) affected by the 'The Big Freeze'. I’m a big fan of Winter which has even gained me the title of ‘Winter Man’ in the office. This love of the snow has precipitated into my Twitter activity. It wasn’t long before snow report tweets were firing off amongst the UK twitterati helped by the popular hashtag - #uksnow. A clever bod known as Ben Marsh developed a Google Maps mashup which incorporates snow reports via Twitter status updates. It’s easy to use and only requires a simple tweet format: Add the #uksnow hashtag, add the first part of your post code and then add a rating out of 10. The results from these tweets were then plotted live on to a map of the UK.

Photo credit: (NEODAAS/University of Dundee) Photo: PA

Snow SEO joke

This simple concept has provided a huge boost to Ben’s link credentials. His new incarnation of the snow mashup found at uksnow.benmarsh.co.uk currently beholds an impressive Google Page Rank of 6. A quick look at this subdomain’s 3k+ inbound links shows a diverse range from high authority blogs and online newspapers such as the Guardian.

Photo credit: andriux-uk

Vision decision

It’s time to think ahead. How can your website take advantage of upcoming seasonal trends? Why not take a look at your keywords in Google Insights for a detailed view of trends. This application provided by the search giant allows you to look at search trends by country and also provides an overlay of news events. The tool also allows you to view related search terms and rising searches too.

Photo credit: ConstructionMovement

Caveat emptor

Creating this buzz isn’t easy though. Link baiting as it’s known the search industry is a fine art which relies on many different factors. These include knowing the right people, impeccable timing and even analysing the psychological reasons why people will want to link to you. Your initiatives don’t have to solely rely on a buzz worthy link bait idea, you could also create and promote content in preparation for the next ramp in searches.

Why not get in touch with Further today to see how we can combine our knowledge of development, link building and Social Media to help give your website a seasoned boost.

Have you seen this man?

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:37:18 GMT

Chances are this man may seem oddly familiar to you. Whether it's the reassuring glow of the perma-tan, the designer stubble, or the winning smile – something might ring a bell.

For those of you not familiar with this man, may I introduce 'stock man', hereafter known as 'Keith'.

Keith is perhaps one of the most commonly used stock photo models. He will be instantly recognisable to any graphic designer who has undertaken picture image research. He can often be found as an 'attractive young businessman' but can also be seen at home as a 'family man' as well as part of an 'attractive couple.' Keith can also be seen scuba diving, partying, having a massage, as well has countless other poses. He is a true polymath and man of our times.

Keith can be found plastered across micro-stock photography sites such as iStock, Fotolia and Comstock. These sites are often used by designers as they much cheaper than traditional libraries. Images will typically cost between one and ten pounds as opposed to perhaps several hundred pounds from Getty Images for a similar shot.

This is not to say that the photographs of Keith are of poor quality. They are actually of a very high commercial standard and stand up against anything from there more expensive libraries. The photographer is a chap called Yuri Arcurs who is otherwise known as the 'world's leading microstock photograper'. He apparently sells over 1 million individual licences a year.

Yuri prides himself on having a 'unique and recognisable style'. So that equates to over a million 'unique' designs that use his photography each year.

Most clients will stipulate that they want a professional looking website. Its a fair request, but should really be a given when employing an agency. A generic 'professional' online presence will only take you so far.

If you have faith in the value of your brand, and what it says about your business, you should think very carefully about who you use to implement this through design. A good agency will work hard to ensure that your brand is not watered down through the lazy use of imagery or through lack of time spent creating a unique presence.

I'm going to stick my neck out here to say that if your website/brochure/leaflet has Keith in it then the people doing your design probably aren't working hard enough for you. It's a bit like looking around a house you think you might buy and seeing where the owner has put a shelf up 'on the wonk'. It's not a deal-breaker in itself, but it makes you wonder what else they have done shoddily.

I would love to know if you have seen Keith in your travels around the internet. I have found a few examples to get us started and would love to know where you have spotted him.

Duplicate Content and the Canonicalisation Tag

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:25:00 GMT

Duplicate content on sites is a problem which can be easily avoided yet still occurs on many sites on the web. One of the most commonly affected are database driven e-commerce sites with many products in the store. The problem occurs when a product is sometimes placed into more than one category, creating different webpages with duplicate content.

Google

Google doesn’t like webpages with very similar content. When the search engine spider crawls two webpages with very similar content, the search engine will display only the one webpage it deems the most relevant.

Google: Not happy at the duplicates

Since creating content takes time and a little bit of imagination, some unscrupulous webmasters will try to manipulate their search engine rankings by deliberately duplicating content across multiple webpages or domains. Sites that host 100% duplicate content like this usually get penalised in some way with a hit taken to the site’s ranking in the SERPs. It is important to note however that sites with bits of duplicate content are not put under any kind of penality, the duplicate pages are simply filtered out of search results.

Google seeks to deliver the most relevant and useful information for users and there is little point in them showing 5 pages in the top 10 which contain the same information, if the first page didn't have the information your looking for, why burn more SERP space?

Another possible problem is that if people start deep-linking to your webpages you run the risk of splitting incoming links between the two pages, which.

What you can do

There are a few things you can do to combat this:

Site Structure

The best way is simply to change the site structure so that you remove all the multiple URLs and only place the product under one category. An example is if you had two webpages about selling red felt tip pens:

http://www.example.com/pens/red-felt-tip-pen.html
http://www.example.com/products/colours/red/red-felt-tip-pen.html

In this example, the red felt tip pen page is categorised under “pens” and also under “products>colours>red”. What you could do here is remove the categories in the second URL however this isn’t always feasible and doing so may impact usability.

301 Redirect

Another way is to choose the most relevant page and then 301 redirect all the other duplicate pages to that page. This way, users who visit the other pages will be presented with the 301 destination page. Also, if there are links coming into the other pages then some link equity will be passed over. Although, if there are a lot of links you are still better off getting the site owners to link to the new URL.

Canonicalisation Tag

Last year, Google released a new meta tag called the Canonicalization tag. So coming back to the example of a site selling red felt tip pens but the same page has multiple URLs:

http://www.example.com/pens/red-felt-tip-pen.html
http://www.example.com/products/colours/red/red-felt-tip-pen.html
http://www.example.com/products/pens/red-felt-tip-pen.html
http://www.example.com/products?category=pens&color=red
http://example.com/shop/index.php?product_id=21&highlight=red+pens&cat_id=1&sessionid=99

In this example, the shortest URL and also the easiest to remember and type in is the first one. If we want to tell Google that this page is the one we want displayed in the SERPs we would write the canonicalization tag as:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/pens/red-felt-tip-pen.html">

This little snippet of code goes in the <head> section of the webpages with the duplicate content and basically tells the search engine that the specified page is the page which should be shown in the search engines. This removes the risk of being penalised or having multiple search results showing what is essentially the same page under different URLs.

These are the main things you can do to get around issues with duplicate content. The Google Webmaster tools help section covers them in more detail.

Spark Something - Or Don't

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:31:00 GMT

I was reminded this week of the Sony Ericsson TV Spot campaign (watch it here) back in October for their Satio model. The TV advert was a colourful and inspirational ad, by Saatchi & Saatchi with the call to action, "Search 'Spark Something'".

At its height, it drew around 20,000 UK searches near the end of October.

"Spark Something" search trend on Google

Here's the problem. Even now, searching for "spark something" shows that Sony Ericsson has almost no search visibility whatsoever.

"Spark Something" in Google - Sony Ericsson ranks #10

"Spark Something" in Bing - Sony Ericsson doesn't rank on the first page

"Spark Something" in Yahoo - A number 1 - hurray!

The situation was even worse during the peak of the campaign, with Sony Ericsson securing no search traction whatsoever.

Interestingly, Google and Yahoo have respectively ranked two different pages from Sony Ericsson. It looks like Google's got the right one and I'm personally quite suspicious about the page Yahoo has ranked.

While it's common knowledge that meta tags don't help you rank in Google, they certainly affect how many users are going to click through to your site and Sony let this appear in their search snippet:

Search snippet from Google

I wouldn't like to guess how much money the TV spot took to create, film, edit, produce and air, but I'm disappointed (probably like many searchers) that the SEO requirement was totally overlooked. The only call to action in the advert is for people to search and Sony Ericsson just aren't there, even now.

What could Sony Ericsson have done? I'm quite confident that anyone with even a basic knowledge of SEO could have got this page to rank well, a start would have been optimising the title tag (or just a vaguely sensible title with a vague nod to the advert would have been a start) and sorting out their meta data to let users know they've found the right place. Any developer worth their salt would have taken care of this as a matter of course; it's more of a usability issue than SEO.

I'm confident Sony Ericsson could have achieved a number 1 ranking without any link building, as well. With their weighty homepage, a link pointing to their "Spark Something" campaign with correct anchor text would have most likely done the trick.

I'm sure it's not the last time we'll see example of search-action advertising going wrong, but it's painful to see a campaign fail when 15 minutes of SEO work could have kept it on course.

New Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking Code

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Rob recently posted a piece about the importance of page load time, and offered up a range of useful advice and tips as to how you might work to improve your user experience by working to improve your site.

Interestingly, Google has recently delved into its pocket and pulled out one small and charitable penny as a nod to those struggling with this issue. Specifically, they have introduced an alternative version of the Google Analytics tracking code which will at least help those with fact-packed pages to record more accurately the visitors that do patiently wait for the reward that their pages seek to share...

The New Google Analytics Async Code?

Earlier this month Google announced the BETA launch of the new Asynchronous (Async) Analytics code. For the non-developers out there the benefit of this code relates to the page load time. To date, the guidelines for code implementation meant that the existing GA.JS version would sit at the bottom of your html, so that it would not slow the load time of the webpage content. However, if a visitor passed from one page to another prior to the entire page loading it was possible that tracking would not capture their visit.

The Async code, as the name suggests, provides a solution to this issue because it enables the tracking code to be loaded in parallel with the loading of the web page. This means that it is now possible to place the tracking code higher in the html without impeding the user experience, and thus ensure that you capture visits you may have otherwise missed.

Do I have to implement this code immediately?

No. The Async code provides Google Analytics users with an alternative tracking methodology, the existing code will continue to work. The urgency in implementing the Async code lies with the performance of your web pages. Evaluate whether page load time is an issue on your site (do your web pages have lots of content slowing the load time, or do you have exceptionally long pages on your site?).

If page load time is an issue for you, then implementing Async code is a solution that it will be beneficial for you to turn your attention to sooner rather than later. Bear in mind though that if you have E-Commerce tracking on your site this will also need re-working.

Conversely, if your web pages perform well with fast load times you may not need to rush to implement the Async code immediately, remember, the Async code has been developed as an alternative tracking solution to solve a specific issue, it does not necessarily hold inherent, immediate value. Factor the transition to Async code into your overall web development plans, and if you are working on a number of sites, ensure the new code is your default choice hereon in for the purposes of best practice.

Why page speed is important - SEO for 2010

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:38:00 GMT

As users, we all get frustrated when a website seems to take an age to load. With broadband now so common and speeds increasing all the time, we expect websites to load with near instantaneous speed.

When was the last time you checked how quickly your site loads? As a new user I mean, with no images, css or external scripts cached, and on a standard 512k broadband connection.

Why fast loading web pages are important

PPC
'Landing page quality score' has long been a factor in overall quality score for AdWords, which helps determine how much you have to pay per click and where you'll appear in results. As a slow loading website provides a poor user experience, it's reasonable that slow load times will negatively affect this quality score, costing you more money.

SEO
At the recent PubCon, Google's Matt Cutts (head of web spam) stated that page load time may well be a ranking factor in 2010. Whilst this is not likely to be a major factor, it is likely that sites which take unusually long to load will experience reductions in rankings.

Conversion rates
It's common sense to expect that a site which loads slowly may be negatively affecting conversion rates. Users get frustrated, and may not complete their purchase or enquiry.. or just click back to search results if a page is taking ages to appear. Recent research by Forrester suggests that this issue is becoming ever more important for website owners.

• 47% of consumers expect to see a page loaded in 2 seconds or less
• 40% would abandon their visit if page load takes more than 3 seconds
• 52% stated that quick page loading is important to their site loyalty

and when faced with a poor online shopping experience,

• 79% are less likely to purchase from that site again
• 27% are less likely to buy from that retailer off-line

In summary, the speed in which users can view and navigate your website is becoming ever more important. Websites which have a poor user experience because of slow loading pages are potentially missing out on search traffic and sales.

What causes slow loading times?

Hosting
An important business website hosted on a cheap, shared hosting account is often a false economy. Shared hosting, especially with cheap providers who often overfill their servers, means that you are sharing resources with an unknown amount of other websites. Some of these may be experiencing high traffic or be using scripts that monopolise server resources. If your website generates revenue for your business, it deserves to be hosted on a server which will deliver performance.

Location of hosting is also worth bearing in mind. The nearer a server is located physically in relation to your customers, the less distance and fewer 'hops' the data has to travel to appear on their screens. This may well mean that, for UK businesses, a UK based hosting provider is the best option. Although often cheaper, a server based in the US (especially the west coast) will normally add a second or more to every request a browser in the UK makes.

Page size and included files
Obviously, the larger a page is in terms of kilobytes, the longer it will take to send to visitors. Page size can be reduced by removing unnecessary content, including HTML comments, and by optimising code - for example using CSS based layouts instead of HTML tables.

Included files also add directly to page load times, whether they be images, CSS stylesheets, Flash movies or scripts such as JavaScript. These can all be optimised to reduce filesize, but it's also worth bearing in mind that every request for an external file causes it's own delays to loading time due to a new request being sent to the server. This can be minimised by using techniques such as 'CSS Sprites' for image rollovers, combining multiple CSS files into one and combining and 'minimising' external JavaScript files.

Tools to test and improve loading time

Simple
Web Page Analyzer
Easy to use web tool which tests a page loading time and presents results and recommendations, along with overall load time on different connection speeds. Bear in mind that this website is based in the US, so if your website is hosted in the UK the loading times will be inflated slightly by the distances involved.

Image Optimizer
Manually upload images, and Image Optimizer will return a smaller image with similar quality. Simple, but slower than a solution such as Google Page Speed (below)

Medium
Google Page Speed
This tool from Google is a plugin for FireBug, which means you'll need the FireFox browser and the Firebug plugin installed to use it. It's well worth doing, as you can analyse your page and Page Speed will present a comprehensive list of issues along with suggestions. It even does some optimisation for you, for example providing links to optimised versions of your images where appropriate!

Advanced
CSS Sprites
Combining several images into one and then using CSS to display the part needed on your page can cut down on total image size, as well as effectively reducing the amount of requests each page load requires. Getting the CSS working 100% and the sprite image laid out effeciently can be tricky, but is very worthwhile if your design uses lots of small navigational images. csssprites.com is a website which will automate some of this for you, but it appears to be currently down for maintenance.

More resources
Google have recently launched a collection of resources and information about improving site speed. It can be found at http://code.google.com/speed/

Yahoo also have a good reference and tips for optimising site speed at http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/

[Update 2:25pm] Google have just posted about a new tool within Google Webmaster Tools which presents site specific feedback including, interestingly, aggregated data on actual load times of your visitors using the Google toolbar. With the amount of noise Google have been making about site speed over the last week, it seems evident that they are taking the issue of site speed very seriously.

Development Mistakes That Affect SEO

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:30:40 GMT

Here is a small array of developer mistakes which could have big complications to your site’s performance in the search engines. Web design and development companies all work in different ways with some having more or less SEO knowledge than others. And some simply make a lot of mistakes. Below is a guide of some of the ways your site can be affected from these errors.

The noindex, nofollow meta tag
There are a number of ways you can inadvertently fail with this tag especially when getting your brand new website off the ground. One of the ways of falling at the first hurdle is the often overlooked meta robots directive. The meta robots tag in question is one which tells all search engines to not index and not follow the links on your pages. Meta tags provide a range of information to search engine spiders to provide information about the page.

The noindex, nofollow meta tag looks like this: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" />

The noindex part basically means ‘don’t index this page’. One of the goals of good search marketing strategy is to ensure all your pages are indexed. This is particularly important for large sites as this will help with your long tail traffic (unless you’re tactically removing various pages - see Pete’s search engine spider post for more info).

A number of dynamic websites are built with global includes which allow you to easily control parts of your site from one file. If this line of code is inadvertently added to your header file on every page then it will affect your entire site.

The nofollow part turns all links on the page into nofollowed links. Various (and free) online SEO tools, highlight nofollowed links in the browser by changing the appearance of the link. Not allowing your own site to pass relevance to other pages is also a big hindrance with your search engine rankings.

photo credit: leoboiko

Extra care should be taken when switching from testing to live versions of your site – double checking meta tags in header includes.

Temporary Web Space
Many web development companies will begin building their websites in a test environment. This differs from company to company. Some companies will work on local servers which allow testing of the site. Some web hosting solutions will come with their own temporary web space. If you’re using this temporary (but live) space for site testing be careful. I’ve seen in the past where a client has been allowed to populate their CMS on the temporary web space. Once this goes live it’s been uploaded to it’s correct live location. The problem being if there’s still rogue URLs pointing to the temporary web space URL’s then the web spiders will follow these links and start indexing the temporary site. This can cause huge duplicate content issues.

There are a number of ways to fix this issue. Add your temporary web space to the various Webmaster Tools services from the major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo! and Bing) and request removal of all URLs. Also add the tag to the header of each page. Another way of checking once your site goes live is to use ye olde Xenu Link Sleuth. This piece of software will crawl your website similar to a search engine robot and will alert you of any issues on the site such as broken links.

photo credit: Kapungo

Live development testing environment
There are other issues where the meta noindex, nofollow tag can cause problems. Some web developers will work on their live testing site with the noindex, nofollow tag applied. This isn’t bad working practise but it does mean you need to take extra caution. However it can be all too easy to forget to remove this when the all important ‘go live’ deadline arrives.

photo credit: Titanas

Once again proceed with caution when putting your site live.

Robots.txt
Never underestimate the power of the robots.txt file. This little fella can cause problems without you even knowing it. It sits in the root of your web folder and it kindly advises the major search engine spiders what content on the site it has it has permission to crawl. It’s not required to have this for your site, but it does come in handy for disallowing bots to areas of your which you don’t want crawled. The extreme of this being:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

photo credit: kevindooley

These 2 small lines of code above tell the search engine robots to not crawl your content. This file can easily and inadvertently be uploaded from the testing environment to your live location of your site. You’ll have some time to rectify this issue if it goes unspotted. After this file goes live search engines, like Google, will slowly start de-indexing your pages depending on the amount of pages you have on your site and the amount that’s currently indexed. The implications of losing not just your deep pages but your home page can be very destructive to your existing and future search traffic.

So how can you avoid all these errors? Firstly make sure you've employed a web agency with a handle on SEO or get someone in to oversee the build. Make sure measures are in place to avoid unauthorised changes to site files. Use a browser plugin which highlights nofollowed links can also help make you aware of problems. Failing that, consider a professional SEO audit to see how you can improve the usability and search effectiveness of your site.

Search Engine Spiders

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:40:00 GMT

In previous articles we looked at ways to optimize your site to make it rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This month, we will look at the force behind what makes your site rank – the search engines themselves and how we can use this knowledge to make your sites rank better.

How do search engines work?

The first thing search engines have to do is to create a database of all the web pages on the web. In order to do that, they use programs called web spiders (or web robots) to follow links on web pages and create an index of them. Search engines will aim to serve up the most relevant pages to users and as we covered in previous articles, there are SEO techniques which will help your site rank better.

Sitemaps

One of the first things you need to do is ensure that the search engines are able to crawl your site effectively. One way to do this is to ensure your site has good site architecture. That is, ensuring that users can access the most important pages through the links near the homepage of your site. For example, if your site is selling trainers it would be bad form to bury the trainers product pages five links away from the home page. If your site is user-friendly, it will naturally also be web crawler friendly as well, since crawlers, like users will follow links to get to pages.

Another good method is to use a sitemap which is basically a list of pages of a website which are accessible to search engines.

Sitemaps come in two forms: HTML and XML.

HTML Sitemap

An HTML sitemap is the older version of sitemap which is a page on your website which is linked to from the homepage. Search engines can then access this sitemap from the homepage which then provides a gateway to all the other pages on the site.

The advantage of HTML sitemaps is that they can be easily read and used by humans to access certain sections of your site. The disadvantage however, is that on larger sites with an extremely large number of links, a web crawler might stop crawling links halfway down the page. Also, even if you create a sitemap with sub-pages, you are creating a further buffer to web crawlers as they are less likely to crawl pages, the deeper a page is from the homepage, especially on new sites.

XML Sitemap

The other type of sitemap comes in XML format. Google introduced this some time ago to help search engines crawl websites easier. XML sitemaps are meant only to be read by search engines and aren’t easily usable by humans but are the most efficient way to get a large site crawled.

All the major search engines support this protocol so having a sitemap will mean that the search engines will have updated information on your site. Even Yahoo uses this as well, their own version was urllist.txt however it now favors an xml sitemap. Bear in mind however, that just because you submit a sitemap, it doesn’t mean that all the links will be crawled and in turn, not all crawled links will be indexed – only the ones Google deems important your site. An XML sitemap can be easily generated by any of the free and paid programs on the Internet.

The disadvantage of XML sitemaps is that they are not as useful to smaller sites as the small number of internal links will mean that the site will be crawled pretty easily. Additionally, having an XML sitemap will remove the possibility of testing your site architecture since an XML sitemap will present the crawler with all the pages on your site without it having to crawl your site for links.

Robots.txt

Naturally, you might think that you would want all the pages of the site to be crawled. However there are some cases where you would actually want to block access to some parts of your site. Since the majority of search engine ranking is automated, sometimes search engines get it wrong and may display web pages such as your site’s privacy policy or terms and conditions which you may not want ranking for key terms. So although you may think you are wasting link juice by robotting out certain pages, some cases such as Google displaying your privacy policy as an indented listing below your homepage is such an example.

Another common thing to prevent crawler access to are dynamic search results in your site since these pages less relevant in the SERPs.

This is where robots.txt comes in. You can use this text file to specify how much access you want to give the search engine robots to your site.

For example, the following code allows search engine robots unrestricted access to all pages on your site:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

The * in the code above means “all” so refers to all crawlers. There is no parameter specified after “Disallow:” so as it is, all crawlers are allowed access.

While the following tells ALL robots to keep out:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

The forward slash here refers to the base directory which basically means the whole site.

The following code tells robots to block access to a specified file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /directory/file.html

In the code above, file.html is located in a sub-folder called “directory” which can be accessed from the base directory.

Robots.txt isn’t the only way to block crawler access to a file though. In the previous article about meta tags I explained about how you can use meta tags to do the same thing. Robots.txt offers more flexibility, and allows you to have a central area from which to set crawler access to your site. The downside to this is that people can see exactly which pages you don’t want crawlers to see, and will have more information about your SEO strategy.

In general, it is good practice to have a robots.txt file since apart from regulating crawler access you can also do other things such as specify the location of your XML sitemap file. XML sitemaps are useful only if you have a large site, although they are still no substitute for good site architecture.

New police force for websites. Now, that'll be interesting!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:19:00 GMT

According to an article in Revolution this week, the good old Advertising Standards Authority could be set to become the new regulatory authority which will, for the first time, scrutinise the content on brand websites.

My reaction?

Well, I’m all for accuracy, good taste and having everyone fight it out on a level playing field.
So in theory, terrific. I'm all for it.

But theory is one thing, reality quite another, as we all well know.

I’m sorry but I speak from experience here, having spent most of my career in the offline advertising world, many years of that as a copywriter and Creative Director. I have witnessed the ASA from afar, and on the rare occasion, the ‘raisin-sharp’ teeth of the regulatory machine close up.

Time and again we would hear the same story. Campaign starts running, consumers start complaining – or more likely, competitive brands under the guise of consumers start complaining. By the time enough complaints have been made to signify a reason for the ASA to even look into it, let alone meet about it, then pass judgement on it, before finally handing out the punishment, the campaign has finished.

‘Hold on a minute’, I hear you say, ‘that’s not a fair comparison, ad campaigns are different from websites in that the content is often permanent, so this would not be a reason to doubt the proposed move.’

Very true, but I am merely trying to give an insight into the speed and efficacy of this less-than-progressive body. To be fair, much of this is probably due to the lack of resourcing and bodies at the ASA – although the industry does pay a levy to fund the organisation. Obviously not enough!

Even on the occasions they did flex their muscles, it was more Mr Muscle than David Hay.

As an avid subscriber to the must-read ‘ASA weekly newsletter’ in those days, I couldn’t believe the number of times the same brands (some big household names) appeared over a 12 month period – yet the punishments never seemed more than a slap on the wrist and a polite request to change the offending sentence or photo. To see the serial offenders getting away with this on a month by month basis hardly gave the arbiters of best practice any encouragement to keep playing by the rules.

And that is precisely my worry with this new proposal for the same ASA to police our online industry.

All sorts of questions spring to mind. Questions such as how many additional ASA people will Google need to fund with millions of websites out there? Will we get to the stage where we all have to follow a little book like the Code of Advertising Practice (CAP) just like ad agencies do? Will every piece of content we are unsure about need to be passed by the ‘we only meet once a week’ CAP committee before we can even put it live?

Just think about the time, the admin, the sheer loss of efficiency, let alone the extra cost we will have to pass on to our clients footing the bill. And all the time, those of us that will suffer will be the very ones that care enough to stay within the rules. Those that don’t will carry on overstepping the mark regardless - unless the ASA’s punishments and powers under Google’s guidance can be radically overhauled. Surely they will need to look at ‘penalising’ or ‘banning’ sites for repeat offences rather than the polite request to make the required content amendments.

I’m sorry but it’s the only way I could ever see it working, but such a transformation just doesn’t sit with what I have come to know about the culture, ethos and power of the ASA.

We all know it is dangerous to pre-judge and maybe, just maybe, the ASA has changed in the four years I’ve been ‘online’ and just maybe all I’ve spouted off here is nothing more than an out of date viewpoint.

I sincerely hope it is, but somehow I can't quite imagine it. Let's wait and see if I'm right.

Are you wasting money on search marketing?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:59:36 GMT

This blog post could massively increase your online profits. Read on to find out why!

First, let’s talk a little about the history of marketing on the web. Search engine marketing has been around in one form or another since the mid 1990’s. The term ‘search engine optimisation’ was coined some time in 1997 and the AdWords pay-per-click platform celebrates its 9th birthday this month. These dates are probably surprising to a majority of readers, as it has only been in the last few years that search marketing has really been ‘on the radar’ for many as a viable way of increasing brand awareness and online revenue.

With the exception of a small number of ill-informed detractors still stating SEO is ‘snake oil’ sold by scammers, the benefits and cost effectiveness of ethical search marketing are now understood by most savvy businesses. The last few years have seen an explosion in online marketing spend by companies who are seeing a return on investment far exceeding that seen from ‘traditional’ marketing channels such as TV and newspaper advertising, and search engine marketing (SEM) is now a respectable and essential part of the marketing mix.

Now let’s take a look at conversion rate optimisation (CRO). If you’ve not heard the term before, I’m (unfortunately) not surprised. Conversion rate optimisation doesn’t even register on Google trends for search when compared against search engine optimisation, and yet it is one of the most important aspects of any online business.

Conversion rate optimisation is, as the name suggests, using various techniques to help make a website convert visitors as effectively as possible. It’s a concept that is fundamental to offline sales – every retailer understands the importance of presenting products in the best light and making them easy to purchase – and yet it is routinely overlooked online.

So why is search marketing so well known and conversion optimisation isn't? Your guess is as good as mine. Things are changing though, and as much as 2005-6 was the start of the boom period for SEO/SEM, for conversion optimisation that time is coming fast. Here's your chance to get ahead of your competition now, by making best use of every visitor your website receives.

If you’re investing in search marketing and aren’t optimising for conversion, you’re wasting money.

To illustrate my point, and to show exactly how much money you could be leaving on the table, let’s run though an example case study.

WidgetCo (our imaginary company) only sell one product, the Blue Widget. This product costs £60 and WidgetCo offer free shipping and a three year warranty.

WidgetCo have online overheads of £5000 a month for the cost of running a website and staff to manage it, and the website currently attracts 10,000 visitors a month. They currently sell 100 Blue Widgets a month (a conversion rate of 1%)

Without search marketing or conversion optimisation:

• £5000 overheads
• 100 units sold at £60 per unit
• £6000 revenue
• £1000 profit

Not hugely impressive figures. Realising that there are a lot more potential customers out there, WidgetCo invest £2000 a month for a search marketing campaign which, through organic and paid search, doubles their traffic to 20,000 visitors a month, and sales increase accordingly.

With search marketing:

• £7000 overheads
• 200 units sold at £60 per unit
• £12,000 revenue
• £5000 profit - an increase of 500%

Not bad! By commissioning an effective search agency, WidgetCo have increased their online profits by 500%, which has made the website an important part of the business. Realising that the website may not be performing as well as it could, WidgetCo now work with their agency to implement a conversion optimisation campaign, which involves design changes along with optimised copy and user testing. The investment of a further £2000 a month doubles the conversion rate of the website from 1% to 2%.

With search marketing and conversion optimisation:

• £9000 overheads
• 400 units sold at £60 per unit
• £24,000 revenue
• £15,000 profit - an increase of 1500%!

By implementing both search marketing and a conversion optimisation campaign, WidgetCo have increased online profits 15 fold without increasing prices or having to cut costs. By improving the website conversion rate, less site traffic was 'wasted' to people not converting to a sale, and WidgetCo can now work to continue growth of search traffic and conversion rate to become even more profitable.

As an extra benefit, the improved website and easier purchase reduces the need for pre-sales support by WidgetCo, not to mention happier customers who are far more likely to repeat order or recommend WidgetCo to a friend!

Fictional companies aside, I hope this blog post has inspired readers to consider the benefits of conversion optimisation. As well as being an essential partner to any search marketing campaign, it can improve your customer loyalty, reduce support costs, increase long term profitability and equally as importantly improve customer satisfaction with your brand.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments below, or contact us for more information on conversion optimisation!

My work experience at Further

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:35:20 GMT

Note from Mark: Kate Tilbrook did one week work experience with us at the end of October and we invited her to write up her feelings on the week for the blog. No, it wasn't written under duress - but she might be approximately 10% over-generous with praise...

As a frequent, obsessive internet user, I would have labelled myself an experienced user of Google, a person who understands how it works, what it involves and how it seems I always obtain exactly what I search for. Yet, my week at Further proved my naivety. What this company do could almost be said as saintly to struggling businesses who have realised the rapidly increasing popularity of online marketing.

I found the hard work, determination and raw tenacity of the individuals at Further to be awe inspiring. To pursue a career in this, admittedly previously unknown, area of marketing would be a dream for me. The creativity of the designers combined with the incredible efficiency of client services and the genius' working on web development as well as the talent and knowledge within the marketing team, is fantastic. It is almost an honour to make tea and coffee for them all.

I found the atmosphere in the office to be extremely relaxed, light-hearted, yet still maintaining that professionalism and creativity. I discovered the people at Further were not as frightening as they look, in fact they are all friendly, happy people who genuinely want to help businesses drive site traffic, become noticed on internet search engines and ultimately, generate more popularity and success for that business.

It is obvious to me that Further is a success as I have seen the results they have produced and the gratitude and respect they have earnt from companies great and small. My week at Further has, basically, changed my outlook on future courses and careers.

Unfortunately, I will never look at another website without finding something to critic upon or see what could have been done better. It has been an unbelievable, opportunity, experience and honour to have spent even a week with them.

Identifying why your site is penalised in Google

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:53:41 GMT

In a follow up to our guide to what to do if you're banned in Google, this video from Google Webmaster Central went up today, explaining what to do if your site has been penalised, but you don't know why.

Another great tip is to use Google Alerts to monitor your own site for hack attempts.

The features that make Fireworks the application of choice for web designers

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:09:04 GMT

Amongst the web design community there is an ongoing debate over the relative merits of Photoshop and Fireworks for creating web graphics and mock-ups. There shouldn't be – Fireworks is king. There, I said it.

Fireworks has been built from the ground up as a web publishing tool. Photoshop has been built from the ground up as photo manipulation tool. Simple as that.

I'm not knocking the power of photoshop for image manipulation – I'd never do a cutout in Fireworks for example. However, if you're designing websites of more than about five pages the difference in the efficiency of the relative work flows is enormous.

There are many reasons why Fireworks is a more powerful tool for creating web mock-ups than Photoshop. I'll try to summarise the most significant here:

Pages, Frames & Layers

Whilst Photoshop allows you to work only in layers, Fireworks (from CS3 onwards) allows you to create multiple web pages within a single png file. Each of these pages will have its own set of layers and additionally can have any number of frames (great for rollover states – more on these later).

Master pages

To streamline workflow on site-wide features (eg top nav) Fireworks allows you to create master pages. Any changes/amends can then be implemented across all pages in the png, a lovely.

Pixel perfect positioning and sizing

Much like the measurements panels/toolbar in Quark and InDesign, Fireworks' 'Properties panel' allows you to place and size objects with pixel precision. No more guess work when working with grid systems or maintaining consistency generally.

Symbols

What would you do if your lovingly created buttton (which appears 30 times across 15 different pages) is rejected by the client on the basis that the text should be in Georgia rather than Arial? Do your curse the fact the your next hour will be spent changing all the buttons on the mock-ups, or do you rejoice in the fact that you created them as a symbol and can make the change with a couple of clicks of the mouse?

Rapid slicing

Select object, Shift+alt+p, done.

Clickable Prototypes

Its really easy to export the pages within the png as html. This is where the slices and frames come in very handy. In the 'Properties' pane' you can give make the slice a link, either to an external url, or more importantly for prototyping, to another page within the png.

Now all you need to do is export to 'html and images' and hey presto, clickable prototypes.

What's more, with the 'Behaviors' panel you can add rollover effects using the rollover states in the other frames you created earlier.

Paste attributes

A simple, hidden gem of a feature that will increase your workflow. it allows you to quickly copy styles (text, gradients etc) from one object to another.

Select the item (eg vector shape with a gradient applied) and hit command+c. Then select the object you want to apply the style to (the gradient) and hit shift+alt+command+v.

Common Library

Fireworks has a library of commonly used interface elements, such as radio buttons, check boxes and drop downs for rapid use in mock-ups. You can add your own elements here to further speed up your workflow.

Stroke control

Settle down at the back. Control over paths and strokes is a major strong point of Fireworks. Not convinced? Then open Photoshop and try making a one pixel weight path, 750 pixels long, colour it # 333333 and place it at x 340px and y 500px – shall I put the kettle on?

Select behind

Anyone who has spent time trawling through the layers panel looking for that layer will love this tool.

Brought to you by John at Further search marketing.

Democracy 2.0?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:49:08 GMT

I should really whisper this sort of thing around here, but I've never really been a fan of Twitter. It always struck me as a phenomenal waste of time. Surely everyday tasks would take twice as long if you document them afterwards in 140 characters or less? I dismissed it as a publishing tool for navel gazers and the easily distracted.

I had been reliably informed that it's great for networking and for link building. Perhaps that was true, but I just couldn't be bothered to wade through all minutae of other people's lives to get to the good bits. I struggle as it is to keep up with all the useless information my brain chucks at me – let alone having to deal with everyone else's.

In case any loyal Twits (is that the right word?) are about to switch off, I should say at this point that this post isn't really about knocking microblogging. In fact, a few recent events have convinced me that there might be something of significance in the Twittersphere.

You may have recently come across a news item about a previously little know company called Trafigura. For those that haven't, I'll attempt to summarise it without being too political/libellous about the whole thing. Try rearranging the following words: oil trading company, bit naughty, carpet, sweep, under, thousands, people, injured, toxic, waste.

Obviously said company, worried about its reputation, would not want a report about the above to enter the public domain. So said company, following normal protocol, employs their usual law firm to get an injunction against publication of the report. So far, so simple.

Things get a litlle more complicated when they also attempt to get an injunction against publication of the fact of the original injunction (a so-called 'super injunction'). This means that all newspapers could report was along the lines of 'we know something about something that we can't tell you about'.

It would seem that Trafigura had succeeding in protecting the reputation of their brand. Handshakes and pats on backs all round.

The fact an MP had tabled a parliamentary question about the report didn't in itself appear to challenge the robustness of the injunction. All the law firm had to do was remind the newspapers of their duty not to report the question as this would constitute a breach of the injunction. All very well and good, except they had forgotten the small fact of parliamentary supremacy and the freedom of the press to report on proceedings therein.

It would seem that the press had been denied a right protected in English common law since the Nineteenth century. Normally this would result in a trip to the High Court and however many thousands of pounds in legal fees to challenge the terms of the injunction.

What they hadn't banked on was the power of the Twittersphere. With some prompting from the Guardian newspaper, Twitter was soon abuzz with the story and microbloggers everywhere were either expressing outrage, contacting MPs, or even releasing details of the report contrary to the injunctions.

Faced with such a tide of public opinion and the publication of the very details that it had sought to repress, Trafigura caved in. I don't think it's going too far to say that the Twitttersphere played a vital role in highlighting and protecting a fundamental freedom. What previously may have taken weeks of protests, strongly worded letters, and High Court proceedings was accomplished in hours by ordinary folk at home on their laptops.

But it's not just the political and legal establishment who should take note of the potential power of Twitter. Anyone can be a target, even newspapers themselves. The outrage expressed at opinion piece written by Jan Moir of the Daily Mail about the death of Stephen Gately is revelatory in this respect.

Ms Moir published an article on the Daily Mail website about the death of Stephen Gately that was, at the very least tasteless and badly timed, and at worst more than just a bit homophobic. Lots of people who read the article were upset at its content and duly submitted disapproving comments on the site. Previously this, a complaint from the family, and perhaps a subsequent apology in somewhere in the paper would have been the end of the matter.

That was until SuperTwits (sorry, but it just sounds so good) such as Stephen Fry picked up on the story and engaged the Twittersphere in protest. The Press Complaints Commission website crashed under the weight of traffic from the public wanting to complain about the article. The story became headline news on the BBC and Jan Moir was forced into releasing a statement that afternoon defending her piece. There has even been a complaint to the police on the grounds of inciting homophobia.

More troubling for the Mail was the immediate response from advertisers. Those companies with adverts appearing the same page as the article were quick to request their removal. Marks & Spencer publically demanded this, whilst at the same time distancing themselves from the opinions expressed by Moir.

By the afternoon the article was still live, with all advertising removed. This would be of great concern to the owners of the Daily Mail. Newspapers are struggling with dwindling advertising revenue as it is. It would seem the article has now been removed from the site. We'll wait to see what happens to Moir.

Does this herald a new era for democracy or just increased power to the mob? Whatever your opinion, it wouldn't be going overboard to say that there has been a detectable shift in the balance of power between the traditional establishment and the public at large.

One fact is indisputable; it's more important than ever to be aware of what is being said about your organisation online. It's really worth considering Online PR and reputation management as an integral part of your Marketing and PR spend, not only for the crisis management of events like these, but to raise your online brand profile and drive traffic to your site.

Meta Tag Optimisation

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:37:00 GMT

This month we will be looking at those funny tags with “meta” in them that you see so often at the top of most website code. You may hear conflicting information regarding these meta tags so I’m going to clear that up.

Meta tags are basically (X)HTML elements which describe what a certain webpage is about. There are several different meta tags, and each serves a different purpose.

Keyword Tag

The first we’re going to look at is the “keywords” meta tag. You will see most webpages using this, and it’s presented in this format:

<meta name="keywords" content="felt tip pens " />

In the above keywords meta tag, the term “felt tip pens” is targeted, meaning the website author is telling search engines that that’s what the particular page is about.

Keyword meta tags were used widely back in the 90s to help search engines ascertain what a page was about. Back then, the boffins working for the search engines wrongly assumed that internet users were honest and wouldn’t try to cheat the system for their own profit.

Unfortunately, people started realising that you didn’t need to be honest about reporting what your website was about. In fact, by stuffing the keyword meta tag full of unrelated keywords you could quickly rank for all sorts of search terms. It started to become a problem when people were typing in “holidays in Istanbul” and were being presented with a gambling site.

Gambling sites: making you a compulsive hair puller

An example of the keyword meta tag being in use is the Amazon.co.uk homepage.

<meta name="keywords" content="digital camera, LCD TV, books, DVD, low prices, video games, pc games, software, electronics, home, garden, video, amazon" />

In the above example, amazon.co.uk is targeting among other terms, “digital camera” and “amazon”.

Nowadays, support for the keyword meta tag is very minimal. The major search engine Google has explicitly said that ignores the keyword meta tag when ranking sites in the SERPs. While there have been conflicting reports about whether Yahoo still uses the keyword meta tag, recent tests and a statement from Yahoo have suggested that the search engine still takes the meta tag into account, although it receives the lowest ranking strength out of all the other factors (title, H1 tags etc).

Generally, it is still useful not to ignore the keyword meta tag so you can get that extra ranking factor for Yahoo.

Description Tag

Another well-used tag is the description tag. Search engines will use this tag to provide a small description of what a particular webpage is about in the SERPs. If you enter “amazon” into the search bar, you’ll be presented with the homepage of amazon.co.uk in 1st place.

The sub-text that follows after the website title is specified in the description meta tag for the amazon.co.uk homepage:

<meta name="description" content="Low prices on digital cameras, MP3, LCD TVs, books, music, DVDs, video games, software, home & garden and much, much more. Free UK delivery on Amazon orders." />

While the description tag is not used by the major search engines as a ranking factor, it is still useful for getting your website noticed in the SERPs since the keyword being searched for becomes bolded in the description. Google will also bold other keyterms it thinks you may also be searching for.

In this example, a search for the term “CDS” also yields “credit default swap”.

This is likely to catch the attention of the searcher and will get your website noticed easier. Another good way to get more clickthroughs to your site is to write a compelling description in your description tag.

Description meta tags are also useful for distinguishing between two very similar pages.

Duplicate description tags meant that hair dye was the only option

If you don’t include a description meta tag then Google will simply use a small snippet of text on the page related to the search result.

Other Meta Tags

These are the two most useful meta tags you will come across. Other meta tags which may be useful to you are:

Language – Although Google is generally quite good at identifying what language your website is using, it’s sometimes good to give it a helping hand.

Robots – This tag functions as an alternative to robots.txt, which tells search engine spiders how to treat webpages on your site. Using “noindex” will tell Google not to index the page while “nofollow” will add the “nofollow” attribute to all the links on the page. You’re better off using robots.txt first though and only use this if for some reason you can’t access the robots.txt on your server.

Design blogs for inspiration and information

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:46:19 GMT

As we are a caring and sharing bunch in the design team at Further, we thought we would take this opportunity to serve up a taste of our favourite blogs and online resources for your delectation.

Whether as a means of finding inspiration, food for thought or for assisting directly with the design process, we hope you will find the following list useful.

1. Food for thought

Design Observer www.designobserver.com

A recent (and somewhat perplexing) re-design of this much-loved design blog has not altered its position at the forefront of writing for design on the web. Several Webby nominations and awards testify to the quality of the content provided here. Design Observer is a effectively a hub for all things design (no matter how niche or obscure) and will often champion projects that use design in socially responsible/positive way.

Boxes and arrows www.boxesandarrows.com

A peer-written journal broadly based on the subject of information architecture. Although sometimes a little dry in content and presentation, there is some really intelligent and thought provoking writing on this site. A good place for challenging our own conventions in user interface and design process. Boxes and arrows reminds us that innovation and debate are the principle drivers for design (rather than an over reliance on AB testing – Google look away now).

Noisy decent graphics www.noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com

The blog of Ben Terret (of the Really Interesting Group). Always interesting, often very funny – and quite often controversial. This blog is opinionated, but not in the Jeremy Clarkson sense of that word, if you know what we mean.

Business guys on business trips businessguysonbusinesstrips.com

More of a lunch-break distraction than any deep food for thought, but all the more entertaining for that. You'll laugh like a drain.

2. Inspiration/creative block breakers

At Further, we're not really a huge fan of those CSS galleries as a means of inspiration. They have their place but we find that they tend to have an over reliance on fancy photoshop header illustrations and '2.0' styling.

The following represent a taster of where we like to head for creative re-fuelling

Behance Network www.behance.net

Not a great deal of web-design on offer, but that's no bad thing when it comes to sourcing inspiration. Some really high quality work here.

Ffffound! ffffound.com

Random images of loveliness and weirdness.

Design Sponge www.designspongeonline.com

Some beautiful interior design here (hence Annette spends a lot of time on this site!). Great for colour palettes and some lovely vintage graphic design.

It's Nice That itsnicethat.com

A collection of images and inspiration, gathered from all creative disciplines. Simply presented and great for a quick delve.

3. Tools and resources

Grid designer grid.mindplay.dk

Before we happened upon this tool, designing grids for the web was often a laborious task involving a calculator and much swearing.

What the font? new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont

Genius. Simple as that. Upload a screengrab of a font and this tool will (more often than not) tell you what it is. The better the quality of the image uploaded, the better the chance that MyFonts will guess right.

Adobe® BrowserLab browserlab.adobe.com

Simple, quick, cross-platform, cross-browser testing – need we say more?

Typetester www.typetester.org

Compare type styles for projects with this simple tool which even gives you the CSS for each style as a bonus gift.

iPlotz iplotz.com

A really useful tool for creating and sharing 'clickable' prototypes for web projects. A bit clunky in the online version, worth investing in the desktop version to reduce lag.

Search Query Conversion Analysis

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:45:05 GMT

One of the most useful ways of optimising Pay Per Click (PPC) activity is through search query conversion analysis. You really cannot be more accurate than to establish which keywords are driving profitable conversions on your site.

Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft Adcenter) only offer Keyword Performance reports, so you cannot be quite as precise with these engines at present, but if you apply the same principles of analysis to keyword performance you will still be able to refine your campaign for better performance and return on investment.

But yes, you guessed it, Google is way ahead on this and has made the process of search query conversion analysis remarkably simple; it has its own Search Query report, and even allows you to see this data on the fly within the Adwords interface.

In writing this article I am making an assumption that you have previously implemented conversion tracking successfully and accurately, and have mature data from which to make this analysis.

NB. Just so we are absolutely straight on what we are talking about, below is a quick glossary of the terminology that comes into play for this reporting:

Keyword
The word or phrase that you are bidding on in your account
e.g. flights to france

Long Tail Keyword
Describes longer, very specific keywords
e.g. cheap flights to france from stansted

Search Query
The keyword phrase a user actually types into the search engine, which your ads get matched to, if you are using phrase or broad matching.
e.g. the keyword you are bidding on is flights to france

the user types in cheap flights to france from stansted, and your advert is delivered for this search because it is set to broad match.

Setting up a Search Query Report in Adwords

For those who haven’t discovered this report yet, log in to your Google Adwords account, select the green ‘Reporting’ tab and on the drop down select ‘Reports’. Select ‘Create a new report »’ and ‘Search Query Performance’ is listed as one of the report types.

If you don’t want to blind yourself with a haze of numbers on your first time looking at this report, make it easy on yourself by applying the following attributes to the report you are creating. The default settings for Level of Detail and View (Unit of Time) are fine to leave as is, for date range you want to see a decent amount of data, so why not look at ‘Last Month’. If you have many campaigns, just look at one to start with (select ‘Manually select from a list’ under the Campaigns and Ad Groups option and pick one of your campaigns to look at).

Under the Advanced Settings (Optional) area, click on the Add or Remove Columns; very often you don’t need all these pieces of data to optimise your campaign, all you need to look at are the key performance indicators (KPI’s... a lot of people in marketing love this acronym).

I quite like to look at keyword conversion reports with enough data as will be meaningful, but not all, as I can’t stand seeing twenty columns of data swimming before my eyes...so how about this to start you off...

Leave these attributes ticked:

Campaign
Ad Group
Ad Id (this one isn’t optional for some reason, so you have no choice here)
Search Query
Search Query Match Type
Clicks
Cost
Conversions
Conv. Rate (1-per-click)
Cost/Conv. (1-per-click)

Click ‘Save and Run Report’ to generate the data, and for the purposes of slicing and dicing it, exporting into Excel is always favourite with me.

Analysing the data

Once you have the report in excel, it will make it easier if you take out the automated title that Google includes, and the totals at the bottom. You are now ready to sort to sort the data.

Segregate Brand Terms

If you are making use of brand terms (literally...keywords which have your brand name in them) it is a wise idea to analyse these separately, as they will inevitably produce a greater rate of return and can skew results making overall performance look as if it is far better than it really is.

Remember, if you are bidding on any terms which you appear for high up in the natural search listings, you may want to remove or reduce spend on these terms as it is possible you are paying for clicks that you could be getting for free. This is true of non brand terms as well.

Identify Wasted Clicks

Sort the data by cost per conversion, and sub-total figures and averages for the converting and non converting search query terms. This will very quickly show you what percentage of your budget is being spent on wasted clicks.

For all search queries that have not generated conversions, sort the data and establish which ones are costing the most. Keywords that are costing a lot of money without generating conversions can be manipulated for better performance (reduce bid price, change match type, change landing page, create new adverts more specific to the term, etc) or can be removed from the account.

Keywords which are generating conversions, but whose cost per conversion is too high can be also be optimised – using the same tools and techniques mentioned above - to see if effective conversions can be achieved at a lower cost.

Be aware that sometimes you may find that you end up steering away from terms that seem highly relevant, don’t be precious over this process, ‘the numbers don’t lie’ as they say.

Find Negative Keywords

Search query analysis will also highlight traffic you are receiving off the back of keywords set to broad or phrase match, which are not relevant to your business. If you find phrases that describe something you do not offer, start building a list of negative terms to add into your account. Bear in mind that this does not mean taking the entire phrase and adding it as a negative keyword, it means taking the individual work in the phrase that denotes its irrelevance on its own, and adding it e.g.

Scenario - You sell fine quality pine bedroom cabinets and your search query list looks like this:

white bedroom cabinet¹
bedroom wall cabinet
bedroom storage cabinet
cheap bedroom cabinets²
oak bedroom cabinet³
cabinet for bedroom
bedroom wall cabinets
bedroom cabinets uk
bedroom side cabinets
cabinets for bedroom

The phrases in bold are not relevant to your site because 1) you don’t sell painted furniture 2) your products are not cheap and 3) your products are only pine, not oak. If you add each of the entire phrases as your negative you will only block traffic for phrases they relate to. However, if you add the words white, cheap and oak as individual negative keywords on broad match you can eradicate any searches that include those words.

Find New Keywords

Search query data can also help you identify new keywords which are generating sales, again through searches that you are not at present specifically bidding on, but that are being generated as the result of long tail searches against broad match/phrase match terms. By adding these into the account you can start being more efficient in targeting precisely the right phrases that will get you great return on investment.

Optimise carefully, and across smaller selections of terms at a time until you get used to the process and it becomes more intuitive. Also, make sure you do not make significant en-masse changes as it will not make it easy to track the success of your work, you may detrimentally impact the performance of the campaign as a whole by doing too much at once.

NB. If your advertising also drives significant offline conversions (e.g. telephone calls) you will have to be mindful of this with your optimisation. You may find that whilst keyword conversion analysis improves online results, the number of phone calls you receive drops. At present telephone call tracking has not reached keyword level, so your changes will have to be influenced by a qualitative assessment of the calls coming through.
Conclusion

You will never be able to eradicate all wasted traffic from your account, because there will always be fluctuations in the account, and over different time periods, which cause performance to change, but you should find that you can radically reduce wastage by making a few simple changes.

Optimising Links

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:52:00 GMT

Welcome, dear readers to another instalment of Pete’s SEO corner. So far, we’ve covered optimising your site with title tags, content and exact match domains. In this article, we will be examining links – why you need them, and how you can make them work for you.

Why Links are Important

Google works on the belief that sites with more links are more popular and authoritative and are thus more likely to rank higher. The theory comes from the fact that if you find a useful resource on the web, you are likely to link to it from your own website.

One thing you can do to make your links pack more punch is to make sure your link has keyword targeted anchor text. This is the crucial factor in determining what keywords Google ranks your site for.

Keyword Targeted Links

For example, a link which points to your felt tip pen site, CoolFeltz at http://www.coolfeltz.com will pass link juice and benefit your site but in order to get the full benefit of the link the anchor text should be a keyword which your site is targeting.

Anchor text is the link text you use for a link so the following code:

<a href=”http://www.coolfeltz.com”>Felt tip pens</a>

has the anchor text “Felt tip pens” which Google will count when ranking your site for that term.

There are many sites with a decent amount of good links pointing to them but still do not rank highly for their terms. On closer inspection of their link profile, many of their links are not keyword optimised, only having the domain name as the anchor text.

Make links look natural

One thing Google wants to see is that the anchor text in your links to the site looks natural. By natural, I mean that if you have 1000 links pointing to your site and they all contain the anchor text “felt tip pens” then Google is likely to see this as an unnatural link profile

So, even though you may be targeting the keywords “felt tip pens”, “felt tip pen”, “black pen” and “marker pen” to your homepage you should also use anchor text for keywords you may not actively be targeting. A good tactic to use is to include the long-tail terms that don’t garner you much traffic, but are rich in variety.

Internal linking

Internal linking within your site will also benefit your site. You can increase the relevance of internal pages by changing non-descriptive links such as "click here" or "read more" to containing anchor text that is relevant to the following page.

As well as providing benefits for search engines, there are advantages for the user as well. Studying how people interact with web pages shows they scan read and the eye is naturally drawn to hyperlinks. Accurately labelled hyperlinks can help your users quickly identify which page it is they are looking for.

Good luck and happy linking!

Come see us at Norwich Twestival

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:30:03 GMT

Twestival Norwich is being held this Friday 11th September and is a great opportunity for businesses to learn more about the social side of the web. Apart from getting to talk to specialists such as Azlan Raj from StickyPanda and Kate Abboy from JunglePR, the entire event is aimed at raising money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance - a cause selected by users from an online poll.

We'll be doing our piece and I'll give a hopefully entertaining and educating look into some misconceptions of social media as well as an open Q&A panel afterwards.

The event starts at 1:30pm, but if you can't make it you can always come by just for the after party, which has live bands, drinks and some competitions including a chance to win a helicopter ride for four people.

The venue (known as "the old Barclay's building", has just finished a £12million overhaul and is an impressive sight on its own with some of the best architecture in Norwich.

You can buy tickets online from the UEA Box office, which are a snip at £4.50 (£3.50 at the moment) and even make a voluntary extra donation if you're feeling generous.

Visit the Twestival Norwich site for more info or follow them on Twitter.

Hopefully see you there!

9/10 Voucher Code Sites Still Breaking The Rules

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:50:00 GMT

I did a post back in March, bringing up the discussion on the IAB's updates guidelines for voucher code affiliate sites. In a nutshell, the IAB guideless are set out "..to ensure that traffic from affiliate sites sent to merchants is not done in a misleading or confusing way and that consumers receive a good user experience."

Central to this is:

"Affiliates must not use a mechanism whereby users are encouraged to click to interact with content where it is unclear or confusing what the outcome will be"

Essentially, don't force the user to click your affiliate link before you give them (an active!) voucher code, I think this would satisfy as a good user experience.

My post back in March, got some angry (albeit anonymous) replies stating, "96% of affiliates generating revenue are now compliant with these rules" and the IAB had wanted 100% compliance by April 2009.

I thought it would be interesting to do a search for voucher codes. Google estimates monthly, exact searches for this term at 165,000 per month in the UK. I think it would be fair to say, ranking for this term would give you a good stab at generating revenue.

Rather than going through every IAB guideline, I'm just going to see which sites are still requiring me to "click" before I can access the voucher code.

#1 & #2 Vouchercodes.co.uk - Click to reveal: Uses a "get code and open site" button. While you can view the code by hovering, attempting to copy the code (by clicking) opens the affiliate site. They are kind enough however to let you view expired voucher codes, without this convoluted system.

#3 Myvouchercodes.co.uk - Click to reveal: All codes are tied in with the "visit site" link to reveal codes.

#4 Vouchercodes.com - Click to reveal: Standard text link that will only reveal codes (some expired) when you click the affiliate link.

#5 Voucherseeker.co.uk - Click to reveal: Tempts you with half a code until, you guessed it - you click the affiliate link.

#6 Wowvouchercodes.co.uk - Click to reveal: All voucher codes are scrambled until you click the affiliate link

#7 Vouchersmarter.co.uk - Click to reveal: Seen this graphic before? A universal click to reveal system in place, similar to myvouchercodes.co.uk.

#8 Promotionalcodes.org.uk - Click to reveal: Despite claiming on the button to see "active" codes, the site simply lists most expiry dates as "unknown" - and you can see from the user feedback, there are a large number of expired codes.

#9 Ukvouchercode.com - We have a winner!: UKvouchercode.com (disclosure: which I or Further is not affiliated with in anyway) appears to be the only site within the first page of results that gives you active voucher codes, without the need to show, reveal hide, or otherwise jump through virtual flaming hoops. Well done, I hope you rank even better for voucher codes :)

#10 Vouchersave.co.uk - Click to reveal: Exactly the same system as vouchercodes.co.uk, with a slippery rollover system, that while straddling the guidelines, doesn't allow you just to "copy and paste" the voucher code.

Conclusion: I guess it's up for debate whether the majority of these sites fall within the IAB guidelines. Personally, I think one of the basic requirements for a good and easy user experience, is for the website not to disable any of my browser/OS "innate" features, such as back button, copy & paste and the like.

From what I've seen, most of these sites still provide an experience that is far too heavily weighed on gaining the click, rather than providing the voucher.

So I ask you, what are your thoughts on these sites - acceptable? Or should there be tighter control?

After thought: I wonder how many people are already at the basket stage when they look for a voucher code. Do any voucher toolbars exist to find voucher codes automatically at this stage of the process?

Googling the Future

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:00:38 GMT

I'm going to give you some search-based food for thought for this weekend.

Search as a Science

Almost every year I hear the bell-ringing doomsayers that are predicting, "the end of SEO". It never happens. There's a lot of talk about the search market "coming to maturity", with universal search, better results, tracking, stable business models and the like.

I think a closer comparison would be that a lot of businesses struck gold with search and now we've got a few spades and pans and think we're near maturity, blissfully unaware of the impending rise of colossal mining machines covering the landscape.

To put a finer point on it, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt recently said in a Techcrunch interview:

"Search is a science that will develop and advance over hundreds of years. Think of it like biology and physics in the 1500s or 1600s: it’s a new science where we make big and exciting breakthroughs all the time. However, it could be a hundred years or more before we have microscopes and an understanding of the proverbial molecules and atoms of search. Just like biology and physics several hundred years ago, the biggest advances are yet to come. That’s what makes the field of Internet search so exciting."

Google trumpeted the release of Google Squared at around the same time Wolfram Alpha, the "answers engine" hit the public domain. This wave of thinking, providing "answers" rather than websites is one of Google's next greatest challenges. Broadly speaking, you have 3 types of search query: Informational, navigational and transactional and for many of these queries, there exists a "correct answer".

While "words to meaning" is the staging point, this goal possibly gives light on the next decade of Google development.

Sci-Fi(act?) Time

Depending on how you're inclined, this is where the scary stuff starts to happen. Brain implants. While it sounds similar to the predictions of flying cars by the year 2000, the fact is research into brain - computer connections has been going since the early 1970s and have recently enjoyed a degree of success, from controlling other electrical devices by thought, to recovering the ability to use paralysed limbs.

The need to "remember" information and facts has also become a topic for debate, are computers making us more stupid? With my iphone on me, what need to do I have to try and remember trivial information that can instantly and accurately be brought up within a few seconds? Or is this simply giving me spare brain capacity to work on the bigger challenges?

In a recent inteview with Wired.co.uk, Schmidt describes Google as the third part of the human brain:

"..you know, there’s a left brain, a right brain and there’s a third part where that collective intelligence that Google can help bring to you really helps you get through every day: the history of places, what you should do, collecting things for you, telling you what’s relevant – the things that computers do best that humans are not good at. And that will leave humans to spend more time doing what humans do best, the things computers are not very good at"

There's no doubt that Google is helping people educate themselves, when lost for an answer, I no longer have to make a trip to the library, or ask around for answer, I can find it myself in minutes. One thing did stick in my mind though. A couple of years ago I saw the BT future predictions timeline. A brief look into what the telecomms giant thinks may be happening over the next 50 years.

Aside from "Terminator 3 style robots", one thing worried me: "2026 - 2030: Virus crosses over from machine to human".

I take all of these predictions with a handful of salt and I'm not one to worry about the future doom of man, but this one did make sense to me. If we've established an effective link whereby computers can read (or more likely, predict) the mind, it makes sense this might be a two-way deal.

I really don't want to think about installing anti-virus software in my brain. Or cross-human-scripting.

Lots of worry about Google

While Google has generally good spin within the UK media, there have been several backlashes with their agenda of "collecting and sorting the world's information", from their street mapping to the even more controversial hosting of UK medical records.

Compared to a search giant directly connecting with peoples' brains (indexing thoughts?), some of these worries seem trivial. The fact is, they aren't trivial. The worries stem from the possibility of one company being able to own and manipulate the world's data.

Something to think about this weekend :)

Why success online doesn't start with a website

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:12:00 GMT

For any business wanting to take advantage of the online revolution, the obvious place to start would be to get a website up and running.

Surely, everything else will follow on from there, won’t it?

Sadly, no it won’t, and this is where many organisations have got it all wrong when planning their assault on the online consumer. Not just small businesses, but often large brands, too, who should know better.

It is akin to building a house without any foundations - destined to fall down before too long.

Rather than being the top priority, the website should be just one of the resultant activities borne out of the most important thing of all – your digital marketing strategy.

By creating your strategy, you can identify your aims and objectives of your online presence from the outset and plan a route to achieving those goals whether they happen to be sales, leads, enquiries or purely user interaction.

After all, your web activity shouldn’t be seen as a cost, but as a method of delivering you a return on your investment. If it can’t deliver this, then you seriously have to ask yourself why you are doing it in the first place.

Once you have the strategy, which should be unique to your brand or organisation, you have a means by which all other decisions can be made - from the creation of the website to the methods of attracting potential customers to it.

Without a strategy in place, you are literally shooting in the dark. Yet so often we see organisations having websites created that are not even designed with the intention of signposting users through the site to reach the conversion goals. It is like hiding your contact telephone number away in your press ad in 5pt type. Not a good start on your route to online fortunes !

More disturbing still is the fact that little thought has been given in the design and build process to the needs of search engine visibility, which should really be very high on your list of ‘must do’s’ when briefing your web build agency.

If not, then any decent search agency will carry out a site audit and recommend what needs changing to ensure the site can be indexed, crawled and ranked by the search engines. Obviously the more work that needs to be done, the higher the cost can become – and your level of frustration. Suddenly that great value website you’ve had built doesn’t look such a bargain anymore.

This can be avoided, of course. You can find a web or search agency that can build you a ‘marketing-led’ site in the first place. Further is one such agency that creates sites for clients who desire a seamless service from strategy to site to search.

Alternatively, if you are intent on using separate providers for your site and your search marketing, then engage the search agency to provide consultancy at the build stage to ensure the site will be ‘fit for search’. This can save a lot of time and money – and gives you the reassurance of knowing that your site is maximising your chances of success from day one.

Naturally, you cannot expect the site, however well developed, to perform without a dedicated ongoing online marketing strategy, but at least by getting these basic building blocks in place you have a springboard for your activity.

Going back to the digital marketing strategy, it should apply to even the smallest business looking to go online, however simple you believe your offering is. You still have goals you need to achieve from your investment. Why waste the opportunity to make it work?

Beyond the site itself, a strategy will dictate the right marketing tools (SEO, PPC, social media, online PR) you require to reach your audience and traffic targets because this should be carefully considered and tailor made to meet your sector, product and goals.

While it is easy to find fault and criticise with 'strategy-less' sites, we sense that the wind of change is starting to blow. More and more clients who have gone down this route as their first taste of internet experience are now recognising that, although online has not worked for them to date, the web revolution is here to stay and grow. They are witnessing success stories in their own sectors, know that second time around they need to ‘do things properly’, and as a result are seeking a more carefully considered strategic approach.

It may cost them a little more in the first place, but the longer term ROI benefits are obvious, and in many sectors, enormous.

So, as with all things in life, you have a choice. You can hurtle yourself headlong into a new site and hope for the best. Or you can plan a profitable return. Now, which is it going to be?

END

If you’d like to talk to Further about creating and implementing a digital marketing strategy for your organisation, please call Steve Jaggard on 01603 878240 or email steve@further.co.uk

Twitter: Fad or fundamental communication tool?

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:12:00 GMT

Unless you’ve spent the last few months with your head in the sand, you’ll have noticed the rapidly growing popularity of Twitter. But is it here to stay, and can it really be good for business?

From film star Ashton Kutcher racing CNN to achieve one million followers (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/15/ashton.cnn.twitter.battle/) to Habitat getting rapped on the knuckles for capitalising on coverage of the Iranian elections, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8116869.stm) Twitter has wormed its way into daily news. Celebrity ‘tweets’ are hitting the headlines as are campaigns and offers from big brands. But is this a fad which will pass into obscurity or is Twitter here to stay?

Twitter’s rate of growth has propelled it into the limelight, and the site has achieved alarming popularity – at a startlingly fast rate.

But is Twitter for everyone? Some people rely on it for their daily news feed and as a way of communicating and networking. But others are simply following the flock, and joining Twitter because it’s the latest thing to do. As more people sign up and realise that it might not be for them, Twitter will inevitably reach a peak of popularity and new users will start to fall.

Surprisingly, over 20%* of Twitter members (http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/) have never even posted an update, and the majority (85%) post less than once a day, indicating that for the majority of Tweeters, it’s not entered into as a long term commitment.

But if the current Twitter boom doesn’t last, what does this mean for businesses that are using the site as a primary communication channel? We all know of a company that has joined the site and is frantically trying to attract as many followers as possible, but are they really making the most of Twitter and, more importantly, are they using it well?

Habitat obviously got their Twitter tactics completely wrong, by linking their sale announcements to unrelated, but popular, trending topics. Habitat thought tagging their tweets with topics related to the crisis in Iran, as the nation rioted in the streets against President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, was a good idea. It wasn’t. Using a non-related, populist political story to attract attention to their latest sale brought nothing but negative responses from angry Twitter users, and harks back to unsolicited spam emails.

However, there’s some fantastic Twitter practice happening in the social media world. Dell, for example, has had far more success. By creating Twitter accounts for each arm of the business, including @DellOutlet (http://twitter.com/dellOutlet), they keep an existing loyal customer base aware of clearance events. With more than 600,000 followers, all of whom have the potential to ‘re-tweet’ (re-post) the messages, Dell has attributed over $3 million in sales to their Twitter campaign.

Using Twitter to engage an existing loyal customer base is the key to successful use of the site without risking the wrath of Tweeters annoyed with spam and unsolicited messages. Dell already had a large, loyal customer base pre-Twitter. And by using the service to send information and offers to those who wanted to read it, they managed to build an even more impressive following.

At Further we’re encouraging clients to use Twitter in a similar way. Our client Adnams (http://twitter.com/Adnams) is a great example. They’re a fantastic brand name, with an existing loyal customer base – and they are now talking to their fans on Twitter. We use their Twitter account in two ways; firstly to share industry and new product news and secondly, to respond to others on Twitter who are talking about Adnams online. (http://adnams.co.uk/)

One of the many benefits of Twitter is being able to see what other members are saying about you as a company or your products. It’s a great monitoring tool. By responding to compliments, complaints and relevant discussions posted by other members, you’re engaging with existing customers and attracting new ones, by showing you are an approachable and informative company. This can only work to attract more followers.

Twitter may well be reaching the peak of its popularity. But of the millions of users, it will retain a high number of loyal members which means Twitter is a self-sustaining and valuable tool for businesses who know how to use it, and use it well.

Starter for 10 - Twitter Tips:

1. Your website is your shop window for new and existing customers. To attract them to your Twitter account, make sure you badge up your website with ‘follow us on Twitter’ and link to your Twitter account
2. Only Tweet if you have something interesting or informative to say
3. Bring Tweets to life with links and pictures – the most read Tweets direct followers to other sources of information on the web
4. If you announce company news on your website, then Tweet the headline and link it back to your site.
5. Use sites like www.tinyurl.com to create small URL addresses to links, so you don’t waste your 140 characters
6. If someone follows you – follow them back, its Twitter etiquette
7. If you’re tagging your Tweet to link it to a current trending topic, it has to be relevant and related – don’t risk becoming a spammer
8. Check Twitter for mentions of your company regularly, the @ tool means you can see mentions and gives you a chance to respond
9. Offer exclusive discounts or give your Twitter followers the chance to preview products, and reward their loyalty
10. Follow other companies, bloggers and experts in your sector to get unique and varying views on industry news

If you’d like to find out more about our social media services, follow us at http://twitter.com/furthersearch or look at the social media case studies on this site.

*Sysomos Inc study, June 2009

Ends

Optimising Site Text

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:08:00 GMT

Welcome to yet another instalment of Pete’s SEO Corner. In the last two articles, we covered the importance of optimising the title tags and the merits of having an exact match domain name. This month, we will continue to look at optimising your site for keywords.

As you will know, in order to rank in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages), you basically need to let Google know that your particular site or webpage is highly relevant to the particular search term you are targeting. So, if we use the analogy of books in a library, the URL of a site would be the name on the book’s cover while the title tag would be the chapter names.

Picture books never fail to amuse

Another big factor is content. Without it, your site would have a hard time ranking. So imagine if Google found your book and leafed through the pages to find your chapter only to be presented with a blank page with some doodles in a corner (Google isn’t advanced enough yet to interpret images fully), it would think that your page is less relevant than other pages on the web.

So is it enough to just slap on some content on a page? In a word, no. While content is important, there are some things you can do to help Google along the way.

The first is putting your keywords in the H1 and H2 tags. H1 tags, being larger naturally have more weighting. The other H tags get progressively less weighting as they get smaller but for SEO reasons, it’s only worth it concentrating on H1 and H2 tags.

In this example, the Wikipedia page for marker pens has the keyterm in the H1 tag. Their optimisation of the H2 tag is not as ideal however, as just displaying “Types” is non-keyword specific. A better solution would be “Types of marker pens”.

The body of content which makes up the bulk of the volume of text on a page, should contain the main keyterms you are trying to target as well as related keywords. While it may be tempting to insert your keyterm in every three or four words, you shouldn’t do that because it’s viewed as keyword stuffing in Google and will get your site penalised. The best option is just to write your content as naturally as possible – chances are the keyterms will appear frequently anyway.

It’s also good practice to strong tag (<strong>) the relevant keyterms throughout the page. Bolding keyterms lets Google know that these keyterms are important. Again, don’t do it too much or it will just look unnatural.

Note from Mark: As Peter mentioned, stuffing a keyphrase into a page isn't really going to help you that much. I think it's really interesting to explore Google's understanding of word relationship and how writing naturally can actually increase your chance of ranking.

Pirates raid Twitter

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:49:05 GMT

Halfway through their competition, the #moonfruit hashtag was blocked from Twitter trending topics. The opinions I read on Twitter were split, some people thought the moonfruit campaign was spammy and glad it was gone, others thought Twitter were being killjoys.

So was the block manual or part of a Twitter anti-spam system?

Today, I saw the trending topic of "pirates" on Twitter. Being a fan of both pirates and ninjas, I thought I'd see what all of the buzz was about.

Oh dear.

Lazily created sequential spam usernames, all tweeting an online TV channel site. Probably getting a whole load of traffic too.

This to me, would indicate Twitter's spam filters are pretty poor. Although "spam" on Twitter is fairly self-regulating (you can choose who you follow), they really need to get a grip of people gaming the trending topics.

So who would win in a fight Pirates vs Twitter? Pirates it seems at the moment.

edit:
Ryan (with his suspicious up to date knowledge of spambots) has pointed out this may be a bot hooking onto an already trending topic to gain exposure. (There is a pirates game on Twitter & a sports team named Pirates)

Colin has suggested filtering out trending topics by looking at ratio of brand new Twitter accounts associated with a trending topic.

Introducing Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:06:55 GMT

Here at Further we’re proud of delivering great search marketing results backed up by impressive and effective web design & build. It’s something we’ve been doing well for the last 3 years (happy birthday, Further!), and if you ask any of our clients about our strengths, one of them would certainly be the ability to deliver traffic to their site, and buckets of it.

There is however, a gap in our service offering which has been bugging us for some time. The missing link between website development and search marketing, and the reason our clients are so keen on high rankings to deliver visitors by the truck-load.

I’m talking about conversions. Whether your business is an ecommerce retailer, a B2B site looking for leads or even an entertainment site looking for visitor engagement, conversions are the most important metric for your website as they represent your business profits.

According to latest figures by Fireclick, average ecommerce conversion rates hover around the 4% mark, but this figure varies by industry. Typical conversion rates can vary between 0.5 and 8% depending on sector, target audience and also on the quality and competitiveness of the offering. We feel these figures represent a lot of money lost by businesses due to underperforming websites. Amazon and other top online retailers commonly achieve conversion rates over 10% - how do they manage that? Apart from raw brand strength (which admittedly helps), the common factor is that they all invest in conversion optimisation in order to make the best of their existing traffic.

Unfortunately, 20% of website owners have no idea what the conversion rate of their website is, and the majority of websites are not performing nearly as well as they should. If you’re promoting your website via advertising or search marketing, why not make sure that those hard earned visitors are turning into customers as efficiently as possible!

On this note, I’m very proud to announce that Further will now be offering Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) as a core service to clients existing and new. I’ll be gradually hanging up my spurs as a search marketing consultant and heading up a new department with the sole objective of generating more profit for our clients from their web traffic. I’ll still be dipping my toe into the search marketing world and offering assistance to the stellar team involved with traffic generation, but my focus will be on working closely with clients to maximise the performance of their web presence.

By using a variety of techniques to identify potential issues, including user testing; web analytics; accessibility testing; click tracking and funnel analysis, potential improvements to website effectiveness can be proposed. By testing these changes scientifically using tools such as Google Website Optimizer, accurate performance gains can be measured and then rolled out onto the live website. Industry figures and early results in-house suggest that a conversion optimisation campaign can result in a 30-50% increase in online revenue! It’s worth noting that a 10% increase in conversion rate can, for some businesses, mean a 50% increase in profit, as your cost of traffic generation and other online costs remain the same.

I’ll be blogging regularly offering tips and advice on conversion rate optimisation, but in the meantime please get in contact if you’re as excited about the potential benefits of conversion optimisation as we are!

Happy 3rd Birthday Further!

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:06:36 GMT

Iphone cupcakes

There's quite a buzz in the office this morning, as today we are going to be celebrating Further's 3rd Birthday. This morning we'll be having presentations from Further founders Steve and Zak, sharing with us details of our successes and what we've learnt so far this year, as well as the exciting changes coming over the next 6 months.

Then, in the afternoon, we are taking everybody out for some activites of:

Archery

Climbing

Off-road Karting

Clay pigeon shooting

Followed up by a meal and drinks. So we'll see you all Monday and wish everyone a fun weekend :)

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